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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 884ab6a | A factory it was, rivaling such earlier operations as Beadle & Adams (creators of Victorianera novels by the dozens), the Stratemeyer syndicate (a powerhouse in juvenile thriller books, creators of Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, the Rover Boys, the Hardy Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, and others going strong today), and the system that enabled Alexandre Dumas to turn out more than 250 books in his lifetime. | John Dunning | ||
| b4642a8 | 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 resolved, the next one was stirred in as a subplot, which was brought up to a full boil as the old story was resolved and dropped. It was the simplest kind of radio, ripe for satire: comics Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding had little to exaggerate .. | John Dunning | ||
| dd78449 | Durham produced his plays as a freelancer; he was never part of the WMAQ staff during his show's run. "I had spent a lot of time studying Dickens," he said in a 1983 interview, a few years before he died. "I had discovered that a Dickens character made you love him or hate him almost at once, and I used that same approach, of setting the characters as quickly as possible, as sharply as possible." | John Dunning | ||
| d9c61f6 | Destination Freedom, though it never appeared on a national network, was one of the most powerful and important shows of its day. It was a striking achievement, a voice whose passion and courage overcame every budgetary shortcoming to become perhaps the strongest plea for Negro rights ever heard on American radio. Its original purpose was to dramatize and reveal little-known lives from black Americana. But even in such early shows as Railwa.. | John Dunning | ||
| 4ce7890 | Richard Durham was a black writer whose credits in radio would run a gamut from Irna Phillips serials to prestige plays for such as The CBS Radio Workshop. But in Destination Freedom Durham wrote from the heart. Anger simmers at the foundation of these shows, rising occasionally to a wail of agony and torment. On no other show was the term "Jim Crow" used as an adjective, if at all: nowhere else could be heard the actual voices of black act.. | John Dunning | ||
| 777ebac | And if the opening wasn't busy enough, there was Johnny, the Philip Morris bellhop, chanting "Callll for Philip Morraiss!" over and over." -- | John Dunning | ||
| f2382cc | 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 attention, but the recent discovery of the entire run reveals a gripping show with every story an unpredictable departure from formula. It was the story of the wartime activities of the OSS--the Office of Strategic Services--"this country's first all-o.. | John Dunning | ||
| 62b79ed | Radio's Croupier played strongly upon Webster's definition of the word--an attendant who collects and pays money at a gaming table. The host was omniscient, offering wry commentary on the movements of the characters. I am the Croupier.... I spin the wheel of life.... Madame et monsieur, place your bets! The wheel stops, the ball drops, and a long feminine sigh is heard. Thirteen black! ... and the wondrous voice of the male player: I've won.. | John Dunning | ||
| 835a727 | There were adaptations: The Happy Prince, by Oscar Wilde (Dec. 26, 1936), and The Signalman, by Charles Dickens (Jan. 23, 1937). In | John Dunning | ||
| 93e612e | Harry Tugend had abandoned radio to write films; Allen's writers were now Arnold Auerbach and Herman Wouk (later famous as the author of The Caine Mutiny and other bestselling novels). Wouk and Auerbach may have been the most rewritten team in radio, for Allen continued to do the script's final drafts. | John Dunning | ||
| ddd6884 | And the closings were also done to formula. There was always a senorita, and Cisco always collected his kiss. Said Radio Life: "For each dark-eyed conquest he has a string of pearls ('they belonged to my sainted mother') and a kiss before he rides off with Pancho into a blazing desert sunset." Up came the dreamy organ music: the senorita would breathe, "Ooooooh, Cisco!" and Cisco would answer "Ooooooh, senorita!" The action would cut to the.. | John Dunning | ||
| c2ee317 | The camaraderie of the trail was a constant. To Cisco, Pancho was "Chico," and their allegiances were first and foremost to each other. Though Cisco would often scold his partner for stupidity, no other man was allowed to denigrate his friend. Cisco was a fighter, a formidable foe with fists or guns. The fights, especially in the Jack Mather syndications, were wildly verbal, with Cisco and Pancho jabbering away even in the thick of fisticuf.. | John Dunning | ||
| 9ff5fec | The show would bring together "the elect of the entertainment world" to discuss in a heavily scripted but spontaneous-sounding hour "anything under the radio sun: poetry, music, drama, death, taxes, fur coats"--all the topics that might be expected to "come up" naturally at a social gathering of such luminaries. Colman and Grant were obviously cerebral talents; Lombard and the Marx Brothers, though popularly known as madcaps, were keenly re.. | John Dunning | ||
| 9cd604c | Each star was given carte blanche approval over his or her segment or appearance. "It might have worked if actors weren't all children," Carroll wrote. But "each week they'd all phone each other and ask, 'Are you going to be on next Sunday? Oh no? Well, then, I don't think I will either.'" Thus was the concept defeated. "They all appeared together almost all the time, and the money ran out fast, fast, fast! There was either a feast or a fam.. | John Dunning | ||
| 833fa81 | Jackson Beck as the Cisco Kid, "O. Henry's beloved badman who rides the romantic trail that leads sometimes to adventure, often to danger, but always to beautiful senoritas." Louis Sorin as Pancho, his fat comedic sidekick." | John Dunning | ||
| 88d649e | This series grew out of a deep interest in psychology on the part of producer Wilson. It explored the moment when a character stood at the brink of a crime, stepped over the brink, and was brought to account. | John Dunning | ||
| d6c1993 | The appearance of Destination Moon in movie houses helped make 1950 the year of S-F on radio. Dimension X rose to the task, proving that radio and science fiction were ideally compatible. The series demonstrated (though it would take the perfection of television to prove it) that adding a picture to a story of vision, illusion, or myth does not automatically enhance things. The tube is too small, the props too artificial (no matter how inge.. | John Dunning | ||
| 390d71e | They have back-stabbed us. | Anti-Americanism | ||
| 5375188 | Joseph Kearns as the Crazy Quilt Dragon. Hanley Stafford as Snapper Snitch the Crocodile. Howard McNear as Samuel the Seal and as Slim Pickins the Cowboy. Elvia Allman as Penelope the Pelican. Elliott Lewis as Mr. Presto the Magician. Lou Merrill as Santa Claus. Frank Nelson as Captain Tin Top. Cy Kendall as Captain Taffy the Pirate and as the Indian Chief. Gale Gordon as Weary Willie the Stork and as the Ostrich. Ted Osborne as Professor W.. | John Dunning | ||
| 0389400 | An advocacy group, the Cinnamon Bear Brigade, operates in Portland, Ore., and claims 400 members nationwide. The outstanding cast was identified by Frank Nelson, with additional names supplied by SPERDVAC, the oldtime radio society of Southern California. But the actor who played the male lead, Jimmy Barton, eludes them all. Not even the most ardent Cinnamon Bear advocates have been able to supply his name. | John Dunning | ||
| 72e8897 | The Cinnamon Bear was | John Dunning | ||
| 581307c | In the initial NBC series, Greenwood played a neophyte reporter on a small newspaper, who aspired to Hollywood stardom. In the regular season, she lived in "the little town of Lake-view," where she took over the raising of the three Barton children (little Robert and teenagers Jack and Barbara) and tried to keep the Barton estate solvent. The estate consisted of a heavily mortgaged house, "a lunchroom near the high school that barely pays f.. | John Dunning | ||
| 2e51393 | Crime Classics grew out of a long-standing and deep interest of actor-director Elliott Lewis in history's great murder cases. Lewis had compiled an extensive library of true crime cases, often primary source material dating from the 17th century. He decided to re-create not only the facts of the crimes but also the times in which they had occurred. This would encompass the sounds of an Edinburgh street in the 1830s as well as the dialects, .. | John Dunning | ||
| 853b206 | Orson Welles, 21 years old and unknown, offered Shakespeare: Hamlet (Sept. 19 and Nov. 14, 1936) and Macbeth (Feb. 28, 1937). | John Dunning | ||
| 66c0a1e | Sometimes it was like a deep ache, the simple act of breathing in and out. | Jess Walter | ||
| 1c6e27f | In fact, the humor was extraordinary. The narrator, Thomas Hyland, was played absolutely deadpan by Lou Merrill. Over the sound of rainfall came his droll voice. "That's the way it sounded when it rained, because the room was just below gutter level, and the rainwater rushed by the room's only window, and many lodgers caught cold in this room. They were lucky. Many other lodgers wound up on dissecting tables. They were murdered, by Mr. Burk.. | John Dunning | ||
| 4e824c4 | 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 American Cousin, on On Stage. This was a mistake, Lewis admitted years later: Our American Cousin was dull beyond salvation, and it earned him the only rebuke he ever received from CBS chief William Paley. The next morning there was a note on his d.. | John Dunning | ||
| 7a2d914 | 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 Helen King--went to WGN, Chicago, wheedled a timeslot, and did their first broadcasts gratis. By January 1931 they had attracted enough local attention to go on NBC. For a year it was an evening series, moving to the daytime schedule for Super Su.. | John Dunning | ||
| 814971d | A banker's wife with two children, Woodman undertook the story-gathering pilgrimage and was soon writing one of the most respected dramas of early radio. One of the sponsor's employees in California, a self-styled "desert rat" named W. W. "Wash" Cahill, was lined up as her guide. Her trips into the desert became annual events, and soon she was well versed in the ways of prospectors, outlaws, and saloon girls. She spent up to two months a ye.. | John Dunning | ||
| eababf9 | another true Death Valley Days story is presented for your entertainment by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, producers of that famous family of products--20 Mule Team Borax, 20 Mule Team Borax Soap Chips, and Boraxo. Well, Old Ranger, what's your story about tonight?" Through many changes of format, it remained a hardy perennial, eventually becoming a filmed TV series with Ronald Reagan as host." | John Dunning | ||
| 6d1f3cc | But it was his speaking voice that would be famous, first on The Children's Hour, later as announcer on the Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts. The show was heavily musical, following Cross's deep interest in classical music and opera. There might be an opening hymn, sung by Audrey Egan; then a poem; then a song from one of the youngest children. "And who is standing here with her ticket ready to pay for a ride on the White Rabbit Bus?" Cross wo.. | John Dunning | ||
| f4077de | Cavalcade productions. The writing was from the best hands in the business, young playwright Arthur Miller becoming (as Barnouw remembers it) a kind of "utility man" who could be tapped for spur-of-the-moment work on the most rigid deadlines. Special projects were put together by Carl Sandburg, Stephen Vincent Benet, Maxwell Anderson, and Robert Sherwood." | John Dunning | ||
| 2423bdd | 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 collaboration on Hood. | John Dunning | ||
| 61e5f03 | Richard Gump, a real-life San Francisco importer, became the prototype for Gregory Hood, serving also as a consultant "whenever they get stuck on a bit of importing business." The artifacts found by Hood and his pal Sandy in the stories usually had intriguing histories and were invariably linked to some present-day mystery." | John Dunning | ||
| 41880e5 | Gunshots were now allowed. The campaign had been a success, and the company was now perceived, truthfully, as something other than a merchant of death. Du Pont dealt in textiles and plastics, in research of all kinds. Its commercial structure on Cavalcade was remarkable. There was no midshow commercial: instead, du Pont took a two-minute spot at the end. Delivered by Bud Collyer or Gayne Whitman, the spots were informative and, at their bes.. | John Dunning | ||
| 74fccb4 | Casey, Crime Photographer had more history than substance. It was a B-grade radio detective show, on a par perhaps with The Falcon, better than Mr. Keen, but lacking the polish and style of Sam Spade. Often a picture snapped at a crime scene led Casey to play detective. | John Dunning | ||
| fa5b482 | The result was a Roosevelt victory, closer than it looked in the electoral college, and a new set of standards for radio. Never again would such a program be allowed. A line had been crossed: radio was the most powerful communications medium yet devised, and turning over the entire broadcast facilities of the nation for a partisan cause to an artist-playwright who was constitutionally unable to write anything in less than his strongest voic.. | John Dunning | ||
| d94b1eb | The Fall of the City, the trailblazing broadcast of April 11, 1937. That a playwright with the stature of Archibald MacLeish would write it for radio assured keen attention from the press. It was an allegory in verse, dark and chilling in a time when the Nazi war machine was on the rise. The action took place in the square of a city, which managed while remaining unnamed to suggest both antiquity and a hereafter. The city seemed eternal: it.. | John Dunning | ||
| d642a3e | More than 225 of the 1930s Columbia Workshop and its 1946-47 revival are available on tape. That this was not a show for the masses is especially true today. Some of these shows, on first listening, seem to move at a glacial pace; some seem quite old and dated. The techniques they pioneered have become so routine, their high-tech counterparts bombarding people in radio commercials around the clock, that a listener seldom gives a thought to .. | John Dunning | ||
| 1773feb | The initial shows were put together from verbal requests, but soon the mail poured in. For producers Wheaton and Knight, every mailbag was an adventure. One soldier wanted only to hear actress Carole Landis sigh. Another requested that Charles Laughton instruct Donald Duck in the finer points of elocution. The bizarre fed upon itself, and engineers were sent to record the sounds of birds chirping in one soldier's Indiana hometown and, for a.. | John Dunning | ||
| ac0272c | On Feb. 5, 1945, an all-star cast spoofed America's most popular comic strip in an hour-long play, Dick Tracy in B-Flat; or, For Goodness Sake, Isn't He Ever Going to Marry Tess Trueheart? The stars were Bing Crosby as Dick Tracy; Dinah Shore as Tess Trueheart; Harry Von Zell as Old Judge Hooper; Jerry Colonna as the Chief of Police; Bob Hope as Flat Top; Frank Morgan as Vitamin Flintheart; Jimmy Durante as the Mole; Judy Garland as Snowfla.. | John Dunning | ||
| 93f2886 | The memorable commercials on Cresta Blanca Carnival began with a cascade of music, indicating a verbal pouring of wine. Then, in a catchy jingle out of an echo chamber, with each letter punctuated by a plunking violin: C-R-E-S-T-A B-L-A-N-C-A ... Cresta Blanca! | John Dunning | ||
| 0a666db | 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 to be back on radio. He leaped into two CBS series, Hello, Americans (extolling the achievements of South American countries) and Ceiling Unlimited (describing aviation's role in the war). Welles's tenure was brief: a blowup with an agency man .. | John Dunning | ||
| 2577815 | Cavalcade was a show with a dual purpose. On the surface its job was to sell America by dramatizing the positive aspects of the nation's history. But its real purpose was to stem the tide of criticism directed at its longtime sponsor, the Du Pont Company, in the years after World War I. The du Ponts had been branded "merchants of death" because of the huge profits the company had made with gunpowders in the war. The company had a long tradi.. | John Dunning |