Breaking Walls

This is a snippet from Breaking Walls Episode 112: Drama At NBC (1949 - 1950)

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The last series we’ll examine from the 1949-50 season made it’s NBC debut on Sunday June 11th, 1950 at 7:30PM. It had begun on CBS in 1945, but like many shows launched by NBC this year, it was most recently airing on The Mutual Broadcasting System.

It starred radio, film, stage, and TV legend Vincent Price.

The series we’re speaking about is Price’s only continuous starring role: as Simon Templar in The Saint. Leslie Charteris created the character as a suave private eye. He was a dapper dresser, equally at home at the wheel of a fast car, in an airplane, or on horseback.

Sometimes the Saint simply broke the law, if the result justified it.

This episode “The Corpse Said Ouch” aired on Sunday August 6th opposite The Amazing Mr. Malone on ABC, and Hit The Jackpot on CBS. Shirley Mitchell was Francis Blake and Lawrence Dobkin was Louie the Cabbie.

In November of 1972 Vincent Price appeared on WTIC's The Golden Age of Radio with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran (full interview here - https://goldenage-wtic.org/gaor-32.html). During the interview he spoke about why he loved radio drama so much and why he feels the networks made a big mistake in forgoing the medium for television.

This is a snippet from Breaking Walls Episode 96: Halloween On The Air (1943 - 1953)

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In 1945 Bing Crosby decided that he wanted to pre-record his NBC Kraft Music Hall program. Although transcription had existed since the late 1920s, NBC and CBS forbade their use for prime-time network shows.

NBC and Kraft refused to budge. Crosby walked out. In the fall of 1945 The Kraft Music Hall went back on with comic Frank Morgan, pianist Eddy Duchin, and the Charioteers. Crosby declared his contract null and void. Kraft insisted they had options which ran until 1950. The sponsor took Bing and agency J. Walter Thompson to court.

The walkout would last seven months. A settlement brought Crosby back for the final thirteen weeks of the season.

In the midst of this Walgreen Drugs Stores sponsored a transcribed 45th Anniversary special on CBS at 10pm on June 18th, 1946. The program was one of the network’s first transcribed shows to be heard from coast to coast. It starred Bob Hope with talents including The Andrews Sisters, Frank Morgan, Harry Von Zell, Rochester, and Ginny Simms. The program cost $62,000 to produce. The Walgreen’s special was proof that transcription could be viable if the networks would allow it.

With Bing finishing his Kraft obligation he was now a free agent. The American Broadcasting Company quickly signed the star, announcing that they had no qualms with pre-recorded shows. They announced a to-be-titled musical program with a weekly budget of $35,000.

Now they just had to find a sponsor.

In 1965, CBS cameras followed Frank Sinatra around with unprecedented access to the performer's personal life. In this clip, seated at Jilly Rizzo's restaurant, he retells a joke to a group of friends and family, which included Sammy Davis Jr. and daughter Nancy Sinatra. After Nancy Sinatra explains that she wished her father caroused less, and stayed home more.

In the spring of 1973, longtime radio announcer Tony Marvin sat down with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC's The Golden Age of Radio to discuss his life and career (full interview here - https://www.goldenage-wtic.org/gaor-39.html). During the course of the interview Marvin explained why it was so important for a staff announcer to be able to handle a wide variety of news, sports, and product hawking.

In Breaking Walls episode 120, we continue our Americana mini-series in autumn with a host of harvest-centered radio programing. We’ll warm by the fire and listen in on stories from some of the medium’s most prominent.

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Highlights:

• Welcome to October, Welcome to Harvest Season

• Fibber and Molly Launches

• Feast from Cavalcade’s Harvest

• Mel and Dennis Get Their Own Shows

• Gale Gordon’s Green Acres

• How Mild Can Richard Diamond on ABC Be?

• From Peary to Waterman as Gildy Changes Leads

• Escape From the Death of Network Dramatic Radio

• Looking Ahead to the Homecoming

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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

• Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

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On the interview front:

• Mel Blanc, Dennis Day, Gale Gordon, Phil Harris, Jim Jordan, Jim Jordan Jr., Harold Peary, and Willard Waterman spoke to Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats and many others from Chuck’s forty year career at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Mel Blanc, Jim Jordan, and William N. Robson spoke with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these full interviews at Goldenage-WTIC.org.

• Harry Bartell and Virginia Gregg spoke to SPERDVAC. For more information, go to SPERDVAC.com.

• Don Quinn was interviewed by Owen Cunningham in 1951.

• Ozzie Nelson was a guest of Johnny Carson’s in 1969.

• Mel Blanc also spoke with Jack Carney.

• Dennis Day also spoke with John Dunning for his 71KNUS program from Denver.

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• Autumn — By Michael Silverman

• Ghost Bus Tours — By George Fenton for High Spirits

• Moon — By George Winston

• Shine On Harvest Moon — By Joan Morris and William Bolcom

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Special thanks to:

The Fireside Mystery Theatre

https://www.firesidemysterytheatre.com/

The Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society

https://www.ghoulishdelights.com/

Twelve Chimes, It’s Midnight

https://www.twelvechimesradio.com/

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Subscribe to Burning Gotham—the new audio drama set in 1835 New York City. It’s available everywhere you get your podcasts and at BurningGotham.com.

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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

An excerpt from an episode of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show in 1973 featuring Jack Benny. In this clip Jack talks about his love of the violin.

This is a snippet from Breaking Walls Episode 96: Halloween On The Air (1943 - 1953)

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In the fall of 1948, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet moved to Sunday evenings at 6:30PM on NBC radio. Although critically acclaimed, the couple had failed to crack the overall top-50 ratings on CBS in any of its first four seasons.

The band-leading Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Hilliard met in New York and were married in 1935. They began working comedic bits into their musical performances, eventually making their way to radio in 1941 when they joined The Red Skelton Show on NBC. After Skelton was drafted in 1944, CBS nabbed the couple, giving them their own sitcom.

Ozzie led all aspects of production and was the show’s pivotal character, with his tangents the vehicles for confusion. Each week Harriet would gently guide him back to reason. Episodes usually ended with Ozzie suffering embarrassment while his sons got in a few comic jabs.

Both Ozzie and Harriet felt their children David and Ricky were too young to play themselves. And there were financial implications in big-time network radio. During the first four seasons child actors Tommy Bernard and Henry Blair played the Nelson children.

When the show moved to NBC in 1948 it was positioned as the lead-in for The Jack Benny Program. That Halloween Ozzie and Harriet visited a Haunted House.

On July 14th, 1979, radio writer/producer/actor/director Elliott Lewis was a guest of SPERDVAC in California. In this clip, he speaks about the importance of understanding the entire creative process and why it's important for a radio creator to do a little of everything.

This is a snippet from Breaking Walls Episode 96: Halloween On The Air (1943 - 1953)

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In 1934, with Chicago the center for radio production, NBC Writer and director Wyllis Cooper created a program for NBC's affiliate WENR that drastically altered the tone of horror.

Cooper had been writing advertising copy in the late 1920s when he entered radio, working first as a continuity editor then for NBC's Empire Builders.

His idea was to offer listeners a late-night terror program, at a time when other stations were mostly airing music. It emphasized crime thrillers and the supernatural. The first series of shows (each 15 minutes long) ran on Wednesdays at midnight to local audiences.

It was called, Lights Out.

In April, the series expanded to a half-hour. The following year, it went national. Cooper stayed on until 1936 when he left to write film scripts in Los Angeles.

He wrote The Phantom Creeps and The Son of Frankenstein before returning for the final season of The Campbell Playhouse on CBS and The Army Hour on NBC.

Then in the Spring of 1947 a new opportunity arose in New York. Quiet Please debuted on Sunday June 8th, 1947 at 3:30PM over the Mutual Broadcasting System.

Quiet Please elevated the genre to a high art. For the weekly lead, Cooper selected Ernest Chappell, The Campbell Playhouse’s announcer..

Chappell proved a natural. He played Scotsman, oil riggers, drunks, and archaeologists. They were every-men who got tied up in the supernatural.

Few supporting voices could be afforded or deployed. Those who were were part of New York radio’s elite like Frank and Claudia Morgan. The cast was told to play it straight. It resulted in an almost dream-like study in horrific high-art, like on October 27th, 1947 when Quiet Please presented “Don’t Tell Me About Halloween.”