rand’s esoteric otr

It’s back to Centerville now and the adventures of the “American Family Robinson”, a syndicated mid 1930s serial paid for by the National Industrial Council (the National Association of Manufacturers) to influence public opinion about FDR’s economic policies.

Betty and Dick returned from their honeymoon last week.  This week, in Program 43, they find Windy Bill camping out in their house.  Will the young couple be able to get rid of their unwanted house guest so they can have some time alone?

The program was transferred from an original World Broadcasting acetate transcription, matrix number SS 8723-2.

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Now we return to Centerville for “American Family Robinson”, a serial drama on the life of a small town newspaper editor and his wacky family, sponsored by the National Industrial Council as part of their mid-1930s propaganda efforts to combat FDR’s New Deal economic policies.

This week, Luke and Mrs. Robinson rush to greet newlyweds betty and dick at the railroad station as their daughter and new son in law return from their honeymoon.  Of course, this fun little comedic episode quickly turns into a conversation about how farmers don’t like socialism.

The show was transferred from an original World Broadcasters, Inc acetate transcription, matrix number SS 8722-2.

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Well, last week, we heard a kind of instant romance develop between “Gus the Gorilla”, Windy Bill’s bodyguard, and Luke Robinson’s secretary on the National Industrial Council (American Manufacturers Association) 1930s syndicated series, “American Family Robinson”.  This week, in program 41, Mr. Robinson’s secretary has talked him into putting Gus to work at the paper so Luke has to find something for him to do.

The curious thing about this disc is that it appears to be a program in the series you weren’t supposed to hear - the disc’s pressing plate on this side has been scratched out in a definite spiderweb pattern.  It’s hard to tell if this was done before the series was first distributed or later in the run.  But, based on the contents, one can see why.

Luke goes into a diatribe about “boondoggling” - the government creating useless jobs for the unemployed.  It’s one of the more heartless little  talks in the series, considering the high level of unemployment during the Depression and how many people that might have heard the show were either themselves working on a WPA or CCC job or had a relative that did.

I have a friend from the small town of Graham, NC, that recalls his parents and grandparents talking about one of his aunts who was an organist at the local movie theater.  At that time, small theaters couldn’t afford the upgrade to sound, so even into the late 1930s, the theater was still showing silent movies - you had to drive thirty miles or more to the big city of Greensboro to see a sound picture.  His aunt received WPA support to accompany films and the theater and give music lessons.

This episode of the series was transferred from an original World Broadcasting red acetate transcription, matrix number S 8686-2.  The file was compiled from two passes of the disc and was run through click reduction software - I had to reconstruct the program, since the disc skipped so much.

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We continue our look at “American Family Robinson”, a syndicated serial from the mid-1930s sponsored by the National Industrial Council (the National Association of Manufacturers) to promote free enterprise and educate the public about the dangers of the New Deal.

In program 40, crazy schemer Windy Bill visits his brother-in-law, Luke, to bemoan the fact that he’s loosing the patent to his house car to Miss Timmons.  Gus “The Gorilla” Olson, Windy Bill’s bodyguard, shows up and gets to know Luke’s secretary - could we have a budding romance here?

Of course, we can’t have an episode of “American Family Robinson” without some speechifying; in this case, the topic is how big business isn’t bad just because it’s big.

The show was transferred from an original red acetate World Broadcasting system transcription, matrix number SS 8652.

Next week … the episode of “American Family Robinson” you weren’t supposed to hear…

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A listener wrote to me last week and mentioned that her husband came into the room as she was listening to last week’s episode of “American Family Robinson”.

“When did Ayn Rand get a syndicated talk show?” he asked.

That pretty much sums up this odd mix of serial drama and comedy from the National Industrial Council (aka the National Association of Manufacturers) that includes at least one diatribe against FDR’s New Deal policies in each episode.  Perhaps the show influenced Ayn Rand’s writing style.

I found out a couple more interesting tidbits about the show from the Museum of Broadcast Communication’s “Encyclopedia of Radio”.  The idea for the show came from Harry A. Bullis, the vice president of General Mills and chairman of the NAM’s public relations committee.  Scripts for the show were originally submitted to both NBC and CBS, with the National Industrial Council hoping that one of the networks would carry it as a sustaining feature.  Not only did the networks turn them down, but NBC prohibited their owned and operated stations from carrying the show after seeing more of the scripts.  The Encyclopedia notes:

“Reviewing the series’ first three episodes, NBC script editor L.H.Titterton hardly knew what to make of the Robinsons, or the direction the story might take. An outline for the rest of the series and a script of the last episode received three days later confirmed Titterton’s suspicion. After meeting with Selvage and Douglas Silver, the scripts’ author, Titterton reported that the American Family Robinson proposed “to take on a definitely anti-Rooseveltian tendency.” “You would probably not find in the entire series any specific sentence that could be censored,” Titterton wrote to his network superiors, “but the definite intention and implication of each episode is to conduct certain propaganda against the New Deal and all its work.”

Probably the last thing the networks wanted was to antagonize the Roosevelt administration and, by extension, the Federal Communications Commission.

Program 39 in the series is more typical of the series, focusing on Luke, editor of the local paper, and his dealings with crazy relative Windy Bill.  It seems that Windy Bill is has a plot going to get some property that belongs to Miss Timmons, so she and Luke work out a scheme to thwart his plans.  Somehow, this quickly turns into a discussion of social welfare in European countries.

Don’t you have conversations like this every day?

My thanks to the Old Time Radio Researcher’s Group for their donation of these discs to my collection.

By the way - I recently obtained the First Generation Archive’s “Little Orphan Annie” set that includes shows dating from the mid-1930s. The “American Family Robinson”’s Luke sounds like the same actor that appeared on “Little Orphan Annie”.  Anyone else think so?

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Since the “Grantland Rice Story” and “American Family Robinson” were the two most popular series in the poll, I’ll be running all the episodes I have of each series in blog each week.

“The American Family Robinson”, first syndicated in Fall 1934, was a program produced by the National Industrial Council, a group set up by the National Association of Manufacturers.  Disturbed by the policies of the Roosevelt administration, the show was designed to use the medium of radio and the popular format of continuing serials to “sell” the public on more conservative economic polices.  It was part of a larger effort, including texts for speeches, leaflets, films for schools and other materials, by the NAM to organize owners of manufacturing business to influence public opinion in their local communities about New Deal economics.

Hmm … sounds like some of the information campaigns going on about health care and the economy today, doesn’t it?

On the surface, the concept sounds rather dry, but the show has some fun characterizations and good writing as we follow the Robinsons dealing with hard times during the Depression.  The program was quite popular, running on about 300 stations, with the air time paid for by local sponsors.  It was controversial in its time - the National Association of Broadcasters issued a memo to stations encouraging them to inform audience that the program was sponsored and didn’t necessarily represent the views of station management or owners.  No doubt, the NAB was concerned about the FCC clamping down on the series and requiring equal time for opposing viewpoints.

The show was also referenced in Congressional testimony in a subcommittee on labor rights and free speech, with one source noting that the first 19 programs in the series did not include any attribution to who was sponsoring the program and, with program 20, the show credited to the National Industrial Council, a name that would have been unfamiliar to the public at the time - the implication being that the NAM was misleading the public about their propaganda efforts.  You can view some of the testimony at Google Books.  (And, by the way, would someone mind explaining why Google Books is restricting viewing of publications from the Government Printing Office and the Copyright Office, which are public domain?)

Despite the broad distribution of the program, few episodes are known to exist.  It’s been written about by many scholars, but the shows themselves seem to have been neglected and lost over the years - they were pressed on an experimental plastic primarily made of acetate, which probably hasn’t helped them survive.

The discs I have were won at auction by the Old Time Radio Researcher’s Group, which donated them to my collection and I obtained an additional disc from another collector.  The discs in my collection cover a significant portion of the storyline with some shows missing, but there’s still enough to follow what’s happening with the characters and to give you a flavor of the story and propaganda elements.  I have over 25 episodes of this original series and another 15 from a second “American Family Robinson” series produced in 1940, following the same characters and dealing with the theme of how industry is preparing for War.  I’ll be presenting all of them, in order, each week on the blog over next few months.

We begin our look at the series with Program 38.  The father of the family owns a newspaper and has some wacky relatives that are always involved in crazy “get rich quick” schemes.  This episode focuses on the newlywed couple in the family,  Betty and Dick, on their honeymoon at Devil’s Gulch, a dude ranch.  While Betty goes out riding and enjoying herself with the ranch foreman, husband Billy teaches a thing or two about capitalism and American industry to the ranch hands.

The show was transferred from an original red acetate World Broadcasting System transcription, matrix number SS 8619-33.

Again, my deepest thanks to OTRR for donating the “American Family Robinson” discs to my collection.

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I just finished transferring to digital several discs in this series that have been obtained by the Old Time Radio Researchers Group.  As a special treat, they’ve given me permission to share this program on the blog.  Many thanks!

“American Family Robinson” was so successful that the National Industrial Council produced a second series of programs in 1940.  With the Depression at an end and war on the horizon, there were a whole new set of issues they wanted to present to the American public.  And there were some changes in the characters and setting of the show as well to make it more contemporary.

In program 78 of the series, for release week of October 20, 1940, Mr. Robinson has run away from home - literally.  His wife has been doing a radio program with advice for women and promoting herself and her husband as “the perfect couple” as a gimmick to drive business to the wife’s sister’s department store.  Luke tires of the whole sham and hops on a train for a kind of vacation, hoping to just wander and explore the country.

In this episode, Luke tries to find some entertainment to pass the the time in a hotel and finds life on the road less than ideal.  It’s a rather odd storyline in the series - this whole series of programs depicts life for traveling salesmen as something remarkably sad and empty.  Meanwhile, back at home, Mrs. Robinson and the family have to deal with a public appearance of “the perfect couple” without Mr. Robinson in attendance.

This “New Series” of “American Family Robinson” works in little conversations about concerns of businesses on the eve of war, with topics such as whether government should take over production and ways that high taxes are stifling business.  One episode even spends a good portion of its running time discussing the “failed experiment” of a thirty hour work week in France and how it made the French less capable of defending themselves from the Germans.

The program was transferred from an original NBC Orthacoustic transcription, matrix number MS 056442-1.

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I just finished transferring to digital several discs in this series that have been obtained by the Old Time Radio Researchers Group.  As a special treat, they’ve given me permission to share this program on the blog.  Many thanks!

With the recent troubles on Wall Street and the “bailout” or “rescue” package for the financial industry working its way through Congress, along with some major bank failures, it seems like a good time to delve into some of the public debate going on about the economy during a previous economic crisis.

“American Family Robinson” is an unusual program.  It’s a continuing drama produced as part of a propaganda campaign by the National Industrial Council.  The Council, made of up large business interests, hoped to combat public support for Roosevelt’s liberal New Deal policies.  So, the programs are an interesting mix of family drama and little conversations about things like the evils of socialism and high taxes on business.

Sound familiar?

The show centers around a “typical” American family; Luke Robinson is the head of household and owns a newspaper; his daughter has just married a young reporter at the paper.  There’s also a crazy aunt and uncle that provide comic relief as the aunt opens up her own department store and the uncle gets involved in “get rich quick” schemes.

In program 55, a serious problem has developed for the family.  Luke has learned that the newspaper is in debt and is loosing money and it looks like the shareholders are going to close down the paper.  Mrs. Robinson and the daughter prepare dinner and know that something’s up, but are unsure what’s going on; they take time to have a little talk about the role that housewives play in the economy as Luke heads home to break the bad news about the paper.

“American Family Robinson” was extremely popular, running on about 300 radio stations and sponsored locally by small business or a local Chamber of Commerce.  Despite the popularity of the show, very few episodes survive.

This show was transferred directly from a World Broadcasting transcription, matrix number 9090-4V.  The disc itself is quite unusual, made of some type of “floppy” plastic that isn’t vinyl and appears to be easily damaged.  That may be why more episodes of the series aren’t in circulation.

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