Gambling retired in 1959 and died in 1974. He left his show to his son, John A. Gambling, who had first appeared on Gambling’s 1934 Christmas Eve broadcast. John A. retired in 1990, leaving the show t...
Lincoln Highway offered the kind of dramatic stories usually reserved for prime time, and thus began a trend toward quality programming on Saturday mornings. The stories were of people scattered along...
The Hummerts perfected a soap formula that was best explained by Erik Barnouw. A series of narrative and dramatic hooks was woven into a three- or four-week main storyline. Before the main crisis was...
Kenny Baker, brought another dimension of comedy to the singer’s role, the addled young man with the voice of gold. His tenure was solid, four full seasons. He was almost, but not quite, the answer in...
That right, and you still kemo sabe. It mean ‘faithful friend.’ Reid asked about his companions. You only Ranger left, said Tonto. You lone Ranger.
You the listener into the shoes of some embattled hero. You are alone and unarmed in the green hell of the Caribbean jungle, you are being trailed by a pack of fiercely hungry dogs and a mad hunter ar...
Cloak and Dagger was lost in the summertime NBC schedule, lumped into a mystery block with several other shows of far inferior quality. It never attracted a sponsor and got almost no critical attentio...
Clara, Lu, and Em began as a skit in a sorority house at Northwestern University around 1925. Urged by their classmates to put it on radio, the three creators—Louise Starkey, Isobel Carothers, and Hel...
The 1954 syndications came packaged to a memorable signature. An opening musical sting was followed by the announcement: Bagdad! Martinique! Singapore! And all the places of the world where danger and...
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...
Ceiling Unlimited began as a series of informative dramas by Orson Welles, who had just returned from a well-publicized air trip to Latin America with film in the can for an ill-fated movie and a yen...
Each episode began and ended in trouble, wrote Erik Barnouw. Sunny stretches were in the middle. A Friday ending was expected to be especially gripping, to hold interest over the weekend. A serial was...
For NBC’s grand opening on Nov. 15, 1926, the network was able to pull in the bands of George Olsen, Vincent Lopez, Ben Bernie, B. A. Rolfe, and Fred Waring from various locations. All were then natio...
In an incredible performance, Virginia Payne played Ma Perkins without missing a show in 27 years. Payne, just 23 when the show premiered, gave a convincing portrayal of a middle-aged battleaxe despit...
Sample opening: Yes, this is the Crime Club… I’m the librarian. Silent Witness? Yes, we have that Crime Club story for you. Come right over. Then the reader (listener) would arrive, and the librarian...
Joyce Jordan progressed slowly from Girl Interne to M.D., the change becoming complete around 1942. But the theme of a woman’s difficulty in a man’s world remained. In the earliest days it was a progr...
In the fall of 1945, Valentine stepped down as police chief and became the regular Gang Busters narrator. In 1946 he left the show at the request of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who wanted him to reorganiz...
Meet Me at Parky’s was largely self-written, featuring Einstein as chief cook and bottle washer of a Greek beanery. At the end of the NBC run, Einstein underwent spinal surgery to relieve chronic back...
The Casebook of Gregory Hood was in some ways an extension of Sherlock Holmes. Basil Rathbone had left his Holmes role, but the Holmes scripters, Anthony Boucher and Denis Green, continued their colla...
CAST: Barry Fitzgerald as Judge Bernard Fitz of the Vincent County District Court. Bill Green as Sheriff McGrath, Vincent County’s own little Hitler, a frequent antagonist of the kind-hearted judge. B...
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