Old Time Radio

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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

Morris Littmann Brought the World Mountainville True Life Sketches

The Mountainville train station in around 1900 Out "thar" in the hills lies Mountainville. It is an ordinary village, nothing unusual about it -- it is just Mountainville! So typical was this quiet little hamlet nestled way up in the hills that Morris Littmann, owner of the Littmann Stores in New York City, sought to give the public in general a chance to see into this homey clump of houses and little businesses. Littman spent his last summer's vacation in Mountainville to get the trend of life ... (read more)

2022/10/29

Jolly Joe Kelly Flooded with Letters from Pet Pals

WLS kids host Jolly Joe Kelly in 1935 "Tie a little string around your finger, so you'll remember me." Thus Jolly Joe Kelly to his Pet Pals each morning at 7:30 a.m. CST. And throughout the country, Joe's Palsie Walsies do remember him. From Tennessee to Ontario and from West Virginia to North Dakota, untold thousands of children start their days with Jolly Joe. That they love him goes without question. They write him wagonloads of mail. Through Joe's program, they exchange pets of all kinds ... (read more)

2022/10/28

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

Obituary for Radio Drummer Roy C. Knapp

Drummer and percussion teacher Roy C. Knapp Roy C. Knapp, a network orchestra musician during radio's golden area in Chicago and a highly respected percussion teacher in the city for decades, died June 16, 1979, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. He was 87. The cause of death was not released. Knapp was a longtime resident of Chicago's Near North Side. He was born on Oct. 26, 1891, in Waterloo, Iowa, where his father operated the town's first movie theater. Knapp could play several ... (read more)

2022/10/27

The Marriage of Don Ameche and Honore Prendergast

Don Ameche and his wife Honore Prendergast on the Queen Mary in 1938 The debonair movie and radio star Don Ameche was only married once during his lifetime. He wed Honore Prendergast in 1932, they had six children and the union lasted until her death in 1986. That sounds like a storybook romance, but the following paragraph in her obituary from the Des Moines Register indicates it was a bit more complicated: Don Ameche appeared in several radio productions, including a starring role in The ... (read more)

2022/10/21

The Big Story: An Interview with Bill Gagnon

James Dean and Wendy Drew on The Big Story TV series in 1953 Some of the old radio shows were great, and some were only fair. Time plays funny tricks on our minds, however, and any show I actually recall listening to seems to come out in my mind as having been great. One such show was The Big Story. The Big Story was likely one of those "fair" shows, and its Pall Mall cigarette commercials were probably more memorable than the show, but it is one of the shows that I remember and it is one of my ... (read more)

2022/10/21

Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd Meet a New Generation

Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd on Charlie McCarthy #6 (1949) This past semester I've been teaching American humor to a group of 11th and 12th graders who have been brought up on Steve Martin, Bill Cosby, George Carlin and Richard Pryor. Sure, they've seen Bob Hope and Edgar Bergen and they remember Jack Benny and Groucho Marx. But Jack Carson? Judy Canova? Joe Penner? Fred Allen? Wasn't he the coach of the Red Sox? Well, being a OTR freak,I had to set these kids straight on just ... (read more)

2020/07/26

Roy C. Knapp Followed the Beat of His Own Drum

A 1952 ad for the Roy C. Knapp School of Percussion A series of accidents led Roy Knapp Into the life of a professional musician. Of course, Knapp had been reared in music. His father was a violinist, and from his earliest days Knapp was taught to play the violin. Then he broke his left arm in such a way that, even after it healed, it was impossible for him to finger the strings of the violin. So he took up the trumpet. His father wanted Knapp to be a farmer, and several times Knapp was ... (read more)

2020/07/25

Jack Benny: How Radio Made Comedy Grow Up

In the past 20 years, American humor -- accelerated by radio -- has come out of the barnyard. It has been cleaned up, perfumed and sparked by those unsung heroes, the gag writers. Today, the ether is so full of good gags that even the ghosts have hysterics. I will go out on a limb to say that radio has done for American humor in 10 years what it would have taken vaudeville 50 years to reach. I feel no heartaches over vaudeville's passing, when I think of the way the old-time comic used to ... (read more)

2020/07/24

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