It Pays To Be Ignorant


It Pays to Be Ignorant is a comedy that ran from 1942 to 1951 as a quiz show. That format itself was a gag, as it was really a pretense for comedians to hurl one-liners at the live and home audiences, with the contestant mainly there as a happy prop. The supposed quizmaster was comedian Tom Howard. George Shelton, Howard's partner in a vaudeville act, was on the panel, along with Harry McNaughton and Lulu McConnell. The episode would start with a joke, and the panelists would make a pun or snarky comment that got a rise out of the audience. An example is "Do married men live longer than single men?" and one of the answers would be "No, it only seems longer." The simplest questions would not get a right answer, and the discussions could lead almost anywhere the jokesters took them as long as the laughs kept coming. It may seem too silly to be successful from today's perspective, but the program created smiles and chuckles around the country, and likely the next morning as well, in workplace breakrooms and cafeterias and diners. * * * These recordings are part of the Joe Hehn Memorial Collection. Mr. Hehn (1931-2020) was a pioneering collector of radio recordings when the hobby emerged in the 1960s. Digitizing his collection of reel tapes and discs is the effort of a wide range of North American volunteers, and includes assistance of some international collectors. The groups supporting this effort with their funds, time, technology and skills are the Old Time Radio Researchers and a small group of transcription disc preservationists who refer to themselves as the "The Knights of the Turning Table."

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.