Radio's Finest Hour

HiDesertHal

HiDesertHal

Senior Member
Location
Southern California's High Mojave Desert
Radio Broadcasting was the great entertainment medium in the days before Television became available to the American public in the late 1940's.

In the evenings, families would gather around the big Zenith or Philco console in the living room and tune in to Comedy, Drama, Crimefighting, Music, and other programs.

For Comedy, we were served the following:

Jack Benny
Amos & Andy
Burns & Allen
The Life of Riley
The Bickersons
Fibber McGee & Molly

For Adventure & Crimefighting, we had:

Gangbusters
Superman
The FBI in Peace & War
Boston Blackie
Charlie Chan
Inner Sanctum

The red hot newscaster of the '30's & '40's with the machine gun delivery was the unstoppable Walter Winchell.

Some of you other "Senior" Seniors in your 80's and older can no doubt add to my list!

Ahhhh...Radio Days!

HiDesertHal
 

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Yeah, I remember some of those days. We sat around in the living room where we had an oil stove - heating the whole house - and with the radio going with the news of the day. I remember Gabriel Heatter most of all because my dad loved to listen to his upbeat delivery of the news, and he was always positive - even when the news was bad. I don't remember the details, but once after the US sank a Japanese destroyer - one of them sank a ship my uncle was on - Heatter came on the air reporting "there is good news tonight." This became a catch phrase and prompted many fans to write letters and make calls. Heatter continued to use the phrase throughout his career as he became known more and more as a morale booster always looking for some patch of blue to include in the news. Boy, what a far cry from what we hear today.
 
HiDesertHal said:
Yes, I remember Gabriel Heatter opening his broadcast by saying "There is good news tonight."

Hal
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I don't remember any of the shows mentioned. I guess they were before my time. However, many of them must have migrated to TV because I do remember watching them on the old black and white set.
 
I remember The Inner Sanctum. It scared the heck out of me with the squeaky door sound affects. My Dad like Gang Busters and The Lone Ranger. My Mom would not miss Don McNeill's Breakfast club every morning, and I think Gunsmoke was on in the morning also.
 
I remember my folks listening to the old radio programs on our old wooden radio. It was kind of a console and stood 3-4 feet tall, with a dial in front to find the stations. Sometimes it shocked me if I touched it wrong, so I was always careful around that radio.
My favorite program was The Cisco Kid, and looked forward to hearing that opening line.......”Aay, Cees-ko .....Aay, Pan-cho !”
Even though I couldn’t see the horses, I loved hearing the sound of those thundering hooves and the whinnying from the horses.
 
HiDesertHal said:
How could you watch them? They were RADIO broadcasts!

Hal
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I wrote that many of them (meaning radio broadcasts) migrated to TV and that's where I "watched" them. I remember watching:
Jack Benny
Amos & Andy
Burns & Allen
The Life of Riley
Superman
Boston Blackie
Charlie Chan (and Number One Son)
 
HiDesertHal said:
Yes, I remember Gabriel Heatter opening his broadcast by saying "Ah, there is good news tonight."

Hal
Click to expand...
Great days Hal. Gabriel Heatter during the war would say on opening if the news from the front was bad "There's bad news tonight folks!" When he was on, my brother could not make any noise or my Grandpa would get mad! In those days it was common for Grandies to move in with their kids. BTW I have a great book called "The big Broadcast 1920-1950" which covers those days in great detail including dates, actors, story lines, dates running, etc.
 
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