The Hallmark Hall of Fame Radio Program

Background

Founded by Mr. Joyce C. Hall in 1910, the Hall Family's internationally famous greeting card company adopted the name, Hallmark, in 1928 and its now ubiquitous slogan, "When you care enough to send the very best," in 1944. The 1940s were Hallmark's most ambitious period of expansion, finding Hallmark advertising internationally over print media and Radio, primarily. During the 1940s and early 1950s, Hallmark sponsored the following Radio productions:

• 1940 Tony Won's Scrapbook
• 1942 Meet The Navy [Meet Your Navy/This is Our Navy]
• 1944 The Hallmark Charlotte Greenwood Show
• 1946 Radio Reader’s Digest
• 1948 Hallmark Playhouse
• 1953 Hallmark Hall of Fame
• Playhouse 25 [AFRS]

Note that the Playhouse 25 canon, an orginal production of the Armed Forces Radio Service, comprised AFRS-denatured selections from both Hallmark Playhouse and the Screen Guild Theatre, among others.

Hallmark's second sponsored outing eventually drew controversy--and threats from the American Federation of Radio Artists (AFRA)--with Hallmark's sponsorship of Meet The Navy [Meet Your Navy/This is Our Navy] in 1943. The issue revolved around the principle of uniformed servicemen competing with civilian performers, a practice specifically proscribed in a 1916 Army regulation. While not affecting the first two seasons of This is Our Navy, by the Fall of 1943 the issue came to a head with Hallmark's sponsorship of "The Bluejacket Choir," a CBS [WBBM, Chicago] production featuring the sailors' choir from Great Lakes Training Station.

Hallmark's generous interim solution was to employ eleven civilian 'stand-by' singers, compensated by Hallmark as card-carrying union performers, though not actually performing in lieu of The Bluejacket Choir. The compromise measure, though simply an expedient, met with the approval of both The Navy Department and AFRA. When it came time for Hallmark to renew with CBS [WBBM] for it's Meet Your Navy and The Bluejacket Choir [Blue Network] productions, The Blue Network got the nod, agreeing to make Meet Your Navy an all-serviceman production directed by newly commissioned Navy Lieutenant, George Zachery, of Columbia Workshop and Ellery Queen fame. That hurdle having been surmounted, the series ran under the new arrangement for at least 26 more weeks. Lessons learned all around, Hallmark resolved to limit its future sponsorship to commercial dramatic productions only. AFRA was happy, The Navy was happy, and the Networks were happy. Indeed everyone came out smelling like roses, except for Hallmark, whose sterling reputation had been mildly challenged due to the broadcasting industry notoriety.

Reminded of the axiom, "no good deed goes unpunished," Hallmark moved forward from that point into exclusively commercial dramatic productions--the only exception being its The Hallmark Charlotte Greenwood Show, a situation comedy already under negotiation, airing as an extension of Charlotte Greenwood's 1944 summer replacement program for The Bob Hope Program. Hallmark picked up the tab for the Fall 1944 production of The Hallmark Charlotte Greenwood Show, which ran over ABC from October 1944 through January 1946.

On the 'core business' side, it was also the mid-1940s that found Hallmark teaming with some of America's finest artists and illustrators to grace the covers of their greeting cards. The two most famous of the era were Grandma Moses and Norman Rockwell, whose illustrations and paintings graced Hallmark's "Gallery Artists" series of seasonal greeting cards of the mid-1940s. The reception of the Gallery Artists series of cards was so great that magazines of the era, most notably, Life Magazine, featured both Hallmark and its artists in at least three feature articles of the era in addition to Hallmark's seasonal advertising.

Hallmark's evolution as a sponsor and producer of award-winning dramatic productions began with their 1946 sponsorship of Radio Reader's Digest until June 1948, at which time Hallmark began producing its own seventy-year, signature series of dramatic programming over Radio, then Television, and ultimately Cable and Satellite Television. The Hallmark Playhouse led to it's Hallmark Hall of Fame productions, produced simultaneously over Radio (CBS) and Television (NBC) from 1951, forward. Hallmark's prestigious Hallmark Hall of Fame franchise has garnered on the order of eighty prime-time Emmys over the years.

Hallmark and CBS bring Hallmark Playhouse to the air

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.

It would appear that Hallmark's principal intent in mounting its own signature series of dramatic productions over Radio was to associate its name and sponsorship with a more prestigious and wholesome brand of well-produced and engineered dramas. As the quality and critical acclaim of the Hallmark Playhouse dramas increased over its five-year run, Hallmark's reputation for sponsoring a far higher calibre of drama inevitably led to its long-running Hallmark Hall of Fame franchise. In this respect, in particular, it's entirely appropriate to consider Hallmark Playhouse as the initial 'template' that ultimately resulted in Hallmark's remarkable series of award-winning Hallmark Hall of Fame productions of 1951 and beyond.

In the Fall of 1952, Hallmark Playhouse began airing on Sunday evenings until February of 1953, at which point it transitioned to the Hallmark Hall of Fame canon, again hosted by Lionel Barrymore. Hallmark's television productions of The Hallmark Hall of Fame had begun airing over NBC Television in October 1951. Debuting to overnight critical and popular acclaim, Hallmark's television production of The Hallmark Hall of Fame begged the obvious argument to capitalize on that acceptance by rebranding Hallmark Playhouse as The Hallmark Hall of Fame over Radio or "The Hallmark Radio Hall of Fame," so as to further differentiate them. And so it was that while NBC Television was airing The Hallmark Hall of Fame over the 'orthicon tube' across America, stalwart fans of The Hallmark Hall of Fame over Radio could continue to listen to it for another three seasons over CBS Radio.

Hallmark and CBS launch the Hallmark Hall of Fame dynasty

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the radioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings. The most inaccurate was Martin Grams' Radio Drama.

OTRisms:

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 2009 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.]