Before David Letterman and Saturday Night Live popularized droll, off-beat comedy on television, Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding were making an art of it with bizarre radio parodies of everything from soap operas to the nightly news. Sly sketches like "Matt Neffer, Boy Spotwelder," "One Fella's Family," and "Webley Webster," about a book critic with a weird penchant for pirate stories, practically serve as a blueprint for the smart, ironic comedy of today. Astoundingly, much of it was done without a script.

Tom Nord