The Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show

Edgar Bergen began performing with the sharp-tongued Charlie McCarthy dummy in vaudeville before the duo's radio debut in December 1936. They became so popular that the show regularly beat out Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre on the Air. The show was notable for Charlie's extended comedic feuds with W.C. Fields, who despised the dummy, and for attracting guests ranging from Cary Grant to Judy Garland to Humphrey Bogart. Bergen also introduced the slow-witted Mortimer Snerd and the shy Effie Klinker as additional characters. The show ran through 1956 and won Bergen an honorary Oscar for "outstanding comedy creation."