When the popular radio crime anthology known as The Mollé Mystery Theatre premiered over NBC in the fall of 1943, the host of that series—”annotator” Geoffrey Barnes—was portrayed by an actor name ...
Happy Birthday, Burgess Meredith!(Post)Two iconic roles immediately come to mind when discussing the career of the actor born Oliver Burgess Meredith on this date in 1907. One is his deliciously over-the-top portrayal of The Penguin on ...
“Visualize ace counterspy of them all as David Harding…”(Post)On this date in 1942, the man who brought Gang Busters and Mr. District Attorney to radio consoles “added one more jewel to his Triumvirate of Tension,” according to historian Jim Harmon in The Gre ...
Happy Birthday, Tol Avery!(Post)Actors, when they’re very lucky, concentrate on their chief profession: acting. The less fortunate thesps, however, often have to have a sideline to ensure there are groceries in the pantry on a r ...
“...the happiest, merriest married couple in radio…”(Post)According to an anecdote in Leonard Maltin’s The Great American Broadcast, director-producer Himan Brown (who would later make his name frightening audiences with the successful radio program Inne ...
“I get ten a day and expenses…they call me the Lyon’s Eye.”(Post)During his stint at San Francisco’s KGO in the mid-1940s, John Randolph “Jack” Webb earned his initial radio bona fides as the star of Pat Novak for Hire, a West Coast crime drama whose adherence ...
Happy Birthday, Anne Whitfield!(Post)At the height of The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show’s popularity, radio audiences were often curious to know whether the children on the program—based on the couple’s real-life offspring, Alice Faye ...
“…the official broadcast from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation…”(Post)Author Frederick Lewis Collins’ book The FBI in Peace and War became such a huge best seller in 1943 that a radio adaptation premiered the following fall. The series was created by Louis Pelletier ...
Happy Birthday, Lawson Zerbe!(Post)In her 1968 autobiography Tune in Tomorrow: Or, How I Found the Right to Happiness with Our Gal Sunday, Stella Dallas, John’s Other Wife, and Other Sudsy Radio Serials, daytime drama doyenne Mary ...
That whistle is your signal for the anniversary…of The Whistler…(Post)On this date in 1942, radio’s best-known omniscient narrator took the first of what would be many strolls by night…and by the time that final curtain was brought down on The Whistler on September ...
”Adventures in time and space…told in future tense!”(Post)The premiere of NBC Radio’s Dimension X on this date in 1950 was inspired by the phenomenal box office success of Universal-International’s Destination Moon, produced by the legendary George Pal ...
Yours Truly, Harold Dunlap: Inner Sanctum (1948)(Post)Some time back, a PR representative was nice enough to send me a promotional copy of a DVD box set entitled Dark Crimes: a collection of fifty films and television episodes centering on the subjec ...
Review: Boston Blackie Booked on Suspicion (1945)(Post)Businessman Arthur Manleder (Lloyd Corrigan) has just acquired a rare book store from owner Wilfred Kittredge (George M. Carleton)…but his investment is in jeopardy when Kittredge takes ill, and h ...
”Stories start in many different ways…”(Post)Habitual old-time radio listeners have no difficulty identifying their favorite actors and actresses; while some radio thesps possessed the talent to disguise their voices in the roles they were a ...
Happy Birthday, Norris Goff!(Post)One-half of the comedy team that served as my introduction to old-time radio was born one hundred and ten years ago on this date. With his lifelong partner Chester Lauck, Norris “Tuffy” Goff comp ...
“This case has more angles than a six-pointed star…”(Post)As the 1944-45 season of radio’s The Fitch Bandwagon came to its conclusion, star Dick Powell made an unusual request of the sponsor, shampoo magnate F.W. Fitch. Powell asked Fitch if he could t ...