Costello's Own Copy: The Earliest Surviving "Who's On First?" Radio Script From the Kate Smith Show

In February 1938, Abbott and Costello joined the cast of The Kate Smith Hour, and "Who's On First?" was first performed for a national radio audience on March 24 of that year. What followed became one of the most celebrated comedy routines in American history. Kate Smith's producer Ted Collins had initially refused to let them perform it, fearing it would "get them hissed off the air," and only relented when the duo claimed to have run out of material for that week's show. That gamble paid off and cemented Abbott and Costello as national stars. An early recording of the routine from October 6, 1938 was later placed in the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry, but no copy of the original March broadcast is known to survive. This script comes from that same formative window, when the routine was still being shaped into the version the world would come to know.

What sets this piece apart is its connection to Costello himself. The consignor notes that Costello's name is handwritten into the top right corner, suggesting this was his own personal copy of the script. By their own (likely exaggerated) accounts, Abbott and Costello performed "Who's On First?" thousands of times over their careers, refining it slightly with each performance, though the core structure never changed. The routine was later inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1956, and Time magazine named it the Best Comedy Sketch of the 20th Century in 1999. Surviving radio scripts from this earliest era of the routine's development are exceptionally rare, and one bearing Costello's own handwriting connects directly to the man who turned "Who's On First?" into a piece of permanent American culture.