Bob and Ray

Start with: the "Slow Talkers of America" sketch Radio's driest double act and the quiet ancestor of every deadpan parody on this list. Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding were Boston announcers who filled rained-out Red Sox airtime with improvised banter until WHDH gave them a weekday show in 1946, and they kept going for five decades. They played mock interviews and broadcasts as though they were entirely serious. In the Slow Talkers sketch, Elliott's spokesman leaves such long gaps between words that Goulding's interviewer slowly comes apart, which makes it a perfect lesson in how much comedy a pause can carry. Elliott's hapless reporter Wally Ballou is the next stop.