Second of a series
One century ago, those in Wilmington Township, Houston County, Minn., and those in Wilmington, Del., and beyond began sharing a revolutionary daily experience, right in their own homes. What it was, was radio. The first commercial radio station was KDKA in Pittsburgh in 1920. With the introduction of commercially-made receivers, radio broadcasting boomed from the late 1920s into the early 1950s – called the Golden Age of Radio, also known as the era of Old Time Radio, when radio was the dominant source of electronic home entertainment. Through the air, not only news but also popular music and entertainment, such as dramas, comedies, game shows and play-by-play sports attracted countless listeners across the nation.
The earliest programs of the 1920s were mostly unsponsored with the purpose of selling radio receivers. In 1926, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was the first network, which provided local stations with national programming. Later, sponsorships often included naming rights, such as The Bell Telephone Hour presenting classical music.
A wide variety of music was available, including weekly concerts from the Metropolitan Opera, sponsored by Texaco along with programs by the New York Philharmonic. During the big band era, rural listeners enjoyed live music from New York City Jazz clubs. Country music was popular with National Barn Dance, later renamed The Grand Ole Opry.
Programs were almost always broadcast live, since the national networks did not air recorded programs until the late 1940s due to the poor quality of phonograph discs. Therefore, network primetime shows would be performed twice, once for each coastal time zone.
Vaudeville and Hollywood comedians became radio sensations – Abbott and Costello, Jack Benny, Victor Borge, Jimmy Durante, Fanny Brice, Bob Hope, Judy Canova, Groucho Marx, Red Skelton, Edgar Bergen, Fred Allen, etc. Situational comedies were immensely popular, such as “Amos ‘n’ Andy,” “Our Miss Brooks,” and “The Great Gildersleeve.” Some stage productions were adapted into weekly radio shows. From Broadway, the Pulitzer Prize-winning hit “You Can’t Take It with You” became a radio regular series. The play, “What a Life,” went to radio as “The Aldrich Family,” which ran from 1939 to 1953. Everyone was familiar with the phrase, “Henry! Henry Aldrich!” and Henry’s reply, “Coming, Mother.”
Daytime drama serials became popular in the early 1930s and became known as soap operas because so many were sponsored by detergents and soap products. Late-afternoon serials entertained children with the adventures of “The Cisco Kid,” “Captain Midnight” and “Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy.”
Game shows included “Information Please,” “Dr. I.Q.,” and “Winner Take All.” There were also “giveaway shows,” such as “Pot o’ Gold” (1939) and “Stop the Music” (1948), which awarded sponsored products to studio audience members or those called randomly by telephone.
Some radio shows came from comic strips, such as “Terry and the Pirates,” “Red Ryder,” and “Little Orphan Annie.” Based on a comic strip, “Dick Tracy” aired from 1934 to 1948 with the exploits of Dick Tracy, who joins the police force after the murder of his fiancee’s father. This plot-twisting, detective program was expanded from 15 to 30 minutes by popular demand. Tracy was unique in using high-tech gadgets to combat crime.
“Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!” The radio serial, the “Adventures of Superman,” first aired in 1940 and ran from three to five times a week with 2,088 original episodes. Disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a metropolitan newspaper, Superman had traveled to earth from the planet Krypton and fought a never-ending battle for “truth and justice.”
“The Lone Ranger,” intended primarily for children, attracted a strong adult following as well and continued for 2,956 episodes, starting in 1933. The adventure show began with the opening strains of the “William Tell Overture” along with the spoken words, “A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty hi-yo Silver! The Lone Ranger! With his faithful Indian companion Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early western United States. Nowhere in the pages of history can one find a greater champion of justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear! From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse, Silver – the Lone Ranger rides again!”
“Your Hit Parade” was a Saturday night family favorite sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes. The week’s top tunes were featured with listeners eagerly awaiting the announcement of the top three songs at the conclusion. Many well-known singers appeared, such as Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Johnny Mercer and even Metropolitan Opera star Lawrence Tibbett.
“The Jack Benny Program” aired from 1932 until it moved to television in 1955. Jack Benny starred as himself, an unusual comedian, who instead of telling jokes, was the butt of jokes. The other characters were the comedians, remarking on Benny’s stinginess, vanity and lousy violin playing. The cast included Mary Livingston (Sayde Marks Benny, his real-life wife), his band leader Phil Harris, his announcer Don Wilson and his African-American valet Rochester Van Jones (Eddie Anderson).
“Fibber McGee and Molly” involved the life of a middle-class, middle-aged, married but childless couple. Fibber, whose first name referred to his frequent exaggeration of the truth, and patient wife Molly resided at 79 Wistful Vista, where they were visited by friends and neighbors whose names reflected their personalities. There was Mayor La Trivia, and “the friendly undertaker,” Digby “Digger” O’Dell, who would conclude his visits saying, “Guess I‘d better be shoveling off.”
Typical was this exchange when Fibber said, “Why, if this idea of mine goes the way I think it will, we’ll most likely move into the White House.”
And Molly replied, “And if it goes the way your ideas usually do, we’ll move into the dog house.”
Lee Epps has reached his column word limit, so he too, is “shoveling off.”
Sources include the research of David Beckman.
Leave a Reply