Golden Age of Radio Online

The Radio Drama Hour

                                                       July 2019

Monday 7-1
Burns & Allen, 5/5/1949 "George the Cowboy" 
Duffy's Tavern, 11/30/1951 "Half A Racehorse" Part 1 

Tuesday 7-2
Duffy's Tavern "Half A Racehorse" Part 2
Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator "Visitor at Midnight" 5/12/55

Wednesday 7-3
Have Gun, Will Travel "Dad-Blamed Luck" 7/3/1960 
The Adv. of Superman "Superman Vs. Kryptonite, Part 23" 6/13/1947

Thursday 7-4
The Adv. of Frank Race "The Lady In The Dark" 11/28/1949 
Phyl Coe Mysteries "Laughing Ghost" 4/1/1936

Friday 7-5
Inner Sanctum "The Silent Hands" 5/13/1944 
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar "The Kranesburg Matter" Part 1, 8/24/1956

Saturday 7-6
Meet Mister McNutley: McNutley Vacation Plans, 6/10/1954 
Jack Benny Program: Debut of Phone Operators, Part 1, 9/30/1945

Sunday 7-7
Jack Benny Program: Debut of Phone Operators - Part 2
Bold Venture "Revenge Is Sweet" 3/10/1952

Monday 7-8
Alan Young Show "Alan, The Playwrite" 1/10/1947 
The Bickersons "The Bachelor Party" Part 1, 4/20/1947

Tuesday 7-9
The Bickersons "The Bachelor Party" Part 2
March of Time "First Week At War" 12/11/1941

Wednesday 7-10
Gangbusters "The Case of Nicky Small" 8/16/1952 
The Adv. of Superman "Superman Vs. Kryptonite, Part 24" 6/16/1947

Thursday 7-11
Family Theater "Where the Heart Is" 1/5/1949 
The Couple Next Door: Ski Is Broken And Replaced, 1/16/1959

Note: Your local radio station may forget and run a When Radio Was hour from a previous week or month
Please also note that radio episodes of "Archie Andrews" are based on the old childrens comic book and are no relation to the crap on tv titled "Riverdale"

Lux Radio Theater version of Casablanca with original cast members
If clips above will not play, Click here and access the entire old time radio library as a subscriber. If you cannot hear programs because your computer does not have the latest Flash Player, you can get it free from get.Adobe.com/flashplayer

Note: Turner Classic Movies had a marathon showing of all of "The Whistler" movies followed by Red Skelton's "Whistling In" movie trilogy and even a Lum & Abner movie

32 page American Flyer Trains by A.C. Gilbert for 1948 presented by Superman!

Fred Foy 1-hour interview (Lone Ranger, Sgt. Preston, Green Hornet)
Note: radio episodes of Chandu The Magician had no relation to the Boris Karloff movie of the same name, in which Karloff plays Chandu as a villain

Have a suggestion for a radio program you'd like to hear? Email: whenradiowas@gmail

Paul Harvey...stand by for news!
Paul Harvey delved into the forgotten or little-known facts behind stories of famous people and events. Harvey's widely known The Rest of the Story has been broadcast since 1946, similar to the weekly story segment of Bill Stern's Sports Newsreel. Substitutes when Paul was away or ill included Mort Crim (1980-84), Gil Gross, Doug Limerick and Paul Harvey, Jr. Paul Harvey 1966 broadcast (more audio on Paul Harvey page). ABC Radio Networks notified affiliates that ABC News Radio's Gil Gross and Doug Limerick will fill the three daily slots of Paul Harvey News & Rest Of The Story but it only lasted about a year after Paul Harvey's passing. Gil Gross also had a 2-hour interview program. Paul Harvey reads a letter from God

Robert L. Ripley's radio series ran from 1930 to his death in 1949. Music was provided by 1930s band leader Ozzie Nelson and vocalist Harriet Hilliard--who later became sitcom stars, believe it or not!

Peg Riley on "The Life of Riley" (ABC Radio: 1944-1945; NBC Radio: 1945-1951) was played by Paula Winslowe (1910-1996), who had previously been the voice of Bambi's mother in the Disney animated movie, and later played Mrs. Conklin in the TV version of Our Miss Brooks (1953-58) as well as reprising her (uncredited) role as Bambi's mother in Disney cartoon short No Hunting (1955)

Want to get away from it all? We offer you Escape
Turner Classic Movies is doing movies based on radio series this year including Fibber McGee, Gildersleeve, I Love A Mystery, The Whistler, Crime Doctor, etc.
Blake Edwards created Richard Diamond for radio, then later the hard-boiled private eye tv-series "Peter Gunn"
Jack Benny Show broadcasting live

Jack sneaks onto Groucho's quiz show as a contestant
Beverly Sills died 7-2-07 from cancer complications. Beverly Sills spoofing opera on the Danny Kaye Show
Gracie Allen vs. the Tax Auditor
(he leaves in confusion) Gracie Allen was born in 1895 but her birth certificate was lost in the 1906 San Francisco Fire/Earthquake so she always gave 1906 as her birthdate

Miss a recent broadcast? You may be able to "hear it now" on your computer for up to a week after broadcast, check the archives

This is Wally Ballou reminding you to Hang by your thumbs.
I love a mystery so welcome again through the squeaking door

Note: Stan Freberg hosted "When Radio Was" for 10 years, after previous host Art Fleming passed away suddenly. His final broadcast as host was 10/6/06. The new host from then until June, 2007 was Chuck Schaden. Greg Bell, program director and host of XM Radio’s very popular old-time radio channel, "Radio Classics", has been named as the new host. Chuck Schaden has interviewed some of the radio stars (recorded in the 1970s, see broadcast archive).

Superman 1950s TV intro, now a major motion picture

See banner below for the two radio episodes available to hear today online

The Shadow: Greatest Radio Adventures is available (40 episodes, 20 hours), episode list on Shadow page 2

Also - The Shadow: The Lost Shows (no episode title list available) and The Shadow 3-Hour Collection (18 episodes), plus other Old Time Radio series on tape or CD produced by Radio Spirits in association with the Smithsonian

Fun fact:
Jimmy Stewart's The Six Shooter only lasted one season (he wouldn't accept a tobacco company as sponsor), and he made the Hitchcock movie "Rear Window" the same year.

Walter B. Gibson co-created and wrote the Shadow novels. When he left The Shadow magazine after asking for more money, he became head script writer for radio's Nick Carter, Master Detective for awhile.

X Minus One/Dimension X had no big-name guest stars because most of the weekly budgets were used to purchase broadcast rights to the latest sci-fi stories

Morton Downey "The Irish Nightingale" was a popular singer on 1930s radio (and TV host of 1950s Star Of The Family), heard alternate nights on a 5-day a week radio broadcast from his New York nightclub. His son Morton Downey, Jr., went instead into talk radio with a spoof of bombastic Wally George on a California radio station - when he left radio in 1988 to do a TV-version of his show, the Sacramento station replaced him with someone named Rush Limbaugh.

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December...November 2001, or here for Previous Months before that
Jack Benny vs. the Floor Walker (Frank Nelson) Note: in 1943, NBC sold its Blue network, creating the American Broadcasting System (the name was changed to American Broadcasting Company the following year). The Columbia Broadcasting System promptly dropped the call letters of its New York radio station WABC (which ABC snatched up)

For those interested in more trivia facts about radio drama, we suggest the book, "On The Air: An Encyclopedia Of Old Time Radio," by John Dunning. The publisher is Oxford Press. It is one of the many books used in radio drama research.

These programs are made available by a guy who's nuts about old time radio and a retired CBS executive: More

Possible alternate webcast available:

All programs heard are supplied by & available from Radio Spirits.
The show titles shown on this banner are for a nationally-syndicated version of this program with different radio shows 7 days a week.
Click here for the When Radio Was upcoming national schedule courtesy RadioSpirits

Radio classics are also available on XM and Sirius Satellite Radio

Carl also produces the Twilight Zone radio series based on TV's Twilight Zone

Back to Monstervision.org or Scifans

Ripley's is back on cable TV, believe it or not

Email: scifanscom

Click here to stop the background music from Keytrax. More music from Keytrax

Gracie Allen's Roast Beef Recipe

1 large roast beef
1 small roast beef
Take the 2 roasts and put them in the oven. Turn oven on. When the little one burns, the big one is done.

In addition to starring in both the radio & TV versions of "Life With Luigi" J. Carrol Naish portrayed Dr. Daka, the first villain to go up against Batman on the silver screen, in "The Batman" (1943 serial). He also appeared in two episodes of Lux Theater after it moved to TV
Life Of Riley was originally co-created by Gummo Marx for his brother Groucho as The Flotsam Family. But the sponsor saw William Bendix in a 1942 movie and cast him instead.

Marcus Brace Beemer (born in 1903) and John Todd (born as Fred McCarthy in 1877) played The Lone Ranger & Tonto on radio. They also both had to lie about their age to serve (separately) in WW1. Beemer was too young (15) to enlist and Todd too old (30). The War Department says Beemer was the youngest U.S. serviceman in WW1; he was wounded while serving in France. By the way, Arthur Godfrey was almost killed in an auto accident in the 1930s, yet learned to walk and fly his own plane. When he was turned down for WW2 enlistment as a Navy flier due to the old injury, he asked friend FDR for help. The President told an Admiral to accept Godfrey since he couldn't walk at all yet was serving as Commander in Chief!

The greeting "How" may not be a Hollywood invention. There is an actual Indian greeting which sounds similar "A-Hau," which means Peace be with you or All is well. The first Texas Rangers used muzzle-loading single-shot rifles. But their first hand guns were actually a 5-shot revolver, not a 6-gun!

Jack Benny was born on Valentine's Day, and Robert L. Ripley was born on Christmas Day, believe it or not! In 1974, Jack Benny & George Burns were cast in The Sunshine Boys but George became ill and was replaced by Walter Matthau, then George got better and Jack suddenly died.

In the 1930s, comic strip Terry & the Pirates had many storylines in which Japan (changed to "the invaders" by nervous newspaper editors) attacked China and then Pearl Harbor. This storyline was also adapted for the radio series Captain Midnight, also before the real attack on Pearl Harbor! Fran Stryker wrote the life output of Shakespeare every 15 weeks: How he did it

NBC/GE chimes were G-E-C musical notes, for General Electric Co. NBC's special alert 4 chimes was used for Hindenberg crash, Pearl Harbor, and WW2 bulletins

Fun facts:
When a pitcher, catcher & umpire get into an argument, it's called a "rhubarb." This term dates back to live radio drama when angry crowds would be represented by 5 or 6 actors saying "rhubarb" over and over. Nick Carter, Master Detective predated Sherlock Holmes by a couple of months--the American detective appeared in his own Street & Smith magazine just before the first Holmes appearance in Strand Magazine. Walter B. Gibson, co-creator of The Shadow in print, wrote for radio's Nick Carter during WW2.
Countdown to blast-off X-5,4,3,2,X-1...Fire
It's Sunday night and time for Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy
Who is it? The Fatman or The Falcon...The Green Hornet strikes again
The Shadow knows (old radio script)
The Jack Benny Program, There's always room for Jello...Sold: American!
Welcome to the Hermit's Cave...Duffy ain't here
Welcome to the Black Museum (Orson Welles) That was the end of Harry Lime
I'm the first person they look for and the last they want to meet (Gunsmoke, TV version can be seen on Encore Westerns)
Henry? Henry Aldrich...Hi ya, Baldy...Up, Up and away!
I carry a badge. Hi-Ho Silver. I am The Whistler. Yes King, this case is closed. A tale calculated to keep you in Suspense!
Join the new 1940 Flight Patrol with Captain Midnight. Flash! Ethiopia surrenders to Mussolini
Turn your lights out, everybody. If you are easily frightened, turn your radio off now.
It is I, Digby Odell, the friendly undertaker By golly, I believe that's our ring...don't open that closet. Heavenly days!
Mr. Keen, tracer of lost persons. How do you do? Yours truly, Johnny Dollar. This is your FBI

Suspense radio series history on Wikipedia Who're you gonna vote for?
I wonder what The Lone Ranger would sound like in Jamaica
There was even a radio version of Doc Savage By Lester Dent
Lester Dent bio on YouTube

Or click here to join Raymond in the Inner Sanctum

Prefer comedy? Check out 1940s radio's Spike Jones Show on YouTube
(guests include Groucho Marx, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone & Boris Karloff)

CBS Radio Theater (these are big MP3 audio links so save it to your computer or ipod if you are on a slow dialup) series by Hyman Brown, creator of the original Inner Snctum radio series

Some of the above clips are from archive.org/details/oldtimeradio

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