Like with Germany, Korea was divided into occupation zones after World War II. The Soviets helped establish communism in the North, while the US supported the South. By June of 1950 fighting along the border had been going on for months. However on the weekend of June 24th, bulletins increased and it became clear a major crisis was underway. After a UN Security Council meeting President Truman‘s motion to send troops was approved. Less than five years after the end of World War II, the U.S. was ...
Jul 19, 2022•3 min
On Saturday July 9th, 1949, Dangerous Assignment debuted on NBC starring Brian Donlevy as Steve Mitchell. Each week Mitchell was sent to a different location to crack into the bed of discontent and rout the perpetrators. Herb Butterfield and Betty Moran co-starred, with Hollywood regulars, like the just-heard Sam Edwards filling out the supporting roles. The initial Summer run ended on August 20th, but NBC picked the series up in February of 1950. That April Ford Motors signed on for a few broad...
Jul 16, 2022•20 min
On April 7th, 1950, Edward R. Murrow broadcast the CBS Special “Report on Flying Saucers.” By then, Murrow was long-known for his journalistic integrity and tenacity in chasing down answers. A turbo jet that could fly up to six-hundred miles per hour didn’t exactly line up with witness accounts. Speed of travel aside, It wasn’t at all what Dr. Craig Hunter had described earlier. There were clearly conflicting points of view.
Jul 14, 2022•11 min
On Sunday April 2nd, 1950 at 7:30PM eastern time, The Phil Harris and Alice Faye Show took to the air over NBC. The Harris/Faye show peaked in December of 1948 with a rating of 26, but by this month it was down 8.5. Harris resisted taking the program into TV, as his wife Alice Faye remembered. Elliott Lewis’ friendship with Phil Harris went all the way back to their days on Jack Benny’s program. On that Sunday, the episode was called “Frankie’s Flying Saucer.”
Jul 12, 2022•17 min
On Tuesday nights at 9:30PM eastern time in the spring of 1950, Fibber McGee and Molly was NBC’s highest-rated show. They’d stuck with NBC while stars like Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, George Burns, and Gracie Allen jumped to CBS. Their 17.7 was fourth overall, but their rating fell by almost six points from the year prior. Opposite on TV, NBC aired The Life of Riley, while CBS aired Suspense. The days of NBC’s Tuesday night comedy schedule being appointment radio were over. On March 28th, Fibber M...
Jul 09, 2022•18 min
In the spring of 1950, network radio revenue was falling for the first time since 1933. There were now over twenty-six-hundred AM and FM stations vying for advertising dollars. The US also spent the first ten months of 1949 in a recession while TV was becoming a serious threat to both prime time Network Radio and Hollywood films. Over a hundred TV stations were on the air, and radio’s top fifty program ratings were down thirty-percent in just two years since the record high of 1947-48. Only The ...
Jul 07, 2022•25 min
Until March of 1950, most reported UFO observations were seen from a great distance. On March 16th, a physician and pilot — Dr. Craig Hunter of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia — saw one close up. That same month, the Mutual Broadcasting System launched a series called 2000 Plus. Considered the first adult science fiction show in radio history, a month later NBC launched their own. Produced from Radio City in New York, It would be called Dimension X, and debut on Saturday April 8th at 8PM. The ma...
Jul 05, 2022•22 min
The University of Chicago Roundtable grew out of arguments had by professors at the faculty club. In 1931 they were convinced their forum would make for good radio. WMAQ agreed. The show premiered on February 1st of that year. It began running nationally over NBC on October 15th, 1933. The thirty-minute time slot allowed for little grandstanding. Professors rotated with each broadcast according to their expertise. They sat at a triangular table, which put the speakers face-to-face. It had time-w...
Jul 02, 2022•11 min
Early on the morning of February 25th, 1942 several aerial objects were spotted over Los Angeles. It triggered the firing of thousands of anti-aircraft rounds. This was ten weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and Manilla. Initially, it was thought to be a Japanese attack, but shortly after Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox said it was a false alarm. The hysteria was blamed on a weather balloon. During World War II soldiers reported seeing metallic spheres in the sky. The allies dubbed them “F...
Jun 30, 2022•24 min
In Breaking Walls episode 128 we wrap up our six month look at 1954 by ending in June with network cancellations. —————————— Highlights: • The State of Radio and The Union • The End of Escape with John Dehner • News with Frank Edwards on Mutual • Let’s Pretend with Arnold Stang • Autolite Drops Suspense • Goodbye To Jack Benny (For Now) • What’s At Stake in the Fall 1954 Midterm Elections • CBS Cancels The Lux Radio Theatre • The End of James Stewart’s The Six Shooter • Looking Ahead to July and...
Jun 27, 2022•3 hr 3 min
Well, this brings our six-month look at 1954 to a close. Jack Benny again had radio’s highest-rated show the following season in what would ultimately turn out to be his swan song. Benny’s last new radio episode aired in May of 1955. Joseph McCarthy would finally be censured by the Senate in December. He never recovered from that political storm, and died three years later, ravaged by disease and addiction, at the age of forty-eight. Although in some ways the Red Scare ended in 1954, the cold wa...
Jun 21, 2022•6 min
Even with James Stewart leading the cast and Jack Johnstone directing, without a national sponsor cancellation was around the corner for The Six Shooter. Unlike with CBS, it was uncommon for NBC to sustain shows for long. Stewart had turned down sponsorship from Liggett and Myers Tobacco. The Six Shooter would be canceled after the June 24th, 1954 episode. Thirty-nine shows were produced. Parley Baer played parts in many episodes. The next year Baer would work with Johnstone on CBS’ Yours Truly ...
Jun 17, 2022•11 min
At network radio’s height, no dramatic show was more popular than CBS’ Lux Radio Theatre. Between 1936 and 1954 it never finished lower than eighth in the ratings, and it was radio’s top show between 1947 and 1952. Ken Carpenter announced. Radio’s best supporting talent, like Paula Winslowe, worked opposite Hollywood's biggest stars. Mondays at 9PM eastern was appointment radio, and CBS built the rest of its powerhouse Monday schedule around Lux. It helped shows like My Friend Irma, Inner Sanctu...
Jun 15, 2022•32 min
On Sunday June 13th, 1954 at 6PM Eastern, The American Forum of the Air signed on Mutual with a discussion on the 1954 midterm elections. The featured Senators were Republican Homer Ferguson of Michigan and Democrat Mike Monroney of Oklahoma. The two political parties had deep divides within on key issues. While many Republicans were conservative, they didn’t support Joseph McCarthy’s communist raids. Northern democrats were likely to be liberal and in favor of the underway de-segregation. Many ...
Jun 14, 2022•14 min
On June 6th, 1954 Jack Benny closed his broadcast for the end of the season. Jack was going to headline in Dallas. The show featured a semi-rare appearance from Mary Livingston. Although radio audiences were rapidly waning and Benny was a TV star as well, he kept his radio program going. Out of home listening was adding an additional forty percent to primetime radio audiences. That means Benny’s 8.2 1954 rating was actually closer to 11.5.
Jun 12, 2022•18 min
By June of 1954, the thirty-six year-old Elliott Lewis was producer/director of four shows and the star of two. His peers affectionately dubbed him “Mr. Radio.” Perhaps most prominently, he’d been producer and director of Suspense since the fall of 1950. Program sponsor Autolite preferred to keep its commercials humorous, feeling that the change of pace shocked the audience to attention. Each 30-minute episode required over five-hundred total hours of work from fifty people. With Lewis at the he...
Jun 08, 2022•34 min
Originally broadcast as The Adventures of Helen and Mary, radio’s preeminent children’s show first took to the air on September 7th, 1929 over CBS. It became Let’s Pretend on March 24th, 1934. Hosted by “Uncle” Bill Adams, it was in many ways the brainchild of Nila Mack, who penned, produced, and directed each show. Ms Mack was born in 1891 in Kansas and became an ingenue on Broadway and in vaudeville. She arrived at CBS in 1928, and in August 1930 assumed control of the show. Mack felt the best...
Jun 07, 2022•20 min
On June 4th, 1954 at 10PM, The Frank Edwards news program signed on from WOR in New York. During this month there were more than one-hundred-twenty major American cities with significant unemployment. The Secretary of Commerce officially announced the country was in a recession. Meanwhile, Vietnam was given technical independence within the French Union. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (DUH LUSS) felt the U.S would have to send troops to Southeast Asia to prevent Communist expansion. In ot...
Jun 05, 2022•6 min
As Escape and shows like it were canceled, there were fewer opportunities for radio’s west-coast actors on network sustained programs. This episode, “An Ordinary Man” was written by Kathleen Hite and starred John Dehner and Virginia Gregg, with Tony Barrett, Edgar Barrier, and Harry Bartell. It aired on June 3rd, 1954. Escape would be canceled on September 25th. Gregg, Bartell, and Dehner would continue to work together on shows like Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, Gunsmoke, Frontier Gentleman, and H...
Jun 02, 2022•17 min
By June 1954 network radio drama was facing huge sponsor disinterest. Shows canceled in the first half of the year included The Quiz Kids, Dr. Christian, Front Page Farrell, Bulldog Drummond, Rocky Fortune, Ozzie and Harriet, and The Six Shooter. ABC, CBS, Mutual, and NBC reduced ad sale charges for the sixth consecutive year. It was an attempt to offset TVs broadening market share. It didn’t work. For the first time in sixteen years revenue fell. The only category to see an increase in sales wa...
May 31, 2022•21 min
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 Hope’s Show • Brown vs. The Board of Education • Lewis and Clark on NBC’s Inheritance • The Army/McCar...
May 26, 2022•3 hr 1 min
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 into June of 1955 when it was canceled in favor of the debuting Monitor. For more information on that...
May 22, 2022•26 min
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 closeted government employee homosexuals into passing on secrets. Convinced that the employment of homos...
May 19, 2022•11 min
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 perhaps both NBC and The Legion hoped to distance themselves from McCarthyism as criticism for his tactics...
May 17, 2022•17 min
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 behalf of plaintiffs in South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware, with Thurgood Marshall as attorney. In t...
May 15, 2022•14 min
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 Hope responded with a shakeup the following year. Gone were Vera Vague and Jerry Colonna: the show be...
May 11, 2022•17 min
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 became a Union Army teamster, a wagon master, joined the Kansas Brigade, and became a spy for the provos...
May 09, 2022•20 min
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 wind-swept Nevada, to the jungles of vampire-infested Nicaragua, they righted wrongs, rescued women, ba...
May 07, 2022•24 min
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 would last over a month. Meanwhile in the U.S., Senator McCarthy’s tirade had resulted in each politica...
May 05, 2022•7 min
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.
May 02, 2022•6 min
