Breaking Walls

Radio legend and Chief Engineer Jack Poppele (02.04.1898 - 10.07.1986) recalls his part in the launch of WOR on 2.22.1922 during an interview he gave in 1970.

WOR took to the air from Bamberger's department store in Newark, NJ on February 22nd, 1922. The station cost $20,000 to start. It transmitted at 250 watts, and was the nation's sixth licensed radio station.

The transmitter had been assembled in Bamberger's by a salesman in the radio department whose specialty was selling crystal sets. When it failed to work, an experienced radio engineer from the Weston Instrument Corp. on Frelinghuysen Avenue, W. Nelson Goodwin, Jr., was called in to help. Goodwin redesigned and rebuilt the transmitter, and got it into working order, enabling WOR to come on the air.

The WOR call sign was reissued from the U.S. maritime radio service. The station initially operated limited hours, sharing time with two other stations, WDT and WJY, which also operated on 833 kc.

In June of 1923, WOR changed frequency to 740 kc. and shared time with WJY until July 1926, when WJY signed off for good and WOR received full use of the frequency. In December 1924, WOR acquired a studio in Manhattan. On June 17, 1927, as a result of General Order 40, WOR moved to 710 kc., the channel it has occupied ever since.

Impresario Samuel 'Roxy' Rothafel in rehearsal for his radio show to be broadcast from Radio City in New York City, 1932. In this clip, Roxy Rothafel stands at microphone onstage in front of orchestra talking to comic duo Lew Fields and Joe Weber prior to broadcast of The Roxy Hour.

This is a snippet from Breaking Walls Episode 95: Radio And The Classroom (1939 - 1965)

_________________________

In the summer of 1955, CBS executives were looking for a way to increase weeknight listenership in a cost-effective manner. They decided to revive a once popular programming format: the fifteen-minute weeknight serial.

The show they picked to relaunch was Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.

Radio veteran Jack Johnstone, most recently at the helm of Jimmy Stewart’s The Six Shooter, was brought in to direct. The new format allowed for significant character development time.

Because the show was unsponsored and CBS cost-sustained, many of Hollywood radio’s affordable best were involved. Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar re-debuted over CBS airwaves at 8:15PM on October 3rd, 1955.

In August of 1987, famed radio director Jack Johnstone was a guest of SPERDVAC (www.sperdvac.com) at the Thousand Oaks Library in California. During the course of the conversation on Johnstone's life and career, Johnstone explained that he wrote both the last episodes of Suspense and Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, which both aired on September 30th, 1962.

In the early 1960s, CBS produced a transcribed series of shorts entitled, Dimension. In this grouping, called "American Landscape" Burgess Meredith brought the listener to various American cultural institutions, like this trip to the Attic.

This audio is hard to find and was digitized from an original transcription record.

This is a snippet from Breaking Walls Episode 94: Radio And The Drugstore/Malt Shop (1940 - 1955) For the full story, listen to Breaking Walls Episode 103: A Weekend at the Malt Shop with Fibber McGee and Molly (1955)

_________________________

Jim and Marian Jordan’s Fibber McGee and Molly, was Tuesday at 9:30PM appointment radio. Upwards of forty million people tuned in each week. Fibber’s hall closet became one of radio’s most famous running gags.

After television’s proliferation, the program’s audience rapidly shrunk. Longtime sponsor Johnson’s Wax left in 1950 and by January of 1952 the show’s rating was down to 10.7.

In 1953 with her health deteriorating, a doctor suggested to Marian Jordan that she take a long rest. She refused.

She would continue performing. Production moved to the couple’s home in Encino. The music was pre-recorded and the commercials were no longer built into the show.

At 1PM on a rain-soaked Wednesday before Thanksgiving on November 24th, 1954, Fred Allen appeared on NBC's Tex and Jinx Show out of the flagship WRCA in New York. It was recorded near Peacock Alley at The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York city.

Allen was there to promote his new autobiography, Treadmill to Oblivion, in which he spoke about his radio career and battles with sponsors, ratings, and network executives.

This enlightening interview gives rare long-form insight into a man hailed by peers like Jack Benny and John Steinbeck as a borderline genius. It's a must-listen.

Allen would pass away of a heart attack less than two years later on St. Patricks Day, March 17th, 1956.

Airing out of KNBC in San Francisco was a ground-breaking lady detective anthology named Candy Matson.

Produced, written and directed by Monty Masters and starring his wife, Natalie Masters, Candy Matson debuted on Saturday June 26th, 1949 at 8:30PM Pacific Time on NBC’s west-coast circuit.

Natalie was from San Francisco and began her career with the Wayfarers Repertory of the San Francisco Little Theatre Group. The creative couple were locally successful and had nearly fifteen years of experience by 1949.

Henry Leff was Police Detective Ray Mallas, with Jack Thomas as Rembrandt Watson.

Candy’s number was YUkon 3-8309, and each episode began with a telephone call. The Masters' leaned heavily on their prior associations in the Bay Area. Plots were also reliant on the audience’s knowledge of local San Francisco.

Unfortunately, because NBC was sustaining production costs, they moved the show around frequently. They’d often air a program a day or hours ahead its scheduled air date, apologizing later to the growing body of Candy Matson fans.

Candy solved almost ninety cases. The series ran until May 20th, 1951.

During a 1980s Interview with John Dunning for 71KNUS in Denver, Dennis Day explained how he came to be hired by Jack Benny and the interview process.

This photos shows Dennis with Jack and Margaret Truman.

By July of 1948 Jack Webb was twenty-eight and bored. After emceeing the short lived Jack Webb Show and One Out of Seven for ABC in San Francisco, he’d collaborated with writer Dick Breen in the cult hit in Pat Novak, For Hire.

Early in 1947, Pat Novak’s success took Jack Webb home to his native Los Angeles.

With Novak still airing from San Francisco, Webb and Breen teamed up again for Mutual with Johnny Modero, Pier 23. It debuted in April and was Webb’s first coast-to-coast show.

Although it only lasted five months, it allowed Webb to work with some of the most talented people in Hollywood radio. He began to act in CBS’ Escape, and was soon doing bit parts for William Spier on Suspense.

In July of 1948, Webb was back at it again with writer E. Jack Neuman in Jeff Regan, Investigator. It aired on CBS’ west-coast network into December. However, after playing one hard-boiled P.I. after another, Webb was looking for a role he could really sink his teeth into.

That summer, Webb was cast as a forensics specialist in the film He Walked By Night. He became friends with the police technical advisor Detective Sergeant Marty Wynn.

Their conversations became the inspiration for a new police procedural—one that would become one of the most famous shows in radio and tv history, and turn Jack Webb into an American icon.

Webb spent the entire fall doing his own leg work, He hung out at police stations, took night classes, and rode with detectives on house calls.

NBC skeptically green lit an audition. They thought the idea sounded flat. Like with Richard Diamond, booze, innuendo, and shootouts were the spice that made detective shows interesting.

To help secure the deal, Webb got cooperation from the LAPD. So long he didn’t go out of his way to portray the department in a negative light, they’d allow him to use closed case files.

In January of 1949 Jack Webb intimated to Radio Life that his days playing guys like Novak were almost over. His next character would be “Joe Friday.”

Dragnet premiered, coat-to-coast on Friday June 3rd, 1949 at 10PM eastern time over NBC. it was the first of its kind—A realistic, documentational portrayal of the Los Angeles police force at work.

NBC sustained production costs for the first thirteen weeks during its Summer run.

By the time the seventh episode aired on July 21st, the show had found its rhythm. Barton Yarborough played Sgt. Ben Romero and Raymond Burr was Chief Ed Backstrand. Jack Webb leaned on James Moser for writing and Bill Rousseau for early direction. Vic Perrin was an often-featured guest-star.

This episode featured Parley Baer in a masterpiece performance.

NBC finally had a hit. It wasn’t long before Liggett and Myers tobacco signed on as sponsor.

CBS took notice. A month after Dragnet’s premiere, they shifted Broadway is My Beat to Hollywood and put it under Elliott Lewis’ direction.