Showing results by author "Radio Shows of the Past!" in All Categories

The Beverly Hillbillies is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor backwoods family from the Ozark Mountains of Missouri who move to posh Beverly Hills, California after striking oil on their land. The show was produced by Filmways and was created by Paul Henning. It was followed by two other Henning-inspired "country cousin" series on CBS: Petticoat Junction and its spin-off Green Acres, which reversed the rags-to-riches,...

Frankenstein is a frame story written in epistolary form. Set in the 18th century, it documents a fictional correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville.Captain Walton introductory narrativeCaptain Walton is a failed writer who sets out to explore the North Pole in hopes of expanding scientific knowledge. After departing from Archangel, the ship is trapped by pack ice on the journey across the Arctic Ocean. During this time, the crew spots a dog sled driven by a gigantic figure. A few hours later, the ice splits apart, freeing the ship, and the...

Just a Minute is a BBC Radio 4 radio comedy panel game. For more than 50 years, with a few exceptions, it was hosted by Nicholas Parsons. Following Parsons' death in 2020, Sue Perkins became the permanent host, starting with the 87th series. Just a Minute was first transmitted on Radio 4 on 22 December 1967, three months after the station's launch. The programme won a Gold Sony Radio Academy Award in 2003.The object of the game is for panellists to talk for sixty seconds on a given subject, "without hesitation, repetition or deviation". The comedy comes from attempts to keep within ...

The Stories of Sherlock Holmes was a South African radio show series of 47 or 50 episodes, produced by Michael Silver and aired on Springbok Radio (Johannesburg, South Africa) between 1979/1980 and 1985, starring Graham Armitage as Sherlock Holmes and Kerry Jordan as Dr. Watson. The episodes were around 20-30 minutes each and broadcasted on Sunday evenings at 6pm.

One of the longest running young-adult-oriented old radio shows during the golden age of radio was the widely popular "Dick Tracy." The series aired over a period of 14 years, from 1934 - 1948, and was based on a newspaper comic strip. This juvenile police detective radio program began as a 15-minute show which was later extended to a full 30-minutes due to popular demand.The series’ central theme was crime-fighting taken to a higher level by the many mind boggling plot twists the shows writer’s came up with. What set Dick Tracy apart from other old time radio serializations was his use of...

This Is Your FBI is a radio crime drama broadcast in the United States on ABC from April 6, 1945, to January 30, 1953, for a total of 409 shows. FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover gave it his endorsement, calling it "the finest dramatic program on the air".Dramatizations of FBI cases were narrated by Frank Lovejoy, Dean Carleton and William Woodson. Lawrence MacArthur wrote the episodes.This Is Your FBI was sponsored during its entire run by the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States.Promoting the program's debut, a newspaper announcement noted that the United States was then at war and ...

The English-language propaganda radio programme Germany Calling was broadcast to audiences in the United Kingdom on the medium wave station Reichssender Hamburg and by shortwave to the United States. The programme began on 18 September 1939 and continued until 30 April 1945, when the British Army overran Hamburg. The next scheduled broadcast was made by Horst Pinschewer (also known as Geoffrey Perry), a German-Jewish refugee serving in the British Army who announced the British takeover. Pinschewer was later responsible for the capture of William Joyce.Through such broadcasts, the ...

Radio historian John Dunning described this season of The Avenger as "a poor man's version of The Shadow." Jim Brandon (alter ego of The Avenger) was a biochemist who invented a Telepathic Indicator and a Secret Diffusion Capsule, both of which helped him fight crime.Jim Cox, in his book Radio Crime Fighters: More Than 300 Programs from the Golden Age, noted characteristics that The Avenger shared with The Shadow: having "a drop-dead gorgeous subordinate, Fern Collier, who alone knew his true identity"; being hidden by "a black light of invisibility"; and having the ability to interpret "...

The characters originated in 1930s vignettes written by Richard Lockridge for the New York Sun, and he brought them back for short stories in The New Yorker. These stories were collected in Mr. and Mrs. North (1936). Lockridge increased the readership after he teamed with his wife Frances on a novel, The Norths Meet Murder (1940), launching a series of 26 novels, including Death Takes a Bow, Death on the Aisle and The Dishonest Murderer. Their long-run series continued for over two decades and came to an end in 1963 with the death of Frances Lockridge. The series was unusual in ...

The Adventures of Harry Lime is one of the most successful series created by prolific British radio producer Harry Alan Towers and his company Towers of London. Towers and Graham Greene, author of The Third Man, had the same literary agent, and Towers learned that Greene had not sold the rights to the character of Harry Lime to Alexander Korda when he sold Korda The Third Man. Towers quickly bought the rights to the character and in 1951 he put a syndicated radio series into production. Orson Welles reprised the role of Harry Lime in a series of adventures that preceded the story told ...

There was a radio show called Thriller Playhouse that featured classic thrillers. There was also an American radio and TV series called Starring Boris Karloff that was similar to Thriller. ExplanationThriller PlayhouseA radio program that featured classic thrillers, including Murder in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe Starring Boris KarloffAn American radio and TV anthology series that aired on ABC in 1949 The show featured Boris Karloff as the host and occasional star The series adapted short stories of mystery and suspense

Dick Barton – Special Agent is a radio thriller serial that was broadcast in the BBC Light Programme between 7 October 1946 and 30 March 1951. Produced and directed by Raymond Raikes, Neil Tuson, and Charles Lefaux, it was aired in 15-minute episodes at 6.45 (later 6.15) each weekday evening. From 11 January 1947 an additional "omnibus" edition repeated all of the week's programmes each Saturday morning between 11.00 and 12.00. In all, 711 episodes were produced and the serial achieved a peak audience of 20 million. Its end was marked by a leading article in The Times.The serial ...

The Whistler is an American radio mystery drama which ran from May 16, 1942, until September 22, 1955, on the west-coast regional CBS radio network. The show was also broadcast in Chicago and over Armed Forces Radio. On the west coast, it was sponsored by the Signal Oil Company: "That whistle is your signal for the Signal Oil program, The Whistler." There were also two short-lived attempts to form east-coast broadcast spurs: July 3 to September 25, 1946, sponsored by the Campbell Soup Company; and March 26, 1947, to September 29, 1948, sponsored by Household Finance. The program was ...

The Zero Hour (aka Hollywood Radio Theater) was a 1973–74 American radio drama anthology series hosted by Rod Serling. With tales of mystery, adventure and suspense, the program was broadcast for two seasons. Some of the scripts were written by Serling.The radio series debuted on September 3, 1973, in syndication, and was picked up by the Mutual Broadcasting System in December. The original format featured five-part dramas broadcast Monday through Friday with the story coming to a conclusion on Friday. Including commercials, each part was approximately 30 minutes long. Mutual affiliates were...

The Buck Rogers comic strip had been commercially very successful, spawning novelizations and children's toys, and King Features Syndicate decided to create its own science fiction comic strip to compete with it. At first, King Features tried to purchase the rights to the John Carter of Mars stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs. However, the syndicate was unable to reach an agreement with Burroughs. King Features then turned to Alex Raymond, one of their staff artists, to create the story.One source for Flash Gordon was the Philip Wylie novel When Worlds Collide (1933). The book's themes ...

The 15-minute continuing series Perry Mason aired weekdays October 18, 1943 – December 30, 1955, on CBS Radio. Geared more towards action than courtroom drama, it mixed mystery and soap opera, with attorney Perry Mason sometimes even exchanging gunfire with criminals.Erle Stanley Gardner's literary success with the Perry Mason novels convinced Warner Bros. to try its hand, unsuccessfully, with some motion pictures. However, the Perry Mason radio show stayed on the air for 12 years.As The Edge of Night, it ran for another 30 years on television, but Gardner disliked the proposed daytime ...

An alien archaeologist takes over a Scottish village surrounded by a radioactive cloud and devastationThe archaeologist examines the past lives of the village's inhabitants by "unpeeling" layers of timeCast: Gayanne Potter as Jill LoganSimon Tait as Dan CollinsJoanna Tope as Dr Beth GrangerSandy Neilson as Captain CairnsLesley Hart as Heather LoganStevie Hannan as Soldier/Pilot/JamieJohn Paul Hurley as the TechnicianWriter: Marty Ross wrote the program specifically for the BBC

The Sound of War is an 18 episode collection. Jay Hickerson's "The Ultimate Guide to all Circulating Shows" states that this is how many were produced. The series used the tagline "The Actual Sound Record of World War II. A drama preserved for all time through the medium of radio. An era not to be forgotten." The Sound of War contains many sound clips, some rare from such notable figures as Adolf Hitler, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Benito Mussolini, Neville Chamberlin, General Douglas McArthur, Charles DeGaulle, Hermann Goering, and many more.It's not clear when the show was ...

The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe stars Sydney Greenstreet as Rex Stout's fictional detective genius Nero Wolfe. Produced by Edwin Fadiman and directed by J. Donald Wilson, the series aired on NBC from October 20, 1950 to April 27, 1951. Don Stanley was the announcer. The episodes were written by Alfred Bester and others: 325 Wolfe's legman Archie Goodwin was played by a succession of actors including Gerald Mohr, Herb Ellis, Lawrence Dobkin, Harry Bartell, Lamont Johnson and Wally Maher.Biographer John McAleer reported that Stout enjoyed Greenstreet's portrayal. The New ...

Roosevelt also made extensive use of radio. She was not the first first lady to broadcast—her predecessor, Lou Henry Hoover, had done that already. But Hoover did not have a regular radio program, whereas Roosevelt did. She first broadcast her own programs of radio commentary beginning on July 9, 1934. On that first show, she talked about the effect of movies on children, the need for a censor who could make sure movies did not glorify crime and violence, and her opinion about the recent All-Star baseball game. She also read a commercial from a mattress company, which sponsored the ...