Comic Strips in Old Time Radio

At first thought, it would seem like comic strips and radio should not work together, but they turned out to be a terrific fit. The younger set was the target audience for most of the comic strip shows. The serial nature of comic strip stories kept the kids coming back every afternoon to hear whether or not their heroes escaped trouble. While they were finding out the fate of Little Orphan Annie, Red Ryder, Dick Tracy, or Terry and the Pirates, they would happily sit through commercials for breakfast cereal, candy, even gasoline for Dad's car!

When we got back from our break, we saw that the Cat had left us a message on the white board: "What about Mary Worth?" The younger staffers were curious about how the Cat could write on the board when he doesn't have thumbs, but the question itself was worth consideration.

Of course, Mary Worth is not the only popular comic to be snubbed by Radio; we have often wondered why Batman never got his own radio series. The Caped Crusader appeared in several episodes of Mutual's The Adventures of Superman. Batman and Robin sometimes took over entire story arcs. Often this was a device to allow Man of Steel star, Bud Collyer, to take a well deserved vacation. A rare recording of a Batman audition tape has surfaced. Fans who are hoping to hear an OTR version of The Dark Knight, or even the television "camp" version of Batman will be sorely disappointed; the story is closer to an Edwardian murder mystery with no Batmobile, Batcave, or even capes!

Mary Worth has been in the comic pages for seven decades, maintaining its popularity in the Internet age as it did when Radio was king. Some authorities claim that Mary Worth was an outgrowth of an earlier strip, Apple Mary. The two strips have little to do with each other except that one started about the time the other closed, and they both featured busybody matriarchs named Mary. Apple Mary was a Depression era story of a woman forced to sell apples from a pushcart in order to support her sick grandson. Mary Worth's Family (the strip's original title) was, and is, closely related to the radio soap operas of the time.

Mary Worth herself only appears occasionally in the strip. A former teacher and widow of a Wall Street Tycoon, she dispenses matronly advice and commentary to the acquaintances who pass in and out of her world. The format allowed Mary Worth to explore such issues as teen pregnancy, infidelity, drug and alcohol abuse, and prejudice. Several writer/artist teams have handled Mary through the years. In the forties, the strip was drawn by Ken Ernst, who also brought us Don Winslow of the Navy.

While other strips have successfully branched into other media, Mary Worth has remained comfortably ensconced in the newspapers.

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