The advertising firm Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn was charged with creating a positive campaign, and The Cavalcade of America was its answer. In the beginning, in its CBS run, Cavalcade was a...
The Easy Aces was billed as radio’s laugh novelty, and Jane Ace was Mrs. Malaprop of the air. Jane had a twangy midwestern voice, slightly softer in natural conversation, that reminded a listener of B...
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.
Technically, however, it was far from simple: its problems were both technical and tactical, and it was a producer’s nightmare. The show would put its listeners right into the fields of battle, using...
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...
Peary was born in 1908, son of a Portuguese immigrant, and christened Harrold José de Faria. He once pinpointed his first radio job as Jan. 21, 1923, at KZM, Oakland. In the late 1920s he worked at NB...
Orson Welles, 21 years old and unknown, offered Shakespeare: Hamlet (Sept. 19 and Nov. 14, 1936) and Macbeth (Feb. 28, 1937).
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...
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...
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...
His Pete Kelly’s Blues (NBC, 1951) was also powerful, but it was as Joe Friday that he was known for the rest of his days. He died Dec. 23, 1982, a heart attack victim. Upon his death, the Los Angeles...
He was the first of the top stars of vaudeville and burlesque to also reach the top in radio. Almost a full year ahead of Al Jolson, Ed Wynn, Fred Allen, and Jack Benny, three years ahead of Bing Cros...
He was a knight of the range, a western hero who quickly became part of popular American folklore. His beliefs and personal habits were sketched as a guideline to those who wrote his adventures. The L...
HOSTS: Raymond Edward Johnson until May 22, 1945; Paul McGrath beginning Sept. 28, 1945. Also: House Jameson. CAST: Film stars known for the macabre—Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, etc.—in lead roles, ca....
Goff knew the salesman for Quaker Oats. It happened that Quaker was then sponsoring Gene and Glenn, a series going off for the summer, and the company was looking for a replacement. Lauck and Goff wer...
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...
Family Theater was created by Father Patrick Peyton of the Holy Cross Fathers in an effort to promote family unity and prayer. Initially it was seen as a forum to broadcast the Rosary: when the networ...
Escape had opened with dramatized short story classics: Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, and Joseph Conrad’s Typhoon. These tales were natural...
Double or Nothing endured because of the nimble ad-libbing of its hosts and because, over the years, the show gained a reputation for double entendres and unexpected embarrassment. By far the most sen...