Old Time Radio Shows

Listening to old-time radio shows can be a wonderful experience that takes you back in time . Here are several ways you can enjoy these classic broadcasts: Online Radio Archives: Many websites provide extensive collections of old-time radio shows. Websites like Old Time Radio Downloads , and Old Time Radio Network offer a wide variety of shows across different genres. You can stream or download the episodes directly from these websites. Streaming Services: Some streaming platforms offer curated collections of old-time radio shows. You can search for specific shows or browse through their playlists to find classic broadcasts. Radio Drama Podcasts: Several podcasts focus on reimagining or broadcasting classic radio shows. These podcasts often feature modern productions inspired by old-time radio. Radio Stations: Some local or online radio stations still air old-time radio shows. Check if any stations in your area dedicate specific time slots to broadcasting these nostalgic programs. Old...

There were plenty of actors who could play a convincing tough guy, but the guy audiences wanted to see, and whom producers wanted to put on the screen was Humphrey Bogart . Even for productions that could afford him, there was only so much Bogey to go around. So, there was always work for an actor who could play a convincing “thoughtful tough guy”. There could only be one Bogey, of course, and despite the many comparison's which call Gerald Mohr “the Bogey of the Bs”, Mohr was arguably the more convincing thoughtful tough guy. Mohr certainly had the intellectual chops for the job. He was raised by his mother and maternal grandfather (his father had been killed in an elevator accident). The old man was a noted psychologist and an associate of Sigmund Freud, and encouraged the boys intellectual pursuits, enrolling young Gerald in the Dwight Preparatory School. Here Gerald learned to play the piano, ride horses and speak German and French. He enrolled in pre-med courses at Columb...

 By Kurt Hurner Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison, “It may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law.  The earth belongs always to the living generations.  They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct.  They are masters too of their own persons,  and consequently may govern them as they please.”  Are we facing a fourth turning where from 1940 to 1981 we lived in a more FDR style liberal society only to have from 1981 to the Present a more Reagan style conservative society ?  Is it time for a 1940 to 1981 style society after the 2022 Midterms? The idea is that after 80 years, on average human beings who remember 80 years ago are dead so no one on Earth alive in the Present was not around or too young to remember those events.  A great example of this took place in 1999 when Senator Phil Graham spoke out in support of repealing what was called Glas...

Journalism is the reporting of history as it is occurring, so News Broadcasts are historical artifacts. The Second World War , which lasted from 1939 to 1945, was the defining element of the Twentieth Century. The War involved all of the major military powers around the globe, and most of the minor ones. The significant events and trends of the last half of the Twentieth Century can all be traced directly back to the War, just as the major events of the first half of the century can be seen as leading up to it. World War Two was a truly global conflict. Even though the battles occurred almost exclusively outside of the Americas, Radio brought the War into the American home in almost “real time”. Awaiting news of battles has been a part of war for as long as nations have gone into conflict with one another. The citizens of Athens waited while Pheidippides ran across the plains of Marathon. The diplomatic efforts which would have brought the War of 1812 to an end were stymied because ...

We know that the airwaves after WWII were littered with corpses, but the collection of bodies were nowhere near as interesting as the collection of hard-boiled gum shoes who seemed to keep tripping over them. There are as many theories as to why hard-boiled detectives became so popular as there were producers and sponsors willing to cash in on the trend. They were as cheap to produce as they were popular, and since they were an outgrowth of the pulp detective fiction of the 1920's and 30's, there was plenty of material to use. As uniform as the hard-boiled detectives seem, each was played with their own quirks and idiosyncrasies. One of the most successful and long lasting hard-boiled dicks was Brett Halliday's Michael Shayne . Halliday was actually one of the pen names used by Davis Dresser, but Halliday was not the only writer to use the name. Shayne appeared in 77 novels, 300 short stories, a dozen films, a TV series and a number of radio iterations. Dresser apparent...

 "The world's greatest living radio actress.” That is how none other than Orson Welles described radio legend Mercedes McCambridge . The renowned actress earned this high praise by starring in such popular radio shows as The Guiding Light , Pretty Kitty Kelly and Big Sister . Her cross-over success in film and television came from her roles in All the King’s Men , A Farewell to Arms, Bonanza, Bewitched, Charlie’s Angels and a voiceover in The Exorcist. Over the course of her career, she would share the screen with Joan Crawford , Orson Welles , and twice with Elizabeth Taylor . For her work in All the King’s Men, her very first feature film, Ms. McCambridge won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Acting seemed to be Ms. McCambridge ’s destiny from early on. Born Carlotta Mercedes McCambridge in Joliet, Illionis in 1916, she attended Mundelein College on a drama scholarship. Her sophomore year, Mercedes performed in the Verse Speaking Choir, a group of sixteen women who...

An enduring image of big-city police work is the cop walking his beat, chatting with the neighborhood folk, keeping an eye on things, carrying a billy club and carrying a shiny whistle to blow if he needed to call for help. As the urban space became larger and unrulier, police needed greater mobility. Police vehicles have evolved apace with transport technology, moving from horse-and-buggy to bicycles to motorcycles and finally cars. An automobile could quickly deliver several officers to a trouble spot, but the biggest advance in police work came in 1920 when the New York City Police began using a fleet of Radio Motor Patrol Cars. The increased mobility took such a bite out of crime that cities across the country, but few areas were as well suited to Radio Cars than sprawling Los Angeles. Phillips H. Lord's Gang Busters , which premiered as G Men in July 1935, is considered one of the first programs to use actual law enforcement cases as script inspiration, using material from...

The Old Time Radio hobby is about collecting, storing, and sharing a great deal of audio content. In the beginning, this meant collecting fragile acetate or shellac discs that were often too delicate to be played more than once or twice. When the technology became available, these programs were saved on magnetic tape. This meant that in the Seventies and Eighties, a hobbyist might have bookshelves filled with dozens if not hundreds of cassette tapes. And then came digital. Once a show was saved as an MP3 file, a huge number of them could be saved and shared on a Compact Disc or DVD. This saves even more space, but optical drives (CDs) are less common in modern home computers and laptops.  A single USB thumb drive or external hard drive can hold terabytes of data. Solid-state devices such as flash drives and external SSD drives have no moving parts to wear out, which means your data is much safer from loss with faster access.  However, there are inherent dangers to the USB form...

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 as though every other radio program in the 1940's was a hard-boiled detective story. The genre was actually a very good fit for commercial radio. At first glance, all the hard-boiled detectives would seem to be "trying to be different the same way", however, there was more variety within the genre than would be expected. The detective format was as informally formalized as the matinee Western. Nonetheless, the genre allowed for a good deal of variety. In the case of Casey, Crime Photographer , the hard-boiled detective wasn't even a detective, he was a newspaperman in the best tradition of Walter Winchell with an appetite for presenting his readers with enough juicy tidbits to bring them back for the next edition. The real-life Winchell was as well known for his reporting style as he was for the actual stories he reported, and Casey would follow this example. One aspect of the Crime Photographer situation that was confusing was Casey's status as a ph...

Solving mysteries was a great way to get noticed during the Golden Age of Radio , and of all the various Radio Sleuths , few were as readily taken to heart as the Teenaged Boy Detective. A classic example is The Hardy Boys , Frank and Joe. The darlings of Bayport are classic American young men, coming from steady, middle-class stock (their father, Fenton Hardy, was a detective in town), had loyal friends and girlfriends, and did okay (but not exceptionally well) at Bayport High. The Boys began solving mysteries in 1927, just as Commercial Radio was taking off. However, as big as Radio and The Hardy Boys became separately, the Boys from Bayport never made it to the Airwaves. As of 2005, there have been nearly 200 Hardy Boys novels, dozens of spinoff editions and crossovers, comic books, and six different TV adaptations, but nothing on the Radio. This can be a bit surprising when we consider Radio's insatiable appetite for content. The formulaic manner in which the first Hardy Boys...

She was a lady of quality, beauty and class - Bob Hope Dorotyh 'Dottie' Lamour may not be that highly appreciated for her talent as an actress but, sure, she was one of those glamorous and most celebrated film stars of her time. Sadly though, only a few, if any, remember her today. Mary Leta Dorothy  was born on December 10, 1914 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her mother was twice a divorcee, first when she was still a preteen and second, when she was already in her early teens. She took her mom's second husband's surname from whom her mom divorced later. She witnessed her mom's hardship raising her so she dropped out of school soon after, at the age of 15, by forging the signature of her mother. Her desire to earn her keep landed her in a beauty contest in 1931 which she handily won as Miss New Orleans. She always wanted to become a singer but when her mother moved to Chicago, she ended up as an elevator operator instead, earning a measly $17 a ...

Westerns have always been a part of American popular mythology and entertainment. Westerns were an important genre of the early pulp novels. They became a staple of movies from the time of the earliest silent films, and their relatively low production cost kept them a favorite of the studios. When TV advanced enough to take advantage of outdoor shots, Westerns became a favorite of the small screen, as well. x Radio westerns were mostly Cereal Serials, on going after school sagas for the youth audience. Westerns for grown ups took off during the 1950s. There had been Westerns on the radio that were more serious than the kiddie Westerns, but Gunsmoke , premiering in 1952, was the first Western specifically for a grown-up audience. The audiences for these grown-up Westerns were the younger brothers and sisters of the Greatest Generation who had fought the  Second World War . The Hard Boiled, noirish detectives had been immensely popular immediately after the war, but...