No sooner had Women In the Making of America, a fifteen-minute format, debuted on May 18, 1939, than literally hundreds of professional women across America came forward with both updated material in support of the program, and ideas for further installments. The production regrouped and was reintroduced in October of 1939 as Gallant American Women, in a 30-minute format as a series that ran, off and on, over the next three years in one Radio venue or another. This, in spite of America's forced entry into the War after December 7, 1941.

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CBS and G.E. clearly pulled out all the stops with General Electric Theater. In addition to the star-studded casts, CBS had Norm Macdonnell directing the scripts for the production and Wilbur Hatch directing the music for the production. The series was hosted and narrated by William Johnstone and legendary CBS announcer Ken Carpenter did what he did best for CBS for 47 years. The scripts and adaptations themselves comprised works by some of the modern world's finest authors. Their works were adapted for Radio by Fletcher Markle, Kathleen Hite, James Poe, Jaime del Valle and John Meston among others. Several of the programs reprised roles portrayed in film by their famous leading actors.

Thirteen in all, the short Summer series provided a sorely needed spark to Radio's fading supremacy throughout The Golden Age of Radio.

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The show is about two characters named, appropriately enough, Jimmy Gleason and Robert Armstrong (referred to as Robbie), who want to buy a property from the father of Elizabeth Frost (Robbie’s girlfriend) so they can build and operate a gasoline service station of their own. They plan to tour the United States for one year, observing other service stations in order to educate themselves as how to make their future service station the best. Mr. Frost draws up a contract for the sale of his lot with all sorts of clauses which include having them sell his patented “Frost tire puller” as they travel and a morality clause (that Jimmy is indignant over). The contract calls for the duo to earn $2000.00 in an honest way during their trip. The clause that most concerns Robbie is the one that promises Elizabeth’s hand in marriage should he and Jimmy fulfill the obligations set forth in the contract.

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The passing of Grantland Rice in July 1954 marked the end of an era for many. Radio and Television had come into their own, most major sporting events were being broadcast live and the great sportwriters of the era had all but vanished. RCA Thesaurus obtained permission to serialize Rice's popular The Tumult and The Shouting via their transcription subscription service. Titled, The Grantland Rice Story, the 15-minute series comprised fifty-two sequential installments. First airing regionally as early as August 1955, the entire run soon appeared across the nation on various stations at varying times. Some aired it every weekday, some three days a week, some weekly.

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The format here is the key. Acknowledging the talent expense of devoting sufficient rehearsal time to the classic plays of the era, CBS chose instead to promote the very best of a specific play--its 'great moments.' It was an interesting approach. Had CBS mounted the series as a sustained production, it's quite possible that it would have found far greater success than it eventually did. Once Philip Morris signed on to sponsor--and underwrite--the production, it became clear to all parties that simply excising the 'great moments' from the proposed plays wouldn't be enough to meet Philip Morris' target bottom line.

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Great Plays was one of NBC's most prestigious productions--and prestigious by every possible measure, from it's producers and directors to the selection of its plays and players. It was also one of Radio History's most inaccurately documented programs. Virtually all of the 'scholarship' behind this historic series was so incompetently in error as to question the motives of the series' archivers over the years.

In particular, Blue Theatre Plays had nothing whatsoever to do with Great Plays. Blue Theatre Plays was apparently one of The Blue Network's early new offerings, performed by a repertory group named, appropriately enough, The Blue Theatre Players, comprised of Frank Lovejoy, Joan Banks, Santos Ortega, and Lindsay MacHarrie, among others. Blue Theatre Plays was not, in fact, a continuation of Great Plays at all. Note our provenance [HERE] .

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Great Scenes From Great Plays is one of several examples sponsored by the National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church of America over the years of the Golden Ages of Radio, Film and Television. The Episcopal Church was by no means the only religious denomination to mount successful, well produced Radio or Television programs. Anthology, quite aptly named is but one example of the Jewish community's sponsorship of a long-running, well-received Radio program. The Catholic Church has also mounted several successful secular programs over the Golden Ages of both Radio and Television, as has the Salvation Army with its long running Heartbeat Theatre.

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The Green Lama was one of a long series of superheros that greatly added to the existing comic fiction canon popularized during the World War II years. The Green Lama first appeared in the popular pulp fiction magazines that spawned The Shadow, Doc Savage and others that made the jump from Pulp to The Comics. The Green Lama's debut in Pulp was in the April 1940 issue of Double Detective. The story was penned by editor Kendell Foster Crossen (under the pen name, "Richard Foster".) Richard Foster penned a total of fourteen novels for the pulps between 1941 and 1943, while concurrently licensing the character to Prize Comics in 1940.

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The Gulf Screen Guild Show was the first incarnation of the famous, long-running Screen Guild series in support of The Country House and Hospital of the Motion Picture Relief Fund. The first season was an interesting combination of 30-minutes revues and dramatic presentations

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The Gulf Screen Guild Theatre was the second incarnation of the famous, long-running Screen Guild series in support of The Country House and Hospital of the Motion Picture Relief Fund. Running for three full seasons, The Gulf Screen Guild Theatre was the longest series of Screen Guild programs with a total of 113. It was under the Gulf sponsorship that the series evolved from a combination of 30-minutes variety revues and dramatic presentations to straight dramatic presentations.

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While little is known about how Dick Thorne hooked up with Granite Furniture, it's clear both parties were pleased with the result. Both KALL and KDYL had developed serveral programs over the years that went national at one time or another. NBC affiliate KDYL's earliest claim to national syndication was with its Diamond Dramas feature. KALL, a CBS affiliate, aired many programs of thriller fare over either the Columbia chain or via independent syndication.

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Having sponsored Radio Reader's Digest for its three final seasons, Hallmark determined that its promotional aims could best be served by producing its own signature drama anthology, Hallmark Playhouse, which began airing on June 10, 1948, the week following its last sponsorship of Radio Reader's Digest. Hallmark Playhouse immediately set out to raise the bar in quality, production values, and talent, once its own name was attached to the production. Those earliest Hallmark Playhouse productions eventually evolved into one of Radio and Television's longest running, most prestigious, star-studded, and critically acclaimed dramatic series' in broadcasting history.

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Needless to say, The Halls of Ivy was a completely unexpected entry into the NBC lineup of the post-World War II years of Radio. What seems more unexpected, in retrospect, is why no one else evisioned such a production even sooner after the close of World War II. Our Miss Brooks, arguably the high school precursor to The Halls of Ivy, had already been airing for well over a year prior to The Halls of Ivy. Any comparisons--or contrasts--between the two education-themed productions are admittedly only slight, but they do bear a brief acknowledgment. More slapstick, by comparison, Our Miss Brooks did, indeed, re-introduce America to formal education in the post-War years.

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The timing for The Hardy Family over Radio could have been better. Mickey Rooney's previous attempt at anchoring a Radio feature had been in Shorty Bell Cub Reporter (1948), a series that aired and folded in three months. Rooney's individual performances over Radio had been in guest starring dramatic roles, usually reprises of his Film roles. Rooney purportedly produced The Hardy Family as part of his deal with M-G-M Radio Attractions. Having brought the core cast of performers to the Radio adaptations, the series promised to maintain the same high quality as the Film features.

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Orson Welles was already working on two other projects with British programming entrepreneur Harry Alan Towers when the extraordinary success of the film, The Third Man (1939), The Third Man Theme and talk of a film sequel seemed to all point in the direction of a promising Radio version of The Third Man. But where to begin? The character Harry Lime was killed off in The Third Man.

Orson Welles' brilliant solution was to create an entire series of 'pre-quels' to The Third Man, all inevitably, inexorably leading up to Lime's ultimate fate in the sewers of Vienna. The film had already hinted at the apparent nine lives of the Harry Lime character, so it wasn't much of a stretch to extend that store of lives to fifty-one.

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The Haunting Hour is one of those work-in-progress collections within the holdings of many serious Radio Collectors. From the meager available programs currently in circulation it's clear that the series was popular for its time, at the very least.

With a theoretical run of at least 52 unique scripts and a reputed further 39 to 50 scripts, it would appear that the series was in demand for at least five years--in and out of syndication. Indeed, given the high quality of NBC Network voice talent in the extant episodes, one can well imagine that the remainder of the yet undiscovered or uncirculated episodes have at least as much to recommend them.

Thankfully, as with many other examples of Golden Age Radio productions, many of the existing episodes in circulation can be directly attributed to the efforts of the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service [AFRTS].

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And so it was that Have Gun, Will Travel premiered over Radio a year and a half after its Television rendition on November 23, 1958. Veteran Film, Radio and Television actor John Dehner was tapped to portray the mono-named Paladin. The great character actor Ben Wright was selected to portray 'Hey Boy' ('real name' Kim Chan) and as the series progressed Radio legend Virginia Gregg was tapped to portray Miss Wong, Hey Boy's ostensible lady friend.

For the uninitiated, 'Paladin' (last name only) was a Renaissance Man: an adventurer, bon-vivant, gourmet, enologist, raconteur, gambler, and investment speculator--who also happened to be a very adept and deadly gun for hire. Based in San Francisco, Paladin occupied a suite of rooms at The Carlton Hotel. Most comfortable dressed as a dandy, Paladin's San Francisco 'valet' is Kim Chan, a Chinese immigrant who works primarily for The Carlton Hotel when not in the service of Paladin.

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There were glimpses of more adult western themes throughout 1940s Radio but they didn't always catch on with War-weary America. Saunders of the Circle X (1941) tended to take a more serious approach to its scripts but still exemplified the action-adventure flavor of the mostly juvenile adventure fare that preceded it. Death Valley Sheriff [or The Sheriff] (1944) was an extension of the long-running Death Valley Days series dating to 1930. Often written to both educate and entertain, the more historically authentic elements of Death Valley Sheriff leaned toward some of the early adult westerns of the mid-1940s.

While admittedly still targeted to a juvenile audience--and sponsored by juvenile-targeted products--they began leaning toward more mature themes while still featuring all the guns-ablaze, white hat-black hat action of the other juvenile adventures of the Golden Age of Radio. Hawk Durango and Hawk Larrabee (1946) were arguably the first authentic adult westerns of the era.

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The transition from NBC to CBS didn't fare as well for Mystery Theatre. NBC and CBS were waging a major war at the time, each network nakedly poaching the other's greatest Radio talent and programs, wholesale. But judging from the way NBC and CBS--and Frank and Anne Hummert--promoted and supported their respective line-ups, it's clear that CBS was dropping the ball for the greater part of 1949. Frank and Anne Hummert were legendary talents in the area of producing and promoting melodrama. But Mystery Theatre wasn't a melodrama genre--or format. That didn't stop the Hummerts from turning it into a melodrama under their watch.

Inspector Hearthstone of The Death Squad held some promise to breathe new life into the franchise with distinguished actor Alfred Shirley (of Sherlock Holmes fame) in the role of Inspector Hearthstone.

One of CBS Mystery Theatre's most redeeming elements--annotator Geoffrey Barnes--was eliminated with the solo Hearthstone of The Death Squad that followed. The Hummerts chose, instead, to go with a melodramatic intro to each program more reminiscent of Challenge of The Yukon or The Lone Ranger, than the CBS Mystery Theatre format of the previous two years.

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The Mercury Theatre's fifth production appeared in November of 1942 as Hello, Americans. Funded by CBS and U.S. Government's Coordinator for Latin-American Affairs (the CIA). Welles had announced an impending trip to South America during the last episode of Mercury Theatre of The Air, and he spent the following year touring South America while working on a Film project in Brazil and a Film project in Mexico. Welles was apparently approached by the CIA with the concept and when Welles wasn't working on the Film projects he gathered sound bites, recordings and background for the Hello, Americans project. One gets the impression that Welles was genuinely affected by what he saw during his tour and it was equally important to wrest back our influence in South America from the in-roads the Axis powers had made there. Though twelve episodes were planned, only ten were broadcast.

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     With a a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, NBC has been investigating during the past six months what has been called one of the most significant developments of this generation:  the rebirth of the South.  The result is a 13-week radio program series, "Heritage Over the Land," which will have its premiere today on NBC Radio at 2 p.m.
     The broadcasts, tape-recorded on the scene by an NBC documentary crew, will explore the social, economic and cultural revolution under way in the South during the past decade.  The unit went out on seven separate trips, ranging form Washington, D.C. to deep-South crossroads too small to be found on any map.  There were no actors; the voices and sound effects are all authentic.
     Henry Cassidy, former foreign correspondent and now NBC commentator, serves as narrator, interviewer and guide.  The program was produced by Lee Painton, written and directed by William Alan Bales, researched in the field by Arthur Hepner.

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In the Hermit's Cave began airing over WJR on September 13th 1936 on Sunday nights near the witching hour. In the Hermit's Cave replaced the long-running Vincent Lopez Dance Orchestra that WJR had previously slotted at the 10 p.m. hour on Sunday evenings. WJR had long been noted for its heavy emphasis on dance orchestras and music programming throughout its weekly schedule.

The new series was introduced and narrated by "The Hermit" of 'The Hermit's Cave.' Reminiscent of Old Nancy, the witch from The Witch's Tale (1931), The Hermit of WJR's 'cave' would cackle with glee as he announced:

[hounds howling in]

"Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee . . . Gho-o-o-o-st stories,we-i-i-i-i-rd stories . . . murders, too! Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee. The Hermit knows of them all! Turn our y'er lights. Tu-r-r-r-n them out . . . ahhhh . . . 'ave you heard the story, [insert story name]? 'Eh? Then listen while The Hermit tells you the story . . . Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee!"

[hounds howling out]

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The stories chronicled in Heroes of The Merchant Marine showcased at least fifteen Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal recipients. After each opening introduction, announcer Ray Lewis framed the dramatization of the heroic episode of the evening. Each program ended with a reading of the citation accompanying the award of the Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal to that episode's recipient.

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The basic Hollywood Mystery Time premise had a Hollywood Movie Producer-Director, Ted Lawton, operating as a part-time gentleman detective, accompanied by his Girl Friday and secretary and lady detective, Gloria Dean. Hence, we derive the 'Hollywood' [ Lawton is a Hollywood producer] 'Mystery' [each installment is a self-contained mystery in itself] 'Time' [which in this case can vary between 11 minutes of script to 17 minutes of script, depending on which Hollywood Mystery Time you were hearing.] The Hollywood Mystery Time also segued nicely from/to the Louella Parsons' Hollywood bits tacked onto the beginning of the more robust version of Hollywood Mystery Time packaged as The Woodbury Double Feature.

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The term 'star-studded' had become almost ubiquitous in Radio by 1946. In the case of Cresta Blanca Hollywood Players, the term could be taken quite literally. The leads in each of the twenty-six Cresta Blanca Hollywood Players episodes were quite literally the greatest stars of Stage, Screen and Radio for 1946. Indeed, for the Christmas episode of 1946, All Through the House, broadcast on Christmas Eve, the series introduced 19-year old Janet Leigh in her first national dramatic debut. Backed by no less than Joseph Cotten, John Garfield, Gene Kelly and Gregory Peck, the production took pains to have Gregory Peck himself, announce Janet Leigh's debut to a national audience--quite an auspicious debut for a relative unknown of the era. All Through The House was a new play written especially for Christmas 1946--and Janet Leigh.

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CBS reacquired the Screen Guild program for seven more months in 1951 and 1952, returning to the 30-minute format, and airing its final Screen Guild program June 29, 1952. CBS unaccountably referred to the Screen Guild Theatre as a double-header: Stars In the Air and Hollywood Sound Stage for its first thirteen programs. Then just as inexplicably, CBS reappropriated the name Screen Guild Theatre for the last seventeen programs, which ran back to back with the remainder of the Stars In the Air run.

The on-air proof that both programs are one in the same is contained in the epilogue comments to Ivy, from March 13, 1952, wherein Joan Fontaine is referred to as already having performed in the 'CBS Screen Guild Season'--which could only have been her performance during Hollywood Sound Stage or Stars In The Air.

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That new promotional platform became Hollywood Star Playhouse, a playhouse format, mystery drama anthology featuring major--and emerging--Hollywood Film stars in original, 30-minute productions written, for the most part, for a specific star. Hollywood Star Playhouse's premiere presentation of April 24, 1950 featured James Stewart in 'Nor Gloom of Night,' adapted to a 30-minute format. And true to its charter, Hollywood Star Playhouse continued to provide major stars in mostly original mystery dramas for the following three years over three different networks:

• CBS (for Bromo-Seltzer) from April 1950 to July 1951
• ABC (sustaining) from July 1951 to January 1952
• NBC (for Bakers of America) from February 1952 to February 1953

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Radio's earliest 'Hollywood Star Time' was a 1944 run of daily, weekday Hollywood interviews produced by the RKO Studios and called RKO's Hollywood Star Time. It was a 15-minute format of promotional interviews. We cite the earlier run to disambiguate it from the 1946 to 1947 run of Hollywood Star Time, produced by CBS as a drama anthology starring the greatest stars of Stage, Screen and Radio of the era.

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Horizons West was a fascinating, thirteen-installment docudrama which traced the movements of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition from 1803 to 1806. President Thomas Jefferson's charter to Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark was to trace the origination point of the Missouri River, from St. Louis, Missouri to the Great Falls of Montana--and eventually beyond.

The production masters themselves were of the highest quality, recorded, as they were, at Studio B located in the famous Capitol Records building in Hollywood during the 1962 to 1963 timeframe. By 1965 they had begun airing in the Pacific theatre over the Armed Forces Korea Network and the Far East Network.

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United States Steel sponsored some of Radio's most prestigious dramatic productions during the waning years of the Golden Age of Radio. Theater Guild On the Air, The Hour of Mystery, and The United States Steel Hour showcased the very finest talent from stage, screen and radio in many of the most popular and well-respected literary works, stage plays, and films of the era.

Theatre Guild On the Air ran in one form or another almost continously from 1945 to 1953. Aired initially as Theatre Guild On the Air, the name of the program was eventually changed to the United States Steel Hour. U.S. Steel Presents The Hour of Mystery--or simply The Hour of Mystery--was a summer replacement airing between the first and second full seasons of Theatre Guild On the Air. The Hour of Mystery, with its thirteen, star-studded installments, featured some of the finest mystery dramas in modern literature.

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Enlisting the services of Dana Andrews as a lead for the proposed syndication, Frederick Ziv mounted his customary all-out campaign to 'sell' the syndication to potential sponsors and broadcasters alike. His legendary sales force fanned out across the U.S. and Canada, initially signing at least 117 outlets for the syndication. Once the initial syndication contracts were secured, Ziv announced an official rollout of the production for March 30, 1952. Only a handful of outlets actually began airing the syndication on March 30, 1952. The vast majority began broadcasting the syndication on April 7, 1952 through as late as the Summer of 1952.

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This is a short-lived series for true fans of I Love A Mystery and Adventures By Morse. It serves in part to tie together the eras that the longer series' cover. Carlton E. Morse accomplishes this with a plausible back story and a somewhat implausible artifice to reunite the members of the A-1 Detective Agency after their dispersal during World War II.

The story line for I Love Adventure resumes, appropriately enough, in post-World War II London where the top secret non-governmental agency known only as The 21 Old Men of 10 Gramercy Park, whose mission is to fight all enemies of international peace.  Jack Packard [Michael Raffetto] was recruited by the 21 Old Men to lead a small group on assignments circling the globe. Packard never meets the 21 Old Men face to face. His assignments were given to him from behind a 20-foot by 40-foot, two-way mirror at 10 Gramercy Park, usually from a single spokeman for the 21 Old Men.

The 21 Old Men first dispatch Jack Packard to Indo-China to retrieve a secret formula concealed on microfilm. Subsequent 'international incidents' apparently require additional direction by the 21 Old Men until Adventure #07.

Reggie Yorke is given the task of explaining the 'break' with the 21 Old Men. His back story is that Jack Packard has become 'too hot' for further responses to 'international incidents.' The 21 Old Men and Jack Packard have agreed to have Jack 'lay low' for awhile on the West Coast until Jack and his boys can again begin responding to International incidents.

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Inheritance was a joint production of the National Broadcasting Company and The American Legion and it's Auxliary. NBC and The Legion hoped to blunt the criticisms leveled at both organizations during this era. The almost non-existent promotion of the year long undertaking, the complete absence of detailed Radio listing information during its run, and the complete absence of any publicly announced connection between the broadcasts and their sponsors gives greater credence to this hypothesis. In fairness, these were also the waning years of Radio's influence; Television was--and would remain--the new novelty.

The production itself was extremely well-mounted--as might be expected of a year-long sustained network production. The huge, mostly West Coast casts comprised Radio's finest voice talent of the era. The music direction, while not particularly 'A'-List, was well-suited to the production. The productions were reasonably historically accurate--while understandably jingoistic for the era. As with the Ladies Auxiliary to The Veterans of Foreign Wars-sponsored American Trail series of the previous year, functionaries of the respective supporting organizations would give a brief, topical after-message throughout the series.

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Inspector Thorne was a short-lived Crime drama anthology that NBC rolled out under the Hummert franchise. Anne and Frank Hummert were two of Radio's most prolific creators, writers, and producers of all manner of serial melodrama--daytime soaps--throughout The Golden Age of Radio. Though almost universally associated with soaps, their talents didn't end with serial potboilers. Indeed most Radio collectors aren't aware of the prodigious output of long-running crime, mystery, and detective dramas they produced.

Inspector Thorne, as short-lived as it was, was something of an anomaly for the Hummerts, but judging from the longer run of Hearthstone of The Death Squad, they seem to have managed to salvage that particular formula somewhat. The comparisons are quite obvious between Inspectors Thorne and Hearthstone. Inspector Thorne is the Chief Detective Inspector of The Homicide Squad of New York City. Inspector Hearthstone is the Chief Inspector of The Death Squad of 'The Metropolitan Police' ..

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The short-lived Summer 1946 program, Intrigue, promised "Tales Of Espionage, Manhunts and High Adventure," hosted by--and often starring--noted Stage and Screen actor Joseph Schildkraut in what was possibly planned to be eight stirring adventure dramas. This program remains remarkable, if only for Joseph Schildkraut's proposed weekly appearances.

Only seven adventures actually aired, and of that seven, Schildkraut appeared in only six of them. We'll never know whether the Summer series was planned for seven weeks or eight weeks, as that detail is lost to Radio History. In any event, we know that by at least August 7, 1946, CBS realized that 1st Anniversary celebrations of the Victory over Japan would sideline the 14 August production of Intrigue. It seems that several of the networks underestimated America's need to remember the 1st Anniversary of V-J Day, as they hurriedly assembled 1st Anniversary Memorial celebrations of the historic day.

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It's Higgins, Sir! is a charming situation comedy with a fascinating twist--the Family Roberts has a Gentleman's gentleman somewhat forced onto them by the charming bearer of news of an inheritance from Great Britain. Naturally the bearer of the news is Higgins, Gentleman's gentleman to the Roberts Family's distant English uncle, Sir Reginald Robertson. Higgins arrives bearing the sad news of his previous Gentleman's demise, the Family Silver Set, and himself. Madcap hilarity ensues with Higgins getting accustomed to tending to the Family Roberts, and The Family Roberts, to being tended to.

It defies logic why Mr. McNaughton didn't find yet another similar avenue for what would appear to be a natural talent for situation comedy. Of course he wasn't by any means unique during this era. There were several other more experienced character actors already successfully portraying the proper Gentleman's gentleman with an ironic, sardonic, yet highly amusing twist.

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