To Ev Suffens [Letter 29]

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May 24, 1936

Dear Mr. Suffens,

Since I am an old, faithful admirer of your program, you know how I feel about it. But you are conducting a poll among your listeners and I want to register my vote formally. On the first question you asked over the air: do we want the “Midnight Jamboree” continued through the summer, I answer: YES!!! Most emphatically yes. Your program has become a household institution with us, like a visit with a friend each evening. If you were to discontinue it, it would leave a void no other program could fill. I don’t exaggerate when I say that I would simply be heart-broken, because the “Midnight Jamboree” is the best, the most charming, the most amusing program on the air and the only one to which we listen regularly.

On your second question: do we want the program conducted as it is now or made more formal, I answer: by all means keep it as it is now. Its whole charm is the informality and your peculiar, inimitable sense of humor. The “Midnight Jamboree” is really “Ev Suffens”. You do play excellent music, but any other station can play the same records. If you were to turn into a formal, stuffy announcer, I would be bored to death. And I don’t believe that anyone would listen to three solid hours of formality. Artificial, pretentious, fawning pomposity is precisely what is wrong with most radio announcers and what gives the radio its slightly silly, inane aspect. Since there is no one on the air quite like you—why even consider giving up your charm and originality to become like hundreds of others?

We love “Oscar”, “Oswald”, “Rasputin” and your whole family. They have become real characters to us, real friends whom we would miss terribly. My suggestion would be to have more of them, not less. As to the music, my vote is: more classics, particularly light concert classics such as you have been playing lately. Personally, I would say: all classics, but I don’t mind suffering through a jazz number once in a while if it’s necessary and if your audience demands it.

To sum up, I say: WE WANT THE “MIDNIGHT JAMBOREE” CONTINUED FOREVER AND JUST AS IT IS NOW. And I

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add a vote of thanks and a salute to the best program on the air and the man who created it.

Sincerely yours,