Jeff Kallman's excellent The Easy Ace: A Journal of Classic Radio
is a wonderful place to spend hours on end, rediscovering the Golden Age of Radio
as it's meant to be discovered and celebrated. Article after article
is filled with a wonderful new vignette about Golden Age Radio History.
---The Digital Deli Online.

[I]n his matchless on-this-day approach to chronicling “yesteryear,”
he easily aces out a less organized mind like mine,
which promptly lapsed into a more idiosyncratic mode of relating the past.
---broadcastellan.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Relax. And, Listen. The Way It Is, 20 May

So 20 May isn't exactly one of your great, earthshattering days for old-time radio history? Adjust. Then, relax. And, listen . . .

CHANNEL SURFING . . .

1929: THE TAXI COMPANY GETS COMPETITION---It's coming from Earl Dixon, opening up the new Easy Ridin' Taxicab Company right across the street from Amos (Freeman Gosden) and Andy's (Charles Correll) Fresh Aire Taxi Company, and promising his business will help their business---which Andy translates to mean putting them out of business, on tonight's edition of Amos 'n' Andy. (NBC.)

Writers: Freeman Gosden, Charles Correll.

1946: BOY MEETS GIRL---In an adaptation of the 1938 film, a pregnant waitress (Ann Sothern) at a struggling film studio inspires two lazy screenwriters (Chester Morris, Lee Tracy) to make the baby the star, on tonight's edition of The Old Gold Comedy Theater. (NBC.)

Adapted from the Spewack/Spewack screenplay. Host/director: Harold Lloyd.

1948: LEAVING NEW YORK---You might think freewheeling, irreverent, and cantankerous Henry Morgan a bit of a mismatch for Al Jolson, even with Oscar Levant among the evening's cast (and joining the needling in a charming parody of Morgan's second banana Arnold Stang, among other things), but we'll let you listen yourself to tonight's edition of Kraft Music Hall. (NBC.)

Additional cast: Don Wilson. Music: Lou Pring and his Orchestra and Chorus. Writers: Unknown.
,
PREMIERING TODAY . . .

1899---Virginia Sale (actress: Those We Love), Urbana, Illinois.
1899---Stan Lomax (sportscaster: Evening Journal Sports), Pittsburgh.
1906---Lyda Roberti (actress/singer: numerous radio appearances), Warsaw.
1908---James Stewart (actor: Lux Radio Theater; We Hold These Truths), Pennsylvania.
1909---Jerry Hausner (actor: Silver Theater; Lum & Abner), Cleveland.
1911---Vet Boswell (singer, with the Boswell Sisters: The Boswell Sisters; The Woodbury Soap Show), Birmingham, Alabama.
1920---George Gobel (comedian/actor: Tom Mix; National Barn Dance), Chicago.
1936---Anthony Zerbe (actor: Earplay), Long Beach, California.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeff,
thanks for the history and context. I appreciate the OTR a lot more because of the background you provide. I listen regularly, for about three hours every a.m. during my paper route.
Did you know that the Internet Archive has two Green Hornet pages? You currently link to the smaller one with a meagre seven shows, but there is also http://www.archive.org/details/GreenHornet with close to a hundred episodes.

Thanks again.
- Fred

1:46 PM  
Blogger Jeff Kallman said...

Fred---Thank you for the kind words and the tip on the Green Hornet link. Consider it fixed!---Jeff

3:53 PM  

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