The Easy Aces was a comedy written by Goodman Ace that first aired in 1930 and enjoyed a 15-year run on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and National Broadcasting Com­pany (NBC) networks. The show was known for simple plot lines that allowed Jane Ace to contort the English language inexhaustibly while her usually bemused but sometimes horrified husband supplied witty commentary. Like The Burns and Allen Show, The Easy Aces relied on the device of a scattered, illogical wife flummoxing the logic and control of her husband. Despite the current anachronistic, even sexist ring of the stereotypical scatterbrained wife, the character had thrived in vaudeville and was still common in mainstream comedy programming well past the middle of the 20th century.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri on 15 January 1899, Good­ man Ace's writing talents led him to the Kansas City journal­ Post after a stint at haberdashery and other odd jobs. Jane Epstein, also from Kansas City, was born to a local clothing merchant on 12 June 1905. By the time they married in 1922, Ace was regularly exercising his wit in his weekly column of drama and movie reviews for the journal-Post. For instance, while reviewing a play billed as a scenic extravaganza, he offered the comment that the "sets were beautiful-both of them." Since 1922 the paper had sent news to local station KMBC via live feed from a cramped studio off the newsroom. By the late 1920s Ace's growing interest in radio caused him to approach KMBC's station manager Arthur Church with the proposal for a 15-minute program entitled The Movie Man. Church granted Ace the show at the rate of $10 a week, money that supplemented his income from the Journal-Post. As a critic in the newspaper and on the air, Ace met many of the vaudevillians and celebrities who performed in Kansas City. He counted George Burns, Gracie Allen, Groucho Marx, Fred Allen, and Jack Benny among his friends, and even contributed jokes to some of Benny's early radio shows.

     Ultimately, however, it was chance, not personal acquaintance, that led to the birth of The Easy Aces and Ace's initial success on radio. One Friday in late 1930 his broadcast ended, but the following program (which was to feature Heywood Broun) failed to come through on the network feed. A technician signaled Ace to ad-lib. Jane happened to have been watching from the lobby, so Ace motioned her in, introduced her as his roommate, and the couple bantered fluidly for 15 minutes. They spoke of a local man recently murdered while playing a game of bridge, and during a break Ace instructed Jane as follows: "You be dumb; I'll explain the finer points of bridge, and why murder is sometimes justified." Once on the air she fell effortlessly into character, asking "Would you care to shoot a game of bridge, dear?" and later wondering why "Whenever I lose, you're always my partner."

     The audience responded favorably to the broadcast, prompting a local drugstore chain to offer the Aces an initial 13-week contract for two weekly shows. After this contract expired, the advertising firm Blackett-Sample-Humert (BSH) shopped the show around, quickly selling it to the advertisers for Lavoris mouthwash. During this period, the program was broadcast on CBS from Chicago, where Ace negotiated a weekly salary of $ 500. Foreshadowing future clashes with sponsors, Ace made light of a Lavoris executive's contention that the program had aired five minutes late one evening. The sponsor responded by canceling the show. The Aces then moved to New York, where Frank Hummert of BSH secured the sponsorship that allowed the show to continue.

     The initial improvised broadcast established many of the enduring characteristics of The Easy Aces. While the bridge game was eventually abandoned, plots remained fairly uncomplicated. Largely character-driven, typical shows featured Jane visiting a psychiatrist, seeing an astrologer, or serving on a jury. She was the central character from the beginning and her relaxed delivery was the key to the program's continuing popularity. From the beginning, too, Ace's asides imbued the show with an air of sophistication and witty urbanity. The Aces' characters were clearly identified as upper-class and urban-he played a highly paid advertising executive. As Ace later phrased it, they lived "in the typical little eastern town, New York City: population eight million ... give or take one."

     Jane's misspoken words and phrases, referred to as "janeac­esims," were responsible for most of the laughs on the program. Among her weekly linguistic slips were statements that she feared "casting asparagus" on a friend's character, had "worked her head to the bone," made "insufferable friends," and had relatives "too humorous to mention." More often than not, the malapropisms seemed to make a satiric point, such as: "Congress is still in season," or "I got up at the crank of dawn." The seeming deliberateness of her linguistic twists was enhanced by her sober, deadpan delivery. Context might also lead listeners to believe that her deranged phrasing was occasionally intentional. For instance, when Ace got her brother a menial job, she asked him if he would receive a "swindle chair" like the one Ace had. Sometimes the mood was darker, as in "We are all cremated equal."

     Although the show appealed to radio insiders and sustained a loyal following, it did not receive high ratings. Ace was proud of the show's low ratings and even bragged about them in the print advertisements for the show. He was disturbed, however, by sponsor Anacin's attempt to encroach on the program's autonomy. When the drug's parent company complained about a change in the music on the show, Ace fired off a letter criticizing Anacin's flimsy packaging. As he later put it, "They thought up a clever answer to that, which was 'You're fired."'

After losing its sponsorship, The Easy Aces spent two years in syndicated reruns until it was revived as mr. ace and JANE, a 30-minute format with a live audience, a full orchestra, and a larger cast. The show also had a brief run on television in the 1949-50 season, but it did not translate well to that medium. By this time Goodman Ace had started writing for Danny Kaye's television program. In later years he would continue working in television, most notably for Perry Como and Milton Berle. Jane Ace's activities in broadcasting tapered off, and after a stint as Jane Ace, Disc jockey in 1952, she became largely inactive in the field. Jane Ace died in New York on 11 November 1974. Goodman died on 18 March 1982.