What Was The Last Radio Program You Heard?

I've done a bit of looking online for a source where I might hear Morris give some insurance advice. No luck thus far.

A couple of Jack Benny broadcasts, from early- to mid-fifties era, from a podcast called Today in Jack Benny. The host gives a frame of reference to the story-line and jokes, often with clips from other radio programs and movie dialogue.
These two shows feel like they were using canned laughter, but I may be mis-hearing. Still laugh out loud funny for the commute home.

Some of those late Benny shows were cut and paste jobs -- budget cuts made such tactics necessary, plus the fact that Mary's mic fright got so severe she refused to appear with the cast in the studio. Her bits were recorded at home and then spliced into the master.

Uh-oh, I miswrote myself: the title of the Jack Benny podcast referenced above is This Day in Jack Benny. mea culpa...
To continue the observation by LizzieMaine, radio budgets (by the mid-50s -ish) were shrinking and the tv money was top dog. Noticeable was Benny's plugs for his tv show worked into the radio scripts.
Not only was the Jack Benny program subject to cost-cutting, but even Bob Hope's show was in repeats for about four years until its demise in 1958 (so says John Dunning).

Yep. It all started to go south really fast when the FCC lifted the freeze on new television licenses in 1952. Within two years, radio had lost more than half its nighttime audience, and the bottom pretty much fell out by the end of the 1954-55 season. Of all the big-name radio stars, only Edgar Bergen was still doing new shows by 1956, and he packed it in at the end of the 55-56 season.

Benny also got hit hard by the American Tobacco Company channeling its radio budget away from network programming and into regional sports instead. The disappearance of Phil Harris was the first result of that cut, and the budget continued to squeeze until the radio show ended production in May 1955. As with Hope, Benny's show continued in reruns for a couple years beyond that, but that was the end for new shows.

Of course, there's some of us trying to bring it all back, but it's an uphill battle....

Meanwhile, I tuned in last night on part of a "Lux Radio Theatre" presentation of "The Littlest Rebel," starring you-know-who in one of her rare radio appearances. She's a pretty fair young radio actress, but the material is even more cloying and obnoxious on the air than it was on the screen. One thing that took me by surprise, though, was hearing the distinguished African-American stage actor Leigh Whipper in the Bill Robinson role. There are no musical numbers in the Lux production, and Whipper does not tap dance. He would go on to far more substantial roles -- around the same time as this broadcast he was filming a key role in the Hal Roach production of "Of Mice And Men," and he would continue doing impressive work on film and the stage thru the 1940s. Clarence Muse was the usual go-to actor for "digniified elderly black man" radio roles in 1940, so it was interesting to hear another performer get a chance.

I'm not really that much of a "Lux Radio Theatre" fan, truth be told, mainly because Cecil B. DeMille's on-air persona gets on my nerves with his excessive geniality and saponacity. But every once in a while they do something unusual or interesting.

Saturday last I chanced upon a 1950 broadcast of, "The Great Gildersleeve:" the first broadcast of the show with Willard Waterman as Gildy, replacing Harold Peary.

First serious listen on my part to our feature local old time radio program ("Those Were the Days" on WDCB at 90.9, Glen Ellyn, IL) in a while. I should listen to the program more often: very entertaining. I remember taking my oldest to equestrian lessons and him howling with laughter at the antics of Baby Snooks and Daddy when they'd feature it. I remember thinking how, in a day of home computers and VCRs, this material could still entertain an eight year old kid.

My mother still quotes Baby Snooks. "Daaaaaaaaaa-dy!"

Every once in a while you tune in on something so utterly sublime that the moment you hear it you know it's going to stick in your mind as a fond memory for the rest of your life. Such was the case just now, as I listen to the 10/31/41 broadcast of "Information Please," featuring guest panelist Groucho Marx. Responding to a question concerning captains in musical literature, Groucho and John Kieran offered an extraordinary acapella performance -- in two-part harmony, yet -- of "The Captain of the Pinafore."

"What, never? No, never!"

Listening right now to the October 10, 1938 broadcast of the "General Electric Hour of Charm," featuring the musical stylings of Phil Spitalny and his All Girl Orchestra.

All-female bands were not entirely unheard of in the Era -- there were several that had toured in vaudeville, and at least two -- Ina Ray Hutton's band, and the "International Sweethearts of Rhythm" -- played full-on uncompromising swing. The Spitalny ladies, alas, did not. Here, the band comes across as an uneasy cross between the Hal Kemp orchestra -- triplet trumpets in full evidence -- and Fred Waring's later glee-club oriented Pennsylvanians. The arrangements, while tending to be a bit too lush for the material, aren't bad for the type of music it's trying to be, and the musicianship itself is fine. "Evelyn (Klein) and her Magic Violin" stand front and center, and she can give Rubinoff a run for his rosin with various flashy solos, and vocalist Maxine Moore (the women only use their given names on the air) has a remarkably rich contralto that verges on the upper edge of baritone -- she's got a deeper voice than Kenny Baker, and I bet Jack Benny could have had some fun with that.

But there is absolutely no humor to be found in this program. Not the slightest hint of a joke is cracked, and the song lyrics are even altered here and there to ensure that no frivolity ensues: it's a bit bizarre to hear a lush, slow glee-club arrangement of "A Tisket A Tasket" in which the protagonist is no longer peck-peck-peckin' all around but rather is look-look-lookin' all around. Yikes.

But the program is certainly Charming and it is Dignified, and it is there to relax you and put you in the mood to stare at that off-brand dime store light bulb in the lamp by your chair and decide that you will, as soon as the program is over, run out and get a genuine GE Mazda Lamp to replace it.

And then, in the midst of all this Charm comes an interlude with news commentator Dorothy Thompson -- then riding high as one of the most prominent and influential women in the American media, the "Leading Lady of Journalism," here to offer her thoughts on the post-Munich European scene, in which the props that have held the world together for the past five years have been suddenly kicked away, and the rest of the Continent must march to Hitler's tune. "Hitlah" -- love that slick Mid-Atlantic Upper Class accent, Dottie -- is viewed by his people not merely as a "leadah" but as a prophet and a warrior, uniting German blood and soil, with the leading corporations of German business marching fully in support of the regime. Thompson warns that Nazi agents are active on the North American continent, working to tie such blood-and-soil ideas to notions of American patriotism and -- hey, wait, what year is this again?

It's a pretty grim and depressing interlude, followed up immediately by a ponderous choral performance of "The Lost Chord," with Maxine singing a deep, lugubrious lead and Evelyn offering a rather elegant violin obbligato. If there was a theme song for the world in October 1938, "The Lost Chord" would have to be it. And hey, GE Mazda Lamps cost but fifteen cents each at your favorite dealer. "Better light, means better sight, to bring you happiness each day and night," trills the vocal trio. "A bulb that's bright, a lamp that's new, means less eye-strain and headaches tooooooooo. Better light for better sight, mmmm-mmmmmmmmmmm...."

"Hour of Charm" ran for fourteen years, and Spitalny and Evelyn finally retired, got married, and lived in quiet dignity for the next three decades. But I bet Maxine had more fun....

It's coming....



Sunday July 7th -- 5pm EDT -- https://tunein.com/radio/Radio-Free-Rockland-933-s14055/

I listen to Halloween radio shows every night, I know them so well they work better than white noise to help my mind let go of activity and go to sleep. So last night was Our Miss Brooks 'Halloween Party' from 10/30/1949. It's a pretty fun one, though this one's actually not ideal for what I use it for... since on occasion, Mr. Conklin's screaming/yelling has woke me up... lol

LizzieMaine said:

It's coming....

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Sunday July 7th -- 5pm EDT -- https://tunein.com/radio/Radio-Free-Rockland-933-s14055/

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Oh, and I just finished listening to "Lurgi Strikes Britain!". Now a dramatic program is coming on: "Up for Parole"

Fibber McGee and Molly

The October 19, 1942 broadcast of "The Lady Esther Screen Guild Theatre," featuring James Cagney in a rooty-toot-toot adaptation of "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

You can't really expect a whole lot from these half-hour movie adaptation shows, but if you take them for what they are -- extended air trailers that encapsulate the high points of the film in question -- they can be enjoyable listening. The half-hour format -- closer to twenty-four minutes or so once you cut thru the commercials and assorted palaver -- doesn't give the performers a whole lot to work with, but sometimes they do rise to the occasion. Mr. Cagney -- as he is in the film upon which this broadcast is based -- is really the only reason for this broadcast to exist, and he rises fully to the occasion, vocally prancing before the microphone in top form. All the big highlights of the film are here, and though you don't get the miracle that is Cagney's dancing, you can pretty much picture it just from the brio with which he sings the songs.

The hokey plot of the movie isn't any less hokey for being crushed down to a half-hour package, but the framing device of having Cagney as George M. Cohan telling his life story to President Roosevelt himself comes over as especially ripe. FDR is of course not present for the broadcast -- he's impersonated by, of all people, the popular freelance announcer Art Gilmore, who comes across like all those "I hate wah, Eleanah hates wah, my little dog Fala hates wah" joke impersonations that were all the rage down at the Rotary Club.

Cagney, however, proves once again what a fine radio actor he is. While this isn't in the league, obviously, of his finest piece of microphone acting -- the Arch Oboler production of "Johnny Got His Gun" from 1939 might be the most searing thing Cagney ever did in any medium -- it's still very deftly done. It's unfortunate that nobody ever came up with a format that could have convinced Cagney to take on a radio show of his own -- I'd have listened the hell out of "Jimmy Cagney Playhouse" or whatever they wanted to have him do. As in film, the radio Cagney commands every moment of your attention, whether or not the material warrants.

A couple more Jack Benny programs, jumping from the The Jell-o Program to The Lucky Strike Show.
There was an especially enjoyable broadcast parodying It's a Wonderful Life, with a guest shot by Frank Capra himself. Jack dreams the plot, with Victor Moore's unmistakeable voice subbing for Henry Travers. The jokes riff on the plot quite well and the JB persona is blended with the film's message to humorous effect. The fate of Phil Harris without the Benny program is not-to-be-missed.
I must tear myself away from Jack and his gang for all the other OTR podcasts building up on the phone...

...and, following through on the previous post, yesterday and today it was The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with The Case of the Iron Box (Dec. 31, 1945) in which leap year birthdays are a crucial plot point; and The Adventures of Philip Marlow, The Seaside Sabbatical (July 7, 1951). Sherlock is courtesy of Petri Wines (try the muscatel) and Philip is sustained, so we get PSAs about systematic savings and what-not.

The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour for November 9, 1933.

Rudy Vallee's long-running Thursday night variety hour was the apotheosis of Big Time Radio -- and when Vallee adopted a full-on variety format in the fall of 1932, he wasn't kidding. While Rudy and the Connecticut Yankees continue to perform a full ration of musical selections, the bulk of the program is a cavalcade of vaudeville and Broadway talent -- making the surviving recordings (and Vallee was a meticulous preservationist) a priceless audio record of what the New York stage was really like in the 1930s. This particular broadcast is an important one, although at the time it was just another week on the Fleischmann's agenda: among the guest stars are two important names. One you probably know, and one you probably don't.

The one you do is none other than George Gershwin himself, performing his Concerto in F. Think about that for a second. One of the greatest names in the history of American music, performing one of his definitive compositions live on the air, and it's just another Thursday night. There's a reason why the 1930s were the true "Golden Age of Radio," and programs like this are why.

The other important name is one that's completely unknown except to historians of American comedy. Richy Craig Jr. was what, at the time, they called a monologist -- but he was a pioneer figure in the annals of what we today call standup comedy. He performs no character, he does no dialect routine, he doesn't sing or perform an instrumental solo. He just stands at the microphone and talks for seven minutes, in a sardonic "can you believe this stuff?" tone of voice, about experiences that have annoyed him over the previous week. Craig wrote all his own material, and he suffered terribly from joke-thieves, among them Milton Berle, who engaged in a rancorous public feud with Craig over purloined gags, and also Bob Hope, who at least acknowledged his debt. What's especially notable about Craig's appearance here isn't just the fact of it -- it's that this is the last performance he would ever give. Nineteen days later, he dropped dead of heart failure at the age of 31. This one broadcast, along with a handful of forgotten movie shorts, is all that remains of one of the most influential comedians who ever lived.

If that's not enough, you also hear this week from Kitty Carlisle -- yes, the glamourous panelist from "To Tell The Truth," famous raconteur and wife of Moss Hart, who in 1933 was a rising Broadway star. She here sings Gershwin's "The Man I Love," in a potent operatic contralto. with Gershwin himself at the piano. For drama, there's "The Love Nest," an adaptation of a Ring Lardner short story about sex and betrayal, starring another young stage talent, Jean Dixon. And one more bonus -- singing along with Vallee's orchestra in a couple of selections is a bouncy eighteen-year-old vocalist calling herself Alice Faye, who was only "just friends" with Rudy, if you get my drift, and would soon be named as a co-respondent in one of the most toxic divorce cases of the decade. Nonetheless, Alice shows great potential here, and would soon go on to a highly-successful movie and radio career of her own.

Missing from the recording are the commercials for Fleischmann's Yeast -- Rudy didn't want to pay to have them recorded, so they were left out of the airchecks -- so we don't get to hear Dr. R. E. Lee Director Of Fleischmann Health Research telling us why we should eat three cakes daily. But we do find out that announcer Jimmy Wallington has been awarded the 1933 Diction Medal by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honor he wore proudly, no doubt, for the rest of his days.

Vallee wasn't the most likeable star of his time, but he never gave less than 100 percent, and that's all anyone has the right to expect from a performer. And in preserving most of his broadcasts, he did a real service to show-business history. His shows are the real stuff.

CBC Radio here in Canada.....Julie Nesrallah hosts a show (Tempo) each week day from 9:00AM to 1:00PM. Classical music and her wonderful voice. She has a way of speaking that is familiar, chatty, as if she is talking just to me. I have a serious crush on Julie.

Duffy's Tavern from December 1943, with Bing Crosby. Archie's mangling of the language and a cast of bizarre characters, all at a pretty fast tempo, make for a great deal of laughter. Bing takes his ribbing with a good attitude; those of us who are familiar with the Golden Age will get the horse racing jokes, the Hope & Crosby references, and so on.
For a slight variation on OTR, I listened to an episode of The Incomparable Radio Theatre of recent years and their parody of Jack Benny entitled The Monty Ashley Show, complete with self-absorbed star, a gelatin sponsor, and Kathy instead of Mary delivering the zingers. The plot includes a major heist of the Bertie Wooster and silver cow creamers story.