Warner Brothers Breakdowns Of The Late 1940s

 

 

 

In the 1960’s, Kermit Schafer (24 March 1923 - 8 March 1979) released several record albums of bloopers from radio broadcasts.  One of the earliest was radio announcer Harry Von Zell’s mispronunciation of President Herbert Hoover’s name as "Hoobert Heever" on the air. 

I had the Schaefer albums, and enjoyed them greatly, but didn’t realize at the time that many of these audio clips were `recreations’.

 

Back in the 1930’s and 1940’s, most shows were aired live, and many were never recorded.  Schaefer hired actors, who recreated the bloopers, but never disclosed that fact on the album.  

 

Flawed or not, Schaefer did help create the blooper craze, and led the way for popular TV shows like TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes, hosted by Dick Clark.

 

Long before Schaefer, however, movie studios and production companies kept `blooper reels’, and usually only showed them during private parties.   The language of some of these gaffs was a bit `adult’, for greater distribution.

 

In the past, I’ve highlighted the Warner's blooper reels of the 1930s and the early 1940s.   

 

We’ve a couple more to round out the collection (hopefully more will turn up);  The Warner Brothers Breakdowns of the Late 1940s.