The Star Spangled Vaudeville Radio Program

Background

By the 1940s, the various NBC Networks had already established a fifteen-year history of mounting compelling variety, drama and public interest programming as sustaining productions. NBC's numerous color-coded networks had also been whittled down to NBC-Red and NBC-Blue. NBC-Red had routinely been employed for sponsored, commercial programming. NBC-Blue had been the network's broadcast medium for predominately non-commercial, public interest or educational programming.

Beginning in December of 1940 NBC-Blue's flagship station WJZ had aired its network-sustained Star-Spangled Theater showcasing original plays and adaptations of Broadway plays featuring famous Stage and Screen artists chosen specifically for each week's production. The selection of performers for each production was also aided by telegrams and letters from its listening audience. The result was a well-received run of thirty-nine productions between December 1940 and September 1941.

After Star-Spangled Theater left the air, NBC was presented with something of a dilemma; Star-Spangled Theater had been popular with both the audiences and critics of the era, but had failed to attract a sponsor. This conundrum was not lost on veteran Broadway entertainer, monologist and humorist Walter O'Keefe. The thought occured to him that perhaps a showcase of the previously popular Vaudeville talents of the early 20th Century might better attract a commercial sponsor. Several recent Broadway and off-Broadway Vaudeville productions had proved to be quite popular throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s.

The perfect opportunity presented itself when Fleischman Yeast agreed to sponsor O'Keefe's project as a Summer 1942 replacement for Fleischman's popular Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show.

From the July 5th 1942 edition of The Lima News:

And from the July 12th 1942 Times Signal:

Broadwayites are watching with eager interest the new "Star Spangled Vaudeville" program which Walter O'Keefe emcees over NBC Sunday nights at 8 p. m. EWT. They figure that the program's success will open the field to similar ventures by other sponsors and a rush of vaudeville to the microphones would mean more work for them.
     O'Keefe is currently combing the files of two-a-day headliners and before the summer is over he expects that he will have brought to radio practically every footlight performer who has ever earned an encore at the Palace theater, once the goal of every ham.
     "Star Spangled Vaudeville" is the first such attempt in a network evening hour. The only ether program which ventured forth in a pattern akin to the O'Keefe stanzas was the Saturday morning Vaudeville theater which is now off the air.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were newspaper listings.

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