Columbia University student David A. Kogan (born in New York City on this date in 1916) met Robert Jay Arthur, Jr. in his radio writing class. The pair would go on to form one of the most fruitful ...
“…I take this same train every week at this time…”(Post)On this date in 1943, one of the Mutual Broadcasting System’s longest-lasting and most popular programs premiered in the form of The Mysterious Traveler. It was created and written by the team o ...
“And now to Arch Oboler’s play…”(Post)It may have been the underrated Wyllis Cooper who was responsible for creating the classic radio horror Lights Out…but when Cooper left the program in 1936 for a writing career in Hollywood, Arch ...
“Saints preserve us, Mr. Keen! He’s got a gun!”(Post)Back in the 1970s, when I first immersed myself in the wonderful world of old-time radio, my enthusiasm for “The Hobby” was such that I beseeched both my mother and father for stories about their ...
“They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate.” — President Franklin D. Roosevelt(Post)On this date in 1944, the landing operations of the Allied invasion of Normandy got underway in one of the most pivotal battles of World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, “Operati ...
“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 ...
“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 ...
Murder They Wrote(Post)One of the joys that results from an immersion into the world of old-time radio involves discovering little-known or forgotten series that might have completely disappeared from the historical record ...
Happy Birthday, Leonore “Lee” Allman!(Post)The dirty little secret about show business is that it is a virtual petri dish for nepotism. As Fred Allen jokes in It’s in the Bag! (1945), after seeing a list of names in the film’s opening cred ...
“Ladies and gentlemen, to depend on your judgment and to fulfill mine own obligation, I submit the facts…”(Post)Even after taking home a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her breakout performance in 1949's All the King's Men, actress Mercedes McCambridge continued to work in the medium that she loved dearly ...
“When man hunts man!”(Post)The Golden Age of Radio featured many programsthat, despite their excellence, failed to attract a large listening audience. There are any number of reasons to explain their lukewarm receptions—th ...
Happy Birthday, Raymond Edward Johnson!(Post)He was a respected Broadway thespian who depended on radio to pay the bills…and for Raymond Edward Johnson, born on this date in 1911, his contributions to the aural medium would make him immortal ...
“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 ...
“…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 ...
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