Later in Waller's career, he had the distinction of becoming the first African-American songwriter to compose a hit Broadway musical that was seen by a mostly white audience. Broadway producer Richard Kollmar's hiring of Waller to create the 1943 musical "Early to Bed" was recalled in a 2016 essay about Waller by John McWhorter, an American academic and linguist who is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.Even as late as 1943, the idea of a black composer writing the score for a standard-issue white show was unheard of. When Broadway performer and producer Richard Kollmar began planning "Early to Bed", his original idea was for Waller to perform in it as a comic character, not to write the music. Waller was, after all, as much a comedian as a musician. Comedy rarely dates well, but almost 80 years later, his comments and timing during "Your Feet's Too Big" are as funny as anything on Comedy Central, and he nearly walks away with the movie "Stormy Weather" with just one musical scene and a bit of mugging later on, despite the competition of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Lena Horne, and the Nicholas Brothers.