Showing results by author "Radio Shows of the Past!" in All Categories

Guiding Light (known as The Guiding Light before 1975) was an American radio and television soap opera. Guiding Light aired on CBS for 57 years between June 30, 1952, and September 18, 2009, overlapping a 19-year broadcast on radio between January 25, 1937, and June 29, 1956. With 72 years of radio and television runs, Guiding Light is the longest-running soap opera, ahead of General Hospital, and is the fifth-longest-running program in all of broadcast history; only the American country music radio program Grand Ole Opry (first broadcast in 1925), the BBC religious program ...

CBS Radio Mystery Theater (a.k.a. Radio Mystery Theater and Mystery Theater, sometimes abbreviated as CBSRMT) is a radio drama series created by Himan Brown that was broadcast on CBS Radio Network affiliates from 1974 to 1982, and later in the early 2000s was repeated by the NPR satellite feed.The format was similar to that of classic old time radio shows like The Mysterious Traveler and The Whistler, in that the episodes were introduced by host E. G. Marshall who provided pithy wisdom and commentary throughout.Unlike the hosts of those earlier programs, Marshall is fully ...

Little Orphan Annie was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and syndicated by the Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and it made its debut on August 5, 1924, in the New York Daily News.The plot followed the wide-ranging adventures of Annie, her dog Sandy and her benefactor Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks. Secondary characters include Punjab, the Asp and Mr. Am. The strip attracted adult readers with political commentary that targeted (among other things) organized labor, the New Deal and communism.Following...

Bogart began acting in Broadway shows. Debuting in film in The Dancing Town (1928), he appeared in supporting roles for more than a decade, regularly portraying gangsters. He was praised for his work as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936). Bogart also received positive reviews for his performance as gangster Hugh "Baby Face" Martin in William Wyler's Dead End (1937).His breakthrough came in High Sierra (1941), and he catapulted to stardom as the lead in John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941), considered one of the first great noir films.[4] Bogart's private detectives,...

Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centered on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television.The radio series ran from 1952 to 1961. John Dunning wrote that among radio drama enthusiasts, "Gunsmoke is routinely placed among the best shows of any kind and any time." It ran unsponsored for its first few years, with CBS funding its ...

Blackstone, the Magic Detective was a 15-minute radio series based on Elmer Cecil Stoner's comic book series Blackstone, Master Magician. The program aired Sunday afternoons at 2:45pm on the Mutual Broadcasting System from October 3, 1948, until March 26, 1950.Radio.Starring Edwin Jerome as "the world's greatest living magician," the radio series was based on real-life magician Harry Blackstone, Sr.The series was announced by Don Hancock from October 1948 through June 1949, and Alan Kent from July 1949 through to the end of the series in March, 1950. The background organ music was ...

Exploring Tomorrow is an American old-time radio series which ran on the Mutual Broadcasting System from December 4, 1957, until June 13, 1958. An advertisement described it as "the first science-fiction show of science-fictioneers, by science-fictioneers and for science-fictioneers - real science fiction for a change!"[3]Exploring Tomorrow was narrated by John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding Magazine. Campbell guided the career of many of the great science fiction writers of the era.

The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe stars Sydney Greenstreet as Rex Stout's fictional detective genius Nero Wolfe. Produced by Edwin Fadiman and directed by J. Donald Wilson, the series aired on NBC from October 20, 1950 to April 27, 1951. Don Stanley was the announcer. The episodes were written by Alfred Bester and others: 325 Wolfe's legman Archie Goodwin was played by a succession of actors including Gerald Mohr, Herb Ellis, Lawrence Dobkin, Harry Bartell, Lamont Johnson and Wally Maher.Biographer John McAleer reported that Stout enjoyed Greenstreet's portrayal. The New ...

It was a climatic end of old time radio when two of the most beloved programs ended on the same night. Although there was other programming on the radio, there was a dramatic shift away from the radio dial and towards the television screen in American homes.

The Buck Rogers comic strip had been commercially very successful, spawning novelizations and children's toys, and King Features Syndicate decided to create its own science fiction comic strip to compete with it. At first, King Features tried to purchase the rights to the John Carter of Mars stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs. However, the syndicate was unable to reach an agreement with Burroughs. King Features then turned to Alex Raymond, one of their staff artists, to create the story.One source for Flash Gordon was the Philip Wylie novel When Worlds Collide (1933). The book's themes ...

Ripley's Believe It or Not! is an American franchise founded by Robert Ripley, which deals with bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims. Originally a newspaper panel, the Believe It or Not feature proved popular and was later adapted into a wide variety of formats, including radio, television, comic books, a chain of museums, and a book series.The Ripley collection includes 20,000 photographs, 30,000 artifacts and more than 100,000 cartoon panels.With 80-plus attractions, the Orlando, Florida-based Ripley Entertainment, Inc. (a division of ...

a police-based dramatic crime anthology, ran from 1935-1957 and focused on dramatizing crimes from police files. The show also broadcast alerts, known as Gang Buster Clues, of suspects wanted by police around the country. Sadly only a limited number of episodes are known to survive. The dates, episode numbers and titles are believed to be correct based on available information, but any corrections are welcome.

Murder at Midnight is an old-time radio show featuring macabre tales of suspense, often with a supernatural twist. It was produced in New York and was syndicated beginning in 1946. The show's writers included Robert Newman, Joseph Ruscoll, Max Ehrlich, and William Norwood,[citation needed] and it was directed by Anton M. Leader. The producer was Louis G. Cowan. The host was Raymond Morgan, who delivered the lines of introduction over Charles Paul's organ theme: "Midnight, the witching hour when the night is darkest, our fears the strongest, and our strength at its lowest ebb. Midnight,...

Broadcasters had pursued a Mickey Mouse radio program for several years, but Disney rejected the idea, feeling that the cartoon characters' main appeal was visual, and that the voices might not be enough to carry a radio series. However, the opportunity to promote the Snow White film was too important to miss. The first proposed version was a talk show, with Mickey interviewing guest stars, but that idea was scrapped in September 1937. The writers focused instead on the Disney characters' affinity with folk tales and nursery rhymes. Disney performed Mickey's voice for the first three ...

The Horatio Hornblower series is based upon the novels by C. S. Forester. They were admired by many fans, including Winston Churchill and Ernest Hemmingway who is quoted as saying, "I recommend Forester to everyone literate I know."The adventures follow the rising career from a young, unpromising, and seasick midshipman who eventually becomes Admiral of The Fleet of the Britain's Royal Navy. The storyline occurs during the Napoleonic era. Although many great naval leaders inspired Hornblower, Forester was careful to place the plots far enough away from actual battles so as not to interfere ...

The characters originated in 1930s vignettes written by Richard Lockridge for the New York Sun, and he brought them back for short stories in The New Yorker. These stories were collected in Mr. and Mrs. North (1936). Lockridge increased the readership after he teamed with his wife Frances on a novel, The Norths Meet Murder (1940), launching a series of 26 novels, including Death Takes a Bow, Death on the Aisle and The Dishonest Murderer. Their long-run series continued for over two decades and came to an end in 1963 with the death of Frances Lockridge. The series was unusual in ...

One of the longest running young-adult-oriented old radio shows during the golden age of radio was the widely popular "Dick Tracy." The series aired over a period of 14 years, from 1934 - 1948, and was based on a newspaper comic strip. This juvenile police detective radio program began as a 15-minute show which was later extended to a full 30-minutes due to popular demand.The series’ central theme was crime-fighting taken to a higher level by the many mind boggling plot twists the shows writer’s came up with. What set Dick Tracy apart from other old time radio serializations was his use of...

The Adventures of Sam Spade was first heard on ABC July 12, 1946, as a Friday-night summer series. The show clicked at once, and went into a regular fall lineup on CBS September 29, 1946. From then until 1949, Sam Spade was a Sunday-night thriller for Wildroot Cream Oil, starring Howard Duff in the title role. With Duff's departure, NBC took the series, leaving it on Sunday for Wildroot and starring Stephen Dunne as Spade. This version lasted until 1951, the last year running as a Friday sustainer.

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time.At age 21, Welles was directing high-profile stage productions for the Federal Theatre Project in New York City—starting with a celebrated 1936 adaptation of Macbeth with an African-American cast, and ending with the controversial labor opera The Cradle Will Rock in 1937. He and John Houseman then founded the Mercury Theatre...

Roosevelt also made extensive use of radio. She was not the first first lady to broadcast—her predecessor, Lou Henry Hoover, had done that already. But Hoover did not have a regular radio program, whereas Roosevelt did. She first broadcast her own programs of radio commentary beginning on July 9, 1934. On that first show, she talked about the effect of movies on children, the need for a censor who could make sure movies did not glorify crime and violence, and her opinion about the recent All-Star baseball game. She also read a commercial from a mattress company, which sponsored the ...