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In the fall of 1950, Waterman became the new Gildersleeve. Peary, meanwhile, jumped to CBS with a new sitcom, Honest Harold. In a dual review (Gildy vs. Gildy, Sept. 29, 1950), Radio Life summed up the general reaction. Waterman was a "splendid" replacement in a tough situation "about which actors have nightmares. The Gildy chortle and other mannerisms closely associated with the role were left out, and Waterman was to build his own interpr..
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John Dunning |
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On his opener, he won over the studio audience almost to the point of receiving an ovation at the broadcast's close. Cast members rooted for him wholeheartedly, Frank Pittman gave deftness to direction, and Waterman's own intrinsic thespian integrity contributed to an initial performance that was greeted with enthusiasm." The same review panned Honest Harold as derivative, unexciting, and, in the end, "just another show." It would fail in i..
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John Dunning |
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Peary played the role in its best years, he and Waterman shared about equally in real time as Gildy at the NBC microphone. After Gildersleeve, Peary shaved his mustache, lost 50 pounds, and, in 1954, turned up as a disc jockey on KABC. He died March 30, 1985; Waterman died Feb. 1, 1995.
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John Dunning |
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Gale Gordon as Rumson Bullard, the rich, obnoxious neighbor who lived across the street from Gildersleeve. Jim Backus as Bullard, ca. 1952.
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John Dunning |
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On radio, the character's name was Michael Waring. Each show began with a telephone ringing. It was always a woman calling. Waring, whose smooth voice was laced with a hint of the British, usually addressed her as "angel," or some other endearment; inevitably he had to beg out of a date, using such excuses as "I've got to teach some gangsters that you can't get away with murder, especially since the murder they want to get away with is mine..
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John Dunning |
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BROADCAST HISTORY: 1935-36, WMCA, New York (premiere date March 31, 1935). Sept. 20-Dec. 20, 1936, NBC. 60m, Sundays at 8. Chase and Sanborn. HOST: A. L. Alexander. Goodwill Court offered legal help to the poor, long before such terms as "legal aid" became common. The subjects were simply required to come before an NBC microphone and tell their stories to the nation. Their identities were protected, and they were ever under the eye of media..
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John Dunning |
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The show had an equally brilliant success on the network, rocketing into the top ten almost immediately. But its sudden national prominence brought it under fire from the legal establishment. The New York County Lawyers' Association rose up against it, and less than three months after its national premiere, Goodwill Court was squashed. The New York Supreme Court barred judges and lawyers from appearing, Chase and Sanborn dropped it, and the..
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John Dunning |
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He could hear Will Rogers talk political humor and D. W. Griffith tell about making epic films. He could hear grand opera and Shakespeare, jazz and minstrels, poetry, adventure, and George Gershwin himself at the piano.
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John Dunning |
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After the plays, servicemen in far-flung theaters of war would be connected, via shortwave, with wives and family. The sponsor, Autolite, would be seen as a friend of the "boys" overseas. A good idea, if only it had worked."
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John Dunning |
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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 rehearsal in March, mistook a sharp Oboler dig ("What's the matter, Ronnie, is it too early in the morning to turn on your charm?") for good-natured camaraderie. It was suggested that the series was a partnership, growing out of a mutual admiration..
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John Dunning |
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Eyes Aloft was the result of an appeal by the Army to help bolster the Aircraft Warning System on the West Coast, where fear of a Japanese attack was widespread in the months following Pearl Harbor. But the initial heat of the Japanese attack had begun to subside, and reports of enemy submarine sightings off the West Coast had diminished; the numbers of volunteers had accordingly dropped. Eyes Aloft told of lonely sky-watchers in mountain o..
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John Dunning |
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The final word was her daughter's, in a frank and touching memoir, Knock Wood. Yes, there were disagreements; there were plenty of generation-gap misunderstandings. At the bottom of it was a girl who desperately needed the approval of a father who felt stripped when he had to speak as himself, with no dummy on his lap to make light of things. The book is a love story on both sides: in the end Candice Bergen has placed Charlie McCarthy in an..
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John Dunning |
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First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was heard often on radio beginning soon after her husband's inauguration in 1932. To stem inevitable criticism, all fees from her commercial broadcasts were donated to charity. Her shows were often behindscenes color pieces: on one 1937 Blue Network Pond's Cream broadcast, her topic was "White Housekeeping," a discussion of life in the White House, with recipes. Her early talks were given in a hesitant, nervous ..
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John Dunning |
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Hoover was not happy, and what little help Lord was getting from the FBI continued to diminish. As the initial G-Men ran its course, the concept was revised as Gang Busters. This series would cut a broad swath through radio crime drama with no help whatever from the FBI.
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John Dunning |
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Just down the street from Gildersleeve, in the next block, lived the widow Leila Ransom. In the second full year she became a pivotal character who on June 27, 1943, got Gildersleeve to the altar and to the last line of the wedding ceremony. The show had much of the appeal of a serial, a 30-minute sitcom whose episodes were connected--sometimes into storylines that ran for months--but were also complete in themselves. Gildersleeve's romance..
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John Dunning |
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Lillian Randolph, who had also played a maid on The Billie Burke Show and eventually took the lead on Beulah, was at her peak as Birdie, playing the role all the way. Birdie was perhaps the most endearing in radio's long parade of Negro maids, cooks, and housekeepers. She had genuine warmth, an infectious laugh, and a heart as big as the great man's midsection. She also had a feisty side, being fully capable of deflating Gildersleeve's ego...
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John Dunning |
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But the original concept died with the demise of those quarterhour vignettes in 1945. Seldom thereafter would Berg venture into the ghetto. "It's hard, darling," she told a Newsweek reporter with the advent of the television show in 1949. "Everybody now is getting to know what I look like."
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John Dunning |
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GRANBY'S GREEN ACRES, situation comedy. BROADCAST HISTORY: July 3-Aug. 21, 1950, CBS. 30m, Mondays at 9:30. CAST: Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet as John and Martha Granby, ex-bank teller and wife who moved to the country to become farmers. Louise Erickson as Janice, their daughter. Parley Baer as Eb, the hired hand. ANNOUNCER: Bob LeMond MUSIC: Opie Cates. WRITER-PRODUCER-DIRECTOR: Jay Sommers. Granby's Green Acres grew out of characters pla..
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John Dunning |
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The passengers got off the train, and listeners went with one each week. There was no binding theme beyond that: once the Grand Central element was done, it was straight drama thereafter. The stories were generally light comedies and fluffy romance. Miracle for Christmas, telling of a bitter man's return to faith, became the standard Yule show.
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John Dunning |
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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: James Stewart, 1937; Robert Taylor, early to mid-1938; Robert Young, beginning in fall 1938; various hosts, 1939-40; Dick Powell, ca. 1940. Frank Morgan, resident comic. Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks beginning Dec. 23, 1937. Hanley Stafford as Da..
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John Dunning |
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There was a certain '30s silliness to cast off: a growth spurt that seemed to come to all timeless radio comedy around 1942-44. Suddenly Gildersleeve was a polished, smooth entity, a joy to hear. Well represented in this run is Gildy's romance with Leila Ransom. The listener can hear the children grow up, be present at Marjorie's wedding, share the birth of her twins. Leroy remains the same throughout: so do the wonderful Birdie and the equ..
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John Dunning |
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THE GREEN LAMA, adventure drama, based on novels by Richard Foster.
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John Dunning |
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In this scenario, Jethro Dumont was made a lama because of his amazing powers of concentration. He chose the color green because it was one of the "six sacred colors of Tibet," symbolizing justice. His chant, opening and closing each show, was Om manipadme hum!"
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John Dunning |
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THE GUIDING LIGHT, soap opera. BROADCAST HISTORY: Jan. 25, 1937-Dec. 26, 1941, NBC. 15m, weekdays at 3:45, then at 11:45 A.M. White Naphtha Soap.
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John Dunning |
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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 Detergent. CAST: 1937 to mid-1940s: Arthur Peterson as the Rev. John Ruthledge of Five Points, the serial's first protagonist. Mercedes McCambridge as Mary Ruthledge, his daughter; Sarajane Wells later as Mary. Ed Prentiss as Ned Holden, who was aba..
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John Dunning |
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The Guiding Light is the longest-running serial in broadcast history. Still seen on CBS television, its roots go back almost 60 years, to radio's pioneering soaps. Though its original characters have been swallowed and eclipsed by time, it still has faint ties to the show that was first simulcast July 20, 1952, and in time replaced its radio counterpart with a daily one-hour TV show. Its creator, Irna Phillips, was often called "the queen o..
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John Dunning |
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The Green Hornet was one of radio's bestknown and most distinctive juvenile adventure shows. With its companion shows, The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon, it was fed to the network by its originating station, WXYZ, and was distinguished by its use of classical music for themes and bridges between dramatic acts. It was not by chance that Britt Reid, the hero, had all the earmarks of a modern-day Lone Ranger. Faithful listeners would ..
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John Dunning |
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The head man was George W. Trendle, who by 1935 had The Lone Ranger well established and was looking for a Ranger derivative. This would not be a spinoff as such, except for the fact that the character who would appear as a very young boy on The Lone Ranger would be an old man on The Green Hornet. Thus did Dan Reid, nephew of John Reid, become father to Britt Reid: the Lone Ranger was the Green Hornet's great-uncle.
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John Dunning |
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A Phillips serial (in contrast to the jerky, obvious, and corny melodramas of the Hummerts) usually contained just one main scene in each installment, peopled by only two characters. Her scenes were sparse, the settings lean, the people clear without the endless repetition of names that filled a Hummert soap. Phillips was the first serial writer to effectively blend her soaps. Her popular Today's Children was phased out of its first run in ..
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John Dunning |
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Trendle wanted to show that a political system could be riddled with corruption and that one man could successfully combat this white-collar lawlessness. He was entranced with the sound of a bee and wanted to incorporate that into the show. Osgood relates many experiments that soundmen were put through, trying to re-create the buzzing that Trendle remembered, of a bee trapped in a hotel room where he had once stayed.
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John Dunning |
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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 but operate outside it and usually be mistaken by police for one of the criminals. And there would be a faithful sidekick: as the Lone Ranger had his Tonto (brave and stoic, man of a different race, with a simple name of two syllables, endin..
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John Dunning |
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A rumor persists that Kato was Japanese until the events of Dec. 7, 1941, when abruptly he became Filipino. This seems to be false, as Kato was described as a Filipino of Japanese descent at least two years earlier. As for Britt Reid, he was seen in the early days as a playboy, a clever disguise for his true personality. He was the worry of his father's life. So concerned was old Dan Reid that his son would be a frivolous man that Britt was..
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John Dunning |
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He hunts the biggest of all game! Public enemies that even the G-men cannot reach! This 1939 signature was reportedly revamped after top G-man J. Edgar Hoover complained. For many years thereafter it was He hunts the biggest of all game! Public enemies who try to destroy our America! With his faithful valet, Kato, Britt Reid, daring young publisher, matches wits with the underworld, risking his life that criminals and racketeers within the ..
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John Dunning |
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CAST: Gertrude Berg as Bessie Glass, operator of a hotel in the Catskill Mountains. Joseph Greenwald (1935) as Barney Glass, her husband. Josef Buloff as Barney, 1953-54. WRITER: Gertrude Berg. House of Glass was quickly created by Gertrude Berg after the initial cancellation of her popular serial, The Goldbergs. She took the setting and characters from her own life: her father had run such a place in the teens, giving her experiences with ..
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John Dunning |
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Guedel had set out to be a writer but had been frustrated by rejections. He had worked for Hal Roach on some of the Laurel and Hardy and Little Rascals film shorts, and had gravitated into radio. Linkletter, born in Canada July 17, 1912, had been raised by adoptive parents after being given up by his birth family, whose name was Kelley. He kept the name of his new family, Linkletter, throughout his professional life. When the Linkletters mo..
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John Dunning |
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The "clues" became one of the most successful gimmicks in radio. At the end of each story, a national alert was aired for actual criminals wanted by the police or the FBI. The fine details of a criminal's appearance, with special attention to scars, moles, or other distinguishing marks, helped capture 110 wanted men in the first three years."
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John Dunning |
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House Party dabbled in everything. There were hunts for missing heirs; over the years the show found heirs whose estates totaled more than $1 million. There were contests, one of Linkletter's favorites being "What's in the House?," a guessing game with progressive clues and a grand prize. There were searches for colorful personalities. Who's the youngest grandmother in the audience, Linkletter would ask ... who's the youngest father? ... Wh..
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John Dunning |
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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 people were considered for TV roles, was often cruelly blunt--will he look right? Webb answered it bluntly for Radio Life: "I'll take the actor and he'll look right." One Dragnet TV show was shot with Yarborough as Romero, a preseries special, air..
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John Dunning |
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Frank had the necessary police requisites--he was dependable and courageous under fire--but he was also a perpetual worrywart. He fretted over his disputes with his wife Fay; he fussed over his pills and was always concocting some exotic recipe. Frank became such a vital part of the show that when he was wounded in a two-part story and his life hung in the balance, fans reacted with thousands of letters.
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John Dunning |
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Finally there was the lingo of the squad room. Dispatcher terminology was terse and correct, with no exposition to help a listener understand it. The faithful came to know that an APB was an all-points bulletin, and running a car through DMV meant checking with the Department of Motor Vehicles. When officers were sent on a 211, a 484, a 459, a 390, a 415, or a 311, that meant robbery, theft, burglary, a drunk, disturbing the peace, or lewd ..
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John Dunning |
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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 Police Department flew its flags at half-staff.
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John Dunning |
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Among the prominent continuing characters were Ace's boss (who had "a child for every occasion") and Jane's brother Paul (who hadn't worked in twelve years "because he's waiting for the dollar to settle down"). The theme, as always, was Manhattan Serenade. The Aces, with more than a little justification, were billed as "radio's original comedy couple." Ace was known as "Goody" to his friends. In appearance he was lanky and professorial. Jan..
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John Dunning |
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The Gumps is also notable for giving Agnes Moorehead her first radio role.
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John Dunning |
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The casting had been more difficult. Macdonnell and Meston both wanted William Conrad for the lead, but CBS objected. Conrad was known as a heavy from his movie roles (Body and Soul; Sorry, Wrong Number; The Killers). He was also a busy radio actor (Escape, Suspense, The Adventures of Sam Spade, many others) with a distinctive air presence. As Conrad told Hickman: "I think when they started casting for it, somebody said, 'Good Christ, let's..
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John Dunning |