August 14 in Radio History

August the 14th in 1933, Crosley Broadcasting's WLW in Cincinnati premiered the daytime drama "Ma Perkins." Just four months later, "Ma" moved to WMAQ Radio in Chicago and was heard over the entire NBC radio network. Virginia Payne was 23 years old when she started in the title role, operating a lumberyard in Rushville Center. Her children were Evey, Fay and John (who was killed in the war). One of the other characters in the show was Shuffle Shober. Virginia Payne played Ma Perkins for an incredible 27 years -- and 7,065 episodes.

In 1942, Garry Moore hosted a new radio program on NBC. "The Show Without a Name" was an effort to crack the morning show dominance of Arthur Godfrey (CBS) and "Don McNeil’s Breakfast Club" (ABC). A prize of $500 was offered to name the show and someone came up with the title, "Everything Goes".



In 1945, on the day of Japan's surrender ending World War II, CBS radio began the series, "Columbia Presents Corwin". Orson Welles did a special reading about the fall of Japan, titled, "Fourteen August".

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Radio Mystery Drama Mr and Mrs North

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Mr. and Mrs. North are fictional American amateur detectives. Created by Frances and Richard Lockridge, the couple were featured in a series of 26 Mr. and Mrs. North novels, a Broadway play, a motion picture and several radio and television series. Mr. and Mrs. North was a radio mystery series that aired on CBS from 1942 to 1954. Alice Frost and Joseph Curtin had the title roles when the series began in 1942. Then Richard Denning and Pamela Britton [photo] took over on radio and TV. Publisher Jerry North and his wife Pam lived in Greenwich Village at 24 St. Anne's Flat. They were not professional detectives but simply an ordinary couple who stumbled across a murder or two every week for 12 years. The radio program eventually reached nearly 20 million listeners.

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Power of radio panics America 70 years ago

CBS radio dramatization of H.G. Wells's science fiction novel, "War of the Worlds."

The culprit was 23-year-old Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater players.

While Welles's Martians laid waste to Manhattan, Norman Corwin, a former reporter for the Springfield Republican, was busy in another CBS studio a floor above....MORE
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Boston Blackie

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Boston Blackie is a fictional character who has been on both sides of the law. As originally created by author Jack Boyle (born before 1880; died circa 1928), he was a safecracker, a hardened criminal who had served time in a California prison. Prowling the underworld as a detective in adaptations for films, radio and television, the detective Boston Blackie was "an enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend. "The Boston Blackie radio series starring Chester Morris, began June 23, 1944, on NBC as a summer replacement for The Amos 'n' Andy Show. Sponsored by Rinso, the series continued until September 15 of that year. Unlike the concurrent films, Blackie had a steady romantic interest in the radio show: Lesley Woods appeared as Blackie's girlfriend Mary Wesley. Harlow Wilcox was the show's announcer. On April 11, 1945, Richard Kollmar took over the title role in a radio series syndicated by Frederic W. Ziv to Mutual and other network outlets. Over 200 episodes of this series were produced between 1944 and October 25, 1950. Other sponsors included Lifebuoy Soap, Champagne Velvet beer, and R&H beer.

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Kent Taylor starred in TV Version... intro:

Radio "$50 Shoe shine" episode, Podcast:

Suspense Agnes Moorehead 'Sorry Wrong Number'

“Suspense” from February 24, 1944, broadcast on AFRS as program 41, “Sorry, Wrong Number” starring Agnes Moorehead.
Lucille Fletcher's play originally aired on the Suspense radio program on May 25, 1943, with Agnes Moorehead in the lead role as Mrs. Stevenson. The show was reprised seven times, each time starring Moorehead. The final broadcast was on February 14, 1960.

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Jack Webb as Jeff Regan

Jeff Regan, Investigator (1948-1950) followed Pat Novak: For Hire and by this time, Jack Webb had almost a cult following, and Regan was the transition show before DRAGNET.
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Jeff Regan debuted on CBS in July 1948. Webb played a tough private eye working in a Los Angeles investigation firm run by Anthony J. Lyon. Regan introduced himself on each show "I get ten a day and expenses...they call me the Lyon's Eye." The show was fairly well-plotted, Webb's voice was great, and the supporting cast were skillful....

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Ellery Queen Mysteries

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Ellery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel (David) Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay (October 20, 1905–September 3, 1982) and Manford (Emanuel) Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee (January 11, 1905–April 3, 1971), to write detective fiction. In a successful series of novels that covered forty-two years, Ellery Queen served as both author's name and that of the detective-hero. Movies, radio shows, and television shows have been based on their works. The two, particularly Dannay, were also responsible for co-founding and directing Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, generally considered as one of the most influential English crime fiction magazines of the last sixty-five years. The Adventures of Ellery Queen radio show ran from 1939 to 1948, it was heard on ABC, CBS & NBC radio networks. Radio Series Link.
A complete episode guide and history of the radio program can be found in the book "The Sound of Detection: Ellery Queen's Adventures in Radio" from OTR Publishing, 2002.

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