The Jumbo Fire-Chief Program

Background

The Texas Company--better known as Texaco--was a prolific sponsor of Radio throughout the Golden Age of Radio. From the earliest days of broadcast Radio, Texaco produced and sponsored all manner of highly popular Radio programs:

1932 The Fire-Chief Program
1935 The Jumbo Fire-Chief Program
1936 The Fire-Chief Concert
1936 Texaco Town
1938-1949 Texaco Star Theatre
1939 The Ken Murray Show
1940-2004 The Metropolitan Opera
1941 The Treasury Hour -- Millions For Defense
1942 The Jane Froman Show
1942 The Texaco Star Theater Summer Show
1943 The James Melton Show
1946 The Eddie Bracken Show
1948 The Gordon MacRae Show
1948 The Milton Berle Show

Two of it's longest running programs were Texaco Star Theatre and The Metropolitan Opera. Texaco Star Theatre introduced some of Radio and Television's most durable stars to a national audience, such as Jimmy Durante, Fred Allen, Ed Wynn, Ken Murray, Eddie Cantor, Jane Froman, Jane Pickens, James Melton, Eddie Bracken, Gordon MacCrae, Tony Martin and Milton Berle.

Texaco mounted some of the finest popular programming ever heard over Radio, never stinting on production costs--or talent. Often employing Texaco's own orchestras and singing groups, Texaco's branding of both their productions and talent set the standard for many of the more well-heeled sponsors of the era.

Texaco was an oil company first and foremost. From the very beginning of its sponsorship of Radio programming, Texaco pitched its entire line of petroleum based products and services. Its primary pitch from the earliest days was its production of gasoline derivatives set apart by meeting standards set by the United States Government for emergency vehicles and aircraft. Its Fire-Chief brand of gasoline, as well as its Sky-Chief, higher-octane gasoline were both based on the emergency vehicles and standards concept. Texaco touted the fact that an alleged 'majority' of Fire Departments across the nation employed Texaco's Fire-Chief gasoline almost exclusively, due to Texaco meeting and exceeding the aforementioned government standards. A Fire Chief's helmet and fire trucks were prominently featured in most of Texaco's print advertising of the era.

Texaco Marfak services ad promoting its 1941
Treasury Hour -- Millions For Defense over CBS

Texaco was also one of the first petroleum sponsors to aggressively promote their automotive services and ancillary products right along with their gas and oil products. As one of the very first petroleum companies to market their products in--then--all forty-eight states, Texaco had a powerful incentive to mount a national advertising program through every medium available. Texaco acquired its Havoline brand of oil products through its acquisition of the Indian Oil Company in 1931. It began the promotion of its Fire-Chief brand of gasoline in 1934--and its Sky-Chief brand in 1938. An automotive services innovator, Texaco commissioned noted industrial designer Walter Teague to design a modern service station building that could be standardized and replicated throughout the nation.

Walter Teague-designed Texaco Service Station circa 1940

Teague's 1937 design was a model of innovation and utility that soon became mimicked by competing service stations throughout the world. Featuring rounded building corners, porcelain covered tile panels for the walls, up to four service bays for mechanical services, Marfak lubrication, tire repairs, and washing, the stations were a model of utility, space-optimization and streamlined design. Teague's design was also the first to incorporate both men's and women's restrooms into the design, along with large plate glass windows overlooking the gas pump area and encasing an office for the service manager or owner. The large plate glass window afforded an opportunity to prominently display--and promote--tires, batteries and accessories [T.B.A.].

A 15-minute 1957 Texaco clip, 'Yours - Exclusively' introducing its new gasoline with 'Petrox'

Texaco extends its Fire-Chief Series with The Jumbo Fire-Chief Program

Texaco's long-running Fire-Chief Program, starring 'Fire Chief' Ed Wynn, had aired for three years, when Ed Wynn took a stab at beginning his own network, the Amalgamated Broadcast System (ABS) in 1933--which subsequently folded in November the same year (costing him over 300,000 post-Depression-era dollars in the process).

Wide shot of the Hippodrome's Jumbo Fire Chief Stage (1935)

From the 35-10-22 Oakland Tribune:

DIALERS TO GO
BACKSTAGE ON
NBC BROADCAST

Tuners to Be Taken Behind
Scenes at Hippodrome to
Hear 'Jumbo' Rehearsal

By K.L. Ecksan

     A reporter's-eye view of the goings on backstage at the New York Hippodrome, where Billy Rose's long- heralded production of "Jumbo" is now rehearsing, will be given by Edwin C. Hill, noted radio commentator, during the Fire Chief program to be broadcast this evening at 6:30 over an NBC Nationwide network, including KPO.   On the same program, which features Eddy Duchin and his Fire Chief orchestra, the final winners in the Nation-wide "Radio Open" music contest will be introduced to the listening audience.
     Hill's description of the "Jumbo" rehearsals, antedating the opening night performance of the stage extravaganza by four days, will give the radio audience a graphic preview of the new Jumbo Fire Chief Show radio series which is lo be inaugurated in the Fire Chief program of October 29.
     The radio performances will feature the entire cast of the stage production, including Jimmy Durante, Donald Novis, Arthur Sinclair and Gloria Grafton, a male chorus of 30 voices, a 32-piece orchestra, almost 100 supporting
actors, and several elephants and other animals.  Ben Hecht and Charles McArthur, authors of "Jumbo," will write new radio script for each week's program.
     Miss Nyla Taylor of Lansdale, Pa., who began her radio career with station KYW, Philadelphia, was named as winner in the Women's division of the Fire Chief Open Contest.

Texaco's solution to extending the franchise combined an ongoing, widely publicized 'Broadway' extravaganza with Texaco's Fire-Chief branding to become The Jumbo Fire-Chief Program. The 1935 Billy Rose spectacular, Jumbo, had acquired as its venue New York's famous Hippodrome to house its combination musical comedy and live circus. Great hooplah and lavish rehearsal teasers to the press became an almost daily news item leading up to Jumbo's premiere on November 16, 1935. By far the era's most extravagant Broadway production, it was nonetheless mounted during an era of great theatrical bloodletting in the wake of The Great Depression. Employing John Considine's Wonder Show as its setting, the production featured, among numerous equally amazing features, a full-sized circus elephant. Jimmy Durante emerged as the star of the multi-faceted production, portraying Claudius B. Bowers, the proud--and highly protective--keeper of Jumbo the Elephant--and namesake of the production.

Caption: The love interest is admirably sustained by Gloria Grafton as
Micky Considine and by Donald Novis, who plays Matt Mulligan

The production's music and lyrics were penned by no less than Rodgers & Hart from a book by no less than Charles MacArthur (Helen Hayes' hubby) and Ben Hecht. The music was provided by no less than Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra, carried its own glee club--Charles Henderson's thirty-two Razorbacks, featured acrobats, a full complement of clowns, a 35-foot tall puppet, animal acts and in the final scene of each performance featured Jimmy Durante allowing the 8,000 lb. Jumbo to place its foot over Durante's head. Indeed, the only venue then available in New York to house such a production was The Hippodrome, a 5,000 seat theatre with a 60 foot high ceiling. Could such a monumental production ever fail?

Well in fact it could--and did. Jumbo folded after 233 performances, running from November 15, 1935 through April 18, 1936. In spite of its relatively short run, the production put Jimmy Durante's career into overdrive, further established Billy Rose as one of Broadway's greatest, most ambitious innovators, launched Charles Henderson's Razorbacks, launched Donald Novis's career, revived A.P. Kaye's career, and eventually found its way to a 1962 film of the same name, which garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Score for Rodgers & Hart.

Meanwhile, on the way to its film adaptation, Jumbo was turned into a Texaco-sponsored Radio serial feature starring Jimmy Durante as Claudius B. Bowers. Texaco aired its Jumbo Fire-Chief Program from October 29, 1935--two weeks prior to Billy Rose's Jumbo premiere on November 16, 1935--to January 14, 1936. The Radio serial had orginally been intended to coincide with the premiere of the musical, but owing to yet another in a long line of postponements, the Jumbo Fire-Chief Program premiered while the musical was still in the last stages of rehearsals. The Radio version comprised a total of eighteen installments tracing Claudius B. [for 'Brain'] Bowers' efforts to save Jumbo and the fate of The Considine Wonder Show. The Radio serial was an excellent opportunity for both Texaco and Billy Rose. Rose's knack for hyping a production served him well during the run-up to Jumbo's premiere. The opportunity to have a Radio production provide a weekly reminder of the extravagance of the Hippodrome production was a Stage promoter's dream.

Broadcasting magazine reported that the radio rights alone to Jumbo cost Texaco $10,000 per episode--in addition to other production costs, orchestra and talent. But for that price, Texaco shut down the Stage production of Jumbo every Tuesday evening--reportedly the first time in Stage History that a dedicated Stage production shut down on a recurring basis for a Radio program during the Stage production's run.

The Jumbo Fire-Chief Program serialized the story underlying Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht's tale of the fate of 'Brain' Bowers and his Jumbo. Texaco's production featured Charles Henderson's Razorbacks, singing sensation Donald Novis, and substituted Adolph Deutsch's Orchestra for that of Paul Whiteman. The Texaco production also retained both Gloria Grafton, as Mickey Considine, and A.P. Kaye as Mr. Jellico. In short, the only thing missing from the serialized version of Jumbo over Radio was the popcorn, peanuts, and sawdust--and Paul Whiteman.

While we'd imagine that the Jumbo Fire-Chief Program would, most optimistically, have been slated for twenty-six episodes, it's apparent that both Billy Rose and Texaco could see the writing in the sawdust for the live Hippodrome production and its consequent effect on the Radio serialization. While a splendid, highly ambitious and critically acclaimed production, it remained afterall, a Great Depression-era production. Rose's 'angel' and benefactor, John Hay Whitney, bankrolled Rose's Jumbo in 1934 to the tune of $225,000--about $3.6M in today's dollars.

After five major postponements, a run of only 233 performances, and the draining financial effect of mounting such an ambitious production in post-Depression New York, the production ultimately lost $150,000--or about $2.4M in today's dollars. Though the postponements were an added expense, one can't help but wonder how much the production would have lost had it opened six months earlier, as planned. The postponements were undoubtedly a blessing in disguise, in retrospect.

Undaunted, Texaco quickly regrouped, adeptly launching an extension of the Jumbo Fire-Chief Program titled, The Fire-Chief Concert.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the radioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.

OTRisms:

Two contributors to the Hickerson Guide--initials D.S. and JHa--claim to have a thirteenth episode of The Jumbo Fire-Chief Program, an assertion we find quite intriguing--if not perplexing--since the range of dates they cite for their "thirteen exemplars" spans only twelve weeks. Is there a thirteenth exemplar of The Jumbo Fire-Chief Program? You'd have to ask them. As best as we can determine from our research, Texaco inexplicably abandoned The Jumbo Fire-Chief Program format once it began airing The Fire-Chief Concert. Even more perplexing, Louis Witten teases a following episode of The Jumbo Fire-Chief Program at the close of Episode No. 12, dated January 14, 1936. Wiitten hints at a question of whether Brainy can 'out-point' a U.S. Marshall in the 'next episode.' As best as we can determine, no 'next episode' ever aired. And since The Fire-Chief Concert took the same timeslot, day and network as The Jumbo Fire-Chief Program, it seems unlikely that two programs could have occupied the same timeslot, day, and station/network at the same time. But then what do we know? Just sayin' . . .

We're of the measured opinion that no The Jumbo Fire-Chief Progam episodes aired any further, once Texaco premiered their The Fire-Chief Concert. We may be wrong--we occasionally are wrong. Call us 'from Missouri' on this one, but we're gonna go out on a limb here and state unequivocally that The Jumbo Fire-Chief Program, for all its hooplah and Billy Rose-type splash, ended abruptly with the twelfth episode which aired on January 14, 1936.

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[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]