Still they came by the thousand, most without ever considering the odds they were bucking. The Original Amateur Hour was getting 10,000 applications a week: the producers could only hear 500 to 700 am...
Sinatra’s final radio days were filled with minor quarter-hours and one full-length series in which he was relegated to the role of a disc jockey. By 1950 people were writing his professional obituary...
Sanborn customers threatened to boycott the product. The Chicago Tribune pronounced the show vomitous, and of course congressmen hemmed and hawed. The result, according to Time, was that a thoroughly...
Mr. District Attorney was for many years the nation’s best-liked crime show. It was inspired by the exploits of Thomas E. Dewey, New York’s racket-busting DA of the late ‘30s, whose front-page war aga...
Just Plain Bill was one of the biggest (and first) successes of daytime radio, enjoying a run of more than two decades. It exploited a favored theme of producers Frank and Anne Hummert: life in a smal...
Jim Jordan as Fibber McGee of 79 Wistful Vista, teller of tall tales, incurable windbag. Marian Jordan as Molly McGee, his long-suffering wife. Marian Jordan as Teeny, the little girl who dropped in f...
It should be admitted at the outset: even today, I Love a Mystery weaves a spell over its fans that is all but inexplicable to an outsider. It is simply the most-sought of all radio shows, the one mos...
In this scenario, Jethro Dumont was made a lama because of his amazing powers of concentration. He chose the color green because it was one of the six sacred colors of Tibet, symbolizing justice. His...
Hollywood Hotel was the first major network show to broadcast from the West Coast. The film capital was rich in nationally known talent untapped by radio. It had remained untapped because of a telepho...
His Plot to Overthrow Christmas was pure delight: first heard Dec. 25, 1938, on Words Without Music, it told of a scheme by the demons of Hell to assassinate Santa Claus. Did you hear about the plot t...
Hilliard Marks, Mary’s brother and longtime Benny producer, then got his script and began lining up supporting talent, which might include Mel Blanc, Frank Nelson, Artie Auerbach, Veola Vonn, Sheldon...
Gracie Allen wasn’t as dumb as she seemed on the air. She proved that in 1939, appearing on the intellectual quiz show Information, Please, and holding her own with the experts. It takes a keen intell...
From the beginning, hostilities between Colman and Oboler created an atmosphere of anger, which finally became untenable. The press knew little of this: even a Radio Life reporter, who attended a rehe...
From that moment, The Amateur Hour belonged to Bowes. He was launched, a national figure overnight, and the flood of humanity began. It was a tide to rival the great migration of workers from Oklahoma...
Flash Gordon, though made famous in comics and in the film serials of Larry (Buster) Crabbe, had a limited run on radio. The weekly Hearst serial ended after 26 weeks with Flash and his companions cra...
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was heard often on radio beginning soon after her husband’s inauguration in 1932. To stem inevitable criticism, all fees from her commercial broadcasts were donated to cha...
Far more important was the arrival of Phil Harris on the first show of the new year, Oct. 4, 1936. Harris was the fourth cog in the Benny formula, a swaggering blowhard whose demeanor might have been,...
FORT LARAMIE, western drama. BROADCAST HISTORY: Jan. 22–Oct. 28, 1956, CBS. 30m, Sundays at 5:30. CAST: Raymond Burr as Lee Quince, captain of cavalry at Fort Laramie, on the Wyoming frontier. Vic Per...
Eyes Aloft was the result of an appeal by the Army to help bolster the Aircraft Warning System on the West Coast, where fear of a Japanese attack was widespread in the months following Pearl Harbor. B...
Each star was given carte blanche approval over his or her segment or appearance. It might have worked if actors weren’t all children, Carroll wrote. But each week they’d all phone each other and ask,...