Sunday Radio Highlights in the Sunday News
Sunday night was comedy night for New York radio listeners who joined a nationwide audience who tuned to their NBC affiliate for Jack Benny, airing at 7 PM on the WEAF in New York, and Fred Allen, broadcast on the station at 8:30 PM. WEAF also carried gangly movie comedienne Cass Daley at 7:30 and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy at 8:00. Regulars Mary Livingstone (Mrs Benny), actor Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume were the guests on Benny's April 14 broadcast. Colorful Dodger's manager Leo Durocher joined the equally colorful regulars from the Allen's Alley cast of recurring characters. Actor Keenan Wynn and singer Dennis Day were Cass Daley's guests while Bergen and McCarthy hosted Cornel Wilde, who was promoting his movie "The Bandit of Sherwood Forest," now playing in first-run theaters. Former Ziegfeld comedy star Fanny Brice (later portrayed by Barbra Streisand in "Funny Girl") had a radio show at 6:30 on WABC (which was the CBS affiliate) at 6:30 PM, in which she usually played Baby Snooks, one of her most popular characters. The situation comedies "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,"" which later transitioned successfully to TV for a long run, was on at 6 PM on WABC, and The Great Gildersleeve, a spinoff from “Fibber McGee & Molly," about a pompous windbag and his family, which also became a 1950s TV series, aired at 6:30 PM on WEAF.
Quiz shows were Sunday night staples with "The Quiz Kids,""Take It or Leave It," where the top prize was $64 and copycat "Double or Nothing" among the night's offerings. A gimmicky show of the time was "Request Performance," airing at 9 PM on WABC. On this show, a spinoff of a popular wartime radio show on Armed Forces Radio, celebrities performed in response to radio listener requests often doing something completely out of character, such as W.C. Fields delivering a temperance lecture. The guests this night were Jimmy Durante. Charles Laughton, Mischa Auer and Marilyn Maxwell. Drama fans could hear a radio adaptation of "Seven Keys to Baldpate," on "The Theatre Guild on the Air." Walter Pidgeon starred with Martha Scott, appearing at the time on Broadway in "Voice of the Turtle," in the mystery farce, an old warhorse about a novelist who spends an evening in a supposedly deserted inn.
Here are the nighttime radio shows highlighted in the Sunday News of April 14.
6 PM
WABC- The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
WJZ- Hall of Fame: Joe DiMaggio, Roland Young
6:30 PM
WEAF- The Great Gildersleeve
WABC- Fanny Brice Show
7:00 PM
WEAF-Jack Benny Show: Ronald Colman, Benita Hume
WOR- "The Four Questions"- Passover special starring Melvyn Douglas
7:30 PM
WEAF- Cass Daley Show: Keenan Wynn, Dennis Day.
WJZ- Quiz Kids
8:00 PM
WEAF- Charlie McCarthy Show: Cornel Wilde.
WJZ- Sunday Evening Hour: Larry Adler, who performed classical music on the harmonica, and conductor Eugene Ormandy.
WABC- Agnes Moorehead in the series "Calamity Jane"
WOR- Alexander's Mediation Board – a panel of experts settles disputes between private citizens.
8:30 PM
WEAF- Fred Allen Show: Leo Durocher.
9:00 PM
WABC- Request Performance: Jimmy Durante, Charles Laughton.
WOR- Exploring the Unknown- Stories from Science magazine.
9:30 PM
10:00 PM
WJZ- Theatre Guild: Walter Pidgeon in "Seven Keys to Baldpate"
WHN- Dodger's Knot-Hole Club Dinner: Mayor O'Dwyer, Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, Leo Durocher, others
WABC- Take It or Leave It-Quiz show
10:30 PM
WABC- We, the People: Loretta Young, bandleader Louis Prima
A more comprehensive list of Sunday's radio shows is here.
The newspaper's radio columnist was Barbara Kilby. On April 14 she praised the modest "House of Mystery," a Saturday noon show aimed at kids but worthy, she felt, of adult attention. The show had an "emphasis on mysteries and eerie circumstances with a logical explanation." She noted that "The World We Want" was the keynote of the first Herald Tribune Forum for High Schools. The speakers had included Eleanor Roosevelt. Mayor O'Dwyer, “GI Joe” cartoonist Bill Mauldin, General Carl Spaatz, who headed the Air Force at this time, and Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts. WEAF, WOR and WABC all carried portions of the session. Kilby also reported that Leon Ames had given Lionel Barrymore, the irascible Dr. Gillespie in the Dr. Kildare movies and radio show, a run for the money playing a crusty doctor on the Saturday morning anthology "Stars Over Hollywood" on WABC (which were the call letters for the CBS New York flagship at this time. WJZ was the New York affiliate of the newly formed ABC network and WEAF was the NBC station ). She announced that radio's racing season was off to a start with WOR's Bryan Field at 4:30. The station was airing the action at Jamaica and Belmont until the end of the season.
A “tune in” ad touted “The Prudential Family Hour”, which was offering the radio premiere of the songs from the Danny Kaye movie, "The Kid From Brooklyn," opening that week in New York. Airing at 5 PM on WABC and the CBS network, the show featured twenty-year-old coloratura soprano Patrice Munsel who had made her Metropolitan Opera debut at 17, joined by Jack Smith, a singer to achieve later fame as host of TV's "You Asked For It," and Earl Wrightman. Another ad invited readers to listen to “the perfect program of George Gershwin music selected by Walter Huston, currently appearing on Broadway in "Apple of His Eye,'" on the “Lambert Brothers Musical Jewel Box” on WNEW at 2 PM.
Sunday daytime radio highlights included the Sunday News comics, read by Henry Waddon on WNEW. The News highlighted the Sunday public affairs programs “People’s Platform” on WABC which was focusing that day on the "Government's Housing Program" with guests Nathan Straus, a former head of the US Housing Authority, and economist Arthur Burns, and the “University of Chicago Roundtable,” on WEAF, where the topic was "What is Management's Responsibility for the Medical Care of Its Employees?"
Broadway and Hollywood stars lending their voices to Sunday daytime radio included Raymond Massey. host of the concert series “Harvest of Stars” on WEAF; Tallulah Bankhead in the US Army recruitment show “Warriors of Peace” on WJZ, Ralph Bellamy on the “Readers Digest” radio show on WABC, and Betty Grable recreating her movie role in a radio adaptation of “Diamond Horseshoe” on “Hollywood Star Time” on WABC. Daytime musical recommendations included classical baritone John Charles Thomas and the Victor Young Orchestra on WEAF, and the New York Philharmonic Symphony, conducted by Artur Rodzinski, on WABC. Later that afternoon, listeners could catch rising, young Brooklyn-born opera star Robert Merrill on “Battle of Music” on WEAF, the “Nelson Eddy Show” on WABC, and the NBC Symphony, conducted by Franco Autori, on WEAF.
Both WHN and WINS were broadcasting the Yanks-Dodger baseball game with Dodger announcer Red Barber and the Yankee's Mel Allen. Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was featured on “World’s Most Honored Flights” on WOR. That Sunday afternoon WJZ aired the “Court of Missing Heirs," which discovered heirs to unclaimed fortunes, and WNEW broadcast “American Negro Theatre,” which presented half-hour radio adaptations of classic and contemporary dramas and operas featuring African-American actors.
The newspaper also listed separately other radio concert programs, most of them of recorded classical music, airing that day on WQXR, WNYC, WHN and WEVD. Dance music could be heard on WJZ, WEAF, WOR and WNEW at various times during the day.