Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 21, 1994 TAG: 9405230135
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
He died at his Manhattan home, family spokeswoman Joan Harris said.
With his signature sign-on of ``Good evening, anybody. Here's Morgan,'' he attracted a radio following in the 1940s, first with a local 15-minute program, then a half-hour radio network show.
His impudent style led some listeners to conclude he must be a communist, and he found his name included in Red Channels, a listing of entertainers accused of having communist ties. He insisted he was apolitical but was blacklisted anyway. Eventually, he returned to regular TV appearances.
He was seen on the popular panel shows ``What's My Line'' and ``I've Got a Secret'' in the 1950s and '60s.
In 1951, ``Henry Morgan's Great Talent Hunt'' aired on NBC as a satire of ``Original Amateur Hour'' and other programs. Arnold Stang was Morgan's assistant, tracking down the people with odd talents.
Morgan also starred in one movie, ``So This Is New York,'' in 1948, an early Stanley Kramer effort, alternately funny and flat.
Among the memorable sponsor-baiting routines of his rambling radio shows was a ``shavathon,'' in which contestants supposedly demonstrated that his sponsor's razor shaved more quickly than competitors'.
Morgan also recited sardonic horror stories of death and maiming suffered by shavers trying to do something with the time they saved.
He baited the pharmaceutical industry when he talked about the town of More, Utah. He said it had two doctors and ``This led to the famous ad which begins, `More doctors recommend ...' ''
And the makers of Oh! Henry candy bars withdrew their support after he said the candy was a meal in itself, ``but you eat three meals of O'Henrys, and your teeth will fall out.''
Once in 1947, he asked parents to leave the room, then advised children to run away from home and become smugglers. He enjoyed a long run with Adler Elevator Shoes, whose owner, derided on air as ``Old Man Adler,'' didn't mind the barbs.
But one hour after Morgan mocked the hole in the middle of Life Savers, the candy maker canceled its sponsorship.
He was born in New York of what he described as ``mixed parentage - man and woman - on the day before April Fool's Day 1915.''
After completing prep school in Pennsylvania in 1931, he went to work as a ``page boy'' at radio station WMCA in New York and soon moved up to announcing jobs at various stations in New York, Philadelphia and Duluth, Minn.
He returned to New York in 1942 and had a 15-minute spot ``Here's Morgan,'' a show that was interrupted by his service in the Air Force and resumed after World War II ended.
by CNB