Showing results by author "Radio Shows of the Past!" in All Categories

Nightfall was a radio drama series produced and aired by CBC Radio from July 1980 to June 1983. While primarily a supernatural/horror series, Nightfall featured some episodes in other genres, such as science fiction, mystery, fantasy, and human drama. Some of Nightfall's episodes were so terrifying that the CBC registered numerous complaints and some affiliate stations dropped it. Despite this, the series went on to become one of the most popular shows in CBC Radio history, running 100 episodes that featured a mix of original tales and adaptations of both classic and obscure short ...

The Saint began its life on radio in January 1945. Most old time radio reference books list the initial broadcast date as January 6, 1945, probably because that was when the program aired in the Eastern United States. In an initial story about The Saint, however, Billboard reported, "Series tees-off over NBC January 4 on 7 Western stations, with a repeat skedded for Saturday to hit 15 Midwestern and Eastern stations at 7:30 p.m. EWT." That Saturday was January 6. The article noted the involvement of the character's creator, saying: "All scripting will be under the supervision of ...

The series began in 1929 as The Chase and Sanborn Choral Orchestra, a half-hour musical variety show heard Sundays at 8:30 p.m. on NBC. When Maurice Chevalier became the show's star, he received a record-breaking salary of $5,000 a week. Violinist David Rubinoff (1897–1986) became a regular in January 1931, introduced as "Rubinoff and His Violin.

The English-language propaganda radio programme Germany Calling was broadcast to audiences in the United Kingdom on the medium wave station Reichssender Hamburg and by shortwave to the United States. The programme began on 18 September 1939 and continued until 30 April 1945, when the British Army overran Hamburg. The next scheduled broadcast was made by Horst Pinschewer (also known as Geoffrey Perry), a German-Jewish refugee serving in the British Army who announced the British takeover. Pinschewer was later responsible for the capture of William Joyce.Through such broadcasts, the ...

Father Knows Best is an American sitcom starring Robert Young, Jane Wyatt, Elinor Donahue, Billy Gray and Lauren Chapin. The series, which began on radio in 1949, aired as a television show for six seasons and 203 episodes. Created by Ed James, Father Knows Best follows the lives of the Andersons, a middle-class family living in the town of Springfield.The state in which Springfield is located is never specified, but it is generally accepted to be located in the Midwestern United States.[1]The television series debuted on CBS in October 1954. It ran for one season and was ...

Hopalong Cassidy is a fictional cowboy hero created in 1904 by the author Clarence E. Mulford, who wrote a series of short stories and novels based on the character. Mulford portrayed the character as rude, dangerous, and rough-talking.He was shot in the leg during a gun fight which caused him to walk with a little "hop", hence the nickname.From the 1930s to the 1950s, the character became indelibly associated with actor William Boyd, who portrayed Cassidy first in a series of sixty-six films from 1935 to 1948, then in children-oriented radio and TV series, both of which lasted until...

The Red Skelton Show is an American television comedy/variety show that aired from 1951 to 1971. In the decade prior to hosting the show, Richard "Red" Skelton had a successful career as a radio and motion pictures star.[1] Although his television series is largely associated with CBS, where it appeared for more than sixteen years, it actually began and ended on NBC.During its run, the program received three Emmy Awards, for Skelton as best comedian and the program as best comedy show during its initial season, and an award for comedy writing in 1961. In 1959 Skelton also received a Golden ...

The Red Skelton Show is an American television comedy/variety show that aired from 1951 to 1971. In the decade prior to hosting the show, Richard "Red" Skelton had a successful career as a radio and motion pictures star.[1] Although his television series is largely associated with CBS, where it appeared for more than sixteen years, it actually began and ended on NBC. During its run, the program received three Emmy Awards, for Skelton as best comedian and the program as best comedy show during its initial season, and an award for comedy writing in 1961. In 1959 Skelton also received a Golden ...

The Roy Rogers Show is an American Western television series starring Roy Rogers. 100 episodes were broadcast on NBC for six seasons between December 30, 1951, and June 9, 1957. The episodes were set in the prevailing times (1950s) in the style of a neo-Western, rather than the Old West. Various episodes are known to be in the public domain today, being featured in low-budget cable television channels and home video.

The Adventures of Superman is a long-running radio serial that originally aired from 1940 to 1951 featuring the DC Comics character Superman.The serial came to radio as a syndicated show on New York City's WOR on February 12, 1940. On Mutual,it was broadcast from August 31, 1942, to February 4, 1949, as a 15-minute serial, running three or, usually, five times a week. From February 7 to June 24, 1949, it ran as a thrice-weekly half-hour show. The series shifted to ABC Saturday evenings on October 29, 1949, and then returned to afternoons twice a week on June 5, 1950, continuing on ABC until ...

The Sealed Book was a radio series of mystery and terror tales, produced and directed by Jock MacGregor for the Mutual network. Between March 18 and September 9, 1945, the melodramatic anthology series was broadcast on Sundays from 10:30 pm to 11:00 pm.Each week, after "the sound of the great gong," host Philip Clarke observed that the mysteriously silent "keeper of the book has opened the ponderous door to the secret vault wherein is kept the great sealed book, in which is recorded all the secrets and mysteries of mankind through the ages.Here are tales of every kind, tales of murder, of ...

The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok is an American Western television series that ran for eight seasons from April 15, 1951, through September 24, 1958. The Screen Gems series began in syndication, but ran on CBS from June 5, 1955, through 1958, and, at the same time, on ABC from 1957 through 1958. The Kellogg's cereal company was the show's national sponsor. The series was also exported to Australia during the late 1950s.

Mystery House staffers would perform in each half-hour drama, while others would provide sound effects, rewrite scripts and so on. But could this really succeed as a business model? Would people buy a mystery book if they already knew the ending? An interesting question, considering how little information there is available about the firm -- or if, in fact, it even existed.Research into this query turned up an address for "Mystery House" at 70 Park Avenue in New York City, where a hotel now stands, and that the publishing firm ceased operation sometime after 1964. As for the broadcast history ...

The initial radio Tarzan originated at WOR in New York City and was syndicated by the World Broadcasting System. Production later switched to Hollywood, California. The series was broadcast September 12, 1932 - March 3, 1934.Tarzan was played by James Pierce, who portrayed the title character in the film Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1927). Jane was played by Joan Burroughs, daughter of Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of the Tarzan stories. The program's writer prepared scripts using material from the original Tarzan books, and Burroughs himself revised each script as needed for accuracy.This ...

The series originated on January 31, 1936, on WXYZ, the same local Detroit station that originated its companion shows The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon. Beginning April 12, 1938, the station supplied the series to the Mutual Broadcasting System radio network, and then to NBC Blue and its successors, the Blue Network and ABC Network, from November 16, 1939, through September 8, 1950. It returned from September 10 to December 5, 1952.It was sponsored by General Mills from January to August 1948 and by Orange Crush in its brief 1952 run. Distinguished by its use of classical music for ...

Little Orphan Annie was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and syndicated by the Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and it made its debut on August 5, 1924, in the New York Daily News.The plot followed the wide-ranging adventures of Annie, her dog Sandy and her benefactor Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks. Secondary characters include Punjab, the Asp and Mr. Am. The strip attracted adult readers with political commentary that targeted (among other things) organized labor, the New Deal and communism.Following...

The Stories of Sherlock Holmes was a South African radio show series of 47 or 50 episodes, produced by Michael Silver and aired on Springbok Radio (Johannesburg, South Africa) between 1979/1980 and 1985, starring Graham Armitage as Sherlock Holmes and Kerry Jordan as Dr. Watson. The episodes were around 20-30 minutes each and broadcasted on Sunday evenings at 6pm.

This show, from the early 1950s, is a good example of the true story style of delivery made popular in radio's classic crime shows Gangbusters and Mr. District Attorney. Of course, the best and most popular of the true crime shows was Dragnet -- the monotone, "just the facts" style demanded by Jack Webb in the show made two points at once: first, that the show wasn't a typical melodramatic crime show, as had been on radio since "the good old days", and more importantly, that we were along for the ride on another day at the office -- in this case, a policeman's “day at the office".

The titular setting for the show was "a seedy bar and grille on New York's Third Avenue". The cast had Ed Gardner as Archie, Alan Reed as Finnegan, Pattee Chapman as Miss Duffy, Jimmy Conlin as Charlie, Veda Ann Borg as Peaches La Tour, and Herb Vigran as Second Story Jackson.The radio version of Duffy's Tavern ended in 1952. When the TV version began two years later, Gardner's involvement was limited to acting. He said, "In radio, I was the producer and the director and half the time the writer and also Archie." The TV version had Hal Roach Jr. as producer and Harve Foster as director.[6]This...

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet is an American television sitcom that aired on ABC from October 3, 1952, to April 23, 1966, and starred the real-life Nelson family. After a long run on radio, the show was brought to television, where it continued its success, initially running simultaneously on radio and TV.In terms of seasons, it was the longest running live-action sitcom in U.S. television history until It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia surpassed it on December 1, 2021 (though it still retains the record in terms of total episodes produced: 435).[1] The series starred the entertainment ...