By Virginia MacPherson; The Dispatch, (Moline, Illionis), Sat. Nov 20, 1948, Pg 9. Re-posted by Linda Stewart, 5 February 2022
HOLLYWOOD — (UP) — Having a tough time figuring out who Mama and Papa Hush are? then relax and listen to the troubles of the man who helps confuse you. He gets all the ailments your dimes help fight.
He’s Al Paschall, 31-year-old right-hand man of Ralph Edwards on Truth or Consequences and This Is Your Life, and he is, he says, a hypochondriac. “When we’re giving money to the infantile paralysis fund I go home every night feeling like I have polio,” He said. “When we help out the cancer drive I’m sure I’ve got cancer.” “We just finished up with the heart association. My ticker’s still weak. Now … we’re collecting money for the mental health drive … and …”
Paschall is one of four men who knows for sure who Mama and Papa Hush are. And it doesn’t help his peace of mind any to know a few commercial contest enterers [sic] have private detectives on his trail to find out.
“That’s only the beginning,” He says. “We have to keep moving the Hush people from place to place every week. We sneak in and out windows, hid away in out-of-town auto courts, and sometimes we even move in the Hush of the moment.”
When Clara Bow was Mrs. Hush, Paschal said, he and his engineer had her broadcast the riddle from her bedroom in the Nevada desert. “And just before show-time, Charles Farrell dropped in for dinner,” he added. “He kept talking about the contest and saying he knew who it was and we figured we were dead for sure.” “When the program started he and her ex-agent had their ears glued to the radio. Clara sauntered into the bedroom, I sneaked in a minute later, and our engineer climbed in through the back window.” “We did the riddle not three feet from ’em and when we cam out the ex-agent said: ‘I’ve got it. It’s Mary Pickford using a high voice.'”
Now Edwards is on the air with This Is Your Life and it looks like he has another sock show. He’s had two programs so far, and they wound up with everybody in the cast and everybody in the audience happily weeping buckets. That’s another Paschall chore. Cheering everybody up. “I wouldn’t,” he says, “do this for anybody in the world except Ralph.”