The troupe was founded in January 1969 by Michael Mislove, who was performing regularly with Saluga and Memmoli at The Bitter End Cafe on
Bleecker Street in
Greenwich Village, and Budd & Silver Friedman's Improvisation Cafe (later known as
The Improv). Mislove also invited Deutsch, who was appearing at The Upstairs at the Downstairs Cabaret at the
Plaza Hotel, and Willard, who was performing in
Jules Feiffer's black comedy play
Little Murders, directed by and co-starring
Alan Arkin, at the
Circle in the Square Theatre's Bleecker Street location. The name Ace Trucking Company was chosen because one of their regular characters, played by George Memmoli, worked for a fictional Ace Trucking Company. Before they even had named the group, Ace Trucking Company was recruited to perform on
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, on which they appeared dozens of times between 1969 and 1975. The album consists of 12 tracks, two of which,
Paqua Velva and
The Electric Chair, were existing set pieces. The other 10 tracks were fully improvised in a single 5-hour session in the recording studio, running from 11:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. the next morning. They also performed on
The Ed Sullivan Show, Ace Trucking Company also created a syndicated radio show,
The News Cavalcade of the Airwaves, which was a 2.5 minute daily segment spoofing the news. 65 episodes of the 2.5-minute show were created, produced by the
Dick Orkin team, and distributed by the Chicago Radio Syndicate. Ace Trucking Company also appeared in motion pictures including
Dynamite Chicken,
The Harrad Experiment,
Harrad Summer, and
Cracking Up. == Raymond J. Johnson Jr. ==