Stop the Music is primarily remembered as the show that ended Fred Allen's radio career. Allen was enjoying the best ratings of his life in January 1948. His new character, Senator Claghorn, was a national sensation and his half-hour timeslot, Sundays at 8:30, had a powerful lead-in show, Edgar Bergen's Charlie McCarthy Show. Between the, Bergen and Allen had a ratings total of more than 54 points and looked almost invincible.

But Stop the Music worked on the same general principle as the old Pot o' Gold quiz. Listeners were called at home, given a crack at a question (in this case musical), and had a chance to win huge jackpots (average value $20,000) in prizes and savings bonds. The greed factor had producers confident before the first show was aired, despite the fact that ABC had booked it for the toughest hour on the air, opposite NBC's Bergen and Allen. It was announced in Varietyunder the banner headline 'WHO'S AFRAID OF FRED ALLEN?', and the optimism was validated immediately.

By July, Allen had been dumped out of radio's top ten: he had plunged 17 points, to 38th on the charts. Bergen wisely called it quits, taking a year's sabbatical, but for Allen there would be no comeback. He refused to move from Sundays at 8:30, and died there._{Johnn Dunning}