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Link	Quote	Stars	Tags	Author
e590f07	According to Bob Hope, who worked the show in 1932, he also had a bad habit of stealing his guests' material. Hope was required to submit his routines in advance, and arrived for the broadcast to find his material reworked and the best gags given to the major.			John Dunning
d0a9cca	KING'S ROW, soap opera, based on the novel by Henry Bellamann. BROADCAST HISTORY: Feb. 26-Oct. 12, 1951, CBS. 15m, weekdays. Oct. 15, 1951-Feb. 29, 1952, NBC. 15m, weekdays at 11:30 A.M. Colgate. CAST: Francis DeSales as Parris Mitchell, chief of psychiatry at State Hospital. Charlotte Manson as Randy Monahan, the young widowed realtor. Susan Douglas as Elise Sandow, Mitchell's frail new wife. Charlotte Holland later as Elise. Chuck Webster..			John Dunning
478bbe6	The March of Time) CBS chief William S. Paley and Time publisher Henry R. Luce were conspicuously present. Few in the assembled party liked the show, but plans continued for its premiere, which took place on a partial CBS hookup a month later. Luce remained uneasy over the show's bellicose nature: it sounded like a midway event, with barkers and hustlers hawking the news. It seemed to fly in the face of journalistic integrity, causing many ..			John Dunning
5cb590d	From that moment, The Amateur Hour belonged to Bowes. He was launched, a national figure overnight, and the flood of humanity began. It was a tide to rival the great migration of workers from Oklahoma to California in the Dust Bowl years. Bowes promised them nothing, and still they came.			John Dunning
53ed937	And like any good newspaper, the show had severe critics. It was damned left and right. Real newsmen condemned it for hamming up the news. Communists called it fascistic. William Randolph Hearst labeled it Communist propaganda and forbade mention of it in the pages of his newspapers. It was banned in Germany. It even ran afoul of Roosevelt, who asked and later demanded that it stop impersonating him, because the actors were so good they wer..			John Dunning
58f0134	But DeMille's tenure came to an abrupt end in January 1945, in a political dispute with the American Federation of Radio Artists, the actors' union. At issue was Proposition 12, a ballot proposal popularly known as the "right to work" law. This would allow anyone to work in radio without union membership. AFRA decided to build a war chest to fight it, levying a one-dollar fee against each union member for this purpose. DeMille refused to pa..			John Dunning
244a3df	JOHNNY FLETCHER, comedy-detective drama. BROADCAST HISTORY: May 30-Nov. 27, 1948, ABC. 30m, Sundays at 7:30 until mid-Sept., then Saturdays at 8. CAST: Bill Goodwin as Johnny Fletcher, the opposite of most detective heroes--a clumsy, inept drunk, who played his role for laughs. Sheldon Leonard as his pal Sam.			John Dunning
d4593ee	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 despite her youth.			John Dunning
14e6665	John's Other Wife was such a perfect title for a soap opera that it was lampooned by Fred Allen (as Duncan's Other Fife, etc.) and other comics for years. The main point of contention was the romantic triangle--store owner John Perry, his wife Elizabeth, and John's secretary, Annette, who became fixed in Elizabeth's mind as "John's other wife." While Elizabeth wrung her hands and fretted, John was trying to survive the furious competition f..			John Dunning
045893d	Unlike her fictitious counterpart, Payne had a college education and finally a master's degree: at $50,000 a year, she earned more than any other actress in the soaps. Because of her youth, her identity was kept secret; later she made personal appearances in a wig, "frumpy" clothes, and spectacles, though Time revealed that the getup made her feel "like an impostor."			John Dunning
3898c5a	MAGIC ISLAND, fantasy juvenile serial. BROADCAST HISTORY: 1936, transcribed syndication, 15m continuation: the fictionalized search by Mrs. Patricia Gregory for her young daughter Joan, shipwrecked in the South Seas and missing for 14 years. CAST: Rosa Barcelo as Joan Gregory. Sally Creighton as Mrs. Patricia Gregory. Tommy Carr as Jerry Hall. Will H. Reynolds as Capt. Tex Bradford. AUTHOR-PRODUCER-ANNOUNCER: Perry Crandall. This serial sur..			John Dunning
d104c5d	Many of her sponsors were rich foods, which she loved--and she had the ample frame to prove it. Often she could be heard enjoying a pudding or a frosted cake on the air. Her network career ended in 1954. Her longtime friend and partner, Stella Karn, had died, and McBride moved upstate, to Kingston, and retired from the national radio scene. But she was still dabbling in 1976, the year of her death, doing a three-a-week local talkshow on WGH..			John Dunning
ee15614	The Martin and Lewis Show was developed by NBC in the wake of the stinging CBS talent raids that lured Jack Benny and others to the younger network. NBC announced a talent hunt: the network was searching for rising young performers for radio and television. Soon thereafter a network executive caught the nightclub act of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, who had been performing together for several years and had developed some name recognition wi..			John Dunning
1b1718c	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 pain. But this left him mostly paralyzed, a condition he struggled for years to overcome. For the opening of his Mutual series, he had to be carried in and propped up at a microphone.			John Dunning
68a027e	Welles wanted a spook show, deciding against better judgments to dust off the 40-year-old H. G. Wells fantasy The War of the Worlds and air it Oct. 30. The dissenting voices were afraid that the story would be hopelessly dated, and dull on the air. But Koch had his assignment, and the date was six days away. Welles laid out some general guidelines: he wanted the story told in a series of news bulletins, with cutaways to first-person narrati..			John Dunning
11d2c7c	The Man Behind the Gun was a major series, highly respected within the industry and by the modest but enthusiastic audience that heard it. It was a three-time winner of Billboard's "top documentary program" citation and in 1943 won a Peabody Award as radio's outstanding dramatic program. It was "dedicated to the fighting men of the United States and the United Nations," presented "for the purpose of telling you how your boys and their comra..			John Dunning
21eabdb	They were sometimes closer to truth than the government wanted radio to be. Anticipating an invasion of Sicily, Robson sent writer Allan Sloane to Massachusetts, where engineers were being trained in the art of beachhead landings. "I knew they were gonna go in someplace," he said, "and there had to be beachfront landings. So we knew ahead of time all the techniques that were being taught, and we just dramatized a textbook landing." The news..			John Dunning
58f557f	McGARRY AND HIS MOUSE, comedy detective drama. BROADCAST HISTORY: June 26-Sept. 25, 1946, NBC. 30m, Wednesdays at 9. Summer substitute for Eddie Cantor. Jan. 6-March 31, 1947, Mutual. 30m, Mondays at 8. General Foods. CAST: Wendell Corey (1946) as Detective Dan McGarry, a stumblebum hero, whose friend and companion, Kitty Archer, was known as "the Mouse." Roger Pryor and Ted de Corsia also as McGarry. Peggy Conklin as Kitty Archer. Shirley ..			John Dunning
34ae4be	The show was not generous with acting credits: the unmistakable voice of Frank Lovejoy can sometimes be heard among the East Coast actors who worked the series			John Dunning
94d7586	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 anyone ...? At about this time, Davidson Taylor was called away from the studio. The telephone began ringing. When Taylor returned, Houseman recalled, his face was ashen. The panic had begun in New Jersey and spread north and west. Men sta..			John Dunning
1134afa	Inside Studio One at CBS, the drama rolled to its conclusion. Taylor had heard frightening reports of affiliate reactions to the show. Casualties were mounting across the nation, he had been told: there were deaths by suicide and mob tramplings, with more coming in every minute. He returned to the booth with orders to interrupt immediately and announce that the play was fiction. But Welles had reached the 40-minute break; Dan Seymour steppe..			John Dunning
3c089f9	The most frightening part of the evening, for Houseman and Welles, was just beginning. Even as the closing Tchaikovsky theme flooded the studio, police swarmed in, confiscating scripts and segregating the players. They were kept for a time in a back office, then were thrown to the press. The questions were hard and terrifying. How many deaths had they heard of? ... implying, as Houseman later told it, "that they knew of thousands." Had they..			John Dunning
c08c19c	For the record, Welles was contrite. Forty years later--removed from the threat of mob assault--he confessed only to amusement, and amazement that people could be so gullible. For three full days the fate of The Mercury Theater on the Air hung in the balance. No one at CBS could decide, as Houseman told it, whether they were heroes or scoundrels. Dorothy Thompson seemed to speak for the majority: after pronouncing the broadcast unbelievable..			John Dunning
3e9adf5	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 its publication in 1926. Other titles were Hunger Fighters, Why Keep Them Alive?, The Fight for Life, and Men Against Death. Though the latter book gave the series its name, the WPA writers selected liberally from all of De Kruif's books, whic..			John Dunning
49e66bd	The original Martha Deane idea was soon changed: one day early in the series, McBride simply admitted that she was no grandmother, predicted that she'd be fired for saying it, and told her listeners that if she wasn't back the next day, they'd know the reason why. This began her open chatter. From then on she just talked about anything that came into her mind. "It was about the oddest kind of chatter heard on the air,"			John Dunning
4678275	There was an uneasiness in doing the Blitzstein play, which had deep anti-capitalist themes. It gave a vivid picture of an industrial tyrant, boss of the fictional "Steeltown," and the fight of Labor against his tyranny. The WPA was already under fire for staging what some people thought were too many labor plays, and there were rumblings in Washington that its funds might be cut. The shoe fell less than three weeks before the June 16, 1937..			John Dunning
9b43793	Bowes watched from a desk in the studio. Edwards was given a script and told by a secretary, "These are the questions the major will ask and the answers you are to give." He would have to know his lines perfectly, she said, or he couldn't be on the program. Then another Bowes associate, Bessie Mack, gave him a legal release to sign. Bowes was taking a one-year option on Edwards's services. Edwards, on the other hand, could not refer to Bowe..			John Dunning
c2d640e	He was born May 30, 1908, in San Francisco. He began collecting dialects and characterizations in his youth, first mastering a thick Yiddish borrowed from an old Jewish couple who ran a grocery store in his neighborhood. He added the sounds of Chinatown (in Portland, where his family had moved) to what was quickly becoming an act. By the time he finished high school, Blanc was an actor, doing occasional skits on local radio with his brother..			John Dunning
97345fc	William Gargan played the lead on both radio and TV, until the TV shows became (as he alleged in his autobiography) "a vehicle for the flesh parade." The actresses were "pretty and emptyheaded," hired more for "cleavage" than acting ability. He threw down the gauntlet--"get decent scripts or get another boy." He was replaced by Lloyd Nolan on both shows. But Gargan sidestepped into a sound-alike series, Barrie Craig, on radio alone, where c..			John Dunning
5e564da	The Cabbage Patch of the Alice Hegan Rice novel was taken from a real slum in Louisville, Ky. Mrs. Wiggs was described as "a friend of every neighbor; always first to forget herself and lend a helping hand." --			John Dunning
0ff873a	His first script was Hell on Ice, from the book by Edward Ellsberg.			John Dunning
120de62	Millions for Defense was one of the first big Treasury Department shows of the war. It predated Pearl Harbor by six months and sounded a warning call for hard times ahead. Fred Allen was opening-night master of ceremonies. Typical of these war shows, it had all of Hollywood and New York at its beck and call, all free talent. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour headlined the July 9 show. Bette Davis, Lily Pons, Abbott and Costello, Tyr..			John Dunning
9cf0145	Koch visited his family on Monday, his day off. Driving back through New Jersey, he picked up a road map at a gas station. In his New York apartment, he opened the map, closed his eyes, and dropped his pencil point. This was where the Martians would land, a village called Grovers Mill, surrounded by farmland. Koch liked the sound of it: it had "an authentic ring" to it, he would remember, and this play would need all the authenticity he cou..			John Dunning
c2a1730	At CBS, it was pursued by William S. Paley himself, who scheduled a demonstration of sound quality for Met chairman Otto Kahn. Paley recalled (in his memoir) that Kahn was inspired as he listened. "Just imagine," he cried, "hearing that wonderful music and we don't have to look at those ugly faces!"			John Dunning
16b0f33	MICHAEL SHAYNE, detective melodrama, based on the books by Brett Halliday.			John Dunning
09f76d3	Mr. District Attorney was for many years the nation's best-liked crime show. It was inspired by the exploits of Thomas E. Dewey, New York's racket-busting DA of the late '30s, whose front-page war against racketeers and corruption swept him into the governor's office and culminated in two serious runs for the presidency.			John Dunning
de91206	MR. AND MRS. NORTH, mystery melodrama, based on the novels by Frances and Richard Lockridge.			John Dunning
5984a9b	Mr. and Mrs. North was conceived for radio as it had begun in literature: as a light comedy. When he wrote the original stories for the New Yorker in the 1930s, Richard Lockridge made them light domestic misadventures. It wasn't until 1940, when Lockridge teamed with his wife, Frances, that the Norths met murder and steam-rolled their way into the most successful husband-and-wife crimefighting series of the day.			John Dunning
d91befb	Con games occurred most often in the spring; juvenile delinquency in the summer; husbands and wives killed each other in the fall; burglaries were most common in winter. Byron had statistics to prove this, but he went beyond dry facts. Weekly for more than ten years he donned the clothes of a working man and plunged into some of the roughest bars in town. He rubbed elbows with thieves, lackeys, and off-duty cops in his search for material. ..			John Dunning
0c32e82	The result was a show of startling realism for its day. It had the air of a front-page newspaper story. At first NBC was nervous over his predictions of major crime waves; then, when they came to pass, the network took pride in his accuracy. Both the network and the government were uneasy when Byron's DA began foiling Nazis. On the show of June 17, 1942, Byron ran a story about Nazi submarines dropping spies along the Atlantic coast. G-men ..			John Dunning
befc03b	The opening signature was vivid and long-remembered, with a thrilling theme and a gusty "Voice of the Law" giving the hero's credo: Mister District Attorney! Champion of the people! Defender of truth! Guardian of our fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! ORCHESTRA: Theme, up full. VOICE OF THE LAW (from echo chamber): ... and it shall be my duty as district attorney not only to prosecute to the limit of the law ..			John Dunning
119b67a	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), their 11-year-old son, Michael, and Meta Bauer, Bill's sister. Three decades later, the TV serial was still focused on the Bauer brothers and their careers in law and medicine. The Ruthledges and the Kranskys were fading memories, and the "guidi..			John Dunning
5915bb8	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 Holden, abandoned by his mother, who just turned up one night; being about Mary's age, he forged a friendship with the little girl that inevitably, as they grew up, turned to love. They were to marry, but just before the wedding Ned learned that hi..			John Dunning
1751bc2	It was on Sullivan's 1932 series that listeners first heard the voices of Jack Benny, Jack Pearl, Irving Berlin, Florenz Ziegfeld, and George M. Cohan. Sullivan's radio fame was enhanced by his newspaper column, "Little Old New York," in the New York Daily News. His Toast of the Town (CBS, June 20, 1948-June 6, 1971) was the biggest variety hour of early television."			John Dunning

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