Re: 1939...

[Dan Strassberg <dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net>]

At 11:43 PM 10/8/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>...At 5:00 pm on the way home from work - WCOP (1120 Kc.) featured
>"TONIC TUNES," and at 5:15 you could catch WBZ's "SHERIFF BOB." (990
>Kc.)
>
Well, wasn't WBZ the local NBC Red Network affil? If so, 'BZ carried the
afternoon lineup of soaps that all the NBC Red affils around the country
carried. I think the soaps continued until 6:00 PM. I listened to those
shows--albeit a couple of years later--on WEAF New York (now WFAN). I was
only four years old in 1939 (actually, I was four for only part of 1939), so
I wasn't yet into much on the radio besides kid programs. There were quite a
few in those days; my favorites were Irene  Wicker, the Singing Story Lady
and Coast to Coast on a Bus with Milton J Cross (of Metropolitan Opera fame)
and Madge Tucker. Both of those shows were on WJZ (now WABC).

I don't recall a Sheriff Bob, which would also have been carried on WEAF.
But the most likely reason was that at 5:15 I was listening to Hop Harrigan,
Ace of the Airways and his sidekick, Tank Tinker with announcer Glenn Riggs
on WJZ. Probably around 1942 or 1943, I discovered Lorenzo Jones and his
faithful wife Belle, which aired at 4:30 on what, by then, was just NBC (RCA
having been forced to divest itself of the Blue Network). Lorenzo and Belle
were preceded at 4:15 by Stella Dallas and her daughter Lollie, written by
Frank and Anne Hummert.

The soaps, and the kid soaps (like Hop Harrigan; Jack Armstrong, the All
American Boy; Captain Midnight; Sky King; Tom Mix and the Ralston Stright
Shooters; Little Orphan Annie; the Green Hornet; and, of course, the Lone
Ranger) were mostly not great radio. Yet the memories endure, and those
shows absolutely formed a really important part of radio's golden age.

Now here's an obscure one: Does anybody else remember Wendy Warren and the
News on CBS? WEEI would have carried it at noon M-F in the mid forties. Here
was the problem: CBS affils must have wanted a noon newscast (remember, this
was in the middle of Word War II), but CBS didn't want to break up its
lineup of soaps, which started in the morning, right after Arthur Godfery.
The solution: create a character who was a newscaster--Wendy Warren. "Wendy"
would read a two-to-three minute 'cast at the beginning of the show, and
when the newscast ended, her boyfriend of the moment would appear and the
two of them would embark on the next chapter of Wendy's daily adventures. I
don't know whether there were any "real" female newscasters yet at that time
(there certainly were lots of radio actresses, including the one who played
Wendy, and quite a few women who hosted talk programs), but the idea of a
female newscaster was certainly plausible because so many women had to take
on careers during the War.

- -------------------------------
Dan Strassberg (Note: Address is CASE SENSITIVE!)
ALL _LOWER_ CASE!!!--> dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net
(617) 558-4205; Fax (617) 928-4205

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