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...
Wilson, whose strange past is darkly troubled (Radio Life), and Ray Brandon, a bitter ex-con on parole. By the early 1950s, the Bauer family had become the serial’s center: Bill and Bertha (Bert), the...
When President Roosevelt suggested to Archibald MacLeish that radio be prodded to help celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, Corwin was given the job. It was an enormous undertaking,...
Today’s Children, The Woman in White, and The Guiding Light crossed over and interchanged in respective storylines.) June 2, 1947–June 29, 1956, CBS. 15m weekdays at 1:45. Procter & Gamble’s Duz Deter...
Titled by year, Good News of 1939, 1940 became Maxwell House Coffee Time to begin the 1940–41 season, though the Good News title was still used for a few broadcasts. Maxwell House Coffee. CAST: Hosts:...
This was not an isolated incident. Crosby in private was easygoing but distant. He was easy to write for, seldom fussing or making major changes in the script. But if he got his back up, there was lit...
Then there was a major disruption with Errol Flynn, who arrived at rehearsal in the midst of a heated argument with his wife Lili Damita. The couple kept bickering through the reading until Woodruff e...
The show was one of radio’s most consistent until 1950, when Harold Peary announced that he was quitting his starring role. Rumor had it that Peary had held out for more money. His series was still ca...
The parallels to The Lone Ranger continued. The Green Hornet would ride in a sleek modern automobile, the ’30s equivalent of the great horse Silver. Like the Ranger, the Hornet would fight for the law...
The last pathetic voice was that of a shortwave operator, breaking through from some outpost. 2X2L calling CQ, New York … isn’t there anyone on the air? … isn’t there anyone on the air?… isn’t there a...
The idea behind Information, Please was almost incidental to its long-running success. What made it an immortal piece of radio was the mix of personalities who fit the idea so perfectly. The quiz, in...
The Benny of the air was a fraud, a myth, a creation. It should have surprised no one to learn—after years of toupee jokes that played so well into the vanity theme—that Benny never wore one. He overt...
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...
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.
She seemed to take herself less seriously than did Parsons, though she was considered more accurate and more willing to personally check out her tips. On the radio, Miss Hopper cheerfully admits her e...
Ruthledge himself was the guiding light, the good Samaritan. He had a daughter, Mary, who grew up without a mother. Helping him raise the child was a kindly housekeeper, Ellen. Then there was Ned Hold...
Questions of violence will continue forever: the same charges aimed at radio in the ’30s are here for television to answer in the ’90s. The difference, then, was the certainty that right would prevail...
On Dec. 9, 1953, Lewis gave in to the inevitable urge to link them by offering The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln on Crime Classics and the play that Lincoln was watching at Ford’s Theater, Our Amer...
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...
Marian also gave life to a fully realized Teeny, the little girl who lived across the road with her aunt. Teeny would drop in from time to time to pester Luke and ask for goods that weren’t in stock....