Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

On February 15th, 1944 Bob Hope broadcast his program from Santa Ana’s Classification Center. His guest of honor was none other than good friend Bing Crosby.

In February of 1944 Frances Langford was twenty-eight years old. She grew up in Florida, and originally trained as an opera singer. A tonsillectomy changed her range and she instead shifted her vocal approach to a more contemporary big band, popular music style.

As a teenager, cigar manufacturer Eli Witt heard her sing at an American Legion party and hired her to sing on a local radio show he sponsored.

In 1931 Langford moved to Hollywood, appearing on Louella Parsons' radio show. She was soon heard by Rudy Vallée, and in 1935 she made her film debut in Every Night at Eight. That year she became a regular performer on Dick Powell's radio show, which Bob Hope joined in 1937.

When The Pepsodent Program launched in 1938 she began a long term engagement with Hope.

In February of 1944 Hope, Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour were wrapping filming of Road To Utopia, the fourth in their series of Road To films.

Written by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, the film is about two vaudeville performers at the turn of the twentieth century who go to Alaska to make their fortune. Along the way they find a map to a secret gold mine.

While shooting wrapped in 1944, the film wasn’t released until February 27th, 1946. Its screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award the next year.

The week of February 13th, 1944 began with the Allies raiding Hong Kong and giving supplies to French resistance fighters.

The next day a British submarine sank a German u-boat in a rare Pacific theater battle involving Germans.

On Tuesday the 15th, the Soviets began their first offensive in the Battle of Narva while a Japanese cruiser was torpedoed by a U.S. submarine.

By the middle of the week the Battle of the Korsun–Cherkassy Pocket ended in a Soviet victory with German forces fleeing for their lives, while American forces launched Operation Hailstone, a massive attack against a Japanese naval and air base in the Caroline Islands.

As that was happening the U.S. scored an important victory against Japan in The Battle of Karavia Bay.

Simultaneously, eight-hundred allied planes raided Berlin. The Germans would counter two days later by shelling London in the heaviest bombing of the British capital since 1941.

This helped lead to NBC’s War Telescope news program on Saturday February 19th, entitled “Britain is a Fortress.” It took to the air at 1:45PM from WEAF in New York.

The lieutenant Elmer Peterson interviewed was James Forrest Luma, born on August 27th, 1922 in Helena, Montana. At eighteen he was too young to enter flight training for the U.S., so he signed up for the Royal Canadian Air Force and was sent to England.

A month after this broadcast, Lieutenant Luma was involved with only one other pilot in an air raid that saw three German planes shot down and seventeen others retreat in flames.

Overall, he shot down five enemy planes in combat and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his efforts. Later this year, he was transferred to a U.S. Army Air Forces Squadron, serving until July of 1945.

James Luma lived to be ninety-six, passing away February 4th, 2019, just shy of seventy-five years to the date of giving this interview to Elmer Peterson.

The day after this broadcast, The Allies launched "Big Week", a six-day strategic bombing campaign against the Third Reich, while Erwin Rommel completed a four-day inspection tour of Germany's Atlantic Wall which stretched from Southern France all the way to Northern Norway.

He reported to Hitler that the German coastal defenses were up to all requirements, but the Germans knew that the day of a full scale western European invasion by the allied powers was coming.

On Saturday February 12th, 1944, Ken Carpenter was announcer for a Command Performance guest-starring Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, and Judy Garland. Hope had just co-hosted, with Bing Crosby, a pro-amateur golf charity event.

Bob Hope did his first remote broadcast from March Field on May 6th, 1941. Initially reluctant to leave the studio, the roar of laughter and applause from that first crowd was so loud, he would recall, that he “got goose pimples” during the broadcast. He was hooked.

He spent most of the next seven years on the road, broadcasting from bases, camps, and hospitals. The cast was put on alert, ready to go at the drop of a hat.

Frances Langford was given 24-hour notice to “hop a bomber” for Alaska in 1943. They hit one-hundred camps that year, in addition to their weekly radio show. They also went to Europe, doing a show at Messina just after the enemy had fled the town and was still bombarding the area with its artillery.

This year, 1944, on a trip to the South Pacific, Hope’s plane had to make a crash landing in Australia. John Steinbeck wrote of Hope, “It is impossible to see how he can do so much, can cover so much ground, can work so hard, and can be so effective.”

Newsweek called it “the biggest entertainment giveaway in history.” Many times Hope appeared on Command Performance, broadcast over the Armed Forces Radio Service.

Ken Carpenter recalled those shows.

After Bob Hope’s program signed off at 10:30PM eastern war time, The Red Skelton Show signed on. It debuted on Tuesday October 7th, 1941. By February of 1944 it was pulling a rating of 29.9. Ozzie and Harriet Nelson were heavily featured.

Skelton was so supercharged that he couldn’t do a pre-show warm up. It left his audience exhausted and practically catatonic during the main show. So Skelton reversed the formula and gave his fans an after-show. Among his peers it was considered the hottest comedy act in town.

Lurene Tuttle, who later appeared with Ozzie and Harriet on their own show, also starred on The Red Skelton Show.

For three seasons Skelton’s popularity soared, but then he got divorced and lost his marriage deferment. The army drafted Skelton in 1944. MGM and radio sponsor Raleigh Cigarettes tried to help with no avail. The Draft Board also turned down his request to join the Special Services branch for entertainers.

Skelton’s last radio program was on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. The next day he was formally inducted as a private. Without its star, the program was discontinued until he could come back from the war.

Words at War was an anthology of war stories, “told by the men and women who have seen them happen.” It was produced in cooperation with the Council on Books in Wartime, promising “stories of the battlefronts, of behind-the scenes diplomacy, of underground warfare, of the home front, of action on the seas.” Each show was to be “a living record of this war and the things for which we fight.”

First taking to the air on June 24th, 1943 from New York, it was praised by Variety as “one of the most outstanding programs in radio”; by the New York Times as the “boldest, hardest-hitting program of 1944”; and by Newsweek as “one of the best contributions to serious commercial radio in many a year.”

Despite airing at 11:30PM on Tuesdays, Words at War stimulated conversation and controversy throughout its two-year run.

On Tuesday, February 8th 1944 a story on George Washington Carver was broadcast.

When Words At War signed off at midnight, NBC broadcast a ninety minute program for the fourth war bond drive. It was part of an extended effort to raise funds. The night prior at midnight, Ben Grauer hosted this show over NBC.

On Tuesday February 8th, 1944 at 10 PM eastern time over WEAF, and at 7PM pacific time over KFI, Bob Hope’s Pepsodent Program signed on live, coast-to-coast from Oceanside, California.

The guest was Ginger Rogers, the program features a salute to her new film, Lady In The Dark.

It was radio’s top show, pulling a rating that month of 36.2. Nearly twenty-eight million people heard this show, which is even more impressive when you consider how many were overseas fighting World War II.

Hope’s top sidekick was Jerry Colonna, perhaps the wildest comic presence on 1940s radio. Colonna had once been a serious trombonist, playing with Goodman, Shaw, and the Dorseys: now he infused Hope’s program with verbal and vocal mayhem. He sported a four-inch walrus mustache and had a comedy style that blew away any attempt at logic.

As soon as Colonna began walking to the microphone, the studio audience warned listeners with laughter.” Hope later wrote, there were two sides to Colonna’s persona: “One is the zany, silly moron, and the other is the deep thinking, serious moron.”

His songstress was the immensely talented Frances Langford, equally adept at both comedy and drama.

But, Hope was the star. As the late John Dunning once said, No one had ever told jokes quite like Bob Hope. His monologues were rapid-fire blasts of comedy, extremely topical and wildly appreciated by his live audience.

Radio Life wrote, “Hope tells a gag in three lines. He’ll work for an hour on a one-word change. By the time he goes on the air, he knows his gags by heart.” He employed a team of twelve writers in three, two-man teams. Each were assigned to write the show’s three sections. First came the monologue; then a midshow routine with Colonna or another member of the regular cast; and finally, a sketch for the guest star.

It was a true test of endurance. Hope demanded long rehearsals, including a sixty-minute runthrough with a live audience. He’d stand at the microphone, highlighting his script where the big laughs came. When you consider that Hope’s weekly audience was more than each of the first two Super Bowls, it’s easier to understand his point of view.

The biggest problem with Hope, said producer Al Capstaff in 1945, was his inevitable tendency to pack the script. It was always thirty-seven minutes long and had to be whittled down joke by joke until only the surefire material remained. The result on the air was a breathless gush, with six laughs a minute guaranteed.

But, that was Hope. Even in his 1972 Dick Cavett interview which has been featured throughout this episode of Breaking Walls, an off-the-cuff Hope can’t help but pack one-liner after one-liner in the midst of a genuine, serious, conversation.

The Pepsodent Program was enhanced by Hope’s film career. By February of 1944 Hope had starred in seventeen films since the release of The Big Broadcast of 1938, including the first three Road To films with Bing Crosby.

If you’d have tuned your radio to NBC’s New York flagship, WEAF, at 7:30 PM on Tuesday February 8th, 1944 you’d have heard Ronald Coleman host the Autolite Sponsored, Everything For the Boys. The guest star was Greer Garson.

NBC owned the ratings on Tuesdays with six of the top seven shows. Opposite of Everything For The Boys, CBS ran a concert, WOR-Mutual ran news, and WJZ of the Blue Network ran The Girl Back Home.

“Barkley Square” is a fantasy play about a man who desires so much to go back in time that he somehow achieves it.

At 8:00PM, The Ginny Simms Show took to the air. That month, the show’s rating was 14.6. Roughly eleven million people tuned in. Opposite, CBS aired Big Town, WOR aired The Black Castle, while WJZ aired news.

At 8:30 NBC aired A Date With Judy, a female-driven situation comedy starring Louise Erickson. Opposite CBS ran The Judy Canova Show, while WJZ aired Duffy’s Tavern and WOR ran the quiz show, Battle of the Boroughs.

This was the most competitive time slot as far as ratings went. In February A Date With Judy pulled a 9.6, while The Judy Canova Show pulled a 12.6, and Duffy’s Tavern had a 14.6.

Louise Erickson was three weeks shy of her sixteenth birthday. She held the role until 1949. The series was popular enough that, in response, CBS developed Meet Corliss Archer.

After The Molle Mystery Theater aired at 9 PM, the three top-rated shows on radio aired in succession, beginning with the just-heard Jim Jordan co-starring in Fibber McGee and Molly.

The February 8th episode was called “Homemade Ice Cream” and had a rating of 35.7. More than twenty-seven million people tuned in.

After Fibber McGee and Molly signed off, Bob Hope’s Pepsodent Program signed on at 10PM.

As February 1944 got underway the Soviet Leningrad Front was fighting a heavy ground war against the German eighteenth army in Estonia. The battle would last the entire month with the Soviet’s eventually winning.

French Resistance unified under the French Forces of the Interior.

The Germans won the Battle of Cisterna in Italy against the Allied army, but at that point, four months before the Normandy invasion, the Allies kept pushing into Italy.

Meanwhile, the Battle of the Admin Box began in the Burma campaign with Japanese forces attempting to counter-attack an Allied offensive, trying to draw Allied reserves from the Central Front in Assam, where the Japanese were preparing their own major offense.

On the morning of Saturday February 5th, 1944 at 7AM eastern war time, the NBC World News Roundup signed on from WEAF in New York.

On the date of this broadcast, Allied powers were slowly inching into western Europe with the body count mounting, while Soviet forces captured cities in Ukraine.

Overnight on February 6th into the 7th Soviet bombers attacked Helsinki, the heaviest bombing of the Finnish capital since the war began.

Meanwhile, a growing border issue between Poland and Russia caused President Roosevelt to step in, Asking Stalin not to allow it to undermine future international co-operation. Roosevelt proposed that the Polish Prime Minister accept the desired territorial changes and then be allowed to alter the makeup of his government without any evidence of foreign pressure.

Wartime needs stretched agricultural production. The U.S. not only had to feed its own civilian and military population, but many of the Allies relied on America’s bread basket. In addition, German U-boats sank hundreds of food-laden ships bound for Britain.

Canned fruits and vegetables were rationed starting March 1st, 1943. Less canned goods meant less civilian tin use and less strain on the heavily taxed rail and road systems. Even as early as 1941, civilians were encouraged to grow their own produce to supplement their food. These were referred to as Victory Gardens.

The Department of Agriculture produced pamphlets to guide urban and suburban gardeners. Magazines and newspapers published helpful articles, and patriotic posters urged participation.

In the Pacific northwest state of Oregon, wartime farm labor shortages led to the creation of the U.S. Crop Corps in 1943. It umbrellaed labor services like the Women's Land Army and the Victory Farm Volunteers. The latter was a group that got parental consent to employ youths aged eleven to seventeen.

Migrant workers from Mexico also helped, made possible thanks to the joint U.S./Mexican "Bracero Program."

By 1944 farmers could request help from POW laborers held at Oregon Army camps. More than thirty-five-hundred prisoners, mostly Germans, worked in Oregon fields.

He was born Leslie Townes Hope on May 29th, 1903 in Eltham, England. The fifth of seven sons, his parents were William Henry Hope, a stonemason from Somerset, and Welsh mother Avis, a light opera singer who later worked as a cleaner.

The family eventually moved to Bristol for a time before emigrating to the U.S. aboard the SS Philadelphia, passing through Ellis Island on March 30th, 1908, before settling in Cleveland, Ohio.

He earned pocket money by singing, dancing, and performing, winning a prize in 1915 for his impersonation of Charlie Chaplin. In December 1920, Hope and his brothers became U.S. citizens when their British parents became naturalized Americans. The next year, he was assisting his brother with the electric company when a horrific accident crushed his face. The reconstruction of which led to his distinctive appearance.

In the 1920s Hope formed a dance act called the "Dancemedians" with George Byrne and the Hilton Sisters, conjoined twins who performed a tap-dancing routine on the vaudeville circuit. He acted in a double with Byrne, eventually making his way to New York. The act flopped, pushing Hope to strike out on his own, changing his first name to Bob in 1929.

He spent five years on the Vaudeville circuit, failing an RKO screen test in 1930, but he broke out on Broadway, first in Ballyhoo of 1932, and then opposite Tamara Drasin and Fred MacMurray in Roberta, which played two-hundred ninety-four times between November of 1933 and July of 1934.

Meanwhile in 1932, he appeared on Major Bowes’ Capitol Family Hour and later on Rudy Vallee’s Fleischmann Yeast Hour on June 3rd, 1933 alongside Jimmy Wallington.

In 1933 he married his vaudeville partner Grace Troxell. They divorced the next year and Hope was soon with another performer, Dolores Reade. Though they spent the rest of their lives together, and Hope was notoriously unfaithful, a legal record of their marriage is vague at best. The couple would eventually adopt four children.

In 1934 Hope signed a six-short contract with Educational Pictures. Radio soon followed. By then, he’d developed performing chops so strong, he could sing, dance, or act in any number of ways.

On Friday January 4th, 1935 over NBC’s Blue Network, he debuted in The Intimate Review. This first series was short-lived: ratings were mediocre, but Hope found his first radio foil, comedienne Patricia Wilder, who, with her thick southern accent, went by Honey Chile. The Intimate Review went off the air in April, but on September 14th, 1935, Hope was back on radio over CBS with The Atlantic Family.

While he was on for CBS in 1936, Hope starred on Broadway in Ziegfeld’s Follies with Fanny Brice; and in Cole Porter’s Red, Hot, and Blue, with Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante.

The next May 9th, 1937, Hope was back on radio for NBC’s Blue Network on Sundays at 9PM with The Rippling Rhythm Revue.

During this run Paramount beckoned: The Big Broadcast of 1938 was to begin filming, and Hope was offered a part. He moved to Hollywood, continuing his monologues by transcontinental wire.

The Rippling Rhythm Revue was canceled in September, but three months later Hope joined The Dick Powell Variety Show on December 29th, 1937. The Big Broadcast of 1938 was released on February 11th, and suddenly, Hope was a huge star.

On Tuesday, September 27th, 1938 at 10PM, The Pepsodent Show took to the air. That first season, Hope’s 15.4 rating was good enough for twelfth overall. In 1939 he was up to 23.1 and fifth. In 1941 his rating was 26.6 and fourth, and finally in 1942 his Crossley rating cracked thirty points, while his Hooper cracked forty. Hope soon began a five year run as radio’s top comedian.

In Breaking Walls episode 147 we go into the studio with Himan Brown for the CBS radio drama relaunch in 1974.

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Highlights:

• First a January 1974 World News Roundup

• Himan Brown’s Big Idea to Relaunch Radio Drama on CBS in 1974

• Tuning Into January 8, 1974’s Episode of The CBS Radio Mystery Theater

• Mason Adams in I Warn You Three Times

• January 13, 1974 World News Roundup — Nixon Still On Hot Seat

• Producing The CBS Radio Mystery Theater With The New York Radio Crew

• Dead For a Dollar

• The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Beyond January 1974

• Looking Ahead to February by Looking Back to Bob Hope

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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

• The CBS Radio Mystery Theater, An Episode Guide and Handbook to Nine Years of Broadcasting — By Gordon Payton and Martin Grams, Jr.

As well as articles from:

• The Cleveland Plain Dealer

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On the interview front:

• Himan Brown, Larry Haines, Mary Jane Higby, Joseph Julian, and E.G. Marshall spoke with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these interviews at Goldenage-WTIC.org

• Joan Banks and George Petrie were with SPERDVAC. For more info, go to SPERDVAC.com

• Mason Adams spoke with Chuck Schaden. Hear these chats at Speakingofradio.com

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• January Stars — By George Winston

• Amid Flowers, Beside the River, Under a Spring Moon — By Elizabeth Hainen

• Perfida — By Jimmy Dorsey And His Orchestra

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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

Jessica Hanna

Perri Harper

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Gerrit Lane

Earl Millard

Gary Mollica

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Ray Shaw

Filipe A Silva

John Williams

Jim W.

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WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

This is the fifth episode of The CBS Radio Mystery Theater. Entitled "No Hiding Place," it was written by longtime writer of The Shadow, Sidney Slon. It stars Larry Haines, Jackson Beck, Anne Meacham, Sidney Walker and Tom Keena.

The Plot: Charles Powel, executive vice president of a large company and engaged to the boss’ daughter, seems to have everything going for him. But Clint Livets, who knows the secret of Charles’ past, shows up with a dirty hand and blackmail on his mind.