In nineteen thirty-seven, Bob Hope began a series of radio programs called the "Woodbury Soap Show." The next year, he started a radio show for the company that made Pepsodent toothpaste. His Tuesday night radio show soon became popular. Bob Hope continued doing radio shows for almost twenty years.

His success in radio led to a long-term relationship with Paramount Pictures, a major film company. The actors in his movies were also the characters on his radio shows.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: For fifty years, Bob Hope entertained members of America's armed forces. He took his radio show to military bases from the South Pacific to Greenland.

One time, after World War Two ended, he brought his radio show to soldiers waiting at a base in California to return to civilian life.

BOB HOPE: "And one Air Force colonel got out and bought a farm. Yeah, he'd been in action so long, every morning before the chickens started laying eggs he called them into the chicken coop and briefed them.

"I knew these boys, I knew these boys, would be glad to see me here today. I said, 'Look fellows, here's the kind of clothes you'd be wearing when you get out,' and fifty guys re-enlisted. I saw some of these fellows shopping for clothes in Hollywood. They are so used to getting stuff from the supply sergeant that the clerk had to throw the suits on the floor before these guys would try them on.

"One soldier had been fighting in the jungles for years. And I don't know if it had affected him or not, but when the clerk handed him a tweed suit to try on he spent three hours searching through the fuzz for snipers."