158     October 19, 1955
Bill, Jayne, Henry, Kitty Carlisle

A “Salute to the 1930s” features unusual and nostalgic guests of the period.  It's unlikely that all of these guests had secrets to share.  That would have made for a long show!

Mrs Eleanor Hoff from Wilmington, Delaware: "I wore the first pair of nylon stockings"
Mrs Hoff's husband supervised research into nylon for DuPont, and in 1937 brought a pair of stockings home for her to test.  Those first test hosieries were much heavier than the ones we know today, and Mrs Hoff was unimpressed.  Nylons were first sold locally in Wilmington to gauge interest and were immediately such a success that women from other states would flock to town to get their own.  They were shown to a wider audience at the 1939 World's Fair in New York and released nationally in 1940.

Songwriters Ed Farley and Mike Riley
Farley and Riley were jazz musicians best known as co-authors of the novelty hit "The Music Goes Round and Round" (1935).  Their original recording of it was a hit, but a 1936 cover by Tommy Dorsey cemented it as a jazz standard.

Ish Kabibble 
Kabibble (real name Merwyn Bogue) was a comedian familiar to fans of the era for his exaggerated facial expressions and his signature bowl haircut.  (Picture Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber, and you’ve got the idea.)  He was also a talented cornet player who had a long association with bandleader Kay Kyser.  He derived his unusual stage name from the nonsense lyrics of one of his comedic songs.   

Monopoly creator Charles Darrow 
For decades, Parker Brothers (the original publisher) maintained the legend that Darrow alone was responsible for what became one of the most successful and famous board games of all time.  The truth was a lot more complicated.  Many games built around the general idea of property ownership were developed in the early 20th century, most of them (including Darrow’s version) owing a huge debt to something called The Landlord’s Game (1903).  That game’s developer, Lizzie Magie, developed her game as an educational tool to explain her progressive ideals about land ownership and taxation.  Today, Hasbro owns Monopoly and publishes innumerable variations.