Golden Age of Radio

Mar. 30, 1940 “BELIEVE IT OR NOT” (A Review) “ BELIEVE IT OR NOT .” With Robert L. Ripley, Linda Lee and the orchestra of B. A. Rolfe . Friday, Columbia Broadcasting System 10:30 p.m. EST, 9:30 p.m. CST, 7:30 p.m. PST Sponsored by Nehi Corp. for Royal Crown Cola, produced by Balten, Barton. Durstine and Osborn, Inc., New York, originates in New York CBS studios. Show reviewed was heard on March 8 DEFINITELY tempoed for the ice-gripped winter trade was this program of Ripley’s “Believe It or Not.” And its music, as well as its two dramatized unbelievables, had to do with tropical islands in sun-kissed seas. The Rolfe orchestra started the torrid program with a hot little number called “Holy Smoke.” followed by the first of the Ripley dramatizations. It was the story of how a French warship, in 1859, had been sent to subjugate a native island in the South Seas and, on the shoals off the very island, was shipwrecked, its sailors captured and sentenced to death

I REMEMBER GROUCHO BY GEORGE FENNEMAN                                                                                          PART ONE Harry von Zell’s column “Memories” will not appear this issue because as we go to press Harry is hosting a Silver Circle cruise to the South Pacific. He’s asked his friend George Fenneman to be the guest columnist and to write about his experiences with Groucho Marx . Since the recent death of  Groucho Marx  , I’ve often been asked what he was like. And I have to say he was unique, and he was fearless. It was a great privilege to work with him for 15 years and to be his friend for 30. How did I start working with Groucho? I think it was sheer luck. I won the audition for “You Bet Your Life” because I happened to be standing on the corner of Hollywood and vine. A man I’d worked with in San Francisco came up to me and said he was holding an audition for a new show with Groucho Marx. Although 30 other announcers were there, som

During the Golden Age of Radio , there were no networks that aired recorded shows, so broadcasting reruns was not popular. Radio stars of high-rating, money-making broadcasts requested breaks every summer be included in their contracts. When the lead star goes out of town, it is only normal that the entire cast of the show stops working too. Since the volume of expected listeners were not really that much, radio networks did not usually put as much effort as usually do for these summer replacement broadcasts . And most of the time, the sponsors would choose not to support the replacement, except probably when the program it replaced was quite successful, so that the stars of such program can “come home” once the summer season is over. One good example of such case would be The Johnson Wax Company, which was said to be very committed to the series Fibber McGee and Molly and its spot every Tuesday night. Some replacement series of the said show included Cousin Willie , Presenting

FUN AT FIBBER McGEE’S On the air! This jolly little group comprises Jim Goss, who was playing a gangster role on this particular broadcast; Silly Watson, played by Hugh Studebaker; and Fibber McGee himself, the star and king-pin of the program. Fibber, the favorite son of Peoria, Illinois, did his first acting when he was just ten! LIGHT-HEARTED gaiety is the key-note of the Fibber McGee broadcasts , and it is hard for most observers to tell whether the audience or the cast has the most fun during a Fibber McGee program. Some airwaves comedians are in dead earnest as they go about the business of making other people laugh. To them, comedy is a science, and should be treated as such. But to The Fibber, life is a pretty good joke in itself. And the members of the cast share his opinion-enthusiastically! Photos by Gene Lester Betty Winkler, versatile Chicago actress who is star of “Girl Alone,” is a member of the world-famous “McGee Stock Co.” Pictured here in a bit of

 The Milwaukee Journal – Apr 25, 1943 Let’s Look at Junior ALTHOUGH all of the various characters Richard (Red) Skelton plays in his Tuesday night comedy show (WTMJ, 9:30 o’clock) have a following, there is no doubt that Junior is Mr. Big. Youngsters large and small never miss the doings of this pernicious moppet. Maybe Junior comes by it all naturally. Skelton himself is nothing but a great big (6 foot 3) boy. Even after he had achieved some success in the show business one of his outstanding and most endearing characteristics was the way he’d do something impulsive and then look at the injured party like a sorry little lad with a very poor alibi. He wanted to do the child characterization long before his writers would allow it. “You’ll sound like a sissy, Red,” they said. But Red insisted and finally when he had coined the “I dood it” phrase and made it his own, they agreed. Now all three of them, Jack Douglas, Dick McKnight and Ben Freedman, sit around talking like

" She had blonde hair & was kind of pretty, except you could see somebody had used her badly, like a dictionary in a stupid family."         -   Pat Novak Radio Show ; April 2, 1949 "Father Lahey"  

The Milwaukee Journal – Jun 27, 1943 Going Home PERT, redheaded Dale Evans is going home. For only two weeks mind you, but where she’s going is Texas, stranger, and that means the whole state will be clapping hands. Dale, you see, is another local girl—like Ginger Rogers , Mary Martin and Ann Sheridan —who has made good. First it was as a soloist with Anson Weeks and his band, then coast to coast billing as the singer on radio's CharlieMcCarthy’s and Edgar Bergen’s NBC half hour , and now a promising career in the movies, in addition to the new contract as Charlie’s singer next season. Dale’s taking advantage of the show’s summer vacation to do a concentrated job of entertaining Uncle Sam’s boys in and around Texas, and at the same time visiting the home folks near Dallas. Dale was born in Italy, Tex. Outside of a few years spent in Memphis, Tenn. (where she graduated from Central high school), she spent the first 20 years of her life there. Dale was all se