The Author Meets The Critics Radio Program

Background

Roundtable discussions and panels were a regular feature over Radio almost from its inception. Some of Radio's longest running programs from the Golden Age of Radio were discussion forums and panel programs:

1926 Young People’s Conference
1926-1942 Father Coughlin
1933-1955 University of Chicago Round Table
1934 An American Fireside
1934 Paths To Prosperity
1935 Congressional Opinion
1935-1956 America’s Town Meeting of the Air
1937 Commentator’s Forum
1937-1956 American Forum of the Air
1938-1948 Of Men and Books
1938-1957 Adventures in Science
1939 Bull Session
1939 The Circle
1940-1964 Invitation to Learning
1942-1954 The Author Meets the Critics
1943 Commentator’s Round Table
1943 For This We Fight
1943 Where Do We Stand?
1944 Let’s Face the Issue
1944 One Woman’s Opinion
1944 The Women Listen
1945 The National Hour
1945-1949 Leave it to the Girls
1945-1951 America United
1946 Open Hearing
1946 Question for America
1946-1986 Meet the Press
1948 Doctors Round Table
1948-1951 Living
1948-1953 Life Begins at Eighty
1950-1955 Arthur Godfrey Roundtable

The above list is by no means all-inclusive, but it speaks to the length and breadth of interest in all manner of commentary, roundtable and discussion formats which gained--and often held--great popularity throughout the era. The more democratic nations of the world tend to place great value on diversity of opinion and free discussion on a wide range of topics; most notably, politics, religion, sports, entertainment, and literature. These are also the topics most of us are instructed from birth to stay clear of in polite society. But passions are passions. And in such free societies everyone's a critic--to one degree of passion or another--on an equally wide-ranging variety of topics.

Criticism of The Arts, Radio, Television and Literature became a major industry unto itself in most free societies. Critics of Film, The Stage, Radio and Television in particular became as famous, infamous and powerful as their followers allowed them to. Criticism of Literature, The Stage, and The Fine Arts, in particular, could make--or break--an aspiring talent; and not always on the basis of their inherent gifts. And of course, as with any criticism--or critic--that gains a popular foothold, how that power is wielded often becomes a moral question as well.

Spirited criticism, much as debate, has become an often hotly contested intellectual sport throughout modern societies the world over. Indeed in many instances, criticism of a highly spirited or contested nature can reach the level of intellectual blood sport. When such criticism first aired over Radio, it began as an exercise in the very greatest civility. But as ratings soon revealed, the most popular panel discussion, criticism and commentary programming was marked by the most over the top and highly spirited proponents. It should also be noted that literary criticism in particular was reasonably well balanced. The authors--and their critics--were wordsmiths by profession; experts at the turn of a phrase, irony, counterpoint, and, when necessary, the cutting riposte or rejoinder.

As it turns out, the overwhelming majority of average listeners throughout the Golden Age of Radio took great vicarious pleasure in the more spirited and passionate discussion and criticism programs of the era. Indeed, the more passionate, intellectually clever, and caustic the level of discourse, the better--for ratings.

Mutual brings literary criticism to the airwaves

For all its comparative shortcomings in competing with CBS, NBC and eventually ABC, Mutual was brilliant at innovation. Or perhaps that's giving them too much credit. Throughout the Mutual Broadcasting Network's colorful--albeit comparatively short--history, it gained a reputation for throwing just about anything at the wall of the public airwaves just to see what might stick. Some might call that innovation, some might call it desperation. But in either case, it worked--and in many instances with amazing success.

Few realize that one of Radio and Television's longest, continuously running programs, Meet The Press, first aired over Mutual. Another of Radio's longest running panel discusssion programs aired first--and last--over Mutual: The Author Meets The Critics. Premiering in December 1942, The Author Meets The Critics aired almost continously for twelve years. To underscore this remarkable longevity, the premise of The Author Meets The Critics would initially seem to have been a non-starter: an author of a literary work is placed between proponents and detractors of his or her work in a no-holds-barred literary joust over the published work.

And don't for a moment presume that authors met the stereotypical horn-rimmed glasses, quiet, unassuming milquetoast model. The authors themselves were often as passionate or ascerbic as the critics squaring off against them. Speaking of critics, here's Radio and Television critic John Crosby's review of The Author Meets The Critics from the January 26, 1948 edition of the Oakland Tribune: 

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the radioGOLDINdex and New York Times Radio listings.

It seems only appropriate that in cataloging a literary criticism series we adopt the spirit of the canon.

OTRisms:

There is, predictably, much to criticize regarding the miserably inaccurate information previously cataloged for this series since the advent of the dumbing down era of Vintage Radio--'Old Time Radio' in 1976. As regards The Author Meets the Critics, Dunning got it wrong, The Hickerson Guide's contributors got it waaaay wrong, and quite understandably, The Vintage Radio Place catalog and its two sock-puppets, The OTRR and the OTTER Log, are equally inaccurate and incomplete.

The most obvious criticism of the above stems from historical fact: The Author Meets the Critics premiered over Mutual's WHN, New York on December 1, 1942, not the widely disseminated June 1946 date. In fact it ran from Dec. 1, 1942 to October 1954 over one network or another--almost continuously. Indeed, by way of buttressing their revisionist history, Hickerson Guide contributors (DS) and (TS) baldly state that "The New York Times doesn't list shows before 1946"--one of the bigger whoppers those two contributors have cited over the past several revisions of The Hickerson Guide. The unfortunate Hickerson Guide has become a lightning rod for all manner of otr nonsense, hearsay, outright misdirection and commercial grandstanding through even more intentional misinformation. But let's debunk this one bit of newspaper publishing revisionist history: The New York Times 'listed' Radio programs from the very birth of Radio itself. The log below, citing exclusively New York Times Radio listings, can trace the origins of The Author Meets The Critics to its premiere over New York Station WHN on December 1, 1942. Why two 'credentialed otr authors' would state otherwise escapes us--another otr book in the works, perhaps? The New York Times is one of the most famous newspapers in the world. Did they really think that simply stating something so baldly inaccurate would obliterate the twenty-plus years of New York Times Radio listing history that preceded 1946?

The next most glaring criticism would have to be over the traditional episode titling of The Author Meets The Critics canon since the advent of 'OTR.' Let's parse out the program name: The Author Meets The Critics. Would that not--to a reasonable person--call for a corresponding episode title that at least mentions the author's name? Was it the author's book or the author himself that answered The Critics? While we recognize that the written word, since the days of The Bible, often 'speaks' to people, Radio was, after all, an aural medium. In fact it was the author who stood toe to toe with the noted book reviewers of the era, not the pages of the book itself. Have we made our point?

Our third criticism is, sadly, a ubiquitous one throughout the low-rent world that 'OTR' continues to devolve to: is it not reasonably intuitive to the average person that if one is going to undertake a catalog of programs about literary criticism that one take even greater pains to at least get the title of the literary work right? It's bad enough that all previous catalogers of this canon completely ignored the actual subjects of the series--the authors. But to misspell the book titles? These weren't apocryphal or anecdotal titles--they were published books. As such, they each had an immutable history and publishing records to back them up, most notably at The Library of Congress.

The most egregious and glaring example of the failure to include the authors' names in the titles of this canon is the title formerly referred to as 'The Schmo.' Had the first cataloger of The Author Meets The Critics troubled himself or herself to actually listen to the program, the very first line of the script would have tipped them off: Al Capp is introduced to face the critics. Capp's most famous character over time was Lil' Abner, but among his most engaging characters was The Schmoo. The Schmoo was inked as the sweetest, most understanding and engaging cartoon character in Capp's prodigious arsenal. A schmo, by contrast is almost always characterized as a perjorative. Derived from the Yiddish schmok or schmuck, a schmo refers to "an obnoxious or contemptible person; one who is stupid, foolish, or detestable." In this instance, 'The Schmoo' is the absolute antithesis of 'The Schmo.'

And, in all fairness, we save the final criticism for ourselves: this log is not yet complete. We logged all episodes and runs necessary to capture all currently circulating exemplars of The Author Meets the Critics canon. When more exemplars surface, we'll complete those portions of the log that apply. We feel compelled to add that we also logged all airings necessary to reconstruct an accurate catalog of the numerous day and time changes, and network and station changes over the series' twelve-year history--including the titles of the very first program and the very last program.

What you see here, is what you get. Complete transparency. We have no 'credentials' whatsoever--in any way, shape, or form--in the 'otr community'--none. But here's how we did it--for better or worse. Here's how you can build on it yourselves--hopefully for the better. Here are the breadcrumbs--just follow the trail a bit further if you wish. No hobbled downloads. No misdirection. No posturing about our 'credentials.' No misrepresentations. No strings attached. We point you in the right direction and you're free to expand on it, extend it, use it however it best advances your efforts.

We ask one thing and one thing only--if you employ what we publish, attribute it, before we cite you on it.

We continue to provide honest research into these wonderful Golden Age Radio programs simply because we love to do it. If you feel that we've provided you with useful information or saved you some valuable time regarding this log--and you'd like to help us even further--you can help us keep going. Please consider a small donation here:

We don't pronounce our Golden Age Radio research as 'certified' anything. By the very definition, research is imperfect. We simply tell the truth. As is our continuing practice, we provide our fully provenanced research results--to the extent possible--right here on the page, for any of our peers to review--or refute--as the case may be. If you take issue with any of our findings, you're welcome to cite any better verifiable source(s) and we'll immediately review them and update our findings accordingly. As more verifiable provenances surface, we'll continue to update the following series log, as appropriate.

All rights reserved by their respective sources. Article and log copyright 2010 The Digital Deli Online--all rights reserved. Any failure to attribute the results of this copywritten work will be rigorously pursued.

[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]