On the Air Quotes

“The revival of The Couple Next Door in 1957 had Peg Lynch and Alan Bunce playing the same characters they had created on Ethel and Albert. But the characters referred to each other only as “dear” and were never named.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“In 1937, the airship Hindenburg exploded at Lakehurst, N.J., just two hours before The March of Time went on the air. Only bulletins were available at air time, but it was enough: the segment focused on the history of dirigible travel and ended with a news flash on the Lakehurst tragedy. The orchestra and sound effects produced an unprecedented sense of reality, said Radio News: “of storm, explosion, frenzied cries, crackling flames, and crumpling girders.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“In 1952, he was to begin a TV series when he suffered his first heart attack. He returned on CBS TV as a panelist for the game show What’s My Line? He died on the night of March 17, 1956, collapsing just outside the West 75th Street home of a friend.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“In both runs, Curtain Time attempted to play to the same sizable audience that had made The First Nighter Program a radio powerhouse. It had a theater setting, announcements that the curtain was “about to go up,” and the same fare, generally bubbly boy-girl romances. There was an usher in the later run, who called out “Tickets, please, thank you, sir,” and escorted “theatergoers” to their imaginary seats in “seventh row center, seats seven and eight.” The announcer, Myron Wallace, became famous decades later as the tough TV reporter on 60 Minutes.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“LUM AND ABNER, dialect comedy; country humor.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“An example of such was the story of three travelers who crash their car and are thrown back into prehistoric times. They encounter a Neanderthal man who doesn’t respond to reason and must be shot. “This is Oboler’s oblique approach to alerting the public that tyranny could only be dealt with by force of arms, not appeasement.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“The Benny of the air was a fraud, a myth, a creation. It should have surprised no one to learn—after years of toupee jokes that played so well into the vanity theme—that Benny never wore one. He overtipped in restaurants, gave away his time in countless benefit performances, and was lavish in his praise of almost everyone else. “Where would I be today without my writers, without Rochester, Dennis Day, Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, and Don Wilson?” he asked a Newsweek profiler in 1947.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“He had met John Kieran at a Dutch Treat Club luncheon and had been impressed with the depth and scope of Kieran’s knowledge. Kieran was a sports columnist for the New York Times whose writings had earned him the title “sports philosopher.” He was fluent in Latin and a scholar of Shakespeare, knew music, poetry, ornithology and the other branches of natural history, and had a strong base of general knowledge. This was wrapped up in a Tenth Avenue New York accent, a streak of what one writer termed “pugnacity concealed by modesty.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“Throughout his life, he was the opposite of all show business clichés. His marriage endured: by all accounts, he dearly loved his wife. Words most often used by those who knew him were “decent,” “genial,” “gentle,” and “generous.” He was a constant target of panhandlers and always had a roll of money in his pockets for handouts. He was not, apparently, a chummy man. His few real intimates, old friends like Doc Rockwell and Uncle Jim Harkins, had been with him in vaudeville and appeared occasionally on his show. He and Portland avoided crowds, lived simply in a New York apartment, and never owned a car. “I don’t want to own anything,” he once told a reporter, “that won’t fit in my coffin.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“Sinatra’s final radio days were filled with minor quarter-hours and one full-length series in which he was relegated to the role of a disc jockey. By 1950 people were writing his professional obituary. His public image had taken a beating, his personal life a succession of wives, scrapes, and alleged friendships with gangsters. It would take a 1953 film, From Here to Eternity, and a subsequent acting career to save him.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“The ever-reliable Bill Thompson filled the gap with a new character, Wallace Wimple. Wallace gave new meaning to the word “wimp,” for this was the nickname pinned on him by Fibber McGee. Wimple was terrified of his “big old wife,” the ferocious, often-discussed but never-present “Sweetie Face.” Also in 1941 came Gale Gordon as Mayor LaTrivia, who would arrive at the McGee house, start an argument, and become so tongue-tied that he’d blow his top. A year later, all these characters disappeared: Gordon went into the Coast Guard, and when Thompson joined the Navy, four characters went with him. With LaTrivia, Boomer, Depopoulous, Wimple, the Old Timer, and Gildersleeve all on the “recently departed” list, Fibber found a new devil’s advocate in the town doctor. Arthur Q. Bryan, who had played the voice of Elmer Fudd in the Warner Brothers cartoons, became Doc Gamble, continuing the verbal brickbats begun by Gildersleeve. Their squabbles could begin over a disputed doctor bill—McGee always disputed doctor bills—or erupt out of nowhere about anything at all.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“It resumed after the war. Corwin opened it Feb. 2, 1946, with Homecoming, a bittersweet slice of life about a GI who comes home to the farm.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“When President Roosevelt suggested to Archibald MacLeish that radio be prodded to help celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, Corwin was given the job. It was an enormous undertaking, a 60-minute broadcast to air on the four national networks simultaneously. But We Hold These Truths was to have a special meaning, for the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor the week before, and the show arrived on an unprecedented wave of patriotism. It was estimated by Crossley, the national barometer of radio listenership, that 60 million people tuned in that night, Dec. 15, 1941. Corwin had arranged a stellar cast. James Stewart played the lead, “a citizen” who was the sounding board for the cascade of opinions, historical perspectives, and colloquialisms that flooded the hour. Also in the cast were Edward Arnold, Lionel Barrymore, Walter Brennan, Bob Burns, Walter Huston, Marjorie Main, Edward G. Robinson, Rudy Vallee, and Orson Welles. Bernard Herrmann conducted in Hollywood,”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“Chandu the Magician was among the first and last shows of its kind, in two distinct runs separated by 12 years of silence. Partners Raymond R. Morgan and Harry A. Earnshaw were brainstorming in 1931, looking for a new radio idea, when Earnshaw mentioned the public’s high interest in magic. They created Frank Chandler, who would fight the world’s evil forces with occult powers and a far-reaching crystal ball. Evil was personified in Roxor, a villain who dominated both runs.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“PHIL HARRIS, a light novelty band of the early 1930s, featuring vocalist Leah Ray in bouncy duets with Harris. June 23, 1933–Dec. 14, 1934, Blue Network. 30m, Fridays at 9. Cutex. RALPH”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“Based on the Robert A. Heinlein novel Space Cadet, the series followed the adventures of Solar Guards trainees 400 years hence (as in the TV show, the exact correlating date was used, so the radio series was set in 2352).”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“In 1939 came the Squalus disaster, when a submarine went down near Portsmouth, N.H., and failed to resurface. Radio broke the news and was instrumental in coordinating the rescue efforts. A breaking story could now be on the air less than 30 seconds after the wire-machine bells went off. The era of press domination slipped into history.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“Baker interviewed the elderly from all walks of life. Subjects were all at least 70 years old, and most were happy to tell of life in simpler times. There were veterans of the war with Spain, oldtime reporters from newspapers of the 1880s, people who were young when the century turned.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“The NBC University Theater combined superb drama with college credit. Its productions were fully the equal of any commercial radio series and better than most, though it got stuck with the “education” stigma early in its run and never attained much more than its targeted academically motivated audience.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“The Martin and Lewis Show was developed by NBC in the wake of the stinging CBS talent raids that lured Jack Benny and others to the younger network. NBC announced a talent hunt: the network was searching for rising young performers for radio and television. Soon thereafter a network executive caught the nightclub act of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, who had been performing together for several years and had developed some name recognition within the industry while remaining largely unknown to the general public.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“MAJOR HOOPLE, situation comedy, based on the comic strip Our Boarding House, by Gene Ahern.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“Then there was a major disruption with Errol Flynn, who arrived at rehearsal in the midst of a heated argument with his wife Lili Damita. The couple kept bickering through the reading until Woodruff erupted. “It was magnificent,” said Flynn’s costar, Olivia De Havilland, in Radio Mirror. “Never in all my life have I seen such wrath. I stood before my mirror night after night, trying to register anger like that.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“Lincoln Highway offered the kind of dramatic stories usually reserved for prime time, and thus began a trend toward quality programming on Saturday mornings. The stories were of people scattered along the 3,000–mile length of U.S. Route 30, which stretched from Philadelphia to Portland and was popularly known as the Lincoln Highway. Most surprising, even to radio insiders, was the long line of top performers willing to appear at that time of day. Listeners could rise on days off and hear Burgess Meredith portraying a young man who flees the city for farm life, or Raymond Massey as the owner of a trailer camp somewhere in middle America.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“His first play, Burial Services, concerned the burial of a paralyzed girl who was still alive. It caused such a furor (more than 50,000 letters were written to NBC) that Oboler would never again write a story with such a personal theme that could adversely affect a vast audience.” Oboler remembered it this way: “I had taken a believable situation and underwritten it so completely that each listener filled the silences with the terrors of his own soul. When the coffin lid closed inexorably on the conscious yet cataleptically paralyzed young girl in my play, the reality of the moment, to thousands of listeners who had buried someone close, was the horrifying thought that perhaps sister, or brother, or mother, had also been buried … alive.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“The Life of Riley in its best-known version evolved from a prospective Groucho Marx vehicle called The Flotsam Family. The Marx series failed at audition when the would-be sponsor wouldn’t accept Groucho in what was, for him, a straight role—as head of a family. Then producer Irving Brecher saw a film, The McGuerins of Brooklyn, with a rugged-looking and typically American blue-collar man, William Bendix, in one of the leading roles. There, on the screen, was his character. A new audition was recorded, with Bendix as star and the character renamed Chester A. Riley. It became a solid midlevel hit.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“Benny’s most famous gag, when a robber demanded, “Your money or your life!” and the hilarity kept building while Benny thought it over.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“Blanc went on to speaking parts, playing a wide variety of sardonic and hysterical characters. He played caustic delivery men and punchdrunk fight trainers. As Benny’s beleaguered French violin teacher, he suffered through Benny’s scrapings and then had to plead for his money. Inevitably, Benny had no small change—he was a dime off, and this called for a trip to his vault. At last, liberated, Professor LeBlanc would scream, “I’m free! I’m free!” and storm out joyously, singing the Marseillaise.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“Adams, then in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, could only appear in the premiere program. He died in 1960; Levant in 1972; Golenpaul in 1974; Kieran in 1981. Fadiman became chairman of the Book-of-the-Month Club board of judges and went on with his literary”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“A far more serious loss that year was Oscar Levant, who left as Maurice Zolotow reported, “when a series of arguments with Golenpaul culminated in a fistfight.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio

“Some questions were years old, and as the jackpots grew, so did the difficulty of finding people who had now moved elsewhere. Some winners never were found.”
― John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio