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Benny had been only a minor vaudeville performer, but he became an enormously successful national figure with The Jack Benny Program, a weekly radio show which ran from 1932 to 1948 on NBC and from 1948 to 1955 on CBS, and was consistently among the most highly rated programs during most of that run.

The Characters

Benny's stage character was a clever inversion of his actual self. Though the character was named Jack Benny, he was also just about everything the actual Jack Benny himself wasn't: cheap, petty, vain and self-congratulatory. His masterful comic rendering of these traits became the vital linchpin to the Benny show's success. Benny set himself up as the comedic foil, allowing his supporting characters to draw laughs at the expense of his stinginess, vanity, and pettiness. By allowing such a character to be seen as human and vulnerable, in an era where few male characters were allowed such obvious vulnerability, Benny made what might have been a despicable character into a lovable Everyman character. Benny himself said on several occasions: "I don't care who gets the laughs on my show, as long as the show is funny."

The supporting characters who amplified that vulnerability only too gladly included wife Mary Livingstone as his wisecracking and not especially deferential female friend (not quite his girlfriend, since Benny would often try to date movie stars like Barbara Stanwyck, and occasionally had stage girlfriends such as Gladys Obispo); rotund announcer Don Wilson (who also served as announcer for Fanny Brice's hit, Baby Snooks); bandleader Phil Harris as a jive-talking, wine-and-women type whose repartee was rather risque for its time (Harris and Mahlon Merrick shared the actual musical chores of the show); boy tenor Dennis Day, who was cast as a sheltered, naive youth who still got the better of his boss as often as not (this character was originated by Kenny Baker, but perfected by Day); and, especially, Eddie Anderson as valet-chauffeur Rochester van Jones — who was as popular as Benny himself.

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HARRIET NELSON (Harriet Hilliard). Born Peggy Lou Snyder in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.A., 18 July 1914. Attended St. Agnes Academy. Married: Ozzie Nelson, 1935; children: David Ozzie and Eric Hilliard. Beauty queen hired as vocalist for Ozzie Nelson's Orchestra, 1932; recording artist for Brunswick, Vocalian, Victor and Blue Bird; as Harriet Hilliard, was a leading lady in film from 1936; various radio appearances on Red Skelton's radio program in the 1940s, co-starred with husband Ozzie in radio series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, 1944; star of television version of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet 1952-66. Recipient: National Family Week Radio citation by the International Council on Chistian Family Life, 1947; Radio and TV Women of Southern California Genii Award, 1960; Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year; TV-Radio Mirror Reader's Poll Best Husband-Wife Team in TV, seven consecutive years. Died in Laguna Beach, California, 2 October 1994.

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Superman on Radio

Superman on Radio The Adventures of Superman

"Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound!"

"Look! Up in the sky!"

"It's a bird!"

"It's a plane!"

"It's Superman!"

"Yes, it's Superman - strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman - defender of law and order. champion of equal rights, valiant, courageous fighter against the forces of hate and prejudice, who disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way."

The above signature was heard in many variations over the airwaves, and has become as much a part of the public's perception of Superman as his blue, red and yellow costume. What most people don't know, is that this widely recognised opening did not originate from the 4-color pages of Superman comics, but rather on the long-running adventures serial that was one of the hallmarks of the Golden Age of Radio.

We all know that Superman first appeared in 1938 within the pages of Action Comics #1, but much of the mythology associated with Superman and many of the supporting cast of characters originated in his radio adventures. Daily Planet characters such as Perry White and Jimmy Olsen, along with Inspector Bill Henderson, were originally created for the radio series. Superman first discovered his greatest weakness, Kryptonite, in his radio adventures long before it appeared within the pages of the Superman comics. He also regularly teamed up with Batman and Robin on radio before the trio joined forces in the comic books. The radio series' influence also extended to the big screen. The Fleischer Superman movie-cartoons were nominated for Academy Awards, and featured voices from the cast of the radio series, while the screenplays of Columbia's 1948 and 1950 Superman movie serials were adapted from the radio program rather than from the stories within the comic books.

Up, Up and Away!

Superman first flew onto the radio airwaves on Monday, 12 February, 1940 as a transcribed series for Hecker's H-O Oats. DC's press agent Allen Ducovny and former pulp fiction author Robert Joffe Maxwell developed the new series. The two were quick to realise that Superman's popularity could be boosted by the vast radio audiences.

In 1939, Maxwell and Ducovny prepared several sample audition disks to sell the idea to prospective sponsors, co-writing the first version of Superman's famous opening signature: "Faster than an airplane, more powerful than a locomotive, impervious to bullets. 'Up in the sky - look!' 'It's a giant bird.' 'It's a plane.' 'It's SUPERMAN!' And now, Superman - A being no larger than an ordinary man but possessed of powers and abilities never before realised on Earth: able to leap into the air an eigth of a mile at a single bound, hurtle a 20-story building with ease, race a high-powered bullet to its target, lift tremendous weights and rend solid steel in his bare hands as though it were paper. Superman - a strange visitor from a distant planet: champion of the oppressed, physical marvel extraordinary who has sworn to devote his existence on Earth to helping those in need." "We had a lot of fun writing that opening," Ducovny once said. "It was a typical radio action piece that fully utilized sound effects."

The new show was purchased by Hecker's H-O Oats, who tried to buy time on the networks but were turned down. Nevertheless, Hecker's bought airtime on ten stations and distributed the prerecorded series on 16-inch "electrical transcription" disks. Superman achieved a Crossley rating of 5.6 ten weeks after its debut, the highest rating of any thrice-weekly juvenile program on the air. Frank Chase produced the early episodes of Superman, George Ludlum scripted, and a repertory of the finest actors in New York radio was assembled. Ned Wever (CBS's Bulldog Drummond) and Agnes Moorehead (The Shadow's "lovely Margot Lane") portrayed Jor-L and Lara, Superman's Kryptonian parents in the premier broadcast, with Jay Josten (Mr. District Attorney) as Rozan. Other early episodes featured the versatile Santos Ortega (Nero Wolfe) and future movie star Frank Lovejoy (radio's Blue Beetle). The success or failure of the series would largely rest upon the actor chosen to portray the dual leads. Bob Maxwell was afraid he might have to hire an actor to play both of Superman's personalities, unless he could obtain the services of a particular who initially wanted nothing to do with Superman.

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Calling All Cars!" was one of radios first crime dramas. It is widely recognized as being the forerunner to Dragnet, although the emphasis was on solving thecrimes themselves and the methods employed by the Los Angeles Police Department to solve them, as opposed to thepeople who

Radio America

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Caspar makes friends with a little fox. Animation by Myron Waldman, Morey Reden and Nick Tafuri. Scenics by Anto Loeb.

Story by Bill Turner and Larry Reilly. Music by Winston Sharples. Narrator is Frank Gallop. Produced in 1948.

Director: I. Sparber

Production Company: Paramount Pictures & Famous Studios Productions

Audio/Visual: sound, color

Alternative spelling: Casper the Friendly Ghost

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is an animated feature produced by Walt Disney Studios and released to theaters on October 5, 1949 by RKO Radio Pictures. It is the eleventh animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. This film was the final of Disney's 1940s "package films" (feature films comprised of two or more short subjects instead of a single feature-length story). Beginning with the next animated feature release, Cinderella, his studio would return to the feature-length stories that low income and World War II had caused a drought of during the 1940s

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enjoy the show and thanks for listening

Launching a new range of "Classic Radio Sci-Fi" releases, this six-part BBC radio drama stars none other than Peter Cushing and Vincent Prince, who between them became two of the most famous horror film stars of the 1950s and 1960s. "Aliens in the Mind" is based on a story by the then-foremost "Doctor Who" script editor Robert Holmes. It centres around the discovery, on a remote Scottish island, of a community of 'human mutants' capable of telepathy. A plan is in place to use them to control the British Government, and friends Curtis Lark (Vincent Price) and Hugh Baxter (Peter Cushing) join forces to combat them. This renowned production from 1976 is sure to delight fans of science fiction, archive radio, horror films and "Doctor Who." This release forms part of BBC Audiobooks' "Classic Radio Sci-Fi" range. Other titles are "The Day of the Triffids" and "The Quatermass Memoirs."

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Appearing on CBS Radio, Johnny Dollar was heard each week flying off to a different town filled with danger and possibly murder as he tried to get to the bottom of insurance fraud. There were rarely any recurring characters except Dollar; despite sometimes romance and friends, the character was generally a loner. These early episodes, however, tended to be flat and the character of Dollar too dry. So at the start of the 1950 season, Charles Russell was out and veteran film actor Edmund O'Brien stepped in as the second Johnny Dollar. The series during the O'Brien years improved with scripts by expert crime writer such as E. Jack Neumann, John Michael Hayes, Sidney Marshall and Blake Edwards. The character took on the stereotype of the American detective developed by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Dollar was more hardboiled; his softer side rarely appeared. O'Brien left in 1952 and John Lund became Dollar number three. With Lund in the role, the character as developed by O'Brien remained.

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Perry Mason on the Radio

Since his film experience with Hollywood turned out to be so embarrassing it may come as a surprise that Gardner agreed to put his hero on radio. Although his compadres advised him to aim for a nighttime, prime time slot for Mason, Gardner sold the radio rights to Procter & Gamble, the kingpins of soap, who decided to put the series on during the day. (It was these daytime radio programs, usually funded by detergent companies, that gave rise to the name "soap opera.") The Perry Mason radio series premiered on a few stations in October 1943 and in three months was playing five days a week on stations all across the country.

Gardner considered the show a kind of continuing advertisement for his books, in the same way that the Ellery Queen radio show promoted the popular detective books of the same name. But when he sat down and tried to write scripts for the episodes, he failed miserably. "As a soaper, I stunk," he said at the time. He admitted his strengths were in narrative writing and not scripting.

When the sponsors brought in another writer to punch up the Mason character, Gardner felt his control of the show (he had "veto rights") slipping away. He came to dislike the show's writing, the plots, the production, even the ads. And he must have been qualified to judge. He monitored the program every day, taking notes--not many of which were complimentary.