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Kids’ Programs Worry Everybody but Kids

The Milwaukee Journal – Nov 8, 1942      Kids’ Programs Worry Everybody but Kids By Richard Match In the New York Tunes “LOOK—up in the sky!” “It’s a bird!” “It’s a plane!” “It’s Superman !” These magic syllables are “Once upon a time--,” 1942 style. They introduce the time hallowed fairy tale as the modern American youngster knows it and wants to know it. Every day, as supper time draws near, young America, aged 7 to 14, rushes for home,  hearth and radio to absorb his or her daily hour of modern children’s “literature.” Young ears listen avidly as the heroic Captain Midnight and five or six other modern Jack the Giant Killer spend 15 minutes ranging a 1942 Never-Never Land. The old fantastic two headed giant has been replaced by master spies and super-criminals. The fair damsel in distress is now a stolen airplane design. And a twin motored monoplane takes Jack farther and faster than seven league boots ever did. None of that hard to believe, o

Hope Gets No Help in Books

The Milwaukee Journal – Sep 27, 1942 Hope Gets No Help in Books By Larry Feathers HOLLYWOOD , Calif.—Thousands of town wits and barbershop cutups throughout the land aspire to the thrones of Jack Benny , Bob Hope , Fred Allen and other top comics of screen and radio—and all entertain the same idea how their goal can be achieved. What to do? Simple! Start off by buying a large filing cabinet and cluttering it with old joke books. Then go through the tomes and “modernize” the antique puns. Thus, where a reference is made to horse car in Joe Miller’s classic volume, the fledgling craftily substitutes “trolley,” repeats the gag to himself—and has visions of wowing ‘em. Nothing to it at all, according to youngsters who aspire to profitable laugh provoking careers. In fact, they firmly believe that Jack Benny and company get by today by pursuing exactly such methods. “Just a lotta silly bunk,” says a rather successful young fellow named Lester Townes Hope, co

Phil Harrises Re-Estimated, And the Verdict Is ‘Good’

St. Peterburg Times – Jan 31, 1950                   RADIO IN REVIEW Phil Harris es Re-Estimated, And the Verdict Is ‘Good’ By JOHN CROSBY Probably no show in radio ever started out less auspiciously than the Phil Harris – Alice Faye operation back in the Fall of 1946. Radio critics everywhere shuddered in rare unison. Looking back through my yellowing clippings on this program, I discover that first few episodes were largely kissing games, which immensely simplified the task of the writers. Either Phil was kissing Alice. Or both of them were kissing the children. What little dialogue there was revolved around this osculation, more or less reviewing it. “Ya ain’t giving, honey,” Mr. Harris would mutter, a bad notice for Miss Faye. Or he’d exclaim –there’s no more exclamatory comedian in the business than Harris—“You blond beautiful bundle of dynamite! Put your arms around me and tell me how much you love me!” While not exactly opp

NO SUPERMAN—BUT GOOD

NO SUPERMAN —BUT GOOD For a long time, the American Broadcasting Company’s Terry and the Pirates—Monday through Friday from 5 P. M. to 5:15 EST—a show ostensibly for the kids, has been up among the most adult programs on the air. Terry—the leading character—has been carrying on a relentless fight against fascism, a fight started months before the actual war began and now, continuing with sensible warnings against the enemy which has not been completely routed everywhere, nor completely conquered. Terry is played by Owen Jordan, a medium height young man, with dark, curly hair and grinning brown eyes. And, in a way, Owen is a kind of perfect choice for the part. He’s really interested in children. Last fall, for instance, he appeared at some seventeen high schools in and around New York, lecturing to students of the drama on the possible use of radio in child education. His lectures were based on more than the dramatic aspects of radio, too. He’s been a teacher and made use

Radio and Television in Review

February 16, 1951 Pitts-Post Radio and Television in Review:  Intelligence, Wit and Charm By JOHN CROSBY “Young people are children callously pulling the wings off butterflies. The chief purpose of education is to impart an understanding of the butterfly’s viewpoint ,” observed Dr. William Todhunter Hall, president of Ivy College. <John Crosby> That fairly well sums up the point of view of “ Halls of Ivy ” a surprisingly sophisticated one, on which RonaldColman impersonates Dr. Hall, and Mr. Colman’s real wife, Benita, engagingly plays his liberal and humanitarian philosophy expressed in “ Halls of Ivy ,” ( NBC -KDKA, 8 p. m. Wednesday) is not anything that would provoke controversy even in the bar of the Union League Club. Just the same, it is a rare and wonderful thing to find such mature and worthy sentiments expressed so repeatedly and so wittly on a radio program. *   *    * “ Halls of Ivy ” has been on the air a year now and—let’s face

Man & Moppet

Man & Moppet The rogue most beloved in the U. S. is a precocious, conceited, impertinent, fast-cracking ventriloquist’s dummy named Charlie McCarthy . On Sunday nights from eight till nine EST, when the U. S. radio audience reaches its peak for the week, almost a third of the nation tunes in on the Chase and Sanborn Hour to hear Charlie make rude and clever remarks to important people. < McCARTHY & BERGEN  A wood-carving barkeep was important> Last week the Chase and Sanborn troupe broadcast from Manhattan’s Radio City—the first time the program had originated from anywhere but Hollywood in nearly two years on the air. When the plan to do this was announced to the press, 60,000 Charlie McCarthy fans besieged NBC and the agency producing the show for admission to Radio City’s I , 3I8-seat Studio 8-H. A crowd of 5,000 was at the station when the troupe arrived, but Charlie was nowhere to be seen. Photographers grouped Master of Ceremonies Don Ameche, da

RWG’s Scribblers Teach Pro Methods

                         RADIO                              13 RWG’s Scribblers Teach Pro Methods CHICAGO, March 1,--Radio Writers’ Guild here is attempting to teach would-be radio writers how to write professionally by the simple method of having its top writers demonstrate pro techniques. Local RWG is only Guild chapter in the country which actually undertakes to teach commercial radio writing, directing and production to hopefuls. Advanced course in script analysis, production, etc, which began yesterday (28), has the city’s top radio men such as Sherm Marx ( TheWhistler ), Orin Tovrov ( Ma Perkins ), and Myron Golden (Grant Advertising) teaching more advanced neophytes secrets of script salesmanship. Reason Guild sponsors course in Chi, and nowhere else, is that it would like to develop more paying members in a city where admittedly radio writing and production has declined. Reasoning is that altho competition is less keen in Chi than in New York and Hollywood,