Al Pearce was one of radio's earliest and most durable comics. He was singing and playing banjo at KFrC, San Francisco, when a writer offered hiim a character skit starrring a timid traveling salesman named elmer. Pearce was typecast, as he had once sold insurance door-to-door. He later sold real estate and, with his brother Cal, sang on the air in 1928 with the San Francisco Real Estate Glee Club.