Wayne and Shuster were a Canadian comedy duo formed by Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster. They were active professionally from the early 1940s until the late 1980s, first as a live act, then on radio, then as part of The Army Show that entertained troops in Europe during World War II, and then on both Canadian and American television.
Wayne (born Louis Weingarten; May 28, 1918 – July 18, 1990) and Shuster (September 5, 1916 – January 13, 2002) were well known in Canada, and were Ed Sullivan's most frequently recurring guests, appearing a record 67 times on his show. Despite repeated suggestions that they should move to the United States to further their careers, the duo chose to stay in Canada.
Beginnings
Wayne and Shuster were born in the same neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and met in grade school. In 1931, while students at Harbord Collegiate Institute, they performed their first skit together for their Boy Scout troop, and, as part of the school drama club, continued to entertain fellow students. They both studied at the University of Toronto, where they wrote and performed as "Shuster and Wayne".
Radio
thumb|Performing for The Army Show on CBC Radio during World War II
In 1941, they made their radio debut on CFRB in their own show, The Javex Wife Preservers, for which they were each paid $12.50 per week to dispense household hints in a humorous fashion. The revue travelled across Canada in 1943 to entertain troops and help with the sale of Victory Bonds, and included a stop at the Quebec Conference. In addition to Shuster and Wayne, the cast included the singer Roger Doucet, Brian and Dennis Farnon, Denny Vaughan, and Lois Hooker (who later, as Lois Maxwell, starred as Miss Moneypenny in fourteen James Bond films). An advertising executive suggested that "Wayne & Shuster" sounded better than "Shuster & Wayne". Since the order of their names wasn't important to the two, they agreed to the change. their first sketch was a 14-minute re-run of the sketch they had done for CBC and British television, "Rinse the Blood Off My Toga". and co-starred in a CBS-TV sitcom, Holiday Lodge, which aired as a summer replacement for (and was produced by) Jack Benny in 1961.
In 1964, Wayne & Shuster created a series of six short documentaries for CBC Television (later presented on CBS during the 1966 summer season) about comedians such as W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers, with music scored by John Williams, titled Wayne & Shuster Take an Affectionate Look at.... They made another six episodes the following year. In 1965 The Wayne & Shuster Hour won the Silver Rose at the Rose d'Or Television Festival.
In 1962 and again in 1965, the pair went to Britain and produced Wayne & Shuster specials for the BBC.
In the 1960s, they moved from a weekly television show to monthly Wayne & Shuster comedy specials on CBC Television. By the 1970s, they were producing three to four comedy specials per year, which often drew Canadian television ratings of more than two million viewers.
Other media
In 2000, Australian music group The Avalanches created a track called "Frontier Psychiatrist", which was built on various samples of previously recorded material, most noticeably the Wayne & Shuster sketch "Frontier Psychiatrist". (Audio clips of two other Wayne and Shuster sketches were also used in creating the track, along with samples of dozens of pieces of music.) Johnny Wayne vocalizes the song's repeated refrain "that boy needs therapy"; both Wayne and Frank Shuster are the featured voices throughout verses one and two.