problems with hypertension. Life after the Alley After his own show ended, Allen became a regular attraction on NBC's The Big Show (1950–1952), hosted by Tallulah Bankhead. He appeared on 24 of the show's 57 installments, including the landmark premiere, and showed he had not lost his trademark ad-lib skill or his rapier wit. (The show's head writer, Goodman Ace, later told radio host Richard Lamparski that Allen's lucrative NBC contract was a large factor in getting him on the show, though Allen also wrote the segments on which he appeared and consulted with the respected Ace and staff on other portions of the show.) In some ways, The Big Show was an offspring of the old Allen show; his one-time Texaco Star Theater announcer, Jimmy Wallington, was one of The Big Show's announcers, and Portland Hoffa made several appearances with him as well. On the show's premiere, Allen – with a little prodding from head writer Goodman Ace – could not resist one more play on the old Allen-Benny "feud," a riotous parody of Benny's show called "The Pinch Penny Program." Television It was also on The Big Show's premiere that Allen delivered perhaps his best-remembered crack about television: "Well you know television's a new medium. And I have discovered why they call it a medium – because nothing is well done." That did not stop the Museum of Broadcast Communications from considering Allen "the intellectual conscience of television." Aside from his famous crack about not liking furniture that talked, Allen observed that television allowed "people who haven't anything to do to watch people who can't do anything." NBC insisted on Allen trying to adapt his radio show for television. He proposed bringing "Allen's Alley" to television in a visual setting similar to Our Town. NBC apparently rejected the idea out of hand. "Television is a triumph of equipment over people," Allen observed after that, "and the minds that control it are so small that you could put them in the navel of a flea and still have enough room beside them for a network vice president's heart." In 1950 NBC launched the live comedy-variety series The Colgate Comedy Hour, using rotating hosts instead of a regular master of ceremonies. Fred Allen was one of the original hosts, and appeared five times before dropping out in April 1951. The next effort, the Goodson-Todman production Judge for Yourself (subtitled The