RADIO ON RADIO – PART 1

Originally broadcast on WNIB
Saturday, January 23rd, 1999

FRED ALLEN SHOW (5-26-46) Last show of Fred’s 1945-46 season with guest Jack Benny and regulars Portland Hoffa, Kenny Delmar (Senator Claghorn), Alan Reed (Falstaff Openshaw), Minerva Pious (Mrs. Nussbaum), Parker Fennelly (Titus Moody). Allen’s Alley question: Do you have trouble sleeping? Fred tells Jack Benny about his new radio show, a giveaway program, “King for a Day.” Jack sneaks on the show as a contestant. Tenderleaf Tea, Blue Bonnet Margarine, NBC. (28:58)

NBC’S 25th ANNIVERSARY (1951) Celebrat­ing a quarter-century of programming on the National Broadcasting Company, Jim and Marian Jordan star as Fibber McGee and Molly in a hour-long retrospective of sounds. Fibber tinkers with an old radio to bring in some clas­sic sounds from the past: the first NBC net­work show in 1946; Coon-Sanders Orches­tra; Lawrence Tibbett; Ruth Etting; Joe Penner; Rudy Vallee; Ben Bernie; Eddie Cantor; W.C. Fields with Bergen and McCarthy; Jessica Dragonette; Bing Crosby; Jimmy Durante; Bob Hope; Tallulah Bankhead; Al Jolson; Groucho Marx; Major Bowes. Sustaining, NBC. (31:10; 30:23)

LIGHTS OUT (7-13-46) “The Coffin in Studio B” by Wyllis Cooper. In a radio studio, the cast and production team prepare a “Lights Out” program for broadcast. One of a series of summer revivals of the best shows in the series, produced in Chicago for network broad­cast. Cast includes Bob Murphy, Sherman Marks, Don Gallagher, Jack Bivans, Charles Eggleston. George Stone announces. Sustain­ing, NBC. (28:47)

BING CROSBY SHOW (2-14-51) Metropolitan Opera star Dorothy Kirsten joins Bing in a spoof of daytime radio soap operas: “A Soap Opera at the Met.” Ken Carpenter, Jud Conlon’s Rhythmaires, John Scott Trotter and the or­chestra. Chesterfield Cigarettes, NBC. (27:00)

JOAN DAVIS SHOW (1947) Joan is in her Tea Room, excited about the “Cinderella for a Day” radio broadcast. Cast includes Wally Brown, Verna Felton, Pat McGeehan, Ben Gage, Eddie Marr, Jack Meacham and the orchestra. AFRS rebroadcast. (20:17)