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...
Men Against Death followed the one-man campaign of writer Paul De Kruif against disease, hunger, and poverty. De Kruif burst on the scene with Microbe Hunters, which became a worldwide bestseller upon...
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...
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...
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...
Lassie was an unusual series in that the canine star did its own acting, with owner-trainer Rudd Weatherwax giving cues and providing on-air narration. The original Lassie (a male named Pal) took abou...
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...
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...
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...
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...
The Adventures of Gracie catapulted into the top ten. Meanwhile, Gracie’s real brother, a publicity-shy San Francisco accountant named George Allen, had to go into hiding when reporters found him and...
Contestants were selected from the studio audience. By answering an initial question, a contestant won three darts, which he threw at the Dr. Pepper dartboard. The board was ten feet high and containe...
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...
The purpose of The Doctor Fights was twofold: to honor the nation’s 180,000 doctors, 60,000 of whom were in the theaters of battle, and to acquaint the public with the new miracle drug, penicillin. Th...
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.
It was decaffeinated jazz he sent to WJZ via Western Union lines from the Hotel Pennsylvania. A distant echo of New Orleans, yet it spoke to listeners. The ’20s style was lively, rich with saxophone a...
The show always began with a burst of laughter. Eleven seconds before air time, Pittman points a finger at Bill Thompson, wrote Yoder. Thompson hands Fibber a glass of water … Fibber takes a lunge at...
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...
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...
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...
Showing 81 to 100 of 397 results