The-Great-Radio-Hero
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THE GREAT I?AIDIO U IFIOFS JIM HARMON Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear... a nostalgic re-creation including actual scripts of your magic hours lived with Jack Armstrong, Tom Mix, I Love a Mystery, First Nighter, Inner Sanctum, Ua Perkins, and all the other radio immortals. T.G.R.H. $4.95 THE GUEAT L IDIG I-IEL?CES JIM 11-1,4RMCIS This is a true story of true love. If you were any kind of decent kid in the thirties, forties, and early fifties, it is your love story. And now in all its glory you will love it again. Return with us now to those thrill- ing days of yesteryear, when the most exciting people in the most exciting places, having the most exciting ad- ventures flew across the airways to Stromberg -Carlson consoles and homemade crystal sets right in our very own homes! Here they are - the righteous Lone Ranger, the fair-minded Jack Arm- strong, straight-shooting Tom Mix, the martyred Stella Dallas, the kindly old crack shot Mr. Keane, the mysterious Shadow, the buzzing Green Hornet, the frigid Sergeant Preston, the over- heated Fat Man, the meddling Ma Perkins, the analytic Sherlock Holmes, the high-flying Captain Midnight, the incredibly typical Vic and Sade, the (Continued on back flap) (Continued from front flap) fearless Gangbusters, irresistible Su- perman, the world's oldest 35 -year old Helen Trent, the cool Sam Spade, the indestructible Little Orphan Annie and all the others. They're all here, complete with real, genuine truth about their fantastic lives, their sometimes secret identi- ties, their authors, actors and sponsors - PLUS generous excerpts from many of their most thrilling scripts! In THE GREAT RADIO HEROES, Jim Harmon re-creates the atmosphere of those thrill charged days and static charged evenings ... and delivers enough data to keep any remember - the -good -old -days party hopping for hours and hours. Jim Harmon is a writer, sometime broadcaster and an old radio nut. He probably knows more about the radio heroes than any man and is willing to fight it out for the title in the Temple of Vampires. A life-long devotee of the subject and a dedicated collector of facts and folklore, transcriptions and scripts, decoders and shake-up mugs, he is a special consultant on old-time radio to the Hollywood Museum and the Canadian Broadcasting Corpora- tion. JACKET TYPOGRAPHY BY CATHERINE HOPKINS JACKET BY SAUL LAMBERT Printed in the U.S.A. From "The Battle of the Century" on I LOVE A MYSTERY! Jack and Doc, attempting to rescue Reggie from his hiding -place in an abandoned silo on a California ranch, confront seven rough and ready ranch hands... DOC: Here they come, Jack... JACK: Watch out, Doc... DOC: Wh0000peeee... SOUND: (SOUND OF CONFUSION OF STRUGGLE... EXCLAMATIONS...HEAVY BREATHING AND A RAIN OF SOCKS AND PUNCHES UNTIL THE HAND OF EVERY SOUND MAN IN MBS ACHES LIKE A TOOTHACHE AND IS SWOLLEN TO TWICE ITS SIZE) (ON CUE, STRUGGLE FADES BACK A LITTLE) DOC: (BREATHLESS --CHUCKLES) How we a-doin', Jack? JACK: (GASPS) Save your breath for fighting... DOC: You bet you! (GRUNTS) Honest to... (GRUNTS) grandma... (GRUNTS) I don't know (GRUNTS) when I've had so much fun! AA;/ 65,/ / TIIE GREAT RADIO HERORS cr GR BIC juR ET JIM HAIR_MOINT 1967 Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, New York Publishing Consultant: J. P. Tarcher, Inc. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 67-19803 Copyright © 1967 by Jim Harmon ' All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America First Edition To Carlton E. Morse ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My foremost thanks to my fellow collectors and part-time historians of that lost art of radio: Bob Burns of CBS, John Cooper, Ed Corcoran, Richard Gulla, Professor Law- rence Sharp of the University of North Carolina, and Wil- liam nailing; and thanks to Robin Woods and Dave Dixon of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and to Martin IIalperin of the Hollywood Museum and Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters. I am equally indebted to the memories and research of Redd Boggs of the University of California at Davis on the earliest days of Jack Armstrong, Jimmie Allen, and Orphan Annie; the Reverend Robert L. Neily on soap operas; and to William Blackheard, Arthur Jean Cox, Don Glut, Richard Kyle, Richard Lupoff, Art Ronnie of the Los Angeles Herald -Examiner and other contributors to my publication Radiohero Magazine. Those who actually created the programs of the era of dramatic radio also contributed directly to this book: Robert Bloch, Don Douglas, Mitch Evans, Tom IIicks, For- rest Lewis, and, foremost with every assistance, Carlton E. Morse. g ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Ron Haydock assisted me in editing the chapters on The Shadow, Captain Midnight, armchair detectives, and anthology drama. Jeremy Tarcher was instrumental in the conception and execution of the entire project; my thanks to him are not only for that, but for his patient persuasion in making me see the value of biographical information on sound effects men in its true light. -J.". CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 11 I. "JACK, DOC, AND REGGIE" 19 II. GRIME LORD 39 III. "WIIO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS" 55 IV. "AND HERE IS YOUR HOST" 73 V. FULL -COLOR I-IEROES THAT WERE NEVER SEEN 93 VI. TIIE STRAIGHT SHOOIEtt 115 VII. "FOR JUST A BOX TOP" 129 VIII. FOR ARMCHAIR DETECTIVES ONLY 141 IX. GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS 159 X. "CAN A WOMAN FIND HAPPINESS?" 171 XI. FROM THE STUDIOS OF WNYZ-I THE MASKED RIDER OF THE PLAINS 195 XII. FROM THE STUDIOS OF WXYZ-II THE GREATEST DOG IN THE YUKON 215 10 CONTENTS XIII. FROM THE STUDIOS OF WXYZ-III TIDE GREEN IIAR-NUT 221 XIV. ACES OF 773E AIRWAVES 229 XV. THE ALL-AMERICAN BOY 243 AFTERWORD 259 INTRODUCTION "WHAT DID YOU LISTEN TO EVERY DAY AT FIVE O'CLOCK?" You listened to the radio every day at five o'clock. Every- body in the United States of America over twenty-five years of age must have listened intently to the radio at that hour during some period of their lives. I listened then and the sounds are with me to this day. Radio listening-primarily to dramatized stories-was very important to me. It was certainly more important than eat- ing. How many times did I bolt down a meal to hear Jack Armstrong? Radio listening was infinitely more important than going to school. IIow many times did I make my cold last longer so I could stay home to follow kindly old Ma Perkins' courtroom trial for mass murder? Radio listening was as much a part of life as running water, runny noses, and recesses. IIow could you do without it? If it sounds as though I had a love affair with radio, I did. I fell in love with radio at a very early age, and though the radio I loved is lost to me, my love has continued. I think you shared the same love. When we were kids we sometimes talked about the radio world-the new premium offered by Tom Mix or the in- 12 INTRODUCTION sidious trap Captain Midnight was about to fall into-but mostly we kept radio listening a private thing whether in the family circle about the living room, or in bed listening to table models. You had things your own way in Radio- land. No one could tell you the monster on Lights Out was too gruesome, because you could make it as gruesome as you liked. No one could suggest that Buck Rogers' girl friend, Wilma Deering, wore a spacesuit that fitted rather too snugly for a boy of your age to observe. You ran the show. The heroes of radio were a faceless bunch, often lacking a first name such as Casey, Crime Photographer, or any name at all, like the anonymous Mr. District Attorney. Was Lamont Cranston hawk -faced and black -haired, or a handsome, athletic blond? You filled in the details to suit yourself. The results your imagination provided were good. There were no padded shoulders on the Lone Ranger, Superman flew with no jiggly trick photography, and the Martians whom Orson Welles helped attack the Earth were certainly more convincing than anything the movies have ever pro- vided. It was all as true as a dream. I wonder if I could have survived my childhood without the escape from it offered by radio. A fat kid, I could play on the same team as Jack Armstrong and still be reassured by the Fat Man that "heavy" guys could be heroes in their own right. A bookworm, I could be smugly satisfied that avid readers such as Ellery Queen, Sherlock Holmes, and I really won out in the end. And, in the midst of poverty, Jack, Doc, and Reggie assured me that the only good thing to do with money was to get rid of it fast so you could get on to something important. "A child, simply to save his sanity," Jules Feiffer observed in The Great Comic Book Heroes, "must at times go under- ground. Have a place to hide where he carmot be got at by grown-ups. A place that implies, if only obliquely, that INTRODUCTION 13 they're not so much; that they can't fly the way some people can, or let bullets bounce harmlessly off their chest, or beat up whoever picks on them, or-oh, joy of joys! even become invisible!" Each of us found his own escape, his own reassurance in radio. The world I found will not be identical to yours, but many compass points will be the same.