A Workshop Experiment: The Way It Was, 18 July

1936: THE LAB IS OPEN---One of old-time radio's best respected and remembered dramatic laboratories opens for business today. Though Columbia Workshop---created by studio engineer Irving Reis (once a sound man on Buck Rogers)---will prove perhaps best known for giving Norman Corwin the place in which he found his genuine voice as a dramatic titan in the first place, the experimental series (which will endure in its original format and identity through 1947) will also prove a kind of launching pad for the like of Archibald MacLeish, Burgess Meredit, Orson Welles, William N. Robson (who directed the program's adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with music only and no sound effects, daring for its time in 1947), and Agnes Moorehead (in Beauty and the Beast), among others.

CHANNEL SURFING . . .

1946: MIDSUMMER MADNESS---It only begins with a gas meter reading and a sleeper in the cellar to punctuate Sade's (Bernadine Flynn) day, on tonight's edition of Vic & Sade. (NBC.)

Vic: Art Van Harvey. Rush: Bill Idelson. Additional cast: Unknown. Writer: Paul Rhymer.

1948: THE MISSING NEWSHAWK CAPER---Somewhere in the middle of her gossipy phone call, Effie (Lurene Tuttle) manages to get Sam (Howard Duff) to look at some snapshots . . . before he looks into the wherefores of a reporter who's turned up missing and perhaps worse, on tonight's edition of The Adventures of Sam Spade. (CBS.)

Writers: Gil Doud, Bob Tallman.

PREMIERING TODAY . . .

1872---Fred Sullivan (actor: Arnold Grimm's Daughter; The Story of Mary Marlin), London.
1891---Gene Lockhart (actor: Doctor Fights; Abroad with the Lockharts), Ontario.
1893---Richard Dix (actor: The Eveready Hour), St. Paul, Minnesota.
1903---Riza Royce (actress: Young Widder Brown), Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Chill Wills (actor: Armed Forces Radio Theater; Dinner Bell Roundup Time), Seagoville, Texas.
1906---Clifford Odets (playwright: Fleischmann's Yeast Hour; Cresta Blanca Hollywood Players), Philadelphia.
1908---Lupe Velez (as María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez; actress: Lux Radio Theater; Speed Show), San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
1909---Harriet Nelson (as Harriet Hilliard; singer/actress: The Red Skelton Show; The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet; The Fred Allen Show; Suspense; The Big Show), Des Moines, Iowa.
1911---Hume Cronyn (actor: The Marriage), London, Ontario.
1913---Marvin Miller (actor: Jeff Regan, Investigator; The Romance of Helen Trent; announcer: The Bickersons), St. Louis; Red Skelton (as Richard Bernard Skelton; comedian: Avalon Time; The Red Skelton Show), Vicennes, Indiana.
1916---Irene Winston (actress: Valiant Lady; The Woman in White), New York City.