TV Radio Mirror (Jul - Dec 1958)

Home in Toronto, Shuster cooks up something besides zany capers for his family — daughter Rosalind, wife Ruth, and son Stevle. With his partner in comedy, Frank still does occasional shows for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commutes by plane for Ed Sullivan Show in New York. Both families love sports. Shusters read up on baseball brush up on golf — but don't ask Frank about Ruth's tennis! Sullivan s Canadian laugh Me (Continued) complete quiet, descended. Somewhat later, an outraged Stevie confronted Ruth Shuster. "You said Daddy and Johnny were working, didn't you?" "I thought they were. Did they go out?" "No, they're there, all right," said Stevie. "I snuck upstairs and listened outside the door. But all they're doing is telling each other jokes and laughing You call that work? They're just having fun!" The comedy team of Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster would be the first to agree with him. Frank, the smiling, sunny one, and Johnny, who describes himself as "the little monkey-faced one," delight in kicking the stuffing out of the hoary Pagliacci tradition of clowning. They are not, they assert, the suffer-while-you-work brand of comedians. Says Johnny, "We're doing exactly what we want to do, why should it be painful?" Says Frank, "If we can't laugh at our own jokes, what right have we to assume we can get an audience to laugh at them?" Canadian audiences have enjoyed their inspired nonsense since shortly before World War II, when they erupted from the stately campus of the University of Toronto to the airwaves of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. United States viewers have laughed with them since last spring, when that farthest-reaching of talent detectives, Ed Sullivan, introduced them on CBS -TV. (Continued on page 57) The Ed Sullivan Show is seen on CBS-TV, Sun., 8 to 9 P.M. EST, sponsored alternately by the Mercury Dealers and Eastman Kodak. 18