Rank-sounding names?

[sagehen]

 There was a long-running radio show that was very popular back in the '30s
& '40s called, I think, "The Major Bowes  Amateur Hour." I suppose that was
Bowes' given name. I never got to hear more than the tiniest snippets of it
since it was much disparaged by my parents (don't know why; what did they
know about it, since we never had it on?!)  I imagine it was a sort of
forebear of the Ed Sullivan show (another bit of our culture I never got
acquainted with, since we didn't have tv until the late '80s), which in its
turn has -- again I suppose -- morphed into the American (&Canadian) Idol
(which, again,  I don't know much about, having never seen more than the
occasional trailer).
AM

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