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Best of old time radio shows

History and stories of the greatest OTR shows of All-Time!

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Soap Operas on OTR

6/16/2015

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Fully a creation of Radio the  Daytime Drama Series of the Golden Age of Radio, better known as "Soap Opera" or "Soaps" were one of the most popular genre of OTR. Incredibly profitable for the networks these mostly 15 minute shows numbered 40 shows daily on the major networks combined, during the Soaps hey days. The reason the soaps were so profitable was the audience. Women between the ages of 18 and 80 who did most of the house hold products purchasing. Women at that time mostly spent there days home cooking and cleaning and could listen to the radio while they did the ironing or sweeping. Companies like
Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, and Lever Brothers, 3 of the biggest companies providing cleaning supplies, beauty items, and soaps (which is where the nickname came from) found it the best use for their marketing dollars to get to the audience that spent the most on those products. The shows also had very small budgets, small casts, (on average 4-5 actors, sometimes less) little or no sound effects and stock actors kept it cheap too. On most shows a single writer spit out 15 minute scripts 5 times a week, which was no easy feat but the shows did move at a turtles pace, sometimes a single scenes conflict taking 5 days to finally resolve.

Soap audience were the most loyal of all radio and many shows earned rating that primetime shows envied. Shows like
Pepper Young's Family, Backstage Wife, The Guiding Light, Young Doctor Malone, Just Plain Bill, Our Gal Sunday, Stella Dallas, When a Girl Marries, The Right to Happiness, The Romance of Helen Trent, Young Widder Brown and Oxydol's own Ma Perkins; These shows many running 15, 20 years or more (Ma Perkins, Romance of Helen Trent, and Pepper Young's Family 
all ran 27 years) Radio audiences grew up with these characters and their Families and made them important parts of their daily routines.

One of the most popular series was Ma Perkins (or Oxydol's own Ma Perkins)...Ma had all the usual soapy drama points love, tears, two-timing, scheming and whole lot of melodrama. One amazing thing about this series is Virginia Payne played the title role of Ma Perkins for all 27 years and never missed an episode (7065 episodes!!!). Payne started as Ma at age 23 and did a very convincing older ladies's voice and refined the character into the fan favorite. The sponsor kept Payne's identity secret for years not wanting to ruin the illusion, in later years she would dawn a frumpy dress and gray wig for appearences. 


On these series the pace of the show was so slow that Ma Perkins only had 2-3 story lines happening in a single year. Here is a single episode of the show....

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Virginia Payne
This month I want to share some of the greatest Soaps of the Golden Age of Radio...Check out new post coming on Listening to OTR.

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10 Best Detectives of the Golden Age of Radio

6/14/2015

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Detective Mystery programs were some of the most popular shows on radio in the 1930's, 40's and 50's. Tough talking investigators to master detectives these shows left audiences guessing and always trying to solve the case before the hero's did. Here's my list of the very best Detectives of the golden age....


10) Lamont Cranston on The Shadow-Technically not a Detective series but Lamont Cranston solved most of the mystery through detective work and use his "special powers to cloud men's minds" to close the case. 

9) Barry Craig on Barry Craig, Confidential Investigator- William Gargan starred as "Confidential Investagator" different from "Private Investigator" in the cases he chose to take...The show held together on the strength of Gargan performance.

8) Sherlock Holmes on Sherlock Holmes- The classic stories from Conan Doyle were brought to radio and have stayed until today in many different forms and with almost every famous English actor taking a swing at the role. The stories always told through the eyes of Dr. Watson with Holmes solving the impossible cases over and over again.

7) Pat Novak on Pat Novak for Hire- Jack Webbs performance is the backbone of this hard-edge detective series. The show had simple detective cases but was made famous for the great one-liners Webb's Novak got to say dozens of times each episode.

6) Randy Stone on Nightbeat- Frank Lovejoy starred as Randy Stone newspaper reporter  and master sleuth who solved the crime and got his story both. Lovejoy is great and holds the series together.

5) Simon Templar on The Saint- Vincent Price is marvelous as Simon Templar much like Pat Novak and Richard Diamond, the show was held together with strong performance and great detective lingo.

4) Sam Spade on Adventures of Sam Spade- Howard Duff starred as the man for hire, Sam Spade based on the character from Maltese Falcon; a simple detective show with a hard as nails character; the show was powered by a great performance from Duff and strong direction and writing.

3) Phillip Marlow on Adventures of Phillip Marlow-One of the most popular detective series of it's time Marlow was played by Gerald Mohr and he made the most of a great voice and strong detective story writing. Marlow is consider as one of radio great detective characters.

2) Richard Diamond on Richard Diamond Private Eye- This show is simply charming and so is Dick Powell's performance. "Song and Dance" man of 1930's movie musicals Powell was an unlikely candidate to play Diamond put it was his great performance combined with his musical talents that made this show so good. Powell is smart, clever, funny, romantic and all together wonderful. Great supporting performances too!

1) Johnny Dollar on Yours Truly Johnny Dollar- Long running with multiple stars Johnny Dollar was at it's very best (Possibly one of the best series of all time!!) when Bob Bailey took over playing the "America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator" in the 1950's well written and directed, Bailey gave Dollar a soul but kept the character smart and believable. I like both the 15 minute serial years and the 30 minute weekly shows.

Here is one whole week of the 15 minute shows... Listen and see why many consider this one of the best series of the golden age of radio!!! 
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Benny V. Allen

6/9/2015

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The long running feud between comedians Jack Benny and Fred Allen was one of the longest running gags and absolute audience favorites of the Golden Age of Radio.

The feud started quite simply in 1937 with a visit to the Fred Allen program of a young talented violinist who Allen said to the young talented player an ad lib comment about Benny's famously bad violin playing which got great laughs. This led to Benny making a comment back to Allen on his next show...Benny and Allen's writers went with the idea and started going back and forth with jokes at each other for years. Neither seemed to miss making a jab at the other on their weekly programs.

The joke feud went on for nearly 2 decades, Benny and Allen,s writers mined the comic gold of each star's on air characters; Benny was a skin flint with no talent and Allen a winey wind-bag. Audiences ate it up laughed hardy at all the ribbing the two did at each other.

They actually in real life were very fond of each other and at Fred Allen's sudden death in 1956 Benny explained how two people couldn't have had a long running gag feud without having a deep affection for each other, they had a great friendship rooted in  their early vaudeville days and which grow a deep respect for the others talents.

Audiences loved the feud and it was part of the national lexicon of the 1930's and 1940's and even having other comics like Bob Hope and Eddie Cantor jump into and keep the feud growing. Benny's cast would openly rib Benny about most recent comments especially Mary Livingston and bandleader Phil Harris

The final "cherry on the sundae" moment was on Allen's program when he had Benny on for a "Queen for a Day" spoof were Benny was "King for the Day" and got a series silly prizes including his suit pressed while he was in front of the studio audience this brought the house down and was one the classic moments in radio history.

This episode below of the
Jack Benny Program is a true gem, It' s a wonderful episode were Jack and Fred share how the other stole the main idea's for each others show it's so fun and clever.

Listen and enjoy!!!!

(One of my favorite memories of OTR from when I was a small child was a cassette tape  that parents bought me that featured great comic moments of the Benny/Allen feud. I loved it and thought the ribbing was hilarious even decades later!!! and even at 8 or 9 years old!



Jack Benny on a tour of army bases during the 1940"s.
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The Old West on OTR Too!

6/2/2015

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Here are the 3 other cannidates for the title of the Best Western Show of the Golden Age of Radio.

Have Gun Will Travel premiered on CBS in 1958 at the end of the golden age...It was unusal because it was one the few radio show's to have it's roots in TV first before coming to radio (and not the reverse!). The highly successful and top rated TV show starred Richard Boone as "the man called Paladin" but the radio show starred Gunsmoke regular John Dehner as the man for hire from San Francisco...Dehner is excellent and brings his own interpatation of the role. Sharing scripts from the TV series HGWT adapted well on radio and stands as a great effort to keep quality scripted programing on radio after the onslaught of TV.
The Six Shooter starred James Stewart  as Britt Ponset a cowboy drifter with a famous gun and big reputation during the final years of the old west. The show was bit different from other radio westerns shifting from straight drama to comedy which suited Stewart's broad acting skills. The writing and directing was top notch and supporting players selected from radio top talents.

Many have called shows like Six Shooter that starred big Hollywood stars and were trans-scripted (Pre-recorded; which made it far easier to work around movie stars busy schedules) the last effort of Radio to compete with TV which was becoming America's top choice for there entertainment time. 
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Our last nominee also starred John Dehner and was a bit different from other western themed shows...Frontier Gentleman the account of a British reporter for a London news paper, J.B. Kendall's, travels in the American Old West. Kendall wrote about all times of happenings in the new territories, mostly Montana. It featured another great performance by Dehner and great supporting acting. The writing was strong and featured a great trumpet theme song by Jerry Goldsmith.

Playing at the same time as
HGWT in late 50's, CBS was trying to create another Gunsmoke but Frontier Gentleman had it's own flair but arrived when TV just gobble all the audience away from radio. Listen to this episode and I think you'll want to hear more.

So here they are...Listen to all 5 shows and Vote below for which you feel was the absolute very best old west show of the golden age of radio.
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