ABBOTT: "That's the man's name."

COSTELLO: "That's who's name?"

ABBOTT: "Yes."

COSTELLO: "Well, go ahead and tell me."

ABBOTT: “That’s it.”

COSTELLO: “That’s who?”

ABBOTT: “Yes.”

STEVE EMBER: Another of America's great comedians was Fred Allen. As early as nineteen thirty-six, he had a weekly radio audience of about twenty million people. So says the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.

For almost twenty years, in the nineteen thirties and forties, Fred Allen had a radio show called "Allen's Alley." His career also included television and Broadway shows. Like many performers of his time, he started in vaudeville in the early nineteen hundreds. Vaudeville shows presented all kinds of entertainment.

He began as a juggler, someone who can keep several objects in the air at the same time. But he was presented as the "World's Worst Juggler."

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: After that he performed as a comedian. Vaudeville comedy acts usually contained a series of disconnected jokes. But during the Great Depression, Fred Allen had the idea of creating a series of complete stories and situations.

Every week, on the radio, he would visit an imaginary place, "Allen's Alley," where he would talk with characters like Senator Claghorn. Senator Claghorn was a politician who talked a lot but never said anything.

But some of Fred Allen's funniest programs were about his supposed longtime dispute with another radio star, Jack Benny.