The Birds Eye Open House Radio Program

Background

Dinah Shore's meteoric rise throughout the entertainment industry was one of the 20th Century's great success stories. An instant hit over Radio, Dinah Shore quickly rose to prominence in Television and Film as well. Beginning her singing career shortly after graduating from Vanderbilt University, her first exposure to a Radio audience came over New York station WNEW, in a series of weekly, 15-minute features between 1938 and 1940.

While steadily increasing her popularity with one hit record after another, Dinah Shore got her first major boost from Eddie Cantor and his Time To Smile program between 1940 and 1942 and with frequent appearances on the long-running Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street with Paul LaValle during the same period. She'd also appeared over The Revuers during the same period while getting yet another boost from Xavier Cugat during 1940.

By 1941 Dinah Shore embarked on a long-running series of her own programs over three different networks and for six different major sponsors:

• 1941 Songs By Dinah Shore for Bristol Myers' Sal Hepatica and Minit-Rub
• 1942 In Person: Dinah Shore for Bristol Myers' Mum Deodorant
• 1943 The Dinah Shore Program for Birds Eye Frosted Foods (CBS)
• 1944 Birds Eye Open House Starring Dinah Shore (NBC)
• 1946 The Ford Show for Ford Motor Corporation
• 1948 Call For Music for Philip Morris
• 1954 The Dinah Shore Show for Chevrolet

Throughout the entire period of headlining her own starring vehicles over both Radio and Television, Dinah Shore continued to make hundreds of guest appearances on other programs as well as performing in hundreds of AFRS and AFRTS programs of the 1940s and 1950s. And indeed her frequent appearances before military audiences both stateside and overseas endeared her to a generation of G.I.s and their families. Dinah Shore continued to be a favorite of G.I.s. for the remainder of Dinah Shore's life.

Birds Eye moves The Dinah Shore Program to NBC

Birds Eye Frosted Foods' first foray into commercial Radio held all the promise of an excellent promotional vehicle. Singing sensation Dinah Shore was a natural talent for Birds Eye in its quest to promote wholesome, healthy 'frosted food' [flash frozen food] products. Coming on the heels of her first two headlining Radio programs, Dinah Shore was already becoming a seasoned professional at the Radio microphone. Given the half-hour format of the first series, Dinah Shore had been supported by weekly big name guest stars in addition to a weekly light comedy skit performed by Roland Young and Cornelia Otis Skinner.

The problem with Birds Eye's first sponsorship of Dinah Shore in The Dinah Shore Program was the somewhat discordant and superfluous weekly skits by Roland Young and Cornelia Otis Skinner. The addition of new Film comedian Wally Brown to the last sixteen episodes of The Dinah Shore Program fell just as flat as the Young and Skinner skits of the previous twenty-six weeks. Both Birds Eye and Dinah Shore concluded that it was probably time for a move.

So it was that when Birds Eye and Dinah Shore returned for the Fall Season of 1944, their newly revamped program aired over NBC as Birds Eye Open House Starring Dinah Shore in another half-hour format, but sans either dramatic sketches or a lampooning second banana. Birds Eye Open House premiered on October 5th 1944 on Thursday evening. Buttressed by far better writing, a stellar stream of guest stars and better direction, Birds Eye Open House quickly became the showcasing vehicle that Dinah Shore truly deserved.

The team of Howard Harris and Sid Zelinka wrote the gags and dialogue for the revamped series and Harry Von Zell continued on as the series' announcer. Robert Emmett Dolan and his orchestra backed the series, aided by the Joe Lilley Singers and the Ken Lane Chorus.

During the last season of Birds Eye Open House the program followed the extraordinarily popular Burns and Allen Show on Thursday evenings and the two programs combined for an hour-long Christmas Special in 1945 and another combined special in May 1946 while Dinah Shore was out for four weeks due to a bout of laryngitis.

Birds Eyes's second outing with Dinah Shore was a remarkable improvement over its first sponsorship of Dinah Shore. The production values were far better, the guest stars were more entertaining, the writing was certainly more topical and apropos of the format, and the music got even better as the show progressed. Dinah Shore's home life had gotten far busier during her years with Birds Eye and her professional life was even busier. Dinah decided to take some time off to finish building her home in California with George Montgomery and to spend quality time with their toddler Melissa. Birds Eye sponsored Meredith Willson for the Summer of 1946 as an erstwhile Summer replacement for Birds Eye Open House, but as it turned out, Birds Eye Open House never returned to the air.

After the Summer break, Dinah Shore returned to the air for the Ford Motor Company in The Ford Show (1946-1947) over CBS with Peter Lind Hayes as her second banana. Ironically, it was The Ford Show sidekick Peter Lind Hayes that co-wrote "See The U.S.A. In Your Chevrolet" with his wife Mary Healy for Chevrolet's long-running promotional campaign beginning in 1949.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the RadioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.

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