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Wings of Destiny Gave Listeners Their Own Planes

Ad promoting the Wings of Destiny plane giveaway Did it ever occur to you to wonder what you'd do if you won one of those midget airplanes the Wings of Destiny program gives away every week? Of course it's nice to get the plane, but it really isn't easy to take care of it. As Mrs. Thomas Frissell of Middletown, Connecticut, one of the winners exclaimed, "You can't just put an airplane under the bed!" Mrs. Frissell was so excited when she got the telephone call telling her she'd won a plane that ... (read more)

2022/11/07

Lanny Grey Conducts the Rhythm School of the Air

Lanny Grey hosts Rhythm of the Air on NBC Lanny Grey, young NBC singer, pianist and arranger, is going to see his name in big Mazda lights one of these days, if I'm a judge, because he has the certain priceless ingredients that help mold great stars. He concocted an idea, Rhythm School of the Air -- something just a little different -- and you can hear it any Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time -- and he's going to sink or swim with it. It's just a sustainer now and by the time Lanny pays out ... (read more)

2022/11/06

When Wendell Niles Moved to Pine Ridge, Arkansas

Wendell Niles and Marilyn Monroe on NBC Radio in 1952 Radio announcer Wendell Niles worked on several radio series at one time; by the 1939-40 radio season he was featured on not only the Al Pearce Show, in which the rotund comedian Pearce portrayed Elmer Blurt, a reticent door-to-door salesman ("Nobody home, I hope I hope I hope"), but also on Gene Autry's brand-new Melody Ranch program (for "healthful, refreshing Doublemint Gum."). By 1942, Niles had landed his longest-running stint, ... (read more)

2022/11/01

Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll Created Amos 'n' Andy

Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll perform Amos 'n' Andy on radio Amos 'n' Andy are two of the best known radio characters in America, and in the last six months -- the time they have been on the National Broadcasting Company networks -- they have made radio history in broadcasting at least 150 times, which is the equivalent of three years on the air for an ordinary program. Amos 'n' Andy operate the Open Air Taxicab Company in Harlem. Each night a microphone picks up the highlights of their ... (read more)

2022/10/31

With Canada's Mounted Dramatized on Radio by T. Morris Longstreth

Canadian Mountie on the Saturday Evening Post in 1933 The real story of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, written by the official historian of the group that always gets its man, will be dramatized in a new series of programs to begin over an NBC network this Monday at 9 p.m. T. Morris Longstreth, who claims the distinction of being the only person outside the organization ever to have been granted access to complete records, will write the continuity for the program, to be known as With ... (read more)

2022/10/30

Radio Announcer Reed Browning Makes a Spectacle of Himself

Reed Browning hosting Beat the Record on ABC radio Folks visiting Hollywood -- or those who live there -- have three easy and pleasant ways to meet one of the friendliest and most cheerful emcees in show business, Reed Browning. Anyone appearing in the vicinity of Sunset and Vine any weekday morning or afternoon is quite apt to become an active part of Reed's two all-around-good-fun shows: Beat the Record, heard locally over station KABC, or the Reed Browning Show, heard over the ABC network. ... (read more)

2022/10/27

Harry Ackerman Produced Our Miss Brooks, Gunsmoke on Radio

Harry Ackerman Harry Ackerman, long-time executive at CBS radio died Feb. 3, 1991. He worked on many of network radio's successful shows, including Our Miss Brooks and Gunsmoke. After graduating from college in 1935, Ackerman became an assistant to Raymond Knight and appeared as part-time announcer and comic poet on Knight's Cuck Coo Hour at NBC. Later he became the assistant director of the Phil Baker Show. From New York he moved to Detroit, where he was hired as agency producer for ... (read more)

2020/07/16

Betty Lou Gerson, Star of Arnold Grimm's Daughter

Betty Lou Gerson in the movie The Red Menace (1950) When a little six-year-old kid named Betty Lou Gerson stopped the show back in Birmingham eighteen years ago during an amateur performance, the home folks predicted that someday she'd blaze her name along the footlight trails. And they might have been right about this child of the southland -- except for the fact that radio snatched her up before she had her feet firmly planted on the theatrical stage. For more than four years now, this ... (read more)

2020/07/08

What Happened on Radio Soaps in March 1953

Ad for The Romance of Helen Trent featuring Julie Stevens Aunt Jenny: All kinds of people pass before Aunt Jenny's experienced, understanding eyes as she surveys the lives of her neighbors in the small town of Littleton. But seldom has she known a personality like Sam Cutler, who deliberately set out to ruin his sister-in-law because she had defied him. What happened to Sam made the unexpected climax of this story one of those recently told by Aunt Jenny. 12:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, ... (read more)

2020/07/06

Jim and Marian Jordan Were the O'Henry Twins

Marian and Jim Jordan of Fibber McGee and Molly on NBC radio The velvet drop concealing the skinny legs of marimba said "Marian and Jim Jordan," and the names sparkled with all the fine, phony brilliance of a dancer's exit smile. The act on stage in this small-town theater was a harmony team -- the girl at the piano, the man leaning debonairly against it and singing a pleasant tenor to the girl's contralto. The keynote was a jaunty good cheer. They sang "When You're Smiling," and a comedy ... (read more)

2020/07/03

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