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

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 ...

Arch Oboler's Plays is a radio anthology series written, produced and directed by Arch Oboler. Minus a sponsor, it ran for one year, airing Saturday evenings on NBC from March 25, 1939, to March 23, 1940, and revived five years later on Mutual for a sustaining summer run from April 5, 1945, to October 11, 1945.Lewis Titterton, an executive at NBC, originated the program's title. Titterton was described as a man who "thought the future of radio depended on the vision of the writer." With the launching of Arch Oboler's Plays, Oboler became "the first writer accorded name-in-the-title ...

The fictional Commonwealth Space Project (CSP), based in Woomera, South Australia, is working to build a space station orbiting a thousand miles above the Earth's surface: Orbiter X. Planned to be a refuelling station for further space exploration, along with laboratories and other services, the CSP has launched the various components for the space station into orbit. But before construction can begin, the first assembly ship, Orbiter 1, is seemingly attacked and loses contact with CSP Control.A second ship, Orbiter 2, piloted by Captain Bob Britton (John Carson), sent to rescue the ...

Like the television program of the same name, the show centered on Roy Rogers, one of the most popular singing-cowboy movie stars. Initially, the radio show differed in format from The Roy Rogers Show on TV, with the radio version being more oriented toward music. Toward its end, however, it moved more toward the adventure featured in the TV show. Radio historian John Dunning wrote:"[T]he early shows followed the pattern set by [Gene] Autry's Melody Ranch ... Rogers' show featured Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers in such fine Western favorites as "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," "Cool Water,"...

The Six Shooter is a United States Western old-time radio program starring James Stewart as a gunfighter. It was created by Frank Burt, who also wrote many of the episodes, and lasted only one season of 39 episodes on NBC (Sept. 20, 1953–June 24, 1954). Initially, it was broadcast on Sundays at 9:30 pm Eastern Time, through October 11. Then it was heard at 8:30 pm for three weeks. Finally, on November 8, 1953, through March 21, 1954, it was broadcast Sundays at 8 pm; beginning April 1, 1954, through the final episode, it was on Thursdays at 8:30 pm. One old-time radio directory called the ...

For over twelve years, from 1949 through 1962 (including a one year hiatus in 1954-1955), this series recounted the cases "the man with the action-packed expense account, America’s fabulous freelance insurance investigator, Johnny Dollar". Johnny was an accomplished 'padder' of his expense account. The name of the show derives from the fact that he closed each show by totaling his expense account, and signing it "End of report... Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar".

Dragnet was an American radio series, enacting the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. The show took its name from the police term "dragnet", meaning a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.Dragnet is perhaps the most famous and influential police procedural drama in media history. The series gave audience members a feel for the boredom and drudgery, as well as the danger and heroism, of police work. Dragnet earned praise for improving the public opinion of police officers.[1]Actor and producer Jack Webb's ...

The Fred Allen Show is a long-running American radio comedy program starring comedian Fred Allen and his wife Portland Hoffa. Over the course of the program's 17-year run, it was sponsored by Linit Bath Soaps, Hellmann's, Ipana, Sal Hepatica, Texaco and Tenderleaf Tea. The program ended in 1949 under the sponsorship of the Ford Motor Company. The most popular period of the program was the few years of sponsorship under The Texas Company. During this time, the program was known as Texaco Star Theatre with Fred Allen. On the December 6, 1942 episode of the program, Allen premiered...

Elliott and Goulding began as radio announcers (Elliott a disc jockey and Goulding a newscaster) in Boston with their own separate programs on station WHDH, and each would visit with the other while on the air. Their informal banter was so appealing that WHDH would call on them, as a team, to fill in when Red Sox baseball broadcasts were rained out.Elliott and Goulding (not yet known as Bob and Ray) would improvise comedy routines all afternoon, and joke around with studio musicians.Elliott and Goulding's brand of humor caught on, and WHDH gave them their own weekday show in 1946. ...

Mollé Mystery Theatre was a 30-minute anthology radio program that ran from 1943 to 1948 on NBC prior to its moving to the CBS network, where it ran till 1951 and was altered to center around a single character, Inspector Hearthstone. It finally ran from 1951 to 1954 on ABC. The show, sponsored initially by Sterling Drugs, manufacturers of Mollé Brushless Shaving Cream, began airing on Tuesday evenings during prime time.In 1948, Mollé ceased sponsoring the program, and its title became Mystery Theater.[3] It featured stories of mystery and suspense and boasted performances from ...

The Stories of Sherlock Holmes was a South African radio show series of 47 or 50 episodes, produced by Michael Silver and aired on Springbok Radio (Johannesburg, South Africa) between 1979/1980 and 1985, starring Graham Armitage as Sherlock Holmes and Kerry Jordan as Dr. Watson. The episodes were around 20-30 minutes each and broadcasted on Sunday evenings at 6pm.

The Adventures of Superman is a long-running radio serial that originally aired from 1940 to 1951 featuring the DC Comics character Superman.The serial came to radio as a syndicated show on New York City's WOR on February 12, 1940. On Mutual,it was broadcast from August 31, 1942, to February 4, 1949, as a 15-minute serial, running three or, usually, five times a week. From February 7 to June 24, 1949, it ran as a thrice-weekly half-hour show. The series shifted to ABC Saturday evenings on October 29, 1949, and then returned to afternoons twice a week on June 5, 1950, continuing on ABC until ...

Mystery House staffers would perform in each half-hour drama, while others would provide sound effects, rewrite scripts and so on. But could this really succeed as a business model? Would people buy a mystery book if they already knew the ending? An interesting question, considering how little information there is available about the firm -- or if, in fact, it even existed.Research into this query turned up an address for "Mystery House" at 70 Park Avenue in New York City, where a hotel now stands, and that the publishing firm ceased operation sometime after 1964. As for the broadcast history ...

The series originated on January 31, 1936, on WXYZ, the same local Detroit station that originated its companion shows The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon. Beginning April 12, 1938, the station supplied the series to the Mutual Broadcasting System radio network, and then to NBC Blue and its successors, the Blue Network and ABC Network, from November 16, 1939, through September 8, 1950. It returned from September 10 to December 5, 1952.It was sponsored by General Mills from January to August 1948 and by Orange Crush in its brief 1952 run. Distinguished by its use of classical music for ...

Hopalong Cassidy is a fictional cowboy hero created in 1904 by the author Clarence E. Mulford, who wrote a series of short stories and novels based on the character. Mulford portrayed the character as rude, dangerous, and rough-talking.He was shot in the leg during a gun fight which caused him to walk with a little "hop", hence the nickname.From the 1930s to the 1950s, the character became indelibly associated with actor William Boyd, who portrayed Cassidy first in a series of sixty-six films from 1935 to 1948, then in children-oriented radio and TV series, both of which lasted until...

The Five Mysteries Program is an audience participation radio series broadcast on the Mutual Broadcasting System August 10, 1947 – March 27, 1950. In 1947-48 it aired on Sundays at 2 p.m. Such mysteries were produced and syndicated (1945-48) to individual local radio stations as a "barter-trade" program to sell advertising to local merchants or trade the advertising announcements for goods, services or premiums, such as prizes awarded to listeners in radio station contests or promotions. To facilitate personalizing the shows to individual stations and insert the local ads, the producers...

The series was created by co-stars Chester Lauck (who played Columbus "Lum" Edwards) and Norris Goff (Abner Peabody). Lum always pronounced his own name as Ed'erds and was very annoyed if Abner or anyone brought up his full first name. The two characters performed as a double act, with Lum generally playing the straight man to Abner's attempts to break free from Lum's influence. As co-owners of the Jot 'em Down Store in the fictional town of Pine Ridge, Arkansas, the pair are constantly stumbling upon moneymaking ideas only to find themselves fleeced by nemesis Squire Skimp, before finally ...

The Red Skelton Show is an American television comedy/variety show that aired from 1951 to 1971. In the decade prior to hosting the show, Richard "Red" Skelton had a successful career as a radio and motion pictures star.[1] Although his television series is largely associated with CBS, where it appeared for more than sixteen years, it actually began and ended on NBC.During its run, the program received three Emmy Awards, for Skelton as best comedian and the program as best comedy show during its initial season, and an award for comedy writing in 1961. In 1959 Skelton also received a Golden ...

Frank Lovejoy starred as Randy Stone, a reporter who covered the night beat for the Chicago Star, encountering criminals, eccentrics, and troubled souls. Listeners were invited to join Stone as he "searches through the city for the strange stories waiting for him in the darkness." Most episodes leaned towards suspense, crime and thriller themes, but Night Beat also featured occasional humorous or sentimental stories. Each episode ended with Stone at his desk as he finished typing a news story based on his latest exploits, and shouting for the copy boy to deliver his story to an ...

The Beverly Hillbillies is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor backwoods family from the Ozark Mountains of Missouri who move to posh Beverly Hills, California after striking oil on their land. The show was produced by Filmways and was created by Paul Henning. It was followed by two other Henning-inspired "country cousin" series on CBS: Petticoat Junction and its spin-off Green Acres, which reversed the rags-to-riches,...