John Dunning Quotes

There was always risk in putting unknown people in front of a live microphone, and one agency man during the sponsored years confessed that I get twinges in my ulcer everytime I listen to it. But the...

There were adaptations: The Happy Prince, by Oscar Wilde (Dec. 26, 1936), and The Signalman, by Charles Dickens (Jan. 23, 1937). In

There were no singers, no musical interludes, no quizzes or money to be won. It was wall-to-wall Breneman and his ladies: crazy questions and spontaneous, witty, sometimes devilishly clever answers. W...

There were still exciting groups on the horizon: Ben Pollack, Isham Jones, Red Nichols, and Ted Is Ev-rybody Happy? Lewis provided an early training ground for many of the stars of the swing era, whic...

They were sometimes closer to truth than the government wanted radio to be. Anticipating an invasion of Sicily, Robson sent writer Allan Sloane to Massachusetts, where engineers were being trained in...

They would talk about the bridge game they had played the night before with two friends. The main topic of conversation had been a Kansas City murder in which a woman had killed her husband over a han...

This best-remembered of all police shows was produced in cooperation with police and federal law enforcement departments throughout the United States. It was billed as the only national program that b...

This much is certain. In April 1930, Radio Station WGHP in Detroit was purchased by John King and George W. Trendle, partners who had just liquidated a chain of movie theaters. They planned to make th...

Tonto belonged to the Potawatomi tribe of northern Michigan, though the origins of the term kemo sabe puzzled scholars for years. One academic made a lighthearted attempt to trace it through various I...

When plans were made to put Dragnet on television, Webb ignored the wisdom of the time and prepared to use radio people, including Yarborough, in key roles. The question of the day, whenever radio peo...

While stationed in Oklahoma with the Army, he came up with the idea that would make his fortune. He was reading the gripe column in the GI newspaper Yank. It might be interesting, he thought, to recor...

With the exception of The Bob Hope Show, Fibber McGee and Molly was the most patriotic show on the air. Whole runs of shows illustrated homefront themes. Fibber bought black market beef, which of cour...

A young American was almost hit by a piece of enemy shrapnel, then found his father’s name cut into the metal—his father, a mechanic at Boeing Aircraft, had cut his name on the engine of his 1929 auto...

According to Bob Hope, who worked the show in 1932, he also had a bad habit of stealing his guests’ material. Hope was required to submit his routines in advance, and arrived for the broadcast to find...

Adams, then in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, could only appear in the premiere program. He died in 1960; Levant in 1972; Golenpaul in 1974; Kieran in 1981. Fadiman became chairman of the Bo...

All the principals are dead now. Arthur Q. Bryan died Nov. 30, 1959. Harlow Wilcox died Sept. 24, 1960. Marian Jordan died April 7, 1961. Bill Thompson died July 15, 1971. Billy Mills died Oct. 20, 19...

Among the best shows were these, some of which have attained cult followings: The Most Dangerous Game (Oct. 1, 1947), a showcase for two actors, Paul Frees and Hans Conried, as hunted and hunter on a...

An advocacy group, the Cinnamon Bear Brigade, operates in Portland, Ore., and claims 400 members nationwide. The outstanding cast was identified by Frank Nelson, with additional names supplied by SPER...

And the closings were also done to formula. There was always a señorita, and Cisco always collected his kiss. Said Radio Life: For each dark-eyed conquest he has a string of pearls (’they belonged to...

Benny toured with her for two years, traveling through Illinois and Wisconsin under the billing Salisbury and Kubelsky: From Grand Opera to Ragtime. When Salisbury retired, Benny continued the act wit...