''The Cuckoo Hour '', also known as ''The KUKU Hour'' and ''The Raymond Knight Cuckoo Hour'', is an American musical variety radio series created by radio comedian Raymond Knight. It aired on the

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

Blue Network The Blue Network (previously known as the NBC Blue Network) was the on-air name of a now defunct American radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945. Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the National Broadcasting Comp ...

January 1, 1930–March 9, 1936.Hickerson, Jay. ''The Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming and Guide to All Circulating Shows''. Hamden, Connecticut: Jay Hickerson, Box 4321, Hamden, CT 06514, second edition December 1992, page 92. Knight, a pioneer in satirical humor on the radio, studied law at Boston University and passed the Massachusetts bar, but he returned to school to study theater and writing at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

's 47 Workshop, followed by more studies at Yale. In 1927, he performed in the Broadway musical revue ''The Manhatters''. He was writing continuity and commercials for NBC in 1929, when NBC programmer

Bertha Brainard Bertha Brainard (June 16, 1890 – June 11, 1946), known to her friends as Betty, was a pioneering NBC executive responsible for setting trends in network broadcasting. Life and career She was born and raised in South Orange, New Jersey, the daugh ...

asked him to devise "something cuckoo" for the Blue Network. He responded with the zany ''Cuckoo Hour'' as a showcase for his comedy, performing as Professor Ambrose J. Weems, who ran a radio station where he would give his views on current events and chat with his sidekick, Mrs. Pennyfeather.Dixon, Peter. ''Radio Writing''. New York, The Century Company, 1931. The cast of ''The Cuckoo Hour'' included Carl Matthews (1899-1959).

References

Listen to

''The Raymond Knight Cuckoo Hour'' (February 14, 1937)
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External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuckoo Hour, The Cuckoo Hour, The Cuckoo Hour, The NBC Blue Network radio programs