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When Radio Was
''When Radio Was'' is a syndicated radio program that re-airs old-time radio programs. History The series began as a local program in Chicago, hosted by Carl Amari, who was the founder of Radio Spirits, Inc., which sells tapes and CDs of old time radio programs. Former CBS Radio executive Dick Brescia heard an in-flight version of the program, and soon mounted a nationally syndicated version of the show (through Dick Brescia Associates), beginning Jan. 1, 1990 and hosted by Art Fleming. (Amari continued to do the local Chicago version until shortly after selling Radio Spirits to MediaBay in 1998.) The show was first syndicated by Dick Brescia Associates (1990–2003), and later Wilbur Entertainment (2003–2006), and Matrix Media, Inc. (2006–2007). In the summer of 2007, the series owner MediaBay announced the company would be going out of business in September of that year and the show was subsequently purchased in September by a group headed by Norton Herrick, former CEO of M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old-time Radio
The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the early 1920s and lasted through the 1950s, when television gradually superseded radio as the medium of choice for scripted programming, variety and dramatic shows. Radio was the first broadcast medium, and during this period people regularly tuned in to their favorite radio programs, and families gathered to listen to the home radio in the evening. According to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners. A variety of new entertainment formats and genres were created for the new medium, many of which later migrated to television: radio plays, mystery serials, soap operas, quiz shows, talent shows, daytime and evening variety hours, situation comedies, play-by-play sports, children's shows, cooking s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gunsmoke
''Gunsmoke'' is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centers on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television. When aired in the United Kingdom, the television series was initially titled ''Gun Law'', later reverting to ''Gunsmoke''. The radio series ran from 1952 to 1961. John Dunning wrote that among radio drama enthusiasts, "''Gunsmoke'' is routinely placed among the best shows of any kind and any time." The television series ran for 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975, and lasted for 635 episodes. At the end of its run in 1975, ''Los Angeles Times'' columnist Cecil Smith wrote: "''Gunsmoke'' was the dramatization of the American epic legend of the west. Our own ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'', created from standard elements of the dime novel and the pulp West ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burns And Allen
Burns and Allen was an American comedy duo consisting of George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen. They worked together as a successful comedy team that entertained vaudeville, film, radio, and television audiences for over forty years. The duo met in 1922 and married in 1926. Burns played the straight man and Allen played a silly, addle-headed woman whose convoluted logic Burns was often ill-equipped to challenge. The duo starred in a number of films, including '' Lambchops'' (1929), ''The Big Broadcast'' (1932) and two sequels in 1935 and 1936, and '' A Damsel in Distress'' (1937). Their 30-minute radio show debuted in September 1934 as ''The Adventures of Gracie'', whose title changed to ''The Burns and Allen Show'' in 1936; the series ran, moving back and forth between NBC and CBS, until May 1950. After their radio show's cancellation, Burns and Allen reemerged on television with a popular situation comedy, which ran from 1950 to 1958. Burns and Allen's radio show was induct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fibber McGee And Molly
''Fibber McGee and Molly'' (1935–1959) was a longtime highly popular husband-and-wife team radio comedy program. The situation comedy was a staple of the NBC Red Network from 1936 on, after originating on NBC Blue in 1935. One of the most popular and enduring radio series of its time, it ran as a stand-alone series from 1935 to 1956, and then continued as a short-form series as part of the weekend ''Monitor'' from 1957 to 1959. The title characters were created and portrayed by Jim and Marian Jordan, a husband-and-wife team that had been working in radio since the 1920s. ''Fibber McGee and Molly'' followed up the Jordans' previous radio sitcom ''Smackout''. It featured the misadventures of a working-class couple: habitual storyteller Fibber McGee and his sometimes terse but always loving wife Molly, living among their numerous neighbors and acquaintances in the community of Wistful Vista. As with radio comedies of the era, ''Fibber McGee and Molly'' featured an announcer, ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Benny
Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky, February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974) was an American entertainer who evolved from a modest success playing violin on the vaudeville circuit to one of the leading entertainers of the twentieth century with a highly popular comedic career in radio, television, and film. He was known for his comic timing and the ability to cause laughter with a long pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated summation "''Well!''" His radio and television programs, popular from 1932 until his death in 1974, were a major influence on the sitcom genre. Benny portrayed himself as a miser who obliviously played his violin badly and claimed perpetually to be 39 years of age. Early life Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky in Chicago, Illinois, on February 14, 1894, and grew up in nearby Waukegan. He was the son of Jewish immigrants Meyer Kubelsky (1864–1946) and Emma Sachs Kubelsky (1869–1917), sometimes called "Naomi". Meyer was a saloon ow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Great Gildersleeve
''The Great Gildersleeve'' is a radio situation comedy broadcast in the United States from August 31, 1941 to 1958. Initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, it was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. The series was built around Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, a regular character from the radio situation comedy ''Fibber McGee and Molly''. The character was introduced in the October 3, 1939, episode (number 216) of that series. Actor Harold Peary had played a similarly named character, Dr. Gildersleeve, on earlier episodes. ''The Great Gildersleeve'' enjoyed its greatest popularity in the 1940s. Peary played the character during its transition from the parent show into the spin-off and later in four feature films released at the height of the show's popularity. In ''Fibber McGee and Molly'', Peary's Gildersleeve had been a pompous windbag and antagonist of Fibber McGee. "You're a ''haa-aa-aa-aard'' man, McGee!" became a Gildersleeve catchphrase. The character ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Our Miss Brooks
''Our Miss Brooks'' is an American sitcom starring Eve Arden as a sardonic high-school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television (1952–56), it became one of the medium's earliest hits. In 1956, the sitcom was adapted for the big screen in the film of the same name. Characters * (Eve Arden) is an English teacher at fictional Madison High School. * (Gale Gordon) is the gruff and unsympathetic principal of Madison High, a near-constant pain to his faculty and students. (Conklin was played by Joseph Forte in the show's first episode; Gordon succeeded him for the rest of the series' run.) Conklin would often abuse his authority to make teachers work extra hours or perform personal favors for him. * (Jeff Chandler on radio, billed sometimes under his birth name Ira Grossel; Robert Rockwell on both radio and television), is a Madison High biology teacher, the shy and often-clueless object of Miss Brooks' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: in Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing '' agon'' or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Green Hornet
The Green Hornet is a superhero created in 1936 by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, with input from radio director James Jewell. Since his 1930s radio debut, the character has appeared in numerous serialized dramas in a wide variety of media. The Green Hornet appeared in film serials in the 1940s, ''The Green Hornet'' television series in the 1960s (which costarred Bruce Lee in his first major adult role), multiple comic book series from the 1940s on, and a feature film in 2011. The franchise is owned by Green Hornet, Inc., which licenses the property across a wide variety of media that includes comics, films, TV shows, radio and books. As of the 2010s, the comic-book rights are licensed to Dynamite Entertainment. History Though various incarnations sometimes change details, in most versions the Green Hornet is the alter ego of Britt Reid (), wealthy young publisher of the ''Daily Sentinel'' newspaper by day. But by night, clad in a long green overcoat, gloves, green fedora ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Shadow
The Shadow is a fictional character created by magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson, The Shadow has been adapted into other forms of media, including American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. The Shadow First appearance, debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program ''Detective Story Hour'', which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp ''Detective Story Magazine''. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine", Street & Smith launched a magazine based on the character, and hired Gibson to create a concept to fit the name and voice and to write a story featuring him. The first issue of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gang Busters
''Gang Busters'' is an American dramatic radio program heralded as "the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories." It premiered on January 15, 1936, and was broadcast over 21 years through November 27, 1957. History So-called "true crime" magazines were highly popular in the 1930s and the movie ''G Men'' starring James Cagney, released in the spring of 1935, had proven to be a big hit. Producer-director Phillips H. Lord thought there was a place on radio for a show of the same type. To emphasize the authenticity of his dramatizations, Lord produced the initial radio show, ''G-Men'', in close association with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover was not particularly favorable to the notion of such a program, but U. S. Attorney General Homer Stille Cummings gave it his full support.Kathleen Battles, ''Calling All Cars: Radio Dragnets and the Technology of Policing'', University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis (2010). ''G-Men'' dramatized FBI cas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dragnet (series)
''Dragnet'' is an American radio, television and film series, following the exploits of dedicated Los Angeles Police Department Detective Joe Friday and his partners, created by actor and producer Jack Webb. The show took its name from the police term " dragnet", a term for a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects. ''Dragnet'' is perhaps the most famous and influential police procedural crime drama in American media history. The series portrayed police work as dangerous and heroic, and helped shape public perception of law enforcement in the 20th century. ''Dragnet'' earned praise for improving the public opinion of police officers. Webb's aims in ''Dragnet'' were for realism and unpretentious acting. ''Dragnet'' remains a key influence on subsequent police dramas in many media. The show's cultural impact is such that seven decades after its debut, elements of ''Dragnet'' are familiar to those who have never seen or heard the program: *" Danger Ah ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
