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CBS Stars in the Afternoon Radio Program

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Spot ad for the second installment of CBS Stars In the Afternoon for September 29th 1946

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From the September 28th 1946 edition of the Oakland Tribune:

Radio Review

THE MIXTURE AS BEFORE

By JOHN CROSBY

The Columbia Broadcasting System put much of its best livestock on display last Sunday in an hour and a half program called "Stars in the Afternoon" which gave us a pretty good preview of the 1946-47 season. If this sample is any criterion, CBS this year will present few new faces but some nice old ones, some terrible jokes and some excellent popular music. The network will be weak on top-flight comedy variety shows, strong on mystery and straight comedy and will offer more than its share of popular singers.

Early in the show Jimmy Durante and Garry Moore paid their respects to the new season in a brief bit of patter that revealed Jimmy hasn't changed much. He is still one of the most likeable characters in radio, though I still think he's unsuited to it. Blondie and Dagwood appeared long enough to ask Mr. Dithers for a raise and got it too. Ann Sothern appeared as Maisie, the All-American white collar girl.

One of the newer personalities on display was that of Hoagy Carmichael, who has outgrown writing "Stardust" to become a theatrical personality of his own. Mr. Carmichael sang "Georgia On My Mind" in that bassoon of a voice, accompanying himself on the piano with one and sometimes even two fingers. The composer will have his own show later in the season.

CRIME SLEUTHS ON JOB

One of the pleasantest bits of nonsense in the hour and a half show was a sort of parody on all radio murder mysteries. CBS called in all of its ace sleuths--Nick Charles, Sam Spade, the Crime Photographer and the Crime Doctor--to save the life of a man warned he will die at midnight. This rugged array of brains couldn't prevent the crime or solve it after it happened. That's undoubtedly the only time all season that will happen.

Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore wandered through the program pretending not very successfully to be unknowns seeking radio auditions. This part of the script was as coy as an elephant ballet but fortunately it didn't obtrude very much. The program was also cluttered up with a "Mr. System" who said "This is the Columbia Broadcasting System," a laugh-provoking device as old as the audion tube but not as reliable.

CBS will present the rest of its stars tomorrow (12 noon to 1:30 p.m., PST), and it would be well worth your while to listen in if only to get some idea what you do and don't want to listen to for the rest of the season. But don't look for novelty. As W. Somerset Maugham once titled a book of short stories, it's "The Mixture As Before."

The two installments [September 22nd and 29th]of Stars in The Afternoon introduced and highlighted the following programs in the CBS Fall Lineup for 1946:

Academy Award
The Adventures of Maisie
The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective
The Adventures of The Thin Man
The American Melody Hour
Baby Snooks
Big Town
Blondie
Bob Hawk
Casey, Crime Photographer
Crime Doctor
Dr. Christian
The New Eddie Bracken Show
The Family Hour
The Ford Show with Dinah Shore
The Gene Autry Show
The Ginny Simms Show
Hollywood Star Time
Information Please
Inner Sanctum
It Pays to Be Ignorant
The Jack Carson Show
Lux Radio Theatre
Mayor of The Town
The Mel Blanc Show
Ozzie and Harriet
Radio Readers' Digest
Screen Guild Players
Songs by Sinatra
Vox Pop
Your Hit Parade

Series Derivatives:

CBS Forecast; NBC Parade of Stars; Mutual's For Your Approval;

Genre:

Anthology of Golden Age Radio Promotional Previews

Network(s):

CBS

Audition Date(s) and Title(s):

Unknown

Premiere Date(s) and Title(s):

46-09-22 01 CBS Stars in the Afternoon Part 1

Run Dates(s)/ Time(s):

46-09-22 to 46-09-29; CBS; Two, 90-minute programs;

Syndication:

Columbia Broadcasting System

Sponsors:

Sustained

Director(s):

William N. Robson and Robert Louis Shayon
Sterling Tracy, Larry Berns, Asa Oates [Assistant producer/directors]

Principal Actors:

Recurring Character(s):

Protagonist(s):

None

Author(s):

None

Writer(s)

Carroll Carroll [Script editor/supervisor]

Music Direction:

Artur Rodzinski and The New York Philharmonic
Archie Bleyer and his Orchestra
Lud Gluskin and his Orchestra

Musical Theme(s):

"There's No Business Like Show Business"

Announcer(s):

Bob Lemond [Announcer]

Jimmy Durante and Garry Moore
Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore
Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Hillard [Hosts]

Estimated Scripts or
Broadcasts:

Episodes in Circulation:

Total Episodes in Collection:

Provenances:

RadioGOLDINdex, Hickerson Guide.

Notes on Provenances:

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

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CBS Stars in the Afternoon Radio Log
Date	Episode	Title	Avail.	Notes
46-09-15	--		--
46-09-22	1	CBS Stars in The Afternoon Part 1	Y	46-09-21 Evening Tribune Opaminute Series Opens Sunday On Columbia Net NEW YORK. Sept 21—(AP)-First of two opaminute weekly broadcasts in which network talent for fall and winter will be displayed, will go on CBS at 1 pm. Sunday. Dinah Shore and Frank Sinatra will team up to handle the MC role. Title of the series is "Stars in the Afternoon." Among the acts included are those of Bob Hawk. Moore and Durante. Dick Haymes, Crime Doctor, Dr. Christian and the Radio Theatre. 46-09-22 Wisconsn State Journal Special Program 7 p.m.--Stars In the Afternoon (WBBM): Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Hoagy Carmichael, Jimmy Durante and Garry Moore, Joan Davis, Bob Hawk, Dick Haymes and Helen Forrest; casts of American Melody Hour, Inner Sanctum, Crime Doctor, Crime Photographer, Thin Man, Sam Spade, Dr. Christian, Digest Blondie, Radio Theater, Screen Guild Players.
46-09-29	2	CBS Stars in The Afternoon Part 2	N	46-09-29 Wisconsin State Journal 2 p.m.--Stars In the Afternoon (WBBM): preview of fall shows; Ozzie and Harriet, Ginny Simms, Arthur Treacher, Meredith Willson, Joan Davis, Baby Snooks and Daddy, Gene Autry, Mel Blanc, Eddie Bracken, Hildegarde, Phil Baker, Lionel Barrymore, casts of Big Town, Vox Pop, Hit Parade, Information Please.
46-10-06	--		--

CBS Stars in the Afternoon Radio Program Biographies

William N. Robson (Producer, Director, and Writer) (1906-1995) Writer, Producer, Director of Radio and Television, College Lecturer Birthplace: Pittsburgh, PA Education: B.A., Philosphy, Yale University Curriculum Vitae: Lecturer, New York University Lecturer, UCLA Consultant, U.S. Information Agency Director, The Voice of America Radiography: 1934 Calling All Cars 1936 Columbia Workshop 1936 Then and Now 1938 American School Of the Air 1939 Americans All-Immigrants 1939 What Price America 1940 Big Town 1942 The Twenty Second Letter 1943 The Man Behind the Gun 1943 One World 1944 Four For the Fifth 1945 Request Perforance 1946 Stars In the Afternoon 1946 Hawk Larabee 1947 Escape 1947 Doorway To Life 1947 Hollywood Fights Back 1947 Shorty Bell, Cub Reporter 1948 Suspense 1948 The Whistler 1950 T-Man 1950 The Adventures Of Christopher London 1950 Beyond Tomorrow 1955 Girl From Paradise 1955 Romance 1956 Fort Laramie 1956 CBS Radio Workshop 1958 Luke Slaughter Of Tombstone 1959 The Heart Of America 1960 Have Gun, Will Travel 1964 Theatre Five	Jackson Beck and Paul Luther confer with William N. Robson during Man Behind the Gun (1943) Robson, seen here behind Frank Lovejoy, directing the Peabody Award winning series, Man Behind The Gun, for CBS, ca 1943 William Robson, Director, ca. 1954 William N. Robson, with sons, ca. 1959	William N. Robson was yet another of the hundreds of prominent victims of the infamous "Red Channels" promoted blacklisting of professionals in the Performing Arts. His 'sins' in the cowardly, notorious and despicable "Red Channels" pamphlet that named him?: Acting as one of the Sponsors of an Artists Front to Win the War meeting he helped organize at Carnegie Hall in 1942. A December 1946 speech he gave on the encroachments being made against free speech. Being a signator to a 1948 full page 'We Are for Wallace' ad in the New York Times. A masthead listing him as an Associate for the Hollywood Quarterly, a scholarly journal of Film, Radio and Television history. That's apparently all the extreme Right Wing needed during those shameful post-War years to destroy any great professional's career--through whispers and innuendo. Robson had been one of CBS's premiere Radio and Television talents, but their withering support of Robson, fueled by the spurious comments in Red Channels eventually pressured CBS into discharging Robson. The long-festering Right Wing backlash from F.D.R.'s famous Four Freedoms Speech had traversed full-circle. And so it evolved that anyone speaking out for the protection of those very freedoms was targeted for ostracization. But despite the attempts to destroy his reputation, Robson's career in Radio and Television and in service to his country still stand as one of the finest records of acheivement of the Golden Age of Radio. Indeed, it was Edward R. Murrow himself, under the administration of John F. Kennedy that gained an appointment for Robson as a Director for The Voice of America. His security clearance for that highly sensitive position was expedited without a hitch. William Robson had every expectation of having a storied career. He showed early promise at Yale, began his writing career with Paramount Pictures, then in 1936, entered Radio while still in his twenties. He was a staff writer and director for CBS for almost 20 years. So instrumental was his role in early CBS Radio dramas that his name was rountinely attached to the promotional efforts for the programs he wrote, directed or produced for CBS--and rightly so. By the mid-1940s Robson had already received two prestigious George Foster Peabody awards for CBS--for 1943's Man Behind the Gun and the documentary, Open Letter on Race Hatred. Robson's Philosophy degree served him well throughout his career, and its influence on his Radio and Television productions is readily apparent throughout his body of work. Always sensitive to the eternal conflicts between morality and amorality, many of Robson's pet projects strove to shine a light onto the murkier aspects of American society. This is undoubtedly one of the reasons that the first half of his career attracted the prurient interests of the extreme Right Wing during the infamous HUAC era. And indeed, despite all extreme Conservative attempts to squelch his 'voice' in the Media, he could not be restrained for long. Robson may well have argued himself, that the second half of his career was even more productive and influential on the World Stage than his years in American Radio and Television. William N. Robson capped an outstanding career in Communications with a highly influential position producing Pro-Democracy documentaries as Chief Documentary Writer, Producer and Director for the Voice of America. Indeed, he won *four more Peabody Awards* for his work at The Voice of America. How fittingly ironic. And though his work with The Voice of America may well have eclipsed his work during The Golden Age of Radio, his personal influence in shaping and giving a conscience to those Golden Years stands head and shoulders above his peers. William Robson died of Alzheimer's disease at his home in Alexandria, Va in April of 1995, survived by his wife, Shirley, and three sons, Christopher, Anthony and Michael.

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CBS Stars in the Afternoon Radio Program

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CBS Stars in the Afternoon Radio Log

CBS Stars in the Afternoon Radio Program Biographies