Characters and story
Leon Janney, a child star in films in the 1930s, starred as Richard Parker, a teenage boy growing up in a small midwestern town. Janney (whose character was nicknamed "Richard the Great") also narrated the series, and his character's chronic misunderstandings formed the basis of the stories. Richard lived with his father Walter ( Jay Jostyn) and mother Helen (Linda Carlon-Reed, later Marjorie Anderson), as well as his twin sister Nancy ( Mitzi Gould) and younger sister Elly ( Patricia Ryan). Harry Clark and Hugh James were the announcers. Don Becker created and produced the program, with Chuck Vincent and Oliver Barbour as directors. Priscilla Kent was the writer. The program was sponsored by Woodbury Soap and Ipana toothpaste.The theme song was ''Deep Purple''.Airdates and availability
''The Parker Family'' aired weekly on CBS from July to October 1939, then switched to NBC Blue (today's ABC), running until April 10, 1944. An experimental video version was aired on NBC-TV on May 9, 1941, with Janney and Gould reprising their radio roles. The soap was also part of a slate of programs (which included a middleweight title fight between Billy Soose and Ken Overlin) shown to a group of 1,200 people at the New Yorker Theatre as an experiment in "theatre television".1,200 See 1st Test of Big-Screen Television, ''References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Parker Family 1930s American radio programs American radio soap operas CBS Radio programs 1940s American radio programs NBC Blue Network radio programs 1939 radio programme debuts 1944 radio programme endings Radio programs about families