CANDID COMMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 206, 1 September 1936, Page 9

CANDID COMMENT.

CRITICS OF 8.8.C.

"DRY CABBAGE" FARE.

WHAT AN AMERICAN SAYS,

(Special.—By Air Mail.)

LONDON, August 8

Mr. Phil Baker, United States musical comedy radio star, thinks very little of the 8.8.C.'s broadcast programmes. He is in London looking for new gags, but he doesn't expect much help from the 8.8.C. "Dry cabbage" is his picturesque description of what English and Empire listeners get.

"I am a very serious man off the stage —though most of my public think 1 am too serious on the stage —and I should like to say this about your air shows," he said: "There seems to be a considerable dearth of comedy here, and I do not believe you will ever have really good wireless entertainers until you adopt sponsored programmes, as we have done. In the States the commercial advertising is restricted to half a minute for a lo minutes' programme, and three minutes for a half-hour show. Even then we coat the pill, mentioning the products in a parody of a popular song, the medicine without the taste, as it were.

"We liave four variety shows in an hour 011 Sunday, which is our best night. People who go to" church in the morning do not want a religious service in the evening; they have had their spiritual food, and they want to call it a day."