Breaking Walls

Radio ratings peaked in 1948 and the networks used excess profits to help launch TV. By 1950 NBC, CBS, and ABC were filling their entire primetime TV schedule. After eighteen years as one of radio’s highest-rated weekly shows, the just-heard Fibber McGee and Molly began airing five nights per week for fifteen minutes on October 5th, 1953. As America moved west after World War II, turning farms int...

In 1954, it took a historic season to dethrone the Yankees who were five-time defending world champions. Although they won one-hundred three games, the Cleveland Indians won a then-American League record one-hundred eleven. The Indians were led by Center Fielder Larry Doby, the first African-American player in the AL, Third Basemen Al Rosen, and slugger Vic Wertz. Their pitching staff was anchored...

1951 seemed like the season it would all finally come together in Brooklyn. The Dodgers were led by Catcher Roy Campanella, First baseman Gil Hodges, Outfielder Duke Snider, and now second-baseman, Jackie Robinson. Through one-hundred sixteen games, Brooklyn had seventy wins. On August 11th the New York Giants trailed the Dodgers in the standings by thirteen games. Then, Giants manager Leo Duroche...

The man you just heard is acting legend Vincent Price. Price’s only continuous radio role was as star of The Saint where he played Simon Templar. Leslie Charteris created the character as a suave private eye. He was a dapper dresser, equally at home at the wheel of a fast car, in an airplane, or on horseback. The Saint would also break the law if the result justified it. The show had begun on CBS...

In 1946, Babe Ruth, always a heavy smoker, began to experience severe pain over his left eye and difficulty swallowing. Tests were bleak. Ruth had an inoperable malignant tumor at the base of his skull. He was one of the first cancer patients to receive both drugs and radiation treatment simultaneously. He lost eighty pounds and was discharged from the hospital in February of 1947. Baseball commis...

Tuesday, April 15th, 1947. 12:30PM. It’s damp and overcast. We’re at Ebbets field in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York. The visiting Boston Braves are playing the Brooklyn Dodgers on opening day. We can smell hot dogs, pretzels, popcorn, knishes, and beer. Manager Leo Deroucher has been suspended by MLB’s offices for conduct detrimental to the team. He’ll have to sit out the whole season....

As recounted by hall of famer Bob Feller, the summer of 1941 proved to be one of the greatest seasons in Baseball history. Ted Williams hit .401 for the Boston Red Sox — the last man ever to do so, while Joe Dimaggio hit in fifty-six consecutive games and won the AL MVP for the New York Yankees. The Yankees met the surprising Brooklyn Dodgers in the world series. The Dodgers drew the most fans in...

Jerome Hanna "Dizzy" Dean was born on January 16th, 1910 in Lucas, Arkansas, only attending school into the second grade. He made his professional debut in 1930 for the St. Louis Cardinals, sticking with the big club in 1932. The team was soon nicknamed the Gashouse Gang for their on and off field exploits. Two years later Dean was the 1934 World Series team’s ace. His brother Paul was also on the...

In 1939 the just-heard Mel Allen became the New York Yankees radio announcer. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama on February 14th, 1913. While attending the University of Alabama he became the public address announcer for the Crimson Tide football team. In 1933, when radio station WBRC asked Alabama coach Frank Thomas to recommend a new play-by-play announcer, he suggested Allen. Allen graduated f...

In forty-four seasons from 1921 to 1964, The New York Yankees won the World Series twenty times. The dynasty began with Babe Ruth’s sale from the Boston Red Sox after the 1919 season. Ruth learned his craft in an orphanage in Baltimore, making the Red Sox as a teenager in 1914. He quickly established himself as the best left-handed pitcher in the American League, but he could hit a ball further th...

If you’ve tuned into Breaking Walls episodes before, you know I rarely editorialize. I’m just the messenger bringing the news. The origins belong to men and women who gave radio their blood, sweat, and tears through radio’s highest highs and lowest lows. I grew up in a home with my grandparents and great-grandparents listening to The Golden Age of Radio. It was a hobby and nothing more. By the tim...

In Breaking Walls episode 137 we celebrate the Irish by focusing on St. Patrick’s Day on the air. —————————— Highlights: • Fred Allen — The End and the Beginning • Beat the Band • Burns and Allen at the NYC Parade • Bill Stern’s Sports Newsreel • Dennis Day Returns from the Navy • Fred Allen is King For a Day • Elliott Lewis and Broadway Is My Beat • The Death of Fred Allen • Ending with Jean Shep...

Well, that brings our look at St. Patrick’s Day to the close, but not to worry the green fields of the mind will remain in April. Next time on Breaking Walls, in honor of Major League Baseball’s opening day, we take a trip to the batter’s box and bring our radios with us. We’ll tell and hear baseball stories from some of the most famous broadcasters and players in American history.

Although Fred Allen’s death left an unfillable hole in mid-century comedy, it’s not as though there weren’t other humorists battling with networks and sponsors. Just ask Jean Shepherd. Jean Shepherd was born on July 26th, 1921 in Hammond, Indiana. He served in the Army Signal Corps in World War II, and briefly attended Indiana University. Shepherd began his broadcast radio career in early 1945 on...

By January of 1949 Fred Allen was worn out. He’d spent years battling with sponsors and with NBC. In December of 1948 his Sunday at 8:30 rating was a healthy 20 points, but after Edgar Bergen left NBC’s airwaves the network moved Allen’s show up a half hour to 8PM. Meanwhile on ABC, Stop the Music’s popularity was soaring. Allen lost nearly half his audience in a single month. By March Stop The Mu...

Broadway Is My Beat first took to the air on CBS from New York on February 27th, 1949, starring Anthony Ross and directed by John Dietz. After fifteen weeks, with Dragnet breaking new ground on NBC, CBS moved the show’s production to Hollywood. Elliott Lewis was by then helping to edit scripts for Bill Spier on Suspense. With the urging of men like Spier and Bill Robson, the twenty-eight-year-old...

In 1944 Fred Allen had to quit the Texaco Star Theatre as a battle with high blood pressure forced him off the air. The next fall, in 1945, he returned to NBC Sundays at 8:30PM with The Fred Allen Show, sponsored by Blue Bonnet Margarine & Tender Leaf Tea. With he and Jack Benny back on the same network, the two rekindled their feud. It came to a climax on the May 26th, 1946 episode of Fred’s show...

Jack Benny’s most famous Irish Tenor, Dennis Day was born on May 21st, 1916 in New York City and raised in the Throggs Neck section of The Bronx. Day graduated from Cathedral Preparatory Seminary and attended Manhattan College, where he sang in the glee club. Eventually he made his way to radio. Dennis Day made his Benny debut on October 8th, 1939. During World War II, Day enlisted in the Navy. He...

Bill Stern’s Colgate Newsreel first took to the air on December 5th, 1937 over NBC’s Blue network. Born on July 1st, 1907, Stern began in vaudeville and by 1931, he was the assistant stage manager at the Roxy Theater and later Radio City in New York. In 1934 he got the role of broadcaster for NBC’s Friday Night Fights. He became one of the most famous sportscasters in the country. Four years later...

By the spring of 1941, George Burns and Gracie Allen had been married for fifteen years and on radio for nine. Their program had been officially titled The Burns And Allen Show in the fall of 1936, and they’d spent time at both NBC and CBS. Unhappy with their Friday time slot on CBS, they’d moved back to NBC for Hormel Meats on Mondays at 7:30. Jimmy Wallington announced and Artie Shaw’s band prov...

Originally broadcast from Chicago, NBC’s Beat The Band began airing January 28th, 1940 at 6:30PM eastern time. It was sponsored by Kix Cereal. Listeners submitted riddles with song title answers. If the band couldn’t figure out the answer, the riddle submitter got thirty dollars and a box of Kix cereal. Garry Moore emceed, and Ted Weems conducted his orchestra. His three singers were Parker Gibbs,...

In 1922 a twenty-eight-year-old Fred Allen, already a vaudeville veteran, was hired by J.J. Shubert for his broadway production of The Passing Show of 1922. Allen was gaining fame as a monologist. He was in charge of writing his own material. One popular gag was the "Old Joke Cemetery." Allen had a curtain painted as a graveyard, on the tombstones were the punch lines to forty-six old jokes. When...

In Breaking Walls episode 136 we spotlight John Dehner and Have Gun, Will Travel. —————————— Highlights: • John Dehner’s radio career • Norman MacDonnell and Palladin • The Radio Dial on Sunday November 23rd 1958 • A Matter of Ethics • Killer’s Widow • The Lady Doctor • From Here To Boston • Looking Ahead to March —————————— The WallBreakers: http://thewallbreakers.com Subscribe to Breaking Walls...

Well that brings our look at the radio version of Have Gun Will Travel to a close. So, what’s in store for March? Next time on Breaking Walls, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day and the luck of the Irish, we focus on radio programming from March 17ths of days gone by.

By 1960, Have Gun and Gunsmoke were the last dramatic productions being recorded for CBS in Hollywood. Network radio drama was dying. The U.S. was changing. President Eisenhower’s second term was almost over. The next year, John Kennedy entered the White House. He defeated Republican Richard Nixon in the 1960 Presidential election. Have Gun, Will Travel’s final episode aired on November 27th, 1960...