The Romance and Theatre of Romance Radio Programs

Background:

Colgate-Palmolive-Peet's long history of Radio sponsorship

From Broadcast Radio's inception in the mid-1920s to well into the waning days of the Golden Age of Radio, Colgate-Palmolive-Peet had been one of Radio's most prolific sponsors. From soaps to variety to adventure drama to sports, Colgate-Palmolive-Peet employed Radio in every way imaginable to promote their growing family of laundry products and beauty and health aids:

• 1927 The Palmolive Hour
• 1934 Colgate House Party
• 1934 Palmolive Beauty Box Theater
• 1935 Music At The Haydn’s [Observatory]
• 1935 Theatre of Romance
• 1936 Bachelor’s Children
• 1936 The Goldbergs
• 1937 True Adventures
• 1937 Your Adventurers
• 1938 How To Win Friends and Influence People
• 1938 Stepmother
• 1939-1951 Colgate Sports Newsreel
• 1941 Colgate Spotlight Variety
• 1941 Guy Lombardo
• 1941 Hobby Lobby
• 1942 Can You Top This?
• 1943 Inner Sanctum
• 1943 The Judy Canova Show
• 1944 Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge
• 1944 Theatre of Romance
• 1946 A Day in the Life of Dennis Day
• 1946 The Mel Blanc Show
• 1947 Gramps
• 1947 Mr. and Mrs. North
• 1948 Our Miss Brooks
• 1950 Satan’s Waiting
• 1950 Strike it Rich
• 1951 King’s Row
• 1952 Bob and Ray
• 1953 The Phrase That Pays

In 1806, soap and candle maker William Colgate opened up a starch, soap and candle factory on Dutch Street in New York City as William Colgate & Company. Colgate suffered a severe heart attack, sidelining his growing business for several years. After recovering enough to continue his business in earnest, William Colgate & Company began selling cakes of soap in uniform weights directly to consumers. William Colgate was also a deeply religious Christian and civic-minded lay-worker who helped found the American Bible Society, best known for its Good News Translation of the Bible. When William Colgate died in 1857, William Colgate & Company reorganized as Colgate & Company under the management of Colgate's son, Samuel Colgate. It was in 1872 that Colgate & Company introduced Cashmere Bouquet, a perfumed soap. At its introduction, Colgate & Company issued the following advertising copy to promote the product (from the July 22nd, 1872 edition of the Janesville Gazette):

"A healthy body is the tabernacle, but a
filthy, sickly one the prison, of the soul.
Let those who are filthy and sick, and
would be well, heed this proverb and place
their reliance upon the use of Colgate's
Cashmere Boquet Soap, so elegantly perfumed,
to guard against threatened disease,
and to regain the blessing of health."

Even more telling of the era, was this promotional copy for Cashmere Boquet and Colgate's Violet Toilet Water--from the November 7th 1877 edition of the Iowa State Reporter (reprinted precisely as found):

"It will be found upon inquiry of representative store-keepers in city and town, that ladies no longer depend on foreign makers for their Perfumery and Toilet Articles.

To Messrs. COLGATE & Co., the credit is largely due for this marked departure from the old preference.

Their Cashmere Boquet Soap and Violet Toilet Water, is universally esteemed by the tasteful and refined, as the most delicate and recherche of purfumes."

Both of the above were fairly representative promotional copy for feminine requisites of the era.

In 1873 Colgate introduced its first toothpaste, first in jars then in tubes. Colgate's first toothpaste in a tube, Colgate Ribbon Dental Cream, arrived in 1896. That same year Colgate hired Martin Ittner, under whose direction Colgate & Company founded one of America's first applied research labs. By 1908 Colgate & Company was mass-producing toothpaste in tubes. Samuel Colgate's brother, James Boorman Colgate, became a primary trustee of Colgate University.

Meanwhile, over in Milwaukee at the turn of the century, the B.J. Johnson Company had devised a soap--'Palm-olive'--rendered entirely from palm and olive oils, a formula B.J. Johnson had developed in 1898. B.J. Johnson's vegetable oil-based soap became so popular that B.J. Johnson adopted Palmolive as the firm's new name. At the dawn of the 20th Century Palmolive had become the world's most delicious(?) popular bar soap.

The huge Kansas City, Missouri and Oakland, California based soap manufacturer, Peet Brothers, merged with Palmolive to become Palmolive-Peet. And in 1928, Palmolive-Peet bought the Colgate Company to create the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Company. It was the Peet Brothers 'Crystal White Soap Chips' that eventually evolved into Colgate-Palmolive-Peet's famous 'Super Suds Soap Flakes.' Peet Brothers' own Crystal White Soap Chips had long been promoted as "the billion bubble soap."

Super Suds' claim to be capable of 'all but filling two trailer trucks with suds' came under the scrutiny of LIFE magazine in its October 20th 1947 issue.

Colgate-Palmolive-Peet once responded to a 1947 challenge to that same claim by Super Suds by promising to fill two trailer trucks with the suds output from a single box of Super Suds. LIFE magazine followed the challenge to completion in a three-page article from their October 20th 1947 issue titled "Speaking of Pictures . . . Soapsuds prove an adman's claim." And indeed, a single box of Super Suds did in fact fill a single--even larger--trailer truck to overflowing by about 300 cubic feet with its output of soap suds. An ad executive's dream come true, to be sure. Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Company ultimately dropped the 'Peet' in 1953, becoming simply the Colgate-Palmolive Company.

Colgate promotes Crystal White Soap with Theatre of Romance

The Mutual Broadcasting System's key station, WOR, launched Theatre of Romance on April 30th 1935 as a two per week series of romantic variety programs in a fifteen minute format. Sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive-Peet, the series aired for thirty-four episodes, leaving the air on August 23rd 1935.

Colgate-Palmolive-Peet's 'Crystal White Soap' brand, already one of the company's earliest and most successful lines, launched a nationwide contest in May 1935 to promote the line. In addition to magazine and newspaper ads promoting the contest, Colgate-Palmolive-Peet sponsored Theatre of Romance, a two-a-week series of 15-minute broadcasts of romantic skits and variety.

The three-month contest, timed to coincide with Summer vacations, offered four weekly $250 prizes for thirteen weeks in response to submissions of a 25-words or less sentence beginning, " I like Crystal White Soap because . . ." Once the contest promotion ended, the radio series ended with it.

CBS launches Romance as a sustaining feature

Continually mining the airwaves for compelling new radio features, CBS launched a series of love story dramas on April 19th 1943 in hopes of attracting a sponsor for the series. Airing for fifty-eight weeks, Romance presented dramatizations of many of the most popular romance dramas and novels of the era, headlined by Film, Stage and Radio's finest actors. The CBS-sustained feature aired for a total of fifty-eight installments, leaving the air with its June 20th 1944 episode. CBS had found a commercial sponsor for the fine series: Colgate-Palmolive-Peet.

CBS and Colgate premiere The Theatre of Romance

Host Arnold Moss was featured in this 1944 Columbia Post Card promoting The Colgate Tooth Powder Theatre of Romance

Finally obtaining a sponsor for its well-produced Romance series, CBS relaunched the series on July 4th 1944 as The Colgate Tooth Powder Theatre of Romance--or simply, The Theatre of Romance. Colgate-Palmolive-Peet, having already sponsored radio's first "Theatre of Romance" in 1935, found the CBS production a natural extension of its decade-earlier promotional effort. In Radio, as well in as the Advertising Industry, leverage was an important promotional element. Having already established its connection with Theatre of Romance, the longer, 30-minute format of Colgate Tooth Powder's Theatre of Romance leant itself to even greater promotional possibilities.

Already a well-written and produced series as a sustaining feature, The Colgate Tooth Powder Theatre of the Romance added even more luster to the production with the addition of rising Stage and Radio star Arnold Moss as the host of the new series.

Having completed sixty installments, The Colgate Tooth Powder Theatre of the Romance morphed into The Colgate-Halo Theatre of Romance for the Fall Season of 1945 which premiered on September 4th 1945. The renamed series more aggressively Colgate's Halo Shampoo along with several of Colgate-Palmolive-Peet's other health and hygeine products. Continuing to actively promote Halo Shampoo, Colgate ultimately streamlined the title of the production to simply Theatre of Romance, under "double-feature sponsorship": Halo Shampoo and Colgate Tooth Powder. Thus renamed, the series continued to air for sixty-three more installments, ultimately leaving the air with its holiday production of "Cindrella" on December 11th 1946.

CBS continues airing Romance--sustained--from 1947 to 1950

Recognizing the continuing value of its Romance series, CBS wisely continued sustaining Romance--in various fomats--for the following three and a half years. Nor did CBS stint on its history of fine production values for the Romance and Theatre of Romance series' that preceded it. As either CBS Presents Romance, Romance, or Your Theater of Romance, CBS found its various Romance series' an invaluable impromptu or Summer replacements for several of its more popular programs of the era.

Wrigley's Spearmint Gum picks Romance for the Summer of 1950

When the Wrigley's Spearmint Gum-sponsored Life With Luigi took its 1950 Summer vacation, Wrigley's chose CBS' Romance as Life With Luigi's placeholder. Wrigley's did the same, the following Summer of 1951--a Summer replacement for Lux's long running Radio Theatre.

Lux sponsors The Lux Hour of Romance and Mystery

During the 1952 Summer hiatus of Lux's Radio Theatre, Lux tried a novel approach for a Summer replacement for it's hour's worth of prime timeslots: two half-hour programs--Romance and Broadway Is My Beat. As might be expected, Romance filled the 'romance' portion of the hour and Broadway Is My Beat served as the 'mystery' portion of the hour. It was an interesting, albeit short-lived, concept; Lux dropped the 'two-fer' after the first six installments. Wrigley's Spearmint Chewing Gum picked up tab for the remainder of the Summer of 1952--yet again renaming the series simply "Romance."

1952's Fall brings Jergens' Hollywood Playhouse of Romance

Finding yet another full-time sponsor for Romance, CBS and Jergens' Lotion retooled the series as Jergens' Hollywood Playhouse of Romance, premiering on September 4th 1952. Holding great promise, CBS and Jergens jointly promoted the series in newspapers and magazines via elaborate spot ads and talent teasers. But in spite of the continued big name talent, full-boat sponsor and prime timeslot, Jergens opted out of its sponsorship after only nineteen episodes.

In all fairness to Romance, the early 1950s were a period of rather ruthless talent and program poaching between CBS and NBC. By the time the dust had settled, CBS had managed to steal five major programs and name talents from NBC, while NBC was only able to coax two of CBS' major programs into the NBC fold. Needless to say, those three years of rather messy skirmishes and legal battles played the devil with a great deal of both Networks' primetime Radio schedules.

CBS takes Romance to the finish line as a sustaining feature

The compartive utility of a network-sustained Radio feature had radically evolved over Radio's first 30 years. By the mid-1950s it was the rare radio production indeed that commanded a full-time, dedicated sponsor for it's programming. The more common paradigm of the era was an elaborate combination of local, regional and national network feeds which were then sliced, diced, disassembled then reassembled with between three and seven sponsors for any given half-hour or full-hour segment of programming.

Under such circumstances, given a sufficiently strong and well-established following, a well-written, well-produced dramatic feature could still command a strong, extremely loyal audience well into the 1950s--with or without a major sponsor. While the network feed would have emanated over the network sans local or regional commercials, by the time that same feed--or transcribed feature--reached its target local market, it might well have acquired as many as four or five commercial inserts or PSAs along the way. And of course any number of those inserts may well have been promotions of other programming in the CBS lineup. From the network's standpoint it was a win-win--providing that the target audience remained loyal.

And as it turned out, CBS had indeed found an extremely loyal demographic for its sustaining Romance series: mid-Saturday-morning housewives. As unlikely as it might seem, Romance managed to hold this demographic's loyalty for the remaining four years between January 1953 and January 1957--on the same day and in the same timeslot . . . and without a major sponsor. Ah, the power of Romance.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were newspaper listings.

OTRisms:

Let's forever dispense with the utterly absurd, crackpot conjecture circulating throughout 'the OTR World' that Theatre of Romance and Romance were simply 'filler' programming:

• Theatre of Romance and Romance spanned twenty-two years and over 490 installments during those twenty-two years.
• Throughout those twenty-two years, Romance found at least four major, repeat sponsors--for contiguous runs of as many as 120 weekly episodes.
• During most of its CBS runs, Romance commanded the greatest Film, Stage and Radio talent available during the era for leading--as well as supporting--roles in its dramas.
• Even as a sustaining production, CBS' Romance continued to provide the highest production values, writing talent and West Coast Radio voice talent for its radioplays--right to the very end.

A 'filler program'? Really? Who makes this nonsense up? . . . and how does it manage to spread so pervasively throughout the Radio Collecting Hobby? 'Vanity book' authors? OTR Blogs? How exactly? Even more to the point, who in their right mind would trust these absurd sources and their predominately plagiarized--and uniformly inaccurate--tripe?

Four hundred ninety-four predominately half-hour programs spanning twenty-two years? Stars of the caliber of:

• Cary Grant
• Jimmy Stewart
• John Garfield
• Henry Fonda
• Joan Bennett
• John Hodiak
• Anthony Quinn
• Van Johnson
• Susan Peters
• Humphrey Bogart
• Joseph Cotten
• Loretta Young
• Robert Walker
• Vincent Price
• Robert Alda
• Ronald Colman
• Sir Cedric Hardwicke
• Janis Paige
• Melvyn Douglas
• Robert Taylor
• Gregory Peck
• Edward Arnold
• Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
• Shirley Temple
• Robert Young
• Errol Flynn
• Ida Lupino
• Edward G. Robinson

Did stars of the caliber and fame of those immediately above star in half-hour long 'filler programs'? And with full-boat orchestras lead by the likes of Lud Gluskin, Alfredo Antonini, Eddie Dunstedter, Alexander Semmler, Jerry Goldsmith, Amerigo Moreno, and Alexander Courage? Really? In what alternate universe is talent like that listed above deemed 'network filler'?!?

We're frankly well beyond trusting the 'OTR World' any longer for anything of historical validity, integrity or substance. The OTR Industry has proved itself time and time again to be nothing more than a radio hobby version of the now infamous astroturf Tea Party: just making it up as they go, with no respect whatsoever for historical facts, truth, principles nor human logic.

In point of fact, Romance and Theatre of Romance, in their various manifestations over the years, were some of the most well-received, popular, durable and well-produced romance and adventure genre programs of The Golden Age of Radio. But 'filler' ? Not by a long shot.

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[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.]