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

Tony Randall was born Aryeh Leonard Rosenberg on February 16th, 1920 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He attended Northwestern University for a year before going to New York City to study under Sanford Meisner and choreographer Martha Graham. Randall worked as an announcer at WTAG in Worcester, Massachusetts.

As Anthony Randall, he starred with Jane Cowl in George Bernard Shaw's Candida and with Ethel Barrymore in Emlyn Williams's The Corn Is Green.

After serving with the U.S. Army Signal Corps in World War II, he came back to New York City. In 1946, Randall was cast in Katharine Cornell's revival of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. The following year in Antony and Cleopatra and in 1949 he appeared in Caesar and Cleopatra.

Simultaneously, Randall found work in radio.

Randall was twenty-nine and in New York when I Love a Mystery was revived. He originally auditioned for the part of Doc, but Carlton Morse felt he was better suited for Reggie York. As much as Randall loved I Love A Mystery, he wasn’t a huge fan of many of the soap operas he appeared on.

Carlotta Mercedes McCambridge was born to farming parents in Joliet, Illinois on March 16th, 1916. She graduated from Mundelein College. McCambridge began her radio career in the 1930s first in Chicago, and then in New York while also performing on Broadway.

In 1949 she made her film debut opposite Broderick Crawford in All the King's Men, for which she won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and the New Star of the Year.

But no one who knew her was surprised. Orson Welles heralded McCambridge as the greatest living radio actress. Himan Brown almost never failed to cast her. Although she was an Academy Award winner, she was still a proud cast member of I Love A Mystery.

Thursday, November 24th, 1949 was Thanksgiving Day. It was clear and crisp in New York as Macy’s put on its twenty-third annual parade. Floats included The Chef’s Turkey Dinner, the Snowman, and Santa’s Sleigh. Milton Berle guest-starred.

WOR—Mutual aired Cornell vs. Penn at 1PM, Queen for a Day and Luncheon at Sardi’s in the late afternoon, Gabriel Heater at 7:30, and I Love A Mystery at 7:45.

By November of 1949, Russell Thorson was forty-three and Jim Boles thirty-five. They had a wealth of experience in both Chicago and New York radio. With radio in decline, both made their first TV appearances that year. Ford Motors intermittently sponsored roughly two out of every twenty I Love A Mystery episodes, but for the most part, Mutual picked up the financial tab for all three years of the New York run.

In the summer of 1949 NBC-TV approached Carlton Morse with the possibility of coming to New York to put One Man’s Family on TV. Because the entire production would need to be re-cast, Morse had to audition a whole new group of actors.

Mercedes McCambridge, who’d played on I Love A Mystery in Hollywood, was now working in New York and cast, while Russell Thorson was cast as Henry Barbour.

Morse flew back and forth from New York to Los Angeles. On May 25th, 1949, Mutual Broadcasting presented an episode of The Family Theater called “The Man With a Plow.” Morse wrote and directed the episode from Hollywood.

It was then that Morse had the idea of rebooting I Love A Mystery. Episodes would be recorded and transcribed, allowing actors with other commitments to take roles. Morse approached Thorson about starring and McCambridge about doing supporting parts. The cast soon rounded out with Jim Boles as Doc, and Tony Randall as Reggie.

Morse received one-thousand dollars per week from Mutual to write the show, but rather than write new scripts, Morse simply re-recorded the original scripts with minor revisions and title changes. Russell Thorson and his wife helped Morse out with continuity.

I Love A Mystery would re-debut over Mutual Broadcasting on October 3rd, 1949 at 7:45PM eastern time. The cast assembled a couple of times per week to record. Each show was recorded on sixteen-inch discs, airing on weeknights for fifteen minutes.

I Love A Mystery first took to the air Weekdays at 3:15PM on NBC’s West-Coast network in January of 1939.

Michael Raffetto starred as Jack Packard, head of the A-1 Detective Agency, with Barton Yarborough as Texan Doc Long, and Walter Paterson as the British Reggie Yorke. The three world travelers searched for action, thrills, and mystery. From the ghost towns of wind-swept Nevada, to the jungles of vampire-infested Nicaragua, they righted wrongs, rescued women, battled evil, and explored unknown parts of the globe.

Morse utilized threatening elements: dark jungles, bizarre rituals, strange languages, sacred amulets, thick fogs. Three characters could be murdered in a single episode. There were ancient curses, hidden panels, piercing cries in the night, and the gathering of a diverse group of suspicious people, all of whom had secrets to hide.

Jack Packard was once a medical student. He shrugged off superstition in favor of logic. Reggie Yorke was British and clever. Doc Long was a red-headed Texan. He defied the laws of chance and always had time for women.

By that autumn it was airing nationally. The show ran from the west coast for five years, first over NBC’s Red Network, then its Blue, and then CBS. The original I Love A Mystery run ended on December 29th, 1944.

A 1945 film with its title starred Jim Bannon, Barton Yarborough, George Macready, and Nina Foch. Two more movies followed with Bannon and Yarborough followed in 1946.

Morse recorded a new radio audition for ABC in May of 1945, but the show wasn’t picked up again until it was briefly revived on ABC as I Love Adventure in the spring of 1948. It lasted thirteen weeks before going off the air.

On the eve of Thanksgiving in 1949, Russian diplomat Andrey Vyshinsky told the UN General Assembly Russia fully supported Communist China’s in removing the Nationalist Chinese delegation from the UN. While US, British and French commissioners agreed to lift many industrial and diplomatic restrictions on West Germany. And Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett rejected a compromise proposal from the UN to internationalize Jerusalem.

Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox was named American League MVP, and smog was becoming a serious issue in Los Angeles.

The Cold War and communist fears were reaching new heights as celebrities listed in the Red Channels found themselves blacklisted in Hollywood.

The U.S. spent the first ten months of 1949 in a recession. Competition for the advertising dollar was stiffer. There were now over two-thousand-six-hundred AM and FM radio stations in the country, and TV was becoming a serious threat.

Over one-hundred Television stations were on the air. Only two Network Radio shows had ratings higher than a 20. Just two years earlier, there were fifteen. Radio’s average Top 50 ratings were their lowest since 1937 and network radio revenue dropped for the first time since 1933.

Meanwhile, NBC, ABC, CBS, and the Dumont Network reported a combined TV income of $29.4 Million. But advertisers were learning that TV production costs were much greater than radio’s. The extra money had to come from somewhere. Radio budgets were the likely source.

But if there was anyone who knew how to stretch a dollar, it was radio writer and director Carlton E. Morse. Tonight we’ll join him in a boxcar somewhere in the lonely west, and celebrate Thanksgiving by burying our dead in Arizona.

In Breaking Walls episode 132 we go back to the late 1940s and say Happy Halloween with Mutual Broadcasting.

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Highlights:

• The Seedy Underbelly of Coney Island on The Crime Club

• Take a Ride with The Mysterious Traveler

• Mystery is My Hobby

• Quiet Please

• 1948 Halloween News with Arthur Bario

• The House of Mystery

• True Detective Mysteries

• Halloween 1948 with Holmes and The Shadow

• Truman Wins a Stunning Reelection

• Murder By Experts

• Finishing With I Love a Mystery

• Looking Ahead to Thanksgiving

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The WallBreakers:

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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:

American Radio Networks: A History — By Jim Cox

• On the Air — By John Dunning

• Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

• The Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Radio — By Christopher Sterling

• WOR: The First Sixty Years

As well as articles from the archives of

• The Los Angeles Times

• The New York Daily News

• The New York Times

• Radio Daily

• The Saturday Evening Post

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On the interview front:

• Jim Boles, Bret Morrison, Carlton E. Morse, and Russell Thorson, were with Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Joseph Julian was with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these at Goldenage-WTIC.org.

• Harry Bartell and André Baruch were with SPERDVAC. For more info, go to SPERDVAC.com.

•Orson Welles was with Johnny Carson

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• Halloween — By Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians

• Manhattan — By Blossom Dearie

• Flag of Columbia — By Jacqueline Schwab

• Danse Macabre — By Camille Saint-Saëns

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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

Briana Isaac

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Earl Millard

Gary Mollica

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Aimee Pavy

Ray Shaw

Filipe A Silva

John Williams

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WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

We’re going to stop here, but we’re not even close to finishing with I Love A Mystery. Next time on Breaking Walls, while we spend Thanksgiving with Carlton E. Morse, Russell Thorson, Jim Boles, and Tony Randall, we utter a simple statement: Bury Your Dead, Arizona.

The reading material used in this episode was:

American Radio Networks: A History — By Jim Cox

On the Air — By John Dunning

Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

The Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Radio — By Christopher Sterling

WOR: The First Sixty Years

As well as articles from the archives of

• The Los Angeles Times

• The New York Daily News

• The New York Times

• Radio Daily

• The Saturday Evening Post

——————————

On the interview front:

• Jim Boles, Bret Morrison, Carlton E. Morse, and Russell Thorson, were with Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Joseph Julian was with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these at Goldenage-WTIC.org.

• Harry Bartell and André Baruch were with SPERDVAC. For more info, go to SPERDVAC.com.

•Orson Welles was with Johnny Carson

——————————

Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• Halloween — By Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians

• Manhattan — By Blossom Dearie

• Flag of Columbia — By Jacqueline Schwab

• Danse Macabre — By Camille Saint-Saëns

——————————

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.

——————————

Thank you to:

Tony Adams

Steven Allmon

Orson Orsen Chandler

Phil Erickson

Jessica Hanna

Perri Harper

Briana Isaac

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Earl Millard

Gary Mollica

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Aimee Pavy

Ray Shaw

Filipe A Silva

John Williams

——————————

WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

The reading material used in today’s episode was:

American Radio Networks: A History — By Jim Cox

On the Air — By John Dunning

Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

The Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Radio — By Christopher Sterling

WOR: The First Sixty Years

As well as articles from the archives of

• The Los Angeles Times

• The New York Daily News

• The New York Times

• Radio Daily

• The Saturday Evening Post

——————————

On the interview front:

• Jim Boles, Bret Morrison, Carlton E. Morse, and Russell Thorson, were with Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Joseph Julian was with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these at Goldenage-WTIC.org.

• Harry Bartell and André Baruch were with SPERDVAC. For more info, go to SPERDVAC.com.

•Orson Welles was with Johnny Carson

——————————

Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• Halloween — By Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians

• Manhattan — By Blossom Dearie

• Flag of Columbia — By Jacqueline Schwab

• Danse Macabre — By Camille Saint-Saëns

——————————

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.

——————————

Thank you to:

Tony Adams

Steven Allmon

Orson Orsen Chandler

Phil Erickson

Jessica Hanna

Perri Harper

Briana Isaac

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Earl Millard

Gary Mollica

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Aimee Pavy

Ray Shaw

Filipe A Silva

John Williams

——————————

WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

Carlton E. Morse’ I Love A Mystery first took to the air Weekdays at 3:15PM on NBC’s West-Coast network in January of 1939.

Michael Raffetto starred as Jack Packard, head of the A-1 Detective Agency, with Barton Yarborough as Texan Doc Long, and Walter Paterson as the British Reggie Yorke. The show told of three world travelers in search of action, thrills, and mystery. From the ghost towns of wind-swept Nevada, to the jungles of vampire-infested Nicaragua, they righted wrongs, rescued women, battled evil, and explored unknown parts of the globe.

By that autumn it was airing nationally. The show ran from the west coast for five years, first over NBC’s Red Network, then its Blue, and then CBS.

It went off the air at the end of 1944, but was revived in the spring of 1948 on ABC and then from New York for Mutual Broadcasting in October of 1949. It ran for three more years, this time starring Russell Thorson, Jim Boles, and Tony Randall, as Thorson remembered.

Jack Packard was a hero with quiet strength. Once a medical student, he shrugged off superstition in favor of logic.

Reggie Yorke was educated, strong, and had the British stiff upper lip.

Doc Long was a red-headed alley fighter from Texas who defied the laws of chance and loved women.

Three characters could be murdered in a single episode. People were killed in ghoulish, imaginative, and sometimes mystifying ways. Throats were ripped out by wolves; there were garrotings, poisonings, and mysterious slashings.

On Halloween, 1949, part one of a new story, “The Thing That Cries in The Night” aired over Mutual.

Murder By Experts debuted over Mutual on June 13th, 1949. Written by David Kogan and Bob Arthur, it quickly gained the respect and approval from the radio world at large.

Mystery writers like John Dickson Carr and Brett Halliday hosted with New York’s best character talent like Lawson Zerbe, Ann Shepherd, Santos Ortega, Ralph Bell, and William Zuckert being featured.

This is from the debut episode, “Summer Heat” which aired on June 13th, 1949. Murder By Experts won a prestigious Edgar Award in 1950, and aired until December 17th, 1951.