When 
bandleader
 Rudy Vallée offered the still-teenaged Canova a guest 
spot on his radio show in 1931,
 The 
Fleischmann Hour, the door opened to a career that spanned more than 
five decades. The popularity of the Canova family led to numerous performances 
on radio in the 1930s, and they made their Broadway theater debut in the 
revue
 Calling All Stars. An 
offer from
 Warner Bros. led to several bit parts before she signed 
with
 Republic Pictures. 
She recorded for the
 RCA Victorlabel and appeared 
in more than two dozen
 Hollywood films, playing leading roles as well as 
supporting parts, including
 Scatterbrain (1940),
 Joan of Ozark (1942), and
 Lay That Rifle Down (1955).
In 
1943, she began her own radio program,
 The Judy Canova Show, that ran for 
twelve years—first on
 CBS and then on NBC. Playing herself as a 
love-starved Ozark bumpkin dividing her time between home and Southern 
California, Canova was accompanied by a cast that included voicemaster
 Mel Blanc as Pedro (using the accented voice he later 
gave the cartoon character 
Speedy Gonzales) and 
Sylvester (using the voice that later became associated with the
 Looney Tunes 
character); Ruth Perrott as Aunt Aggie;
 Ruby Dandridge as Geranium;
 Joseph Kearns as Benchley Botsford; and Sharon Douglas as 
Brenda.
 Gale Gordon, 
Sheldon Leonard,
 Gerald Mohr, and
 Hans Conried also appeared sporadically