It Pays to Be Ignorant

It Pays to Be Ignorant

At front, from left: Harry McNaughton, Lulu McConnell and George Shelton. Master of Ceremonies Tom Howard is standing.
Genre	Comedy
Running time	30 minutes
Country	United States
Language(s)	English
Syndicates	Mutual CBS NBC
TV adaptations	It Pays to Be Ignorant
Hosted by	Tom Howard
Announcer	Ken Roberts Dick Stark
Created by	Tom Howard
Air dates	June 25, 1942 to September 26, 1951
Sponsored by	Philip Morris Chrysler DeSoto

It Pays to Be Ignorant was a radio comedy show which maintained its popularity during a nine-year run on three networks for such sponsors as Philip Morris, Chrysler, and DeSoto.

The series was a spoof on the authoritative, academic discourse evident on such authoritative panel series as Quiz Kids and Information Please, while the beginning of the program parodied the popular quiz show, Doctor I.Q. With announcers Ken Roberts and Dick Stark, the program was broadcast on Mutual from June 25, 1942 to February 28, 1944, on CBS from February 25, 1944 to September 27, 1950 and finally on NBC from July 4, 1951 to September 26, 1951. The series typically aired as a summer replacement.

The satirical series featured "a board of experts who are dumber than you are and can prove it." Tom Howard was the quizmaster who asked questions of dim-bulb panelists Harry McNaughton, Lulu McConnell and George Shelton. The Irish-born Howard (1885-1955) and Shelton (1885-1972) had previously worked together as a team in vaudeville and comedy film shorts, while McConnell (1882-1962) and British comic McNaughton (1896-1967) had both appeared in many Broadway musical comedies and revues between 1920 and the late 1930s.

Each episode would start with some jokes ("Do married men live longer than single men?"... "No, it only seems longer.") and an introduction of the experts. After this, three or four questions would be discussed in detail: some posed by Howard, some picked at random by a guest from the audience. These questions often had the answer obvious in the query ("What town in Massachusetts had the Boston Tea Party?") or were common knowledge:

Even so, the panelists would inevitably get the answer wrong, providing outrageously funny answers instead, followed by an even more uproarious rationale for their answer, a conversation that goes off on a tangent, and/or insults at each other. The show had a number of running gags which became catchphrases with listeners such as McNaughton's "Now we're back to Miss McConnell again" and Shelton's "I used to woik in that town."