Brooks on Books: King of the Half-Hour by David Everitt

Do you know who Nat Hiken is? Maybe he's a bit of an esoteric biography subject today, but, boy, I sure wish he is better known. He created one of my favorite TV shows of all time, "Sgt. Bilko," as well as "Car 54, Where Are You?" David Everitt's fine bio doesn't give as full a picture of the man as you'd like, but it is an entertaining survey of his work. It sucked ME in and didn’t let go, but would non-fans enjoy it? Well…

About a day or two after I started it, I took the book to a doctor's appointment. When the doctor entered the exam room, he asked me what I was reading. I replied that it was a biography of Nat Hiken and paused ever so briefly to see if the name registered. When it didn't, I mentioned Bilko and Car 54, and while there was maybe a glimmer of recognition, I could see that even those titles were hazy. The doc, a gentleman older than myself, I might add, then asked, "Weren't those really old shows?"

It was kind of a sad moment. Granted, at the time I was thankful he spent his formative years studying and doing med school instead of wasting them on reruns like, uh, some people I know, but still, it's sad that those classic sitcoms are fading from the national consciousness. What chance is there for the man that created them and wrote many of their episodes?

If you can see yourself having that kind of experience--hopefully you're a healthy individual and it doesn't have to be in the doctor's office--then you would probably get something out of David Everitt's bio. The thorough accounts of the making of those two series are the highlights of the book, but take note: In a 200-some-page chronologically arranged volume, Everitt doesn't get to "You'll Never Get Rich" (an alternate Bilko title) until almost page 100. A few chapters later, it's on to "Car 54," and soon afterwards, the book is over.

The section on "Bilko," compelling as it was, left me wanting more, though we do get some fun details on what a pain in the butt Maurice Gosford (who played Doberman) was, for example, and how Hiken cast the immortal Phil Silvers in the title role. "Car 54" fans might feel even hungrier, though that series had far less episodes and thus warrants less pages. Everitt has a good understanding of what made those shows work, discussing, for example, the complex plots of "Bilko" and choosing solid examples to analyze creative aspects.

But while those two sitcoms represent the arguable peak of the writer/director/producer's career, they don't come close to representing the whole of it. Before those achievements, he wrote for Fred Allen and Milton Berle on radio, then Berle on TV, and then for Martha Raye. I never thought I'd long to see episodes of the "Martha Raye Show," but reading this book and how Hiken turned around her career and crafted a critical hit does the trick.

Everitt writes about early Hiken creation "The Grouch Club" and makes me want to scour some Old-Time Radio archives to get some episodes. The post-Bilko and "54" era is brief, owing to Hiken's untimely death, but his work on projects like the Don Knotts vehicle "The Love God?" is also well chronicled.

Hiken's career is covered well, but what of Nat Hiken the person? Well, it seems that, like so many hardworking creative types, the work did define the man in many ways, with his intense devotion to his craft and his inability to delegate causing his early death. He was well liked, though, loved by family and friends and admired. It's just a shame that Everitt couldn't unearth a few more details about what he was like. There are anecdotes sprinkled throughout that remind us of the quick wit Hiken possessed in person as well as in print. We see glimpses of how his creative drive may have sometimes hampered his home life. But a little more personal info might have enhanced the book. The bio often relies on speculation from associates to describe how Hiken felt about key events. As is, however, Everitt is successful at establishing how the writer's personality and habits affected his professional life--his longtime tendency to procrastinate, for example, which directly affected the shows he worked on.

"King of the Half-Hour" is much better as a professional than a personal biography, but Everitt has done a solid job at working with what he is. It's not like there are tons of primary sources on Nat Hiken floating around, right? The author also makes the book more than just a bio with details that may appeal to more than just, say, "Bilko" nuts. As examples, Everitt discusses the Red Scare and blacklist, the differences between East and West Coast TV production, and backstage politics at CBS in the course of writing about Hiken. Therefore the book should be of interest to anyone with an interest in the so-called Golden Age of Television, though such material is of course covered in much more depth elsewhere.

I loved this book, but if you don't have much interest in "really old shows," you might not get much out of it. But I'd urge you to grab some "Bilko" episodes and see if you don't want to find out more about the brilliant mind that helped craft them.