" . . . And, to Their Bewildering Offspring": The Way It Was, 27-28 April

28 APRIL 1932---Carlton Morse's One Man's Family premieres on NBC in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle, joining the full NBC western network within three weeks and the nationwide network offerings by May 1933. The serial is also the first soap opera to originate from San Francisco and will appear in a condensed retrospective between May 1933 and January 1934 to catch up the country with the full story of the Barbours, according to The Big Broadcast: 1920-1950.

One Man's Family is dedicated to the mothers and fathers of the younger generation, and to their bewildering offspring.

---From the show's usual introduction, followed by episode introductions by book and chapter.

Contrary to standard soap opera practise of the day, One Man's Family is a half-hour, weekly offering, converting to daily fifteen-minute offerings only by 5 June 1950, remaining in that format until it leaves the air 8 May 1959. It will be the longest-running radio soap in American history, with J. Anthony Smythe playing patriarch Henry Barbour for the show's entire life and Marvin Miller playing twenty individual roles on the show, more than any other cast member.

Set in the Seacliff area of San Francisco, the soap is written by creator Morse with Harlan Ware and Michael Raffetto. (Raffetto also plays eldest son Paul Barbour from inception through 1955.)

Henry's wife, Fanny, will be played by Minetta Ellen from the show's inception through 1955. Other significant cast will include numerous old-time radio stalwarts, including Bill Idelson (Vic & Sade), Janet Waldo (Meet Corliss Archer), Frank Porvo, Herb Butterfield (The Halls of Ivy), Eddie Firestone, Jr. (That Brewster Boy), Anne Whitfield (The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show), Sharon Douglas (The Life of Riley), Mary Jane Croft (Our Miss Brooks, not to mention the second Mrs. Elliott Lewis), Virginia Gregg (Dragnet), Page Gilman, Francis X. Yarborough, Ken Peters, Vic Perrin (Gunsmoke), Jay Novello (I Love a Mystery), Norman Fields, and Conrad Binyon (The Life of Riley).

Comic duo Bob & Ray will pay the soap the supreme compliment, satirising it in a periodic series they called One Fella's Family, continuing the satire even after the soap itself leaves the air.

27 APRIL 1952---The Chase, an anthology of mystery, drama, adventure, and fantasy/horror created by Lawrence Klee (Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons), premieres on NBC, often sharing casts with director Fred Weihe's X Minus One.

CHANNEL SURFING . . .

27 APRIL

1947: THE CRIMINAL MIND---Known also as "The Perfect Crime," the criminal mind proves to be a police lieutenant who thinks he has the experience at least to bring it off, on tonight's edition of The Clock. (ABC.)

Rex: Ken Wade. The Clock: Hart McGuire. Additional cast: John Millian, George Sterling, Joseph McCormick. Writer: Lawrence Klee.

28 APRIL

1950: SOMETHING FOR NOTHING---In northern California, a woman leaps desperately from a car about to jump a cliff, giving a drifter (William Conrad) driving the other way a blackmail opening after he witnesses the incident, on tonight's edition of Escape. (CBS.)

Cast: Unknown. Writers: Les Crutchfield, John Dunkel, from a novel by H.V. Dixon.

PREMIERING THESE DAYS . . .

27 APRIL

1902---Harry Stockwell (singer: Broadway Matinee), Kansas City; Ned Wever (actor: Dick Tracy, Young Widder Brown), New York City.
1907---Matty Matlock (jazz musician: Pete Kelly's Blues), Paducah, Kentucky.
1933---Casey Kasem (as Kemal Amin Kasem; disc jockey/actor, The CBS Radio Mystery Theater), Detroit.
1937---Sandy Dennis (actress: The CBS Radio Mystery Theater), Hastings, Nebraska.

28 APRIL

1874---Sidney Toler (actor: It's Time to Smile), Warrensburg, Missour.
1878---Lionel Barrymore (actor: Numerous radio productions of A Christmas Carol, usually as Scrooge; Dr. Kildare, Mayor of the Town, Our Hour of National Sorrow), Philadelphia.
1896---Edith Evanson (actress: Myrt & Marge), Tacoma, Washington.
1908---Micharl Fitzmaurice (actor: The Adventures of Superman, Stella Dallas), Chicago.
1929---Carolyn Jones (as Carolyn Sue Baker; actress: Dragnet, Survivors), Amarillo, Texas.