The Witness Radio Program

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This series is another of those fascinating little finds that one usually only discovers after years of studying Golden Age Radio. In this case it's a wonderful little gem of a program with a unifying social theme--common sense human interaction. And yes, one can occasionally find such similar episodes within the morality plays often contained within such popular series' as The Whistler, The Shadow, and CBS Mystery Theatre. Indeed such message dramas are as frequently found in even some of the juvenile adventures such as The Green Hornet and The Adventures of Superman.

"In the normal course of most any day everyone of us is witness to matters of life and death. The way we involve ourselves in these vital matters makes our own lives worthwhile . . . or meaningless."

Robert Young's opening message (above) frames every one of the sixteen morality plays contained within the canon of The Witness. In this series of sixteen, 15-minute installments, every episode contains a wonderful, highly effective cautionary tale, fully developed, and fully resolved. Indeed, all 16 compelling episodes are supported by a star-studded cast of socially conscious actors from The Stage, Film, Television, and Radio. The production values are also superb. It's obvious that everyone who had a hand in producing this little gem of a series threw their heart and soul into each production.

Accompanying each new episode is a wonderfully soothing, fatherly exposition by America's Father, Robert Young. Even more poignant is the knowledge, in retrospect, of the very demons that plagued Robert Young throughout most of his most productive years. As such, this short series of 16 sensitively mounted radioplays gives both an historic context to the Cold War years of American Society, as well as gentle reminders of what a short way we've come as a Society in overcoming the common, interpersonal issues presented by each of these dramas.

Robert Young, Art Gilmore and The Episcopal Church teamed up in 1960 to produce 'The Search', a similarly targeted series more overtly religious in message and hosted and narrated by Robert Young and Art Gilmore, respectively.

This series is a definite keeper, with timeless messages for any thoughtful member of society.

Series Derivatives:

The Search; AFRTS END-685 'The Search'

Genre:

Anthology of Golden Age Radio Social Dramas

Network(s):

Syndicated by The Episcopal Church.

Audition Date(s) and Title(s):

None

Premiere Date(s) and Title(s):

59-xx-xx 01 Labor Relations In An Electronic Age

Run Dates(s)/ Time(s):

[Unknown]

Syndication:

The Episcopal Church.

Sponsors:

The Episcopal Church.

Director(s):

Thomas Freebairn-Smith; Producer: Marjorie Hunt-Pearson

Principal Actors:

A Star-studded cast including: Robert Young, J.Carroll Naish, Tim Matheson, James Edwards, Ivan Dixon, Nestor Paiva, Janet Waldo, Parley Baer, Virginia Gregg, Gil Stratton, Bernie Hamilton, Peter Leeds, Alan Young, Les Tremayne, Joseph Cotten, Rosemary DeCamp, Jayne Meadows, Leon Ames, Lenore Kingston, Marvin Miller, Sandy Wormser, and Jerry Hausner.

Recurring Character(s):

Varied from Episode to Episode

Protagonist(s):

Varied from Episode to Episode

Author(s):

Lawrence Waddy

Writer(s)

Don Hall, S.K. Hershaway

Music Direction:

Unknown

Musical Theme(s):

Unknown

Announcer(s):

Art Gilmore

Estimated Scripts or
Broadcasts:

Episodes in Circulation:

Total Episodes in Collection:

Provenances:

Jay Hickerson Guide, Los Angeles Times.

Notes on Provenances:

Digital Deli Too RadioLogIc

There are no known provenances for this series. We can surmise from the timbre and 'age' of the voices of Art Gilmore and Robert Young that the series may have run during the late 1950s or 1960s. We understand from Reverend Lawrence Waddy's biography that he emigrated from England to serve as Headmaster of The Bishop School near La Jolla, California in 1963, but he'd been writing inspirational dramas in England for several years by then. This could date the series to the mid-1960s.

However, Episodes 15 and 16 star a young Tim Matheson, who was born in 1947 and would appear to be 10 to 11 in the episode. We also know that Matheson, at the age of 13, co-starred in the short-lived television series, Window on Main Street, produced and directed by Robert Young and starring Young, Constance Moore and Ford Rainey. That show ran from 1961-1962. All of these facts, combined, would more accurately date this series to between 1958 and 1960. Given Tim Matheson's known age--thirteen--during his debut television series, this lends further weight to our estimate of an air date for The Witness of 1959-1960.

We welcome you to compare our log below with the log from the 1,500 'expert researchers' at the OTRR and their own The Witness log. We've provided a screen shot of their current log for comparison, HERE and HERE.

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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.


The Witness Series Log
Date	Episode	Title	Avail.	Notes
59-xx-xx	1	Labor Relations In An Electronic Age	Y	[ Premiere Episode ]
59-xx-xx	2	A Good Man's Anger	Y
59-xx-xx	3	Who Is My Neighbor?	Y
59-xx-xx	4	An Atmosphere of Love and Trust	Y
59-xx-xx	5	Laugh and The World Laughs With You	Y
59-xx-xx	6	Who Is A 'Friend Indeed'?	Y
59-xx-xx	7	The Purpose To Live	Y
59-xx-xx	8	Aloneness -- Loneliness and Separation	Y
59-xx-xx	9	A Farm Couple Adopts	Y
59-xx-xx	10	Differing Racial and Cultural Backgrounds	Y
59-xx-xx	11	The Good Samaritan of the Highway	Y
59-xx-xx	12	Blending Ethnic Backgrounds	Y
59-xx-xx	13	A Boy's Mother Dies	Y
59-xx-xx	14	The Abused Child	Y
59-xx-xx	15	Kindness and Understanding	Y
59-xx-xx	16	Parents and Juvenile Delinquency	Y	[ Last Episode ]

The Witness Biographies

Robert George Young (Host, Actor) (1907-1998) Birthplace: Chicago, IL Radiography: 1938 Good News of 1938 1939 Good News of 1939 1940-1941 The Gulf Screen Guild Theatre 1942 The Kraft Music Hall 1942 The Pepsodent Show 1942 Lux Radio Theatre 1942 The Lady Esther Screen Guild Players 1943 Suspense 1943 A Passport for Adams 1943 Cavalcade of America 1944-1945 The Frank Morgan Show 1945 The Doctor Fights 1945 This Is My Best 1946 Theatre of Romance 1946 The Fifth Horseman 1947-1949 The Family Theatre 1947 Hollywood Fights Back 1948 Studio One 1949 Hallmark Playhouse 1949-1954 Father Knows Best 1958 One Man's Family 1958 Virginia: Pattern for Resistance 1958 How America Votes 1959 The Hidden Revolution 1959 The Witness 1960 The Search	Robert Young c. 1959 Robert Young c. 1931 Robert Young Player's Cigarettes card, c. 1935 During the end of his Metro Goldwyn Mayer contract years	While born in Chicago to an Irish immigrant father and an American mother, he grew up in California, graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles. Soft-spoken Young acquired some stage experience with the Pasadena Playhouse before entering films in 1931. His movie career consisted of playing charming, good-looking, bland characters. He rarely "got the girl". Indeed, Louis B. Mayer is quoted as saying of Young, "He has no sex appeal." But he did play in as many as eleven films per year for a decade starting with the second Charlie Chan movie, The Black Camel (1931). He also distinguished himself as the redoubtable spy in Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent (1936). He began his Radio career in the late 1930s becoming a mainstay in the Maxwell House Coffee-sponsored Good News series' of 1938 and 1939. He made another 30 appearances during the 1940s in The Gulf Screen Guild Theatre, The Pepsodent Show, Kraft Music Hall, The Lady Esther Screen Guild Players, several Cavalcade of America episodes, Suspense, Lux Radio Theatre, and in several Family Theatre episodes. In all, some 100 Radio appearances before 1949. But in 1949, Young began his starring role as Jim Anderson in Father Knows Best, as an average father dealing with average family situations--a role tailor-made for his extremely likeable personality. The show ran for five years before going to Television in 1954, by which time he became America's Father for six years until the show was canceled in 1960. It was during the last two years of his Father Knows Best television show that we believe he participated in The Episcopal Church's 16-episode The Witness program, a program again perfectly suited to his kindly, fatherly Radio and Television persona. His fatherly, loving, kindly roles were an adoring public's only real view of Robert Young. But what his millions of fans never saw or knew of was his agonizing battle with depression and alcoholism. This was a difficult struggle for him for most of his adult life. He went to great lengths to disguise this inner torment from his friends, family and producers and his struggle went untreated for most of his performing years. Having basically retired from Film, he'd already claimed over 100 movies to his credit. And after Father Knows Best left the air, he continued making guest appearances on many television shows and television movies until his revival in Television in 1969's Marcus Welby, M.D. which ran for seven years until it was canceled in 1976. Robert Young, by then in his seventies, finally confronted--and defeated--a secret, 40-year battle with alcohol and depression after an abortive suicide attempt in 1991. Once Young successfully recovered, he devoted the remainder of his life to alerting the public to the dangers of untreated depression and alcoholism. The Rock Island, Illinois Robert Young Center for Community Mental Health, an affiliate of Trinity Regional Health System, is a comprehensive community mental health center named after Young for his work on passage of the Illinois Tax Referendum 708, which earmarked funds for both mental health community awareness programs and the Center itself.

Lawrence Waddy (Writer) Writer, Author, Dramatist, Anglican Priest (1914 -) Birthplace: Sydney, Australia Radiography: 1959 *The Witness*	Reverend Lawrence Waddy, c. 1980	The Reverend Lawrence Waddy was born in Sydney, Australia. During the war, Waddy's father was a chaplain in the Australian Army. He took Waddy's family to live in Jerusalem in 1919. He lived in Jerusalem from 1919 until 1924. There was no school, but plenty of adventures and people to meet. At age 7, Waddy was cast as Puck in the first Shakespeare play ever performed in Jerusalem. Reverend Waddy was schooled in England, winning a Craven Scholarship in Classics at Oxford University in London, where he graduated in 1937. He began teaching at Winchester College in 1938, joined the National Fire Service and also prepared for ordination as an Anglican priest. Reverend Waddy served as a Navy chaplain in the Royal Navy during World War II, from 1942-1946. He then served as Headmaster of Tonbridge School from 1949 to 1962. From 1963 to 1967, Waddy was the chaplain at The Bishop's School. He also served in different capacities at St. James by-the-Sea, and started a mission in University City, which is now the Church of the Good Samaritan. He was also a lecturer in Greek, Latin and Humanities at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) from 1969 to 1980. Reverend Waddy has written about 200 plays and almost as many songs. His books include Pax Romana and World Peace; The Bible as Drama; Drama in Worship; Symphony; Shakespeare Remembers; and A Parish by the Sea, a history of St. James by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in La Jolla, California. Father Waddy directed the BBC television production of his musical, "Job" which won first prize in the Monte Carlo UNDA Film Festival in 1971. He and his wife Laurie live in La Jolla, California.

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The Witness Radio Program

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