Mar 19 2006 29 mins 1
Allen began his network radio career in 1932 after working vaudeville and Broadway with such comedy icons as Al Jolson, Ed Wynn, George Jessel, and Jack Benny. This was a time when the United States was in a deep economic depression, and radio in its infancy. In his autobiography Treadmill To Oblivion, Allen wrote that he thought radio should provide complete stories, series of episodes, and comedy situations instead of monotonous unrelated jokes then popular on vaudeville. With this idea in hand, he began his first radio program on NBC called The Linit Bath Club Review (named after the sponsor
