Can You Top This? was a popular radio panel show in which comedians told jokes and tried to top one another. The unrehearsed program, sponsored at one point by Colgate-Palmolive, was created by veteran vaudevillian "Senator" Edward Hastings Ford, who claimed he was taking part in a joke session at a New York theatrical club when he conceived the idea. However, the format was quite similar to a prior joke-telling radio series, Stop Me If You've Heard This One (1939–40), which featured Ford and cartoonist Harry Hershfield as panelists. Many jokes involved ethnic humor told in dialect.