The Dinah Shore Program 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
• 1944 Birds Eye Open House Starring Dinah Shore
• 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 brings Dinah Shore to the air over CBS

Birds Eye Frosted Foods' first major 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' [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 proposed series, Dinah Shore was initially supported by weekly big name guest stars in addition to a weekly light comedy skit performed by Roland Young and Cornelia Otis Skinner.

The Dinah Shore Program premiered on September 30th 1943 with Duffy's Tavern star Ed Gardner as her first guest star and a salute to the era's fighting servicemen. The production was performed and broadcast from Hollywood with the exception of the Roland Young and Cornelia Otis Skinner skits piped in live from Washingtion D.C., then New York.

The Young and Skinner skits were in the vein of a situation comedy segment of approximately ten minutes during each of the first twenty-six broadcasts. The two great dramatic artists appeared as 'William and Mary,' a fairly well settled mature couple with a daughter, Emmie, and a cook, Flavella. The William and Mary segments tended to fall somewhat flat in spite of the extraordinary talent of the two protagonists and the segment was ultimately dropped in favor of an expanded weekly guest star segment and more yocks and comedic sketches from the new Film comedian Wally Brown.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

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

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