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I N SHOW business the key to a sure laugh is a bald pate. The guy widi the shiny dome aiMl the sparse fringe is a natural fall guy. And if he happens to double as a band leader (another of the fall guy breed) he’s apt to become a real two- dozen carat celebrity. Such a fellow is TV maestro Ray Bloch, who plays Willing Fall Guy for Messrs. Jackie Gleason and Ed (Toast of the Town) Sullivan. A veteran of 30 years in show biz, Bloch explained Ae history of the band leader-fall guy. “Back in the days of vaudeville,” said Ray, “come¬ dians thrived on insult-type jokes. They couldn’t throw ’em at their, audience—naturally. So thfy went after the fellow in the pit, Ae help¬ less guy with a baton. K he were a bald-headed coot, so much the better. “Every comedian has a raft of gags for bald heads,” said Ray drawing his palm across his maneless top. “When Jack (Gleason) has some particularly bad jokes, he’ll attribute them to me. Or when Ed Sullivan is spinning a yarn, he makes me a part of it. It’s standard procedure.” Bloch, a frank talking, pipe-smok¬ ing musician who doesn’t take him¬ self too seriously, says a good TV conductor is one who knows how to work fast, cut comers and do things the easy way. “In this business,” says Ray, “you gotta be practical.” What about the man with the baton, we asked. The musicians never seem to be looking at him. “Well,” said Bloch, “Take the old Glenn Miller orchestra. After Glenn died various feUows took it over. The same band, mind you, even the same arrange¬ ments. But the old Miller spark was missing. It’s those interpretations dtiring rehearsal that make the dif¬ ference. By show time, the tempo and those little subtle effects are all worked out. The musicians don’t have to follow the conductor too closely.” Bloch came to New York from Alsace-Lorraine when he was six. A pianist by trade, he organized a band during his teens and has headed a musical outfit ever since. He played all the big vaudeville houses during the Twenties, doubling in brass as emcee. On radio he supplied the music for such names as ^Rlton Berle and A1 Jolson, even headed a couple of shows of his own. 16