The whole gang is here... Don Wilson, Mary Livingston, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Kenny Baker, Phil Harris... and they put together a very funny and entertaining program that holds up very well almost 80 years later. The play for the show is "The Story of Alexander Graham Bell"... a parody of the 1939 film that starred Don Ameche. As Jack (playing Bell) is working on inventing the telephone, his wife, Mary Livingston keeps getting phone calls... and the first call Jack makes on his "new invention" is a wrong number!

These two offbeat shows are quite entertaining... they only run about 11 minutes edited together back-to-back. Mrs. Obbs was so popular on Australian radio in the 1940's they did 1900 episodes! Unbelievable.

Chickenman was the brainstorm of a radio show host in Chicago in the 1960s... to make fun of the hero type comic books and the Batman series on television. Very different.... fun

From the Armed Forces Radio Service comes "Downbeat" featuring the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra with some top notch swing music from 1944. Downbeat was very popular with our soldiers overseas in WW II. The AFRS did a fantastic job of preserving their transcription records so that we could enjoy a bit of musical history today..

Armed Forces Radio Service 1955 broadcast of All Star Bands with guest musician the one and only Louis Armstrong... recorded on Basin St. in New Orleans and aired on May 5, 1955.

Jubilee is an AFRS radio program that featured African-American musicians and singers. It was broadcast to servicemen via AFRS from 1942 to 1953. Jubilee was conceived at least in part as a morale-building service for African-American troops overseas. The wartime host was Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman. The music is tremendous in this August 2, 1943 version of Jubilee... Only runs about 15 minutes.

The popularity of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock" is back as he is appearing on television and in the motion pictures... but the series was also extremely popular on the radio. In 1946, Basil Rathbone gave up the radio series simply because he was tired of playing Sherlock... what with a lot of movies and many episodes on the radio... he retired from the character. Tom Conway (photo right) who sounded very much like Rathbone.. became the new Sherlock with Nigel Bruce continued on as Dr. Watson. This episode is "The Stuttering Ghost" and is extremely well done... a good mystery!

An incredibly popular series, Escape, did not have the budget nor the stars that Suspense had, but it had excellent writing and production values and was a very popular series. Given that the network changed the time slot of the show some 18 times during its 7 year run, it is quite remarkable that over 200 episodes were produced and preserved for us to hear today. This is another one of the radio adaptations of Poe's works.... "The Fall of the House of Usher"

Lux Radio Theatre ran from 1934-55 on NBC Blue, then CBS, and finally on NBC radio. Each week the series would present a radio adaptation of a popular hit movie or Broadway play. The longest running host was film director Cecil B. DeMille. The show always hired one or two of the original stars from the film or Broadway production to re-create their roles on radio. Standard pay was $5000 a week for each star... no other radio show could afford that kind of money so Lux Radio Theatre was very strong when it came to audience number ratings. This track features a Sept. 9, 1940 broadcast of "The Westerner" starring movie legend Gary Cooper and the wonderful character actor Walter Brennan. Action, Adventure and Romance made the film and this adaptation popular. Runs about 60 minutes... great for listening on a commute! Enjoy.

Frank Conrad (1874–1941) was an electrical engineer, best known for radio development, including his work as a pioneer broadcaster. He worked for the Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for half a century. His experimental radio station provided the inspiration, and he acted in an advisory role, for the establishment of Westinghouse's first broadcasting service, over radio station KDKA. He is subject of this mini-radio history segment edited and narrated by John Lovering for Heirloom Radio podcast... Runs about 7 mins and includes clips from original broadcasts of radio 1919-24.

With a ten year run on radio, this show proved to be one of the most popular sitcoms. Ed Gardner plays "Archie" the manager of the NYC 3rd Avenue Irish Pub known as "Duffy's Tavern." We never hear the owner, Duffy, but Archie talks with him on the phone at the start of every show. Each episode has Archie and Duffy's Tavern immersed in some sort of problem or situation. Guest stars and a tremendously talented cast make this a laugh out loud program. This episode features Archie running for a local political office against Peaches Latour and William Jennings Bryan... and it is a blowout for... you'll have to listen to find out!