In Breaking Walls episode 122 we spend the holidays in the old west with Jimmy Stewart, director Jack Johnstone, and The Six Shooter.

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Highlights:

• Jack Johnstone’s Early Radio Career

• The State of Network Radio in December of 1953

• James Stewart on the Hollywood Star Playhouse

• The Six Shooter Launches

• A Pressing Engagement

• The Radio Industry - More Than Kin

• Britt Ponsett’s Christmas Carol

• Britt Ponsett Rides Off Into the Sunset

• Looking Ahead of January 1954

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The WallBreakers:

http://thewallbreakers.com

Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts.

To support the show:

http://patreon.com/TheWallBreakers

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The reading material used in today’s episode was:

• On the Air - By John Dunning

• Radio Rides The Range: A Reference Guide to Western Drama on the Air — by Jack French and David S. Siegel

• Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

As well as articles from

• The Los Angeles Times

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On the interview front:

• Dick Beals, Virginia Gregg, and Herb Vigran spoke to Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Parley Baer, Harry Bartell, Sam Edwards, Jack Johnstone, Marvin Miller and Vic Perrin were with SPERDVAC. For more information, go to SPERDVAC.com.

• Art Linkletter spoke with John Gassman.

• Jimmy Stewart was with Larry King and Johnny Carson.

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• Somewhere in My Memory and Star of Bethlehem — By John Williams

• The Klezmer’s Wedding — By André Moisan

• Highland Lament — By The Corries

• Sonata No. 1 for Violin, Opus 13: I. Molto Moderato — Played by Michael Davis

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A special thank you to Ted Davenport, Jerry Haendiges, and Gordon Skene.

For Ted go to RadioMemories.com, for Jerry, visit OTRSite.com, and for Gordon, please go to PastDaily.com.

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Thank you to:

Tony Adams

Steven Allmon

Orson Orsen Chandler

Phil Erickson

Briana Isaac

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Gary Mollica

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Aimee Pavy

Chris Pilkington

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WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

On Wednesday, December 3rd, 1947, Jean Sablon guest-starred on Duffy's Tavern. The hilarious episode features Eddie Green and stars Ed Gardner.

On Easter Sunday in 1982, Dennis Day was a guest of John Dunning's radio show for 71KNUS in Denver. The two spoke about Day's life and career, which naturally led to his association with Jack Benny. In this clip, Dennis Day talks about his first experience performing for TV in late 1946 and Benny's transition from radio to the small screen.

On October 12th, 1947 from Montreal over Canada's CBC airwaves, famed British fashion designer Sir Edwin Hardy Amies, KCVO spoke with Ms. Rita Greer about that winter's changes to that season's ready-made women's styles.

This is a snippet from Breaking Walls Episode 97: Thanksgiving 1947—The Most Popular Season in Radio History

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At 10PM eastern time on Thanksgiving Day 1947, as families put their young children to bed, ABC broadcast Mr. President from its Los Angeles KECA affiliate, starring Edward Arnold and Betty Lou Gerson.

Mr. President first signed on June 26th, 1947. Producers picked Arnold to star because his voice had the “aggressiveness of Teddy Roosevelt, the humility of Abraham Lincoln, and the tenacity of Andrew Jackson.”

Listeners were challenged to guess the president’s identity before it was revealed at the end. Fittingly the 1947 Thanksgiving episode featured a tale from the life of George Washington.

Opposite Mr. President, live from Hollywood over all CBS stations Radio Reader’s Digest signed on, guest-starring Van Heflin.

1947 was a good year for the thirty-eight year-old actor. That summer he co-starred with Joan Crawford in Possessed and brought Philip Marlowe to radio as a summer replacement for Bob Hope. His latest film, Green Dolphin Street, just hit theaters. It co-starred Lana Turner and was that year’s biggest MGM hit.

Radio Reader’s Digest debuted on September 13th, 1942 on CBS. The famed magazine actually didn’t sponsor the show. They provided the material. Hallmark Greeting Cards was sponsor. In 1947 Les Tremayne was the host.

There are few homecoming traditions bigger than a football game. Harvard and Yale have been playing an annual game since 1875. It’s so steeped in our culture that American icon Damon Runyon incorporated Yale football into a story.

This story, “Hold Em Yale” made it into a syndicated episode of The Damon Runyon Theatre airing out of NBC’s KFI in Los Angeles on Sunday, March 27th, 1949.

The show starred character actor John Brown as Broadway. Brown was born on April 4th, 1904 in Yorkshire, England. He emigrated to New York and began finding work on the stage. His first radio credit was in 1932. By 1949 he was an esteemed veteran.

The Damon Runyon Theatre was one of Alan Ladd's Mayfair productions. Ladd was an admirer of the late-Runyon’s long-running “Brighter Side” newspaper column.

Damon Runyon had passed away on December 10th, 1946. He’d spun fascinating, tongue-in cheek tales of gamblers, actors, gangsters, and beautiful women. He gave his characters colorful names like “Harry the Horse Thief,” “Good Time Charlie,” and “The Lemon Drop Kid.”

Ladd tapped John Brown to play Broadway. Brown was already playing a similar character on My Friend Irma.

The transcribed Damon Runyon Theatre first aired over the independent station KSEL, in Lubbock, Texas.

Because it was a syndicated show, it wasn’t beholden to network lines. It aired over NBC’s KFI Los Angeles beginning in January of 1949. The following June, it began airing over Mutual’s WOR in New York.

Supporting Brown were Hollywood’s radio regulars like Herb Vigran, Jack Moyles, William Conrad, Gerald Mohr, and Anne Whitfield. Richard Sanville directed. Fifty-two shows were produced on records.

Unfortunately for John Brown, just as television was coming in and his career was cresting, trouble was around the corner.

This is movietone newsreel audio from the 1947 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Although the annual parade first began in 1924, it became world famous thanks to the 1947 release of Miracle on 34th Street, which used footage from the 1946 parade in the film.

Who will be watching or going to this year's parade?

In August of 1982 SPERDVAC (www.sperdvac.com) hosted a CBS panel at the Thousand Oaks Library in California. The panel featured some of the best known radio character actors of the 1940s and 1950s.

When the panel was asked about their recollections of Frontier Gentleman and Antony Ellis, Frontier Gentleman star John Dehner had this to say.

This is a snippet from Breaking Walls Episode 97: Thanksgiving 1947—The Most Popular Season in Radio History

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Earlier in 1947 Bing Crosby and ABC signed Al Jolson to a $50,000 contract for ten Philco Radio Time guest appearances. Jolson showed up for just one Philco Radio Time appearance when Jolson signed another contract—to host Crosby’s former NBC show, The Kraft Music Hall.

Crosby was forced to rely on a mix of movie star guests and drop-ins from other ABC shows. In a season of inflated ratings Crosby lost 20% of his audience, falling out of the season’s Top 50 for the first and only time.

The Kraft people weren’t complaining. In the three seasons since Crosby’s acrimonious departure from NBC, Kraft had seen its Music Hall rating cut in half. Meanwhile, Al Jolson was hot again after the success of his filmed biography, The Jolson Story, which earned six Academy Award nominations and won two Oscars.

It proved to be a good investment. The 60-year-old singer pushed the show’s rating back into first place on Thursday and a return into the season’s Top 20 with a rating of 18.9.

At 9:30PM, opposite the Sealtest Village Store on NBC, Casey, Crime Photographer took to the air, live, coast-to-coast over all CBS stations. Casey was a newspaper photographer, which made for a decidedly unique kind of gumshoe. By the late 1940s, the show had established itself as a primetime hit. During the 1947-48 season, it had a rating of 15.6.

It starred Staats Cotsworth as Casey and was then sponsored by Anchor Hocking. Although by 1947 Staats was entrenched as a prime-time star, he also retained the male lead in the daytime melodrama Front Page Farrell.

On Wednesday November 26th, 1947, the annual Hollywood Christmas parade was taking place in Los Angeles. Each November beginning in 1928, extravagant holiday decorations adorned a one-mile stretch of Hollywood Boulevard between Vine and La Brea.

The brainchild of businessman Harry Blaine and the Hollywood Boulevard Association, they promoted the thoroughfare as the "world's largest department store." Complete with lights, a reindeer-drawn sleigh, and brightly decorated Christmas trees.

NBC News of The World was there on Sunset and Vine reporting.

It was an event that connected average Americans with celebrities. It reminded people that together we are better than we are alone.