On his website, comedy writer Mark Rothman discussed the history of comic "telephone" monologists, who dated the routine as far back as the 1920s, George Jessel who was doing phone conversations with his mother in vaudeville, with the opening line "Hello Mama? This is Georgie." In the 30s and 40s there was this radio comedienne named Arlene Harris, often referred to as Arlene "Chatterbox" Harris, who did telephone monologues to one of her "friends." In the 50s, a great comedienne, Betty Walker, made about a zillion appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show", doing essentially the same kind of act as Arlene Harris. All of this pre-dated Shelley Berman. Even Mike Nichols and Elaine May, who were contemporaries of Berman's at Second City, engaged in telephone dialogues, with very similar styled material.