Old Time Radio Shows

  When we hear about a so-called overnight success, it is easy to assume that it happens to an act which came out of nowhere. On the evening of December 17, 1936, Edgar Bergen was a relative nobody, standing in the NBC Studios in New York City , waiting for his introduction to appear on Rudy Vallee 's The Royal Gelatin Hour . In just a few weeks, he will become one of the biggest things on radio, in fact in all of show business, but right now he is just another vaudevillian who is appearing on an otherwise routine episode of the popular variety show. On the lineup for that night's show includes Cornelia Otis Skinner giving a monolog about Christmas, Douglas Montgomery and Shirley Booth present a sketch entitled "Three Diamond Bid", and Rudy interviews successful party-planner Elsa Maxwell. Edgar and Charlie McCarthy are not the evening's only firsts, musician "Sleepy" Hall will introduce the world to the wonders of the electric banjo. It is som...

Radio Drama "died" on Sept 30, 1962, with the closing broadcasts of Suspense! and Yours Truly Johnny Dollar . When CBS canceled these two series, the Golden Age of Radio ended, a victim of the increasing influence of Television. To quote Fibber McGee and Molly 's Old Timer, “That ain't the way I heared it...” The rise of television expediated the demise radio drama as a commercial endeavor in the United States, but radio drama (or "Audio Theater") is simply too effective as a storytelling medium to die away altogether. There are still markets that regard  Radio Drama highly, even when it competes with Television. Radio Drama, Soap Operas, and Comedy Programing remain a staple of British radio. In parts of the world that were slower to get television, such as South Africa and the Australian Outback, Radio Drama held on as a readily accessible form of electronic entertainment, although often subsidized. In the US, radio drama held on in a few out...

Lurene Tuttle worked on so many shows that she was called "the most heard woman in America", and she also helped to organize the union which allowed radio actors to make a living wage. The American labor movement rose in the closing decades of the nineteenth century and gained traction in the first two of the twentieth. Although collective bargaining and the other tools of the movement would lead to the high standard of living workers expect and deserve today, the Socialist elements of these tactics gave rise to the First Red Scare in the aftermath of the Great War and the Russian Revolution. The first Scare made 'Communist' an obscenity in the American vernacular, leading almost inevitably to McCarthyism and the Hollywood Blacklist. The specter of Communism overshadows what the labor movement truly was – not workers trying to overthrow the industries and bosses they were working for but demanding workplace dignity, safety, and a living wage in exchange for the wor...

It seems that every day is the anniversary of something important. And that is especially true when you look at Old Time Radio . However we think that Dec 17 th  is one anniversary that is more than worth remembering. 79 years ago, on Dec 17, 1936, Edgar Bergen brought his companion, Charlie McCarthy , to the radio waves for the first time. The show was  The Royal Gelatin Hour  hosted and directed by Rudy Vallee . Better known as  The Rudy Vallee Show , the program was going through a barely noticeable shakeup of its own. From 1929 Tuesday nights were dedicated to Rudy entertaining radio audiences and pushing Fleischmann's Yeast. Rudy Vallee was one of the earliest "crooners"; his voice wasn't really strong enough to fill theaters before electric amplification, but he was able to use the microphone to create an intimate and appealing (to young women) sound. NBC head of programming, Bertha Brainard, pushed for Vallee to host the show, explaining that "only...