watching the radio..................

      The only problem was that just as we were becoming stars, vaudeville was dying.  No one could pin the rap on us, though.  Everybody believes it was the movies that killed vaudeville.  That's not true.  Movies, vaudeville, burlesque, the local stock companies—all survived together.  Then radio came in.  For the first time people didn't have to leave their homes to be entertained.  The performers came into their house.  Gracie and I knew that vaudeville was finished when theaters began advertising that their shows would be halted for fifteen minutes so that the audiences could listen to "Amos 'n' Andy."  And when the "Amos 'n' Andy" program came on, the vaudeville would stop, they would bring a radio onstage, and the audience would sit there watching the radio.

     It's impossible to explain the impact that radio had on the world to anyone who didn't live through that time.  Before radio, people had to wait for the newspaper to learn what was happening in the world.  Before radio, the only way to see a performer was to see a performer.  And maybe most important, before radio there was no such thing as a commercial.

-George Burns,  Gracie:  A Love Story