Breaking Walls

In Breaking Walls episode 127 we keep on with our look at 1954 by picking up in May during one of the most important months of the decade. —————————— Highlights: • The Big Sound in Nashville • Everett Sloane and The 21st Precinct • Ray Milland and Meet Mr McNutley • An Eisenhower Presser and Other Current Events • I Love a Mystery — Born Again • Wild Bill Hickok • Grace Kelly Guest Stars on Bob Ho...

At 3PM on Sunday, May 30th, 1954, Anthology signed on NBC. Directed by John Malcom Brennen, produced by Steve White, and announced by Harry Fleetwood, Anthology offered dramatic readings of famous and lesser-known plays. Memorial Day weekend’s episode featured Agnes Moorehead reading “Barbara Fritchie,” and Frank Lovejoy and Bing Crosby performing “The Man Without a Country.” Anthology would air i...

On Friday May 28th, 1954 as beaches and public parks opened for Memorial Day weekend, families hopped in their cars, turned on the radio dial, and heard the continuing testimony of McCarthy’s Attorney Roy Cohn during the Army-McCarthy Hearing. CBS radio was there. Cohn played a major role in McCarthy’s crusade. He helped create the Lavender Scare, which claimed overseas Communists blackmailed clos...

Inheritance was a joint production of NBC and The American Legion at the height of The Red Scare. It first took to the air on April 4th, 1954. The American Legion was at the forefront of The Red Channels pamphlet which outed alleged communist sympathizers. The Legion’s connection to The Red Channels had long been disclosed by the time Inheritance took to the air. It has been speculated that perhap...

On Sunday May 23rd, 1954 at 6PM Eastern, The American Forum of the Air signed on Mutual with a discussion on the Supreme Court Decision of Brown versus The Board of Education. On May 17th, The Court ruled that racial segregation within the U.S. public school system was unconstitutional. It repealed the “separate but equal” doctrine from 1896. By the early 1950s the NAACP was filing lawsuits on beh...

Bob Hope joined NBC’s red network in December of 1937. For the next ten years he starred on The Pepsodent Program, racking up the top-rated show five consecutive seasons between the fall of 1942 and the spring of 1947. Then, as radio’s ratings were hitting an all-time high, Hope opened the fall of 1947 to harsh reviews. Both the critics and public were bored with his formula. Ratings dropped and H...

James Butler “Bill” Hickok was born on May 27th, 1837 in LaSalle County, Illinois. An excellent marksman from a young age, in 1855 he became a Kansas Abolitionist Jayhawker. From there he became a constable, joined the Pony Express parent company, was badly wounded by a bear, and committed his first justifiable homicide. This was all before the age of twenty-five. During the Civil War, Hickok beca...

Carlton E. Morse’ I Love A Mystery first took to the air Weekdays at 3:15PM on NBC’s West-Coast network in January of 1939. Michael Raffetto starred as Jack Packard, head of the A-1 Detective Agency, with Barton Yarborough as Texan Doc Long, and Walter Paterson as the British Reggie Yorke. The show told of three world travelers in search of action, thrills, and mystery. From the ghost towns of win...

On Friday, May 14th, 1954 President Eisenhower gave a news conference, immediately opening the floor to reporters for general questions. The day prior The World Chess Championship was won by Mikhail Botvinnik in Moscow. On this day, The Boeing 707 was released. On Monday the 16th, The Kengir uprising broke out at a Soviet Labor camp. Political prisoners forced out guards and administration. It wou...

Meet Mr. McNutley first took to CBS’ airwaves on September 17th, 1953. Ray Milland played Ray McNutley, English professor at Lynnhaven College. Phyllis Avery was Peggy, his wife. It aired concurrently on TV with much of the same cast. The show would be short-lived, going off the air after June 10th, 1954. The TV show lasted one more season, changing the character’s name to McNulty in the process.

As the US began May of 1954, there was word that a new Soviet bomber had the ability to reach the United States. It was displayed for the public for the first time at the Moscow May Day Parade. On May 7th, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu would end in a French defeat. U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles declared Vietnam non-essential to security in Southeast Asia. The U.S. would not intervene fo...

In Breaking Walls episode 126 we continue our mini-series in April of 1954. —————————— Highlights: • Eisenhower talks fear • Lum and Abner’s April Fools’ Joke • The Eternal Light • Nightwatch — A New CBS Real Police Show • Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator • Illegal Immigrant Fears • Gildersleeve’s Dinner Party • Easter Sunday and The End of The Whistler • Jack Benny Holds a Seance • The Arm...

Next time on Breaking Walls, as the weather heats up in May of 1954, Brown vs. The Board of Education delivers a landmark decision. It decreed racial segregation within the U.S. School system to be unconstitutional. Dixiecrats opposed the ruling, while many others felt it was an injustice rectified ninety-years too late. We’ll cover this and every other radio and national happening, as we move tow...

In April 1954, Phil Harris and Alice Faye were in the midst of their last season on the air. The husband-wife duo had been starring together on radio since 1946. Harris spent the better part of the last decade working with Elliott Lewis. They both worked under Jack Benny for years. On April 30th, they presented a special Red Cross Blood Drive program. Opposite on NBC-TV, The Big Story pulled a rat...

In January 1953, Joseph McCarthy began his second term as U.S. Senator from Wisconsin as the Republican Party regained control of the Senate. McCarthy was made chairman of the Committee on Government Operations. This included a permanent subcommittee that allowed McCarthy to continue Communist investigations within the government. He appointed Roy Cohn as chief counsel and Bobby Kennedy as assista...

As The Jack Benny Program moved into the spring of 1954, the comedian was still seen as a ratings boon. Through the years, Benny made little tweaks to his team without losing his audience. Bob Crosby replaced Phil Harris as bandleader in the fall of 1952. In 1954, Mary Livingstone, always a victim of stage fright, began to record her lines at home. Joan Benny or Jeanette Eymann played the Mary rol...

April 18th, 1954 was both the first day of Passover and Easter Sunday. In Los Angeles, the weather was warm and foggy. The front page of The LA Times predicted record crowds at Easter services. The Major League baseball season was underway. It would be three years before Los Angeles imported the Dodgers from Brooklyn. Two days prior, V.P. Richard Nixon told the press he feared the U.S. would be fo...

Willard Waterman had been portraying Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve since the fall of 1950 when Harold Peary left the program. In the spring of 1954 The Great Gildersleeve was airing Wednesdays at 8:30PM eastern time over NBC. Kraft had sponsored the program since its debut in 1941. The show’s 5.8 rating was good enough for fourteenth overall, and NBC’s fourth-highest program. It easily beat out CBS...

In 1954, CBS Radio’s documentary unit presented a special feature series on a variety of hot-button topics. On April 11th, illegal Immigration from Mexico was their focus. Today, the term Wetback is rightfully one of derision and insult. It might have privately been considered the same in 1954, but in the mainstream it was used to describe anyone who swam into the US from across the Rio Grande Riv...

By April 1954, Himan Brown had been involved in radio for more than two decades. He’d directed, produced, or created shows like Inner Sanctum Mysteries, The Adventures of the Thin Man, Grand Central Station, Bulldog Drummond, Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, and Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator. William Gargan was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 17th, 1905. His father was a detective, and his m...

In April 1954 Bill Froug was supervisor for a new CBS series called Night Watch. The show attempted to take Dragnet’s realism to the next level. It placed reporter Donn Reid in Culver City Officer Ron Perkins’ car. Reid rode the 6PM to 2AM shift, wearing a hidden wire to capture the high drama of the job. Before the premiere broadcast, Reid accumulated one-hundred reels of tape. It included crimin...

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 tenth 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. NBC do...

As the United States entered April 1954 with the cold war at its height, Congress and The President authorized the founding of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. Walt Disney was signing a contract with ABC—TV for a Disneyland series, with plans to build a new theme park in Southern California. Legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini was retiring, as Elvis Presley was recording his debut single,...

In Breaking Walls episode 125 we continue our mini-series in March of 1954. —————————— Highlights: • Edward R. Murrow Sees It Now • Perry Mason Busts The Syndicate • The 1954 DNC in Florida • Cathy and Elliott Lewis Can’t Fight City Hall • Groucho Marx Bets His Life • Phil Harris and Alice Faye: Happy Couple In Cancellation • The End of the Expense Account For Johnny Dollar? • Escape’s Violent Nig...

As March drew to a close, Mutual Broadcasting’s Frank Hemingway took to the air on March 30th with the evening news from KHJ in Los Angeles. ___________ With the hydrogen bomb in development, Russia wanted to join NATO. In Washington, President Eisenhower was making changes to the Taft-Hartley Labor Law. And in present-day Vietnam, a massive battle was taking place at the French military base at D...