Let’s Look at Junior
ALTHOUGH all of the various
characters Richard (Red) Skelton plays in his Tuesday night comedy show (WTMJ,
9:30 o’clock) have a following, there is no doubt that Junior is Mr. Big. Youngsters
large and small never miss the doings of this pernicious moppet.
Maybe Junior comes by it all
naturally. Skelton himself is nothing but a great big (6 foot 3) boy. Even after
he had achieved some success in the show business one of his outstanding and
most endearing characteristics was the way he’d do something impulsive and then
look at the injured party like a sorry little lad with a very poor alibi. He wanted
to do the child characterization long before his writers would allow it.
“You’ll sound like a sissy, Red,”
they said. But Red insisted and finally when he had coined the “I dood it”
phrase and made it his own, they agreed. Now all three of them, Jack Douglas,
Dick McKnight and Ben Freedman, sit around talking like Junior themselves as
they write the show.
Skelton averages approximately
2,500 fan letters a week and most of them come from mothers and children. The mothers
offer Red ideas for his programs by telling him what their bad little boys have
thought up to gray their hair. The children send Red adoring notes, cartoons of
Junior and how they imagine he looks, prizes they have gotten in boxes of
Cracker Jack and lately a half pound of butter via parcel post from Colorado,
which arrived in Hollywood intact.
Red answers every letter he gets
and keeps the outstanding ones. His personal manager, writer and former wife,
Edna Skelton, and a secretary do the actual work. All servicemen and children
are answered first. Other letters sometimes have to wait until a summer
vacations ends to be answered, but if they have a return address and ask for a
reply, Red sees they get it sometime.
Alas, so many children ask
specific questions and then forget to put their names in. Red’s postman makes a
weekly collection for the postage due on these letters from children who think
it’s the same as writing to Santa Claus.
One reason for Red’s willingness
to accommodate all autograph seekers and letters writers is the fact that he’s
an autograph hound himself. He refuses to appear at benefits unless he’s given
carte blanche to get any and all autographs there, and, as a result his
collection is large and unusual.
Red actually hates the dark, like
many another small boy, and won’t sleep unless there is a light on somewhere in
the hall or near by. He will not talk on the telephone and actually no one can
make him do it, no matter what. Burgundy is his favorite color and he always wears
plain white shirts and burgundy ties. His clothes are as conservative as a Main
st. banker’s and his tailor has to make them without fitting. Red won’t stand
still. After he has worn a suit, he sends it back for alterations.
Strictly a meat and potato eater,
Red does not like spinach. He likes trains, real and miniature, and gadgets of
all kinds. He likes dogs, too, and once had the luck to pick up a setter that
looked lost and then found out it belonged to Marlene Dietrich. Result: He got
her autograph and was razzed for weeks and accused of doing the whole thing on
purpose. But he didn’t “dood it” on purpose—he says.
Only one thing really scares Red Skelton. It’s
when mother bring small children up to him and say, “Look, Johnnie, this is the
little boy you hear on the radio. This is Junior.” Red says the youngster’s
eyes start right about at his knees and travel slowly upward. By the time they
reach his face way up there 6 feet 3 inches in the air, the youngster’s faces
take on the dirtiest looks known to man.
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