"His reputation rests on his standing as the wit of his day, though his shows are seldom cited as the funniest in radio. His humor has paled, and today he plays to a tougher audience than he ever faced in life. This is a crowd reared on comedy that censors nothing. It has no hook, but it is harsh, impatient, and unforgiving. In some quarters he is found lacking, but others see him as a humorist in the truest sense. "Fred will last," predicted comic Steve Allen, no relation. Listening to an old Town Hall Tonight, a modern listener might wonder, where is the humor? Some of these sound as dusty as the museum pieces that he himself found them to be in later life: as dead as yesterday's newspaper. Perhaps this is the answer. When Allen went into topical humor, at the beginning of his career, he may have forfeited his only opportunity to be the Mark Twain of his century. He had flashes of undeniable brilliance. But the main body of his work deals with the day-to-day fodder of another time, and sons have seldom been amused by the embarrassments or tragedies of their fathers."