What Was The Last Radio Program You Heard?

[LizzieMaine]

There's a thread for the last movie you saw and the last TV show you watch, and it's criminal that in all these years there's never been a thread to discuss the last radio program you heard. So here it is.

I just finished listening to Paul Whiteman and his orchestra broadcasting from the Hotel New Yorker on November 6, 1939. Not the Whiteman of the twenties and early thirties, but a slimmed-down band in the swing manner. Joan Edwards, daughter of Gus, and The Modernaires, late of Charlie Barnet, and eventually to be of Glenn Miller, were featured on the vocals. Pleasant tunes to kill half an hour while doing the washing.

 

[Harp]

Last night, Notre Dame vs Butler on WLS 89*AM. March madness magic, and Cinderella lives.
The Irish will face Wichita State or Kansas next, and Kentucky still rules.

Now, NPR features a Snowden spiel. Gibberish I am half listening to; though the core issues are germane to prosecution.

All nice listening while working on a philosophical thesis for the Jesuits.

 

[LizzieMaine]

All nice listening while working on a philosophical thesis for the Jesuits.

That sounds more fun than scrubbing crust out of a frying pan.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

Today when I was running errands I was listening to Fibber McGee and Molly in my car on cd - hope that counts even though it wasn't actually on a radio station. I have several cd collections of Fibber and Molly, The Great Gildersleeve, Our Miss Brooks, and a Halloween collection of different old radio shows.

 

[Edward]

Pam Ayers' current show on BBC Radio4. Happened to chance across it one night recently when I was in the kitchen and put the radio on by default. I'm also very fond of Any questions?, a Radio 4 equivalent of BBC television's Question Time; a panel of guests, politicians and non (usually prominent journalists, authors, campaigners and such) are given a series of questions from a live audience. Questions are not seen in advance, and are based on "crrent affairs". The television version has become a bit of a circus in recent months as the BBC have allowed themselves to be dragged down to caring about ratings, but the radio show is still very stimulating. Good Friday evening stuff.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That sounds very much like "America's Town Meeting Of The Air," which was hot potatoes here during the thirties, forties, and early fifties. A very informative program that wasn't afraid to give non-mainstream points of view a platform, but it got badly squelched after the war when certain points of view were no longer welcome at the microphone.

I've just finished the daily broadcast of "Don McNeill's Refreshment Club," heard every weekday morning at 9 over my micropower transmitter. This was basically an off-network version of McNeill's famous "Breakfast Club," recorded for syndication in 1936-37, with the same blend of corny humor, peppy music, and small-town sentiment. I very much enjoy one of the singers, Helen Jane Behlke -- a twenty-three-year-old contralto in the Alice Faye manner who disappeared from the microphone by 1940 in favor of a successful career in program production. Heady stuff for a kid who wasn't yet thirty.

 

[F. J.]

Jack Benny . . .

This morning I was listening to JELL-O on my ’38 Emerson as I got ready for work. It was the 30 October 1938 broadcast and everyone was at Mr. Benny’s for a Halloween party. He was serving some pretty meager fare, with one stuffed olive apiece and all. Kenny Baker sang “Cheek to Cheek,” and we also got to hear Jack, Mary, Andy, and Don Wilson sing later on.

 

[DesertDan]

With the exception of the Mercury Theater on the Air version of War Of The Worlds, all of my 30's styled radio plays are the HPLHS Dark Adventure Radio Theatre productions of H.P. Lovecraft stories. I have the complete collection save for the newest one. They are;

At The Mountains Of Madness
The Dunwich Horror
The Colour Out Of Space
The Case Of Chales Dexter Ward
The Dreams In The Witch House
Shadow Over Innsmouth
Herbert West - Reanimator
The Shadow Out Of Time
The Call Of Cthulhu
Imprisoned With The Pharaohs (Don't have yet)

They are very well done and I listen to then quite often.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Just wrapping up the January 13, 1947 edition of "Arthur Godfrey Time," featuring guest appearances by Billie Holliday and Teddy Wilson in their prime. And people think Godfrey never did anything on the air but play the ukulele, make corny jokes, shill for sponsors, and fire Julius LaRosa.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Just wrapping up the January 13, 1947 edition of "Arthur Godfrey Time," featuring guest appearances by Billie Holliday and Teddy Wilson in their prime. And people think Godfrey never did anything on the air but play the ukulele, make corny jokes, shill for sponsors, and fire Julius LaRosa.

I always respected him for his role in popularizing commercial and general aviation. And his role toward the end for environmental awareness. But I think that LaRosa affair underscored a venality and insecurity within his character. He certainly wasn't alone in that industry in that regard, but he sure reaped a whirlwind of grief when he canned Julius.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's unfortunate that's all he'll ever really be remembered for. He was a man who had only one real talent, but it was a gigantic one -- he could *talk* and make the listener feel that he was talking directly to them. I always felt that there was more than a little Godfrey influence in Mr. Reagan.

 

[Harp]

I always felt that there was more than a little Godfrey influence in Mr. Reagan.

Reagan was a natural radio talent in his own right, and he called Cubs baseball. What a guy.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Red Barber used to chide Reagan for his story about "having Augie Galan (or whoever) foul off a dozen pitches when the wire went dead, until it came back up," calling it poor, dishonest reporting. Red himself was very strict about such things -- I have a fragment of a recording of Barber recreating a spring training game in 1939, where he spends a couple innings describing a pitcher who wasn't even in the game. When a correction was sent, he immediately acknowledged his error, without coming up with any fiction about the pitcher being relieved.

There are quite a number of existing recordings of regular-season games broadcast in Chicago during the 1936 season, but all of them are live WCFL broadcasts by Hal Totten. So far as anybody knows -- and I've checked every possible source -- no authentic recordings exist of "Dutch" Reagan recreating the Cubs over WHO. I did, however, hear him sitting in for an inning with Harry Caray around 1989, and was favorably impressed.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Speaking of The Game, I'm just now listening to Hal Totten's pre-game show as the Red Sox and White Sox prepare to meet at Comiskey Park on July 31, 1936. It's "Ladies Day," and Totten has just finished interviewing a rabid group of female Chisox fans, one of whom described being in the crowd when Red Faber pitched his first game for the Southsiders in 1914. The game is about to begin, with two future Hall of Famers on the mound -- Lefty Grove will pitch for Boston, and Ted Lyons for Chicago.

 

[Harp]

I did, however, hear him sitting in for an inning with Harry Caray around 1989, and was favorably impressed.

Elvis listened to Harry call the St Louis Cards.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Caray was at his best in his Cardinal years. I've heard him, either live or by recording, calling games from 1957 up until his retirement, and there was a joy in his voice during his St. Louis years that, no matter how much fun he had in Chicago, was never equaled. And he sounded positively lost in the one game I've heard from the year he spent in Oakland. Somehow I doubt he and Charlie Finley ever got along at all.

 

[Harp]

Notre Dame Vs Wichita State. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed, the Irish definitely covered the spread tonite.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Today's midday baseball broadcast is the 1936 All Star Game, from Braves Field -- excuse me, "National League Field" -- in Boston. The broadcast is being called by Yankee Network pioneer sportscaster Fred Hoey, the first man to call baseball in Boston, and the voice of the Braves and Red Sox thru the 1938 season. This is one of only two Hoey broadcasts known to survive -- and it's fascinating listening to me, not just for the game itself, or even Hoey's technique, but for the fact that his voice, in both accent and intonation, sounds exactly like that of my grandfather.

 

[LizzieMaine]

10 AM on Sunday means "The Old Fashioned Revival Hour," conducted by Rev. Charles E. Fuller. I came across a big stack of transcriptions of this widely-syndicated religious program of the Era some years ago and while I'm not a particular fan of the Reverend's brand of theology, his gospel-singing quartet does a very fine job with the olde-tyme hymns. This was a particular favorite program of my grandmother, who otherwise had little truck with Baptists.

 

[Harp]

10 AM on Sunday means "The Old Fashioned Revival Hour," conducted by Rev. Charles E. Fuller. I came across a big stack of transcriptions of this widely-syndicated religious program of the Era some years ago and while I'm not a particular fan of the Reverend's brand of theology...

Disertus magis quam sapiens?

Notre Dame vs Kentucky. I won a bet at the office, Irish Catholic notwithstanding. Cinderella lives and there is magic.