Even a criminal gets time off for good behavior. We are now without a mother or without a father. US. Copyright 2022 Memphis Magazine. [citation needed], Bendix and Rosemary DeCamp reprised the roles in an hour-long radio adaptation of the feature film that was presented on Lux Radio Theater on May 8, 1950. The program even utilized a stable of so-called "silent" characters, individuals referred to often but never actually heard. I'll hug her and I'll kiss her. Not sure where the voice actor was inspired from, but Mancubus sounds exactly like Digger O'Dell, the friendly undertaker from the old Life of Rile Press J to jump to the feed. At the beginning of the November 11, 1949 radio episode the announcer explained that William Bendix had strained his voice while performing the role of an umpire for an upcoming film (Kill the Umpire) and Gleason substituted for him that one night. His dramatic life story is so well-known that schoolchildren are taught to recite it for extra credit. Riley, Riley, what a guy! It's that time of year again when gardeners all over the world are planning what to grow in their gardens. According to the obituary, Digger was born in Georgia in 1915. With William Bendix the protagonist, as Riley and among others John Brown, who portrayed the friendly undertaker "Digger" O'Dell. Chester A. Riley: I know what you did! As usual, he doesn't know what to do, until Digby O'Dell, the Friendly Unde. He first started doing various stunts in 1932, a time when people were trying to make crazy money with dancing marathons, flagpole sitting, and other endurance feats. [9], William Bendix and Sterling Holloway, 1957. He made the news by being buried alive. It is that everything changes and nothing changes. The local newspapers reported that an 18x24-inch plywood air shaft allowed Digger to receive air and food, and he had carefully stocked his tiny domicile with lights, reading glasses, even packs of cigarettes. Jackie Gleason starred as Riley during the show's first year, while DeCamp and Lanny Rees reprised their film roles for the series. He has been buried in a concrete vault for 36 days, sealed in glass 33 days, and spent 26 days underwater., But somewhere along the way, he decided to concentrate on burying himself in the worlds smallest apartment, as the various promotions called it. All rights reserved. Do you hear that, Peg? But you have to do that first, because people will sense if you're not willing to do that, if you're just sort of going through the motions. home|introduction|watch online|stories & special video|to be an undertaker|join the discussion Mrs. Abigail Uppington, the wimpy Wallace Wimple and the "friendly undertaker," Digger O'Dell. We get to say when people are dead to us, or dead enough, so that we can let them go. Peg Riley: No. I was watching [author and cultural commentator] Christopher Hitchens the other day. Babs, however, has her heart set on Jeff and rejects Burt's advances. There are several videos on line. Maybe because it's happening to their parents or their siblings and some of their friends now, suddenly I see the cultural conversation changing from "how much?" For years, it was propped against a rugged concrete base, in a cluster of crepe myrtles on the southern edge of the park, close to the intersection of Poplar and Cooper. Mar Humans figured out both before they had backhoes and retorts. [1], Irving Brecher pitched the radio series for friend Groucho Marx under the title The Flotsam Family, but the sponsor balked at what would have been essentially a straight head-of-household role for Marx. "Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60-minute radio adaptation of the movie on May 8, 1950 with William Bendix, Rosemary DeCamp, Meg Randall . Well, we wear black for funerals -- people have to know who the directors are, who to ask -- and white shirts and gray ties. Let's see! It's ridiculous, it's mundane, it's stupid, but at the end of the day what we are trying to do is assemble all our metaphoric weapons to do battle with this hurt, this still thing. One of my favorite characters from classic radio is Digby Digger ODell, the friendly undertaker portrayed by John Brown in THE LIFE OF RILEY. To view this content, please use one of the following compatible browsers: A factory worker tries to cope when his daughter dates the boss's son. I do find this recent push for every funeral to be a celebration of life as, in a way, a kind of a cruel joke on people who are in acute grief. If I'm an Italian Catholic or an Orthodox Jew or a Baptist African American, I don't have to wonder what's going to happen, because I know that my community of co-religionists, of ethnic fellows, my neighborhood, whatever, they've organized a plan so that I don't have to spend the first several hours or days or weeks trying to figure out what to do next because it's already been told by tradition, by custom, by culture, by form. He's a boy who Chester A. Riley: He's a boy! Oh, yeah. But you've seen people come in that are agnostics or --. But when the entire conversation circles around and around about how much it's going to cost or how can you prevent this charge, I just find it silly after a while. Also, in 1958, it hi This is the edited transcript of interviews conducted with hin during the winter and spring of 2006-2007. His real name, it seems, was Herbert O'Dell Smith. It was produced by Tom McKnight for NBC and featured William Bendix. In addition to Bendix' Riley, the show featured immensely popular supporting characters, including Digby "Digger" O'Dell, the ghoulish "friendly undertaker" voiced by John Brown (who also played Thorny on Ozzie and Harriet, Al on My Friend Irma, and Broadway on The Damon Runyan Theatre). The program was broadcast live with a studio audience, most of whom were not aware Brown played both characters. Why there ain't a day that goes by that I read the obituary columns! For many gardeners, it starts with tomatoes. Gillis then forgives Riley, and Riley is satisfied that his family is happy once more. Peppers take longer than tomatoes to get going, so start them first. Peg Riley: Chester Riley! Comedy Romance A factory worker's family is thrown into an uproar when his teenage daughter starts to date his boss' son. Did you hear me? Babs Riley: But Mother, this is the opportunity of my entire life! According to the 1999 obituary, Digger was survived by his wife, Julie Ann "Maggie" Smith of Dawsonville, Georgia; a son, Bobby Smith, of Lakewell, Florida; and a stepson, Timothy Eugene Fowler, of Gainesville, Georgia. The bearing of it is so very, very important. Chester A. Riley: Oh, you're gonna count my blood? This is standard practice when ordering from Ukraine, according to customers wh. So we learn to live with it. Jim Gillis: Are you kiddin'? The open casket, it is something that's often mocked. Peg Riley: My father let me decide who I wanted to go around with. William Bendix is heard as Riley, along with co-stars Paula Winslowe, John Brown, Tommy Cook, and Barbara Eiler - plus series creator Irving Brecher . He was Herbert ODell Smith, and he conducted this buried alive stunt, along with countless other feats of endurance, across the South. The CBS program starred Lionel Stander as J. Riley Farnsworth and had no real connection with the more famous series that followed a few years later. The expression "life of Riley" or "living the life of Riley (Reilly)" emerged in the early 1920s, and was probably derived from turn-of-the-century Irish songs, such as "The Best in the House Is None Too Good for Reilly." John Brown returned as the morbid, counseling undertaker Digby (Digger) O'Dell. Ferguson: That's the type of citizen we're sworn to protect. It has to do with the gift of language. I enjoy listening to the frogs croak. His frequent exclamation of indignation became one of the most famous catch phrases of the 1940s: "What a revoltin' development this is!" The radio series greatly benefited from the immense popularity of a supporting character, Digby "Digger" O'Dell (John Brown), "the friendly undertaker." No word on whether anyone felt like carrying on the family tradition. Do you speak French? It has always been a family-owned and -operated firm, founded by Thomas Lynch's father, Edward Joseph Lynch. Last updated Jun 12 2013. The Life of Riley starring William Bendix as lovable, blundering, Chester A. Riley, was a radio situation comedy broadcast during and after wartime 40s. What is your sense of what's driven and shaped that conversation, and what, if anything, has been missing from that public view of it all? Singles & EPs. Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis magazine, And is that the purposefulness in the ebb and flow of a wake and a funeral? (CONTINUES HUMMING IN BG) ANNOUNCER: For 28 years, the CHFB has been the essential site for classic horror news, research and enthusiasm. O'Dell was a character hastily written into the long-running radio (and, later, television) show, "The Life of Riley," which had its debut on radio in 1944, while Americans were dying by the thousands in Europe and the Far East. I was thrilled to find IA, where I can find some of those classics. Thomas Lynch is a writer and a poet. Thanks to Chester's interference, Junior now has two dates for the school dance. It was just doing the next right thing. Help came from Digger O'Dell, the "friendly undertaker," who offered gruesome theories laced with repetitive puns, brilliantly delivered by John Brown. It's the people who, in many ways, try to put on the smiley face, that brittle grin you see so often that says, "We're going to be happy." Barbara 'Babs' Riley: Oh Simon, he knows! I think we're among the first couple generations for whom the presence of the dead at their funerals has become optional, and I see that as probably not good news for the culture at large. 461. But when some widowed person comes out and takes you by the shoulders and said, "Thank you, I couldn't have done this without you," and all you did was be there, or answer the call, or show up, there's this deep sense of having been of use to people at a time of need. Chester A. Riley: Nah what would a rich man want with money? You were just married! Is he in some of of trouble or something? Riley is overjoyed by his unexpected "step up," unaware that Babs asked Burt to offer him the job, and that he did so without his father's knowledge. But when people go with us, it's at the back end of an industrial park in Lavonia, near a railroad track, so it's unlike the kind of commemorative surroundings that we have in our local cemeteries -- more is the pity. Digby 'Digger' O'Dell: It is I, Digby O'Dell, the friendly undertaker.Chester A. Riley: Hello, Digger. Instead, Jackie Gleason starred, with Rosemary DeCamp replacing Paula Winslowe as wife Peg, Gloria Winters as daughter Barbara (Babs), Lanny Rees as son Chester Jr. (Junior), and Sid Tomack as Jim Gillis, Riley's manipulative best buddy and next-door neighbor. [in a flashback sequence, Peg has just given birth to her first child]. So I'm interested in it. What we have missed, however, in cremation in this culture is all the powerful metaphoric values provided by fire, its elemental worth. It gives me room to do either, all along this sort of emotional register. For more and more people it's a trip to the crematory and some variation on the wake where people pay different types of witness. Sometimes it's as simple as going up the street, down the block, into the church, out of that building, over to the bridge, over the river, over to the graveyard. Digby 'Digger' O'Dell: No, only Latin and Greek. Not all of the radio cast made the transition to film; Paula Winslowe and Barbara Eiler were replaced with DeCamp and Meg Randall as Riley's wife, Peg, and daughter, Babs respectively. By what name was The Life of Riley (1949) officially released in Canada in English? He never came back here, as promised, but he continued to perform these stunts until he died in 1999, at the age of 83. Well, both my parents were buried like Irish Catholics were buried, so there was this sort of tribal and religious language that had been developed over centuries for how we do this. With William Bendix the protagonist, as Riley and among others John Brown, who portrayed the friendly undertaker "Digger" O'Dell. Jim Gillis: Sure! Not to worry, though. Not all of the radio cast made the transition to film; Paula Winslowe and Barbara Eiler were replaced with DeCamp and Meg Randall as Riley's . Digger O'Dell @diggerodell7655 56 subscribers Subscribe Home Videos Shorts Playlists Community Channels About Videos Play all 16:13 Searching for the lost Asylum (SHD, FX removed to fix some. Here in Milford we're around 40 percent, and there are places where it's 60 percent and places where it's 16 percent. He's a man who's understood In Brooklyn or in Hollywood. 461. It seems Digger ODell was a friendly undertaker character in The Life of Riley , a radio soap opera that aired back in the 1930s, but that still doesnt explain the curious popularity of the name, if you ask me. I said NO! Chester A. Riley: I got troubles, Digger. I think of disbelief as a faith of its own kind. The oblivion is the oblivion wherever it is. So yeah, I do find that people who have dealt with their dying -- whether it was taking them to their chemotherapy or sitting those weeks through hospice care, or checking in those weeks through hospice care, because we can't always be physically present -- those people who were thoroughly engaged with this are thoroughly engaged with the rest of it. 2023. Who were the other musicians in that performance? On any given day, it's up for grabs. His frequent exclamation of indignation became one of the most famous catch phrases of the 1940s: "What a revoltin' development this is!" 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