The Announcer’s Test – Can You Do It Successfully?



Announcer’s tests originated in the early days of radio broadcasting, circa 1920. The tests involve retention, memory, repetition, enunciation, diction, and using every letter in the alphabet a variety of times. An excerpt of one early test, forwarded from Phillips Carlin, who was known for co-announcing the 1926, 1927, and 1928 World Series with Graham McNamee, is:

Penelope Cholmondely raised her azure eyes from the crabbed scenario. She meandered among the congeries of her memoirs. There was the Kinetic Algernon, a choleric artificer of icons and triptychs, who wanted to write a trilogy. For years she had stifled her risibilities with dour moods. His asthma caused him to sough like the zephyrs among the tamarack.

In approximately 1930, CBS Radio established a school for announcers. The school was headed by Frank Vizetelly, who trained announcers to develop voices that were “clear, clean-cut, pleasant, and carry with them the additional charm of personal magnetism.” At about the same time, NBC Radio published standard pronunciation guidelines for its sponsors. According to announcer André Baruch, NBC used to test potential announcers using copy filled with tongue-twisters and foreign names, such as: “The seething sea ceased to see, then thus sufficeth thus.” Another test for an announcer candidate might be to “describe the studio in which you are seated so that a listener can readily visualize it.”

One hen, two ducks

One of the better known tests originated at Radio Central New York in the early 1940s as a cold reading test given to prospective radio talent to demonstrate their speaking ability. Del Moore, a long time friend of Jerry Lewis’, took this test at Radio Central New York in 1941, and passed it on to him. Jerry has performed this test on radio, television and stage for many years, and it has become a favorite tongue-twister (and memory challenge) for his fans around the world.

One hen

Two ducks

Three squawking geese

Four Limerick oysters

Five corpulent porpoises

Six pairs of Don Alverzo’s tweezers

Seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array

Eight brass monkeys from the ancient, sacred crypts of Egypt

Nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic old men on roller skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth

Ten lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the deep who haul stall around the corner of the quo of the quay of the quivery, all at the same time.

Above: Westbrook Van Voorhis, LIFE magazine, January 1947



(Source: Wikipedia)