The show is said to have originated on WCAU, Philadelphia, the sponsor’s home city, in 1927. Its arrival in New York in 1931 kicked off an unusual commercial identity—a children’s song-dance-and-story...
The show had an equally brilliant success on the network, rocketing into the top ten almost immediately. But its sudden national prominence brought it under fire from the legal establishment. The New...
The result was a show of startling realism for its day. It had the air of a front-page newspaper story. At first NBC was nervous over his predictions of major crime waves; then, when they came to pass...
The plots on Counterspy were exactly what the title implies. In the beginning, this meant counterespionage against Germany’s Gestapo and Japan’s Black Dragon. The approach was slightly above the juven...
The original Martha Deane idea was soon changed: one day early in the series, McBride simply admitted that she was no grandmother, predicted that she’d be fired for saying it, and told her listeners t...
The opening signature of Frontier Gentleman defined it: Herewith, an Englishman’s account of life and death in the West. As a reporter for the London Times, he writes his colorful and unusual accounts...
The most frightening part of the evening, for Houseman and Welles, was just beginning. Even as the closing Tchaikovsky theme flooded the studio, police swarmed in, confiscating scripts and segregating...
The memorable commercials on Cresta Blanca Carnival began with a cascade of music, indicating a verbal pouring of wine. Then, in a catchy jingle out of an echo chamber, with each letter punctuated by...
The listener was absorbed by the sounds of Broadway: the car horns, police whistles, the people milling about. Up Broadway to 42nd Street, where an attendant shouted, Have your tickets ready, please!...
The fight spilled out into the press. Allen blasted the censors. They are a bit of executive fungus that forms on a desk that has been exposed to conference. Their conferences are meetings of men who...
The early days of Inner Sanctum gave a generous mix of classics and original stories. Boris Karloff was a regular, appearing in, among others, the Poe classics The Telltale Heart and The Fall of the H...
The dog was named Yukon King, the hero of the series in a real sense. Sgt. Preston had a horse, Rex, which he often rode in the summer months, but it was Yukon King who usually saved the day. He maule...
The dates often lasted till early morning. Chaperones guided the winners home, leaving them only when they went their separate ways and the sponsor’s responsibility ended. But Cupid was not denied: at...
The beginning of the end came in 1947, when ABC vice president Ed Boroff canceled the quarter-hour format. Boroff had been critical of juvenile cliffhangers for some time, and one particular Armstrong...
The Martin and Lewis Show was developed by NBC in the wake of the stinging CBS talent raids that lured Jack Benny and others to the younger network. NBC announced a talent hunt: the network was search...
The March of Time) CBS chief William S. Paley and Time publisher Henry R. Luce were conspicuously present. Few in the assembled party liked the show, but plans continued for its premiere, which took p...
The Gumps is also notable for giving Agnes Moorehead her first radio role.
The Guiding Light is the longest-running serial in broadcast history. Still seen on CBS television, its roots go back almost 60 years, to radio’s pioneering soaps. Though its original characters have...
The Green Hornet was one of radio’s bestknown and most distinctive juvenile adventure shows. With its companion shows, The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon, it was fed to the network by its orig...
The Cinnamon Bear was