Burns & Allen: As Good As Nuts

"Gracie, why should I give your mother a bushel of nuts? What'd she ever give me?"

"Why, George, she gave you me. And, I'm as good as nuts."

George Burns once declared that his wife was "smart enough to be the dumbest woman in show-business history." And, indeed, Gracie Allen leaves her verbal opponents dazed and confused, and leaves her audience in stitches. Singing and one-liner slinging George comes across as a blithe bystander who had once meandered over to befriend a befuddled-but-be...