An announcer's test is a test sometimes given to those wanting to be a radio or television announcer. The tests usually involve retention, memory, repetition, enunciation, diction, and using every letter in the alphabet a variety of times.
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Origins
Announcer's tests originated in the early days of radio broadcasting, circa 1920. The tests involve retention, memory, repetition, enunciation, diction, and using every letter in the alphabet a variety of times. An excerpt of one early test, forwarded from Phillips Carlin, who was known for co-announcing the 1926, 1927, and 1928 World Series with Graham McNamee, is:
In approximately 1930, CBS Radio established a school for announcers. The school was headed by Frank Vizetelly, who trained announcers to develop voices that were "clear, clean-cut, pleasant, and carry with them the additional charm of personal magnetism." At about the same time, NBC Radio published standard pronunciation guidelines for its sponsors. According to announcer André Baruch, NBC used to test potential announcers using copy filled with tongue-twisters and foreign names, such as:
Another test for an announcer candidate might be to "describe the studio in which you are seated so that a listener can readily visualize it."
One hen, two ducks
One of the better known tests originated at Radio Central New York in the early 1940s as a cold reading test given to prospective radio talent to demonstrate their speaking ability and breath control. Del Moore, a long time friend of Jerry Lewis', took this test at Radio Central New York in 1941, and passed it on to him. Jerry has performed this test on radio, television and stage for many years, and it has become a favorite tongue-twister (and memory challenge) for his fans around the world. Professional announcers would be asked to perform the entire speaking test within a single breath without sounding rushed or out of breath.
There are many variations to this version, many having been passed from one person to another by word of mouth. One variant is known as the Tibetan Memory Trick and has been performed by Danny Kaye as well as Flo & Eddie of The Turtles. Flo and Eddie incorporated the trick into Frank Zappa's performance of Billy the Mountain in his performance at Carnegie Hall with the Mothers of Invention. It was also used by Boston's WBZ disc jockey Dick Summer in the 1960s as the Nightlighter's Password.
The test has also been adopted and adapted for use as a "repeat after me" chant by various Boy Scout units and camps, with several variations in the wording, some including an eleventh line: "Eleven neutramatic synthesizing systems owned by the seriously cybernetic marketing department, shipped via relativistic space flight through the draconian sector seven." This last line may have originated as a tribute to Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books and has since been corrupted by the oral transmission of this script. The books include references to "Nutrimatic Drink Dispenser systems" owned by the "Sirius Cybernetics Corporation." In So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, one character mentions, "This hedgehog, that chimney pot, the other pair of Don Alfonso's tweezers." A variant appears in the 1997 novel Matters of Chance by Jeannette Haien.