Breaking Walls

At 10AM eastern time on the morning of Wednesday, December 22nd, 1948, Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians signed on NBC with the most expensive daytime show on radio.

Waring’s enormous glee club gave his show a distinctive musical body and spirit. He was described as genial and affable away from the bandstand, but a tireless perfectionist at work. His people talked of constant rehearsals, sometimes lasting eight hours.

He prepared twice the material needed, then chose numbers that were fresh despite the hours of rehearsal.

Waring also arranged tunes three ways—in straight time, as a waltz, and in jive. He wouldn’t reveal which he wanted until the Pennsylvanians were on the air. It kept the group alert and ready to play anything.

At 9:30PM on December 21st, 1948, Jim and Marion Jordan signed on NBC. The couple was in the midst of their tenth consecutive season with a top-three rated show. That month, their rating was 26.6.

That night, Jim Jordan had a cold and Gale Gordon was his usual self. McGee gets a letter from a secret admirer before taking packages down to the post office.

On December 20th, 1948 at 7PM eastern time, The Chesterfield Supper Club took to the air on NBC, featuring a rotating cast of singers Perry Como, Jo Stafford, Peggy Lee, and Mary Ashford and the Satisfiers.

Como appeared on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, while Stafford appeared on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

By 1948, Como had thirteen top-five hits to his credit, and Stafford had sixteen top-ten.

The Supper Club aired weeknights for fifteen minutes. 1948-49 season was the first in which no multiple run shows cracked radio’s top-fifty. The Supper Club’s rating that month was 10.4, while opposite on CBS, Beulah, starring Hattie McDaniel, pulled a rating of 14.1.

At 7PM eastern time on December 19th, 1948, Jack Benny signed on from NBC’s KFI in Los Angeles. By then his move to CBS was a done deal. The episode was his penultimate on NBC.

There were hard feelings from the National Broadcasting Company. David Sarnoff said “leadership built on a foundation of solid service can’t be snatched overnight by a few high-priced comedians. Leadership is no laughing matter.”

But if Sarnoff was mad, he’d only himself to blame. Benny would have happily stayed at NBC, but felt slighted by Sarnoff, who’d never met Benny in person, and elated with William Paley.

Between 1935 and 1948, Benny’s rating had never been lower than 20.4, and ten times he’d had a top-five rated show. His departure from NBC would leave an un-fillable void, despite Sarnoff’s sarcastic comments.

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All this week at https://www.patreon.com/TheWallBreakers I'll be publishing full episodes from Breaking Walls Episode 110: Christmas Week 1948—The CBS Talent Raids (https://soundcloud.com/thewallbreakers/bw-ep110-christmas-week-1948the-cbs-talent-raids?in=thewallbreakers/sets/breaking-walls-the-wall)

These full episodes will be available with show notes to all Patreon subscribers for $1 per month. I'll post one show in the normal Breaking Walls show feed, and 4-5 additional ones on Patreon. Happy Holidays!

This is the last episode of Jeff Regan, Investigator starring Jack Webb. The following month, Webb intimated to Radio Life Magazine that his days playing hard-boiled private eyes were over. His next character would be called Joe Friday.

Miss Carrer is associated with the famous psychic consultant Prince Nemo, she handled all of his outside contacts. The “Lion” wanted Regan to drive out with Miss Carrer to speak with the Prince at his home in Ocean Town about a very delicate matter that he wanted to discuss personally. Regan wanted more specifics but the Lion was happy with the payment so insisted he went.

The Greatest Story Ever Told came to the air on January 26th, 1947. It was ambitious, with a full orchestra and sixteen-person chorus. It dramatized the life of Jesus and was the first series to use Christ as a continuing character.

There were no cast credits: Warren Parker played Jesus. No pictures were taken of the performers at work, and there was no studio audience. There were also no commercials: just a simple tag reminding listeners that the program was brought by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

The show was guided by an interdenominational advisory board. The sound effects were praised, with sandals simulated and animal noises recorded at the Bronx Zoo.

This episode told the story of “The Good Samaritan” from the Gospel of Luke.

It’s about a traveller stripped, beaten, and left half dead along the roadside. First a Jewish priest and then a Levite comes by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a Samaritan happens upon the traveller. Samaritans and Jews despised each other, but the Samaritan helps the injured man.

It’s a parable to remind people that we are always our brothers and sister’s keepers.

In August of 1971, radio, television, and voice over actor Hans Conreid sat for an interview with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for their WTIC "Golden Age of Radio" program (full interview here - https://goldenage-wtic.org/gaor-17.html).

During the interview Hans talked about being able to double and triple during radio's heyday.

On March 12th, 1983, SPERDVAC (http://sperdvac.com/) hosted a conversation with actors Herb Ellis and Herb Vigran. During the course of their chat, Herb Ellis spoke about his friendship and working relationship with Jack Webb on Dragnet.

In our remastered Breaking Walls Episode 75 we go back in time to the beginning of radio to tell the story of how this medium began. This episode was originally released on 2/1/2018.

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Highlights:

* Why the Blizzard of 1888 played such an important role in the need for wireless telegraphy

* Who Was Heinrich Hertz? What experiment made him the father of Hertzian Waves?

* What Oliver Lodge, Nikola Tesla, Alexander Graham Bell, and Amos DollBear have in common

* Guglielmo Marconi, father of radio?

* The benefits to wireless telegraphy

* David Sarnoff — His start between 1900 - 1906

* Why the press want to get involved

* Lee Deforest — Inventor, Fraud, or both?

* What incredibly important event happened in December of 1901 in New Foundland

* Why the American Government wanted to regulate wireless telegraphy

* Reginald Fessenden, Christmas Eve, Oh Holy Night, and Brant Rock

* The Titanic Disaster — How it changed wireless telegraphy forever

* The Radio Box Memo

* What’s next?

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The WallBreakers:

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Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts.

To support the show:

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A tremendous thank you to today’s cast:

Samantha De Gracia

Olga Lysenko

Justin Peele

Nancy Pop

Fernando Sanabria

William Schallert &

John Stephenson

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The reading material used in today’s episode was:

• Inventing American Broadcasting 1899-1922 by Susan J. Douglas

• Empire of the Air by Tom Lewis

• A Pictorial History of Radio’s First 75 Years by B. Eric Rhoads

• Hello Everybody! The Dawn of American Radio by Anthony Rudel &

• The Network by Scott Woolley

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The interview clips in today’s open:

• Chuck Schaden, who’s interviews can be found at http://www.speakingofradio.com and

• Dick Bertel and the late Ed Corcoran’s Golden Age of Radio program that ran on Hartford, CT’s WTIC in the 1970s, who’s interviews can be found at http://otrrlibrary.org

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Todays’ introduction music of Clair de lune was arranged for harp and vibraphone by David DePeters and played by Elizabeth Hainen. You can pick up her album, Home: Works for Solo Harp on iTunes and Amazon, and listen on Spotify and Pandora. Her website is ElizabethHainen.com and she is on youtube @Elizabethhainenharp

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I’d also like to thank Walden Hughes and John and Larry Gassman of SPERDVAC - http://sperdvac.com/

That thank you also extends to the late Les Tremayne and late Jack Brown for their wonderful 1986 documentary series, Please Stand By: A History of Radio.

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Thank you to:

Tony Adams

Steven Allmon

Orson Orsen Chandler

Briana Isaac

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Aimee Pavy

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WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

URL - thewallbreakers.com

In February of 1973 Don Ameche sat down with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for their WTIC Golden Age of Radio program for a conversation about his life and career (full interview here - https://goldenage-wtic.org/gaor-35.html).

Early in the interview, Dick Bertel asked Don Ameche how he got started in network radio.