Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

On Friday, November 22nd, 1963, President Kennedy awoke at 7:30AM. He ate a light breakfast with Jackie before going out by himself to the square in front of his hotel to address a crowd of a few thousand people. Someone shouted, “where’s Jackie?” He pointed to their eighth floor suite and replied "Mrs Kennedy is organizing herself, It takes her a little longer, but of course she looks better than...

On the morning of Thursday, November 21st, 1963 President Kennedy had breakfast with his children. He said goodbye to his daughter Caroline when she left for school at 9:15. President Kennedy arrived at his office for the last time at 9:55. The President left the White House for the last time at 10:50AM. He flew to Andrews Air Force Base where he and the First Lady departed for San Antonio Texas....

On November 19th, 1963, nine days before Thanksgiving, President Kennedy received a turkey from the Poultry and Egg Board. The President always looked forward to New England Thanksgivings. That same day, in the concluding event for the three-day centennial celebration of the Gettysburg Address, former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the crowd at the rededication for the Gettysburg Na...

On Sunday, November 17th, 1963, Frank McGee signed on for NBC’s Monitor with a look at Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. Lincoln’s famous speech was about to celebrate its one-hundredth anniversary. Meanwhile, President Kennedy was in Florida, unofficially on the 1964 campaign trail. On Saturday November 16th, President Kennedy traveled to Cape Canaveral where he inspected the Saturn Control C...

On Saturday November 9th, fans rioted at Roosevelt Field Raceway in Long Island, battling police and setting fires. At least fifteen were hurt and the head of security died of a heart attack during the riot. Sunday November 10th was the evening before Veteran’s Day. On NBC, Frank McGee signed on for Monitor with a salute to the holiday. Andrew Pearson had correspondence from Vietnam, while Preside...

As November 1963 began, President Kennedy had emergency meetings on Vietnam. He also received members of the US Industrial Payroll Savings Committee and had meetings on the goings on in Berlin. Meanwhile, The U.S. Secret Service concluded that the more secure and the larger of two locations for the President’s upcoming fundraising luncheon in Dallas would be the "Women's Building" at Fair Park at...

Support For Breaking Walls is provided by our patrons. If you like the documentaries I've been producing, you can become a show supporter for as little as $1 here — https://www.patreon.com/TheWallBreakers By 1960, Shep’s homespun wit could be tweaked depending on what time of the day he took to the air. At that time he was broadcasting on both Saturdays and Sundays during the middle of the day for...

Jean Shepherd was born on July 26th, 1921 on the South Side of Chicago to Jean and Anna Shepherd. He grew up in Hammond, Indiana, which according to Shep was a “tough and mean” industrial city. As an adolescent, Shepherd worked as a mail boy in a steel mill. He began his radio career at the age of sixteen, doing weekly sportscasts for WJOB in Hammond. That job led to juvenile roles on network radi...

In Breaking Walls episode 144 we present part two of our mini-series on radio and the world in the fall of 1957. —————————— Highlights: • The 1957 World Series • Unit 99 • Sputnik, Bing Crosby, and Current Events • The Eternal Light and The Glastonbury Cows • Algeria Aflame • Stan Freberg • Bill Kemp, ABC, and More News • School Integration Update • Sorry, Wrong Number • You Bet Your Life • NATO,...

Next time on Breaking Walls, in honor of the sixtieth anniversary of John Kennedy’s Assassination, we spotlight Jean Shepherd and his November 1963 broadcasts. —————————— Highlights: • The 1957 World Series • Unit 99 • Sputnik, Bing Crosby, and Current Events • The Eternal Light and The Glastonbury Cows • Algeria Aflame • Stan Freberg • Bill Kemp, ABC, and More News • School Integration Update • S...

As the clock ticks toward All Hallow’s Eve, we’ll wind down where we began in last month’s episode of Breaking Walls, with the October 30th, 1957 episode of LIFE and the World on NBC. The October 14th LIFE Magazine cover featured Little Central High School in Arkansas; the October 21st cover featured American scientists plotting Sputnik’s orbit; while the October 28th’s cover featured Queen Elizab...

On October 21st, 1957 Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited New York City. It was the final stop on their tour. The next day they returned to the United Kingdom. Meanwhile in Washington, President Eisenhower was meeting with the U.K.’s Prime Minister Harold MacMillan and NATO Chief Paul-Henri Spaak. Their chat was over Middle East policy, rocket deployment, and the Soviet Union’s launch of Spu...

You Bet Your Life, conceived by the just-heard John Guedel and hosted by comedian Groucho Marx, debuted over ABC’s airwaves on October 27th, 1947. Three couples were brought onstage to be interviewed and quizzed by Groucho. Each couple was given twenty dollars and told to bet as much as they dared risk on four questions from a category of their choosing. The money would double with each successive...

On Sunday, October 20th, 1957 at 4:35PM eastern time, the just-heard Agnes Moorehead starred for the seventh time in Suspense’ adaptation of Lucille Fletcher’s harrowing story, “Sorry, Wrong Number.” In this play, a bed-ridden invalid, attempting to call her husband, accidentally overhears a plot between two men to kill some woman thanks to crossed phone lines. Over the course of the story she des...

As we covered in the previous episode, number 143, of Breaking Walls, In Little Rock, Arkansas on September 4th, 1957, nine African-American students attempted to attend their first day of high school at the newly integrated Little Rock Central High. The National Guard, on the orders of Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, prevented the students from entering the school. The Governor then locked himsel...

On Wednesday October 9th, 1957 at 8PM eastern time, The Bill Kemp Show took to the air over ABC. Bill Kemp was born on July 10th, 1921 in Toronto, Canada. An up and coming performer in the 1950s, his daily radio show ran weeknights at 8PM. His show was the final in a twelve-hour daily live broadcast project by ABC called “The Live and Lively Radio Network.” ABC’s intention was to raise ratings by...

Stan Freberg was born on August 7th, 1926 in Pasadena, California. Shortly after graduating from high school, he found work as a voice actor in both radio and animation. In 1957, now thirty-one, he was given his own thirty-minute comedy program on CBS, Sundays at 7:30PM eastern time from Hollywood. He debuted on July 14th, 1957. His cast featured Peter Leeds, June Foray, Daws Butler, Marvin Miller...

In October of 1957, Algeria was in the midst of a war for Independence and control between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front. The conflict began in November of 1954 and by October of 1957 was considered the world’s only active war of note. It was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare and the use of torture. When the War finally came to an end in 1962 with France gra...

In October 1944, in conjunction with the Jewish Theological Seminary, NBC began one of the longest-running religious programs in radio history. It was called The Eternal Light. Then in its thirteenth year, The Eternal Light dramatized stories from ancient Judaea, along with contemporary works like The Diary of Anne Frank. It was produced by Milton Krents. Many top New York radio actors appeared. N...

On Friday October 4th, 1957 the U.S. received confirmation of the USSR’s launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial earth orbiting satellite. It was a polished metal sphere twenty-three inches in diameter with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. Its radio signal was easily detectable by amateur radio operators. Its sixty-five degree orbital inclination gave it a flight path that...

Unit 99, first aired over ABC’s KFBK Sacramento on August 23rd, 1957. The radio station was part of the McClatchy media empire along with The Sacramento Bee and other radio and TV stations, as well as newspapers in the Western U.S. The show was born from Jack Webb’s Dragnet mode of realistic police portrayals, then furthered by shows like Night Watch which removed the script, followed actual offic...

At 12:45PM on Wednesday October 2nd, Game one of the 1957 World Series took to the air. It pitted The Milwaukee Braves against The New York Yankees from Yankee Stadium in The Bronx. Bob Neal and Earl Gillespie were on the call for NBC Radio, while Mel Allen and Al Helfer telecast the game. The upstart Braves were led by future hall-of-famers Hank Aaron, Eddie Matthews and Warren Spahn. The defendi...

In Breaking Walls episode 143 we begin a mini series on radio and the world in the fall of 1957. —————————— Highlights: • LIFE and The World • The Man from Tomorrow • The American Forum of the Air • Atomic Testing • Pat Buttram and Just Entertainment on Labor Day • Ray Bradbury and the End of X-Minus One • Ms America • The Hattie Cotton School Bombing • Biography in Sound • Howard Miller and Steve...

Next time on Breaking Walls, we continue our 1957 mini series by picking up in October with Sputnik, Algeria, Queen Elizabeth’s royal tour, and dying radio drama. —————————— The WallBreakers: http://thewallbreakers.com Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts. To support the show: http://patreon.com/TheWallBreakers —————————— The reading material for today’s episode was: • On t...

In September 1957 baseball’s Dodgers, who’d called Brooklyn home since 1884, and Ebbets Field since 1913, played their final games in Flatbush. They’d been World Champions just two years earlier. Simultaneously, over in northern Manhattan, The New York Giants, champions in 1954, and at home near Coogan’s Bluff since 1883, played their final game overlooking the Harlem River. Both teams would move...