Who is the producer of syndicated radio's 'The Sean Hannity Show' that is consistently referred to on-air as "Sweet Baby James"? I've sat with families who said, "Well, we want a closed casket," and I've often asked them, "Well, had they not died yesterday, would you not want to see them today?" Not wanting to uproot his family, Riley determines to come up with the $1,500 down payment and goes from bank to bank searching for a loan. One of my favorite old time radio characters (other than Jack Benny) was Digger O'Dell "The Friendly Undertaker". He's resting. I think it's always been the case that funerals in general, and funeral directors in particular, provide an easy target for cartooning, because there is so much about what we do that can be held up for ridicule. He made the news by being buried alive. While readying for Monahan, Riley's daughter Babs, a serious-minded college student, catches the eye of Miss Bogle's handsome young nephew, Jeff Taylor. Chester A. Riley: So was I. The dead matter to the living. Thomas Lynch reads to camera his essay Tract (part II). He had a very good sense of that. But I remember coming home after the mass and the burial and the luncheon, getting back to her house -- it was about 3:00-ish in the afternoon -- and thinking, "The trick-or-treaters are coming." You had your tonsils out. I was watching [author and cultural commentator] Christopher Hitchens the other day. When families come in and have their loved one cremated, do you talk to them about going with you to the crematorium? Peg Riley: Yeah? "Life goes on!" An unrelated radio show with the name Life of Riley was a summer replacement show heard on CBS from April 12, 1941, to September 6, 1941. So I like the word "funeral" for what we're doing here, because it doesn't require me to feel this way or that. You can read in history books about the way a funeral procession was laid out -- which civic group, which ecclesiastical group, which fraternal group, which family group -- how everybody was lined up, so that as people walked in, there was this rise and fall of relationship and grief, and people know this, that good, orderly direction that was assumed by this process, this ritual. But I have graves at Oak Grove; I have graves in West Clare [County, Ireland]. It's amazing! I just gave him a sedative. Digby 'Digger' O'Dell: It is I, Digby O'Dell, the friendly undertaker. Chester A. Riley: I'm just as much a show-off as they are, ain't I? Do you speak French? Bendix was able to return to the role on NBC from 1953 to 1958, where the program was consistently in the top 25. And a narrative is nothing other than a journey. I enjoy listening to the frogs croak. FRONTLINE series home|wgbh|pbs, FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of wgbh educational foundation. I think of disbelief as a faith of its own kind. There are several videos on line. [citation needed] Brown's lines as the undertaker were often repetitive, including puns based on his profession; but thanks to Brown's delivery, the audience loved him. On the day of Babs's wedding, which is to take place at the Stevenson mansion, Riley becomes annoyed and hurt when Gillis, his best friend and co-worker, snubs him because he is sure that Riley "sold" his daughter to get the promotion. But I find that if you just show up, if you just walk in the door, people think you're a hero. Riley's catch phrase in the series and the film was "what a revolting development this turned out to be." With William Bendix the protagonist, as Riley and among others John Brown, who portrayed the friendly undertaker "Digger" O'Dell. Riley, Riley, what a guy! People will sometimes ask me about the connections between poetry and funerals, and I do see this huge connection between the use of language in the two of them and how both rely on ritual and symbol and metaphor. It just doesn't work out that way. Too often Bendix was cast as a mental case who enjoyed smashing skulls, or his roles would take his gentle giant exterior to the extreme and he would be cast as an overgrown child as in "The Babe Ruth Story". After 13 days in his coffin, Memphis police showed up with shovels to unearth Digger. [1] (Marx would get his own series Blue Ribbon Town instead.) Chester A. Riley: I'll tell you what harm there is! The character of Digger O'Dell was not resurrected as a result of actor John Brown having been placed on the Hollywood blacklist. Whether a person is consigned to the earth or the fire is, at the end of the day, no difference. During cocktails, a bill collector from the electric company shows up, and after Riley sends him on his way, he disconnects the Rileys' electricity. Acti-Sol Hen Manure is one popular product that has been used with success by experienced, This website uses cookies for functionality, analytics and advertising purposes as described in our. Riley's usual reply to the messes he would get in to became a catch phrase that swept the nation: What a revoltin' development this is! "The Life of Riley Quotes." What age were you when you really seriously thought you might become a funeral director, and how much of your dad's influence was a part of that decision? Sponsors of the TV show included Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer (194950), Gulf Oil (195358) and Lever Brothers (195758). I see it all as part of the one journey, all as part of the one pilgrimage. Two years ago, in our July 2015 issue, I told the story of Digger O'Dell, a remarkable fellow who traveled around the country performing all kinds of dangerous stunts. Years later I had audio tapes to which I listened to repeatidly and learned to really admire Digger's council to Reilly via puns related to the profession of undertaking. He noted that "the grave that he can't escape from" is located in Sawnee View Memorial Gardens, just outside of Cummings, Georgia. The boss' son (Long), who is in love with Babs, suggests that they get married in order to save Riley's job. "[2], The reworked script cast Bendix as blundering Chester A. Riley, a wing riveter at the fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant in California. Babs: Well, I think he ought to get a fair trial. When his efforts to impress his boss, Carl Stevenson, apparently fail, Riley becomes incensed and finally works up the courage to confront him. Scars On My Heart / Her (7", Single) Ranger. We'd be wise, as a culture, to examine some of these things. The radio series greatly benefited from the immense popularity of a supporting character, Digby "Digger" O'Dell (John Brown), "the friendly undertaker." The Life of Riley starring William Bendix as lovable, blundering, Chester A. Riley, was a radio situation comedy broadcast during and after wartime 40s. Humiliated, Riley vows to Peg that he will become more successful, and after six weeks of working overtime, he volunteers to host the company's Labor Day beach picnic. Chester A. Riley: You mean I'm going to live? Peg Riley: Oh? [1], Irving Brecher pitched the radio series for friend Groucho Marx under the title The Flotsam Family, but the sponsor balked at what would have been essentially a straight head-of-household role for Marx. A cover was placed over his apartment and he was sealed in, with the intention being to break the personal record of 57 days that he had set here during his previous visit to Memphis, though that location wasnt mentioned. But even people who do not believe or claim no religiosity or no particular faith, they are not without some text, some book they regard as, if not holy, it is the handle they're trying to hold onto to get through this. Learn how and when to remove this template message, "The Blade's Log of Radio and Television Programs (9:00 p.m.)", Zoot Radio, free old time radio show downloads of, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Life_of_Riley&oldid=1135022718, This page was last edited on 22 January 2023, at 03:47. Life of Riley won the first Emmy Award (for "Best Film Made For and Shown on Television") with Groucho Marx receiving a credit for the story. It then went into syndicated reruns. I've come to admire the earth, the wind and the fire. For the second run, Bendix returned as Riley, while Marjorie Reynolds appeared as Peg. If you're playing human to human, you'll do fine. Dear Vance:My parents remember a Memphian named Digger ODell who had himself buried alive here sometime in the 1960s as a promotional stunt. Once he had to be pulled from his apartment after the dirt sides turned to mud and caved in after a thunderstorm. Digby 'Digger' O'Dell: It is I, Digby O'Dell, the friendly undertaker. MUSIC: LOU KOSLOFF'S "LIFE OF RILEY THEME" . Could have been man/wife or brother/sister. Will you care after your death if they take care of you in death as you did your dad? Maybe because it's happening to their parents or their siblings and some of their friends now, suddenly I see the cultural conversation changing from "how much?" And then one year it disappeared, and I fretted that someone had stolen it for scrap metal. 16 in its first season, with four of its six seasons in the top 30, and ran for a total of 217 episodes. At the mobile home park, a local reporter didnt have a very high opinion of the aging stuntman, writing, He has the flushed face and shaking hand of a man who has seen the sun rise over many an empty bottle. Digger showed up at the park wearing only a bathrobe. It's ridiculous, it's mundane, it's stupid, but at the end of the day what we are trying to do is assemble all our metaphoric weapons to do battle with this hurt, this still thing. We do have a charge for our caskets. Peg Riley: What's the matter? Bendix, Rosemary DeCamp, Richard Long, Meg Randall and John Brown reprised their screen roles for an May 8, 1950 Lux Radio Theatre broadcast. I think it suggests that we're going to get from one place to the other, whatever it is that we have to do to process this new reality, to get the dead to the edge of their changed role and get the living to the edge of this new changed life that they're going to lead without this person in their lives anymore. Though he's built like Boulder Dam He's tender as a lamb. Chester A. Riley: I got troubles, Digger. According to the 1999 obituary, Digger was survived by his wife, Julie Ann "Maggie" Smith of Dawsonville, Georgia; a son, Bobby Smith, of Lakewell, Florida; and a stepson, Timothy Eugene Fowler, of Gainesville, Georgia. And something is. P-R-E-L-L! And we come away from these memorial events, these celebrations of life, with the increasing sense that something is missing. Brief Synopsis A factory worker tries to cope when his daughter dates the boss's son. What are you doin' here in the park? I do not care but that they do it honorably. To Babs's delight, Jeff, who has just moved in next door with his aunt, is a dedicated pre-med student. Humans figured out both before they had backhoes and retorts. I cant even blame my wife too much. Thomas Lynch reads to camera his essay Tract, in which he broaches the topic of his own funeral. What can you tell me about this interesting fellow? For many people I know, when families are cremated, they feel as if they've in some sense kind of disappeared. See production, box office & company info, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA. The trouble is, in our culture we try to have one or the other -- either/or -- and it's both and then some in real experience. It is the ridiculous and the sublime. All the same, 100 percent of the people that have gone with us are grateful that we invited them to go. Don't you worry about him; we'll pull him through. Up until a couple generations ago, humans were the species that dealt with death, the idea of the thing, by dealing with their dead, the thing itself, so that the way we processed mortality was by processing mortals from one place to the other, one station to the next in this little pilgrimage between as they were to how they are to what we hope they'll be. 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