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“Dad-rat the dad-ratted…”(Post)
On this date in 1940, one of radio’s best-remembered running gags was introduced…and it was as simple as opening up a closet door. The March 5, 1940 broadcast of The Johnson Wax Program with Fibbe ...
Happy Birthday, Howard McNear!(Post)In the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina—as seen on the popular situation comedy The Andy Griffith Show—the locus of the town’s goings-on was usually the humble barber shop run by garrulo ...
“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, Lauren Bacall!(Post)The woman born Betty Joan Perske in New York City on this date in 1924 had a burning ambition to become an actress. After all, she took lessons at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (before th ...
“Wake up, America! It’s time to stump the experts!”(Post)Radio producer Dan Golenpaul had a bone to pick with the individuals—masters of ceremonies, if you will—who hosted the popular radio quiz shows of the day. He cringed whenever these MC’s would give ...
“Look out, Jerry—he’s got a gun!”(Post)For Nick and Nora Charles, the famed imbibing couple created by Dashiell Hammett in the 1934 novel The Thin Man, sleuthing was a walk in the park; Nick was a retired gumshoe and knew a little bit ...
“Fortune: Danger!”(Post)It’s safe to say that without author Dashiell Hammett, the crime rate in Radio Land would be at risk of going on an uptick. Hammett’s legendary gumshoe Sam Spade—introduced in his novel The Maltes ...
“Somewhere along the line a murderer makes a mistake—it’s my job to find that mistake.”(Post)“Philo Vance/Needs a kick in the pance” Ogden Nash once rhymed in a memorable couplet. Nash’s editorial comment was addressing the one-time popularity of author S.S. Van Dine’s famed sleuth. Afte ...
The Robin Hood of Modern Crime(Post)His creator described him as “a buccaneer in the suits of Savile Row, amused, cool, debonair, with hell-for-leather blue eyes and a saintly smile.” That creator was author Leslie Charteris, and t ...
“What a character!”(Post)In addition to Jim and Marian Jordan’s star turns as Fibber McGee and Molly on The Johnson Wax Program in the 1930s, the couple was aided and abetted on the popular comedy show by a talented cast ...
“The secret word is anniversary…”(Post)On this date in 1947, the program that finally found a way to make good use of the one-of-a-kind comic talent of Julius “Groucho” Marx premiered: You Bet Your Life. A “quiz show” that really serv ...
Happy Birthday, Conrad Binyon!(Post)“Why are you so extra nice to me?” asked sixteen-year-old Conrad Binyon of his mother in 1947. Ma Binyon wouldn’t admit it…but she was still trembling from her son’s recent experience involving a ...
“…ace cameraman who covers the crime news of the great city…”(Post)Turner Classic Movies occasionally schedules a 1956 film noir directed by Fritz Lang entitled While the City Sleeps. In the film, a troubled young man (John Drew Barrymore) has embarked on a killi ...
Happy Birthday, Edgar Barrier!(Post)Life in motion pictures was never easy for actor Edgar Barrier. It wasn’t that the work was difficult—it’s that whenever Edgar appeared in a movie, it was even money that he wouldn’t make it to t ...
Happy Birthday, Maurice Tarplin!(Post)A 1946 issue of Radio Mirror noted that “practically everyone connected with the Boston Blackie show is a former athlete.” Radio Mirror was not publishing “fake news”: the show’s star, Richard Ko ...
Happy Birthday, Reed Hadley!(Post)The man born Reed Herring on this date in Petrolia, Texas in 1911 had one of the most instantly recognizable voices in show business. Actor Reed Hadley was the go-to man for narrating film noirs; y ...