Boxcars711 Old Time Radio

Episode#13 "Jane And Neff Talk About Deal" and Episode#14 "Everett Talks To Ace About The Deal" Easy Aces, a long-running American serial radio comedy (1930-1945), was trademarked by the low-keyed drollery of creator and writer Goodman Ace and his wife, Jane, as an urbane, put-upon realtor and his malaprop-prone wife. A 15-minute program, airing as often as three times a week, Easy Aces wasn't qui...

Jeff Regan, Investigator was one of the three detective shows Jack Webb did before Dragnet (see also Pat Novak For Hire and Johnny Modero: Pier 23). It debuted on CBS in July 1948. Webb played JEFF REGAN, 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 sho...

Mystery (1957-1958) ABC Mystery Time was hosted by Don Dowd and starred Sir Laurence Olivier. Great special effects will grab your attention, accented by creepy organ rips. Stories are offered such as death gathered round a card table at a local chapter of The Suicide Club, or a man who desperately tries to hire a 24 hour bodyguard all the while trying to make himself the victim of a murder, and o...

Richard Diamond, Private Detective was a radio show starring Dick Powell which aired from 1949 to 1953, first on NBC, then ABC and finally on CBS. The title character was a rather light-hearted detective who often ended the episodes singing to his girlfriend, Helen. The television series was produced by Powell's company, Four Star Television, and that series ran for 3 years from 1957 to 1960. On T...

The unmistakable voice of Bud Flanagan singing 'Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler?', a cod-Second World War propaganda singalong written especially for the show (by Jimmy Perry), introduced Dad's Army, the zenith of the British broad-comedy ensemble sitcom. Consistently good writing and a wonderful cast of old timers and newer talents combined to produce a whimsical period-piece that con...

Theater Five was ABC's attempt to revive radio drama during the early 1960s. The series name was derived from its time slot, 5:00 PM. Running Monday through Friday, it was an anthology of short stories, each about 20 minutes long. News programs and commercials filled out the full 30 minutes. There was a good bit of science fiction and some of the plots seem to have been taken from the daily newspa...

X Minus One was a science fiction radio series on NBC from April 1955 through January 1958. The show feature stories written by some of the big names in 1950s science fiction, like Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and Issac Asimov. X Minus One followed another great sci-fi series called Dimension X that was broadcast in 1950-51. Some of the X-1 shows were rebroadcasts of Dim X. For baby boomers that...

Fibber McGee and Molly premiered in 1935. The program struggled in the ratings until 1940, when it became a national sensation. Within three years, it was the top-rated program in America. Few radio shows were more beloved than Fibber McGee and Molly. The programâs lovable characters included Mayor LaTrivia, Doc Gamble, Mrs. Uppington, Wallace Wimple, Alice Darling, Gildersleeve, Beulah, Myrt, and...

Charlie Chan was the Chinese detective created by Earl Derr Biggers. Over 40 Charlie Chan movies were done from the early 1930's through 1949, all of which starred non-Chinese actors as Charlie. Supposedly working as a Honolulu police detective, Charlie was almost always somewhere else, like Paris, Rio, LA, even Treasure Islandâbut he did have a wonderful home life, too, with a reported 14 childre...

Mickey Rooney was six years old when he debuted in a silent film titled "Not To Be Trusted" from 1926, yet it was not his first time on stage. He made an appearance in vaudeville as an infant. As the star in the  Andy Hardy radio series, he played a teenager from Centerville, USA and the show was as successful as the 17 Hardy Family feature films made from 1938 to 1959 . In those films, his radio...

Hope first appeared on television in 1932 during a test transmission from an experimental CBS studio in New York. His career in broadcasting spanned sixty-four years and included a long association with NBC. Hope made his network radio debut in 1937 on NBC. His first regular series for NBC Radio was the Woodbury Soap Hour. A year later The Pepsodent Radio Show Starring Bob Hope began, and would ru...

Arch Oboler (December 7, 1909 - March 19, 1987) was a Chicago-born scriptwriter, novelist, producer and director who was active in films, radio and television. boler generated much attention for his radio scripts, and his work in radio remains the outstanding period of his career. Although some noted a tendency for gruesomeness, he received praise as one of broadcasting's top talents, and he is re...

As John Dunning relates in The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio: Benny was remarkable in many ways, but in none more than this: he built a character of every sour ingredient in life, but somehow his real personality trickled through and made it wonderful. Would a real miser act that way before 30 million people each week? The Benny of the air was a fraud, a myth, a creation. It should have surprised...

Best Plays presents theatrical paramounts of excellence. It's hosted by the drama critic of New York's Daily News, John Chapman. Dramatic and comedic performances outshine other theater radio shows, greatly performed by such greats as Boris Karloff and Alfred Drake. THIS EPISODE: Henry Fonda returned to films after an eight-year absence in this masterful adaptation of the actor's Broadway hit Mist...

The Lux Radio Theater. November 28, 1949. CBS network. "Key Largo". Sponsored by: Lux Soap, Spry. An excellent Edward G. Robinson vehicle as a typical gangster. Johnny Rocco is returning to the United States to start his rackets once again. The intermission guest is nineteen year old Debbie Reynolds. Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor, Dan Seymour, Debbie Reynolds (intermission guest), Edmond O'Bri...

Lux Radio Theater, one of the genuine classic radio anthology series (NBC Blue Network, 1934-1935; CBS 1935-1955), adapted first Broadway stage and then (and especially) films to hour-long live radio presentations and became the standard by which future radio and early television anthologies would be judged. Cecil B. DeMille was the host of the series each Monday evening from June 1, 1936 until Ja...

The shows are classic chills from the old school, with creepy organ, overwrought women and over the top men. Perhaps not the highest of melodrama, but obsessively workmanlike. After all, they might have known they were a skeleton staff toiling relentlessly without a ghost of a chance of fame. Thanks to transcription, these unknowns are still with us. John Dunning, succinctly states in "On the Air,...

The first portrayal of Phillip Marlowe on the radio was by Dick Powell, when he played Raymond Chandler's detective on the Lux Radio Theater on June 11, 1945. This was a radio adaptation of the 1944 movie, from RKO, in which Mr. Powell played the lead. Two years later, Van Heflin starred as Marlowe in a summer replacement series for the Bob Hope Show on NBC. This series ran for 13 shows. On Septem...

May 8, 1954. ABC network. "Captain Hackett's Planetoid". Sponsored by: Ralston cereals, Nestle's chocolate (Cosmic Rocket Launcher premium). When an old asteroid miner strikes "wolfenite" ore, Prince Bacaratti grubstakes him for his own evil purposes! Bela Kovacs, Dick Tufeld (announcer), Ed Kemmer, Ken Mayer, Larry Robertson (producer, director), Lou Houston (writer), Lyn Osborn, Mike Devry (exec...

The Campbell Playhouse was a sponsored continuation of the Mercury Theater on the Air, a direct result of the instant publicity from the War of the Worlds panic. The switch occurred on December 9, 1938. In spite of using the same creative staff, the show had a different flavor under sponsorship, partially attributed to a guest star policy in place, which relegated the rest of the Mercury Players t...

"Lost" (6-26-63) and "Battle Of The Monsters" (7-09-63) Journey to the Center of the Earth is an 1864 science fiction novel by Jules Verne (published in the original French as Voyage au centre de la Terre). The story involves a professor who leads his nephew and hired guide down a volcano in Iceland to the "center of the Earth". They encounter many adventures, including prehistoric animals and nat...

The Fat Man" premiered on ABC on Monday, January 21, 1946, at 8:30pm, as part of a block of four new programs which also included "I Deal in Crime," "Forever Tops," and "Jimmy Gleason's Diner." "The Fat Man" originated in the studios of WJZ in New York and began as a modestly priced sustainer [no sponsor but the station] vaguely based upon character ideas in Dashiell Hammett's writings and fleshed...

Crime Classics. August 3, 1953. CBS net origination, AFRS rebroadcast. "Mr. Thrower's Hammer". A gentleman of England in 1804 has bashed in the heads of a father and daughter. Eleven years later, a doubt arises. The program closing has been deleted. See cat. #65754 for a more complete, network version of this broadcast. The program is also known as, "The Dread Events Surrounding Mr. Throwers Hamme...

Rearranging Furniture (3-26-59) and Party Invitation Lost (3-27-59) The Couple Next Door was a Peg Lynch series which began in 1953-57 on Chicago's WGN, moving to the Mutual Broadcasting System in the summer of 1957. The married couple was played by Olan Soule and Elinor Harriot. It was revived on CBS Radio (December 30, 1957-November 25, 1960) with Peg Lynch and Alan Bunce as the unnamed married...

In October of 1934, "Lux Radio Theater" debuted in New York on NBC's Blue radio network. Presenting audio versions of popular Broadway plays, the show failed to garner an audience and soon ran out of material. After switching networks to CBS and moving to Hollywood, Lux found its true market. The show began featuring adaptations of popular films, performed by as many of the original stars as possi...