March 29, 2009
This week, we start a brief run of a comedy variety series, “Hollywood’s Open House” that I’ll be featuring in the blog on occasion in coming weeks. Hosted by Jim Ameche, the program might remind you a bit of “The Big Show” - a mix of comedy, music and dramatic sketches.
Program 30 in the series features guests Jan Murray, Phil Regan and Adele Astaire. Regan and Astaire are heard in a little drama called “Interlude in Central Park”.
There’s a log of the series at otrsite.com that notes it was syndicated by NBC in 1947 and 48. However, I’ve found discs for series on NBC/RCA’s Orthacoustic label and, like this example, on the Columbia label. Our episode was transferred from an original vinyl Kermit Raymond Corporation syndication transcription pressed by Columbia, matrix numbers YTNY-5895 and YTNY-5896.
April 20, 2008
Continuing from the previous post, here’s program #24 of “America’s Famous Fathers”. In this episode, Col. Theodore Roosevelt and the wife of author John Phillips Marquand debate the role of fathers in the household.
Roosevelt relates some fun and interesting stories about his own father, President Roosevelt. Howard Lindsay, who normally was host of the show, was ill and unable to appear, so announcer Ray Green conducts the interview. The program was syndicated by the Kermit-Raymond Corporation and the commercials were added by a local announcer; the show appears to date from circa 1941.
“America’s Famous Fathers” is an obscure syndicated radio that dates from around 1941; I haven’t been able to dig up much information about it, but the label indicates that it was distributed by World Broadcasting and syndicated by the Kermit-Raymond Corporation. The commercials were added locally to the program.
The show seems to be connected to the hit Broadway play “Life with Father”, which opened at the Empire Theater in November 1939 and ran for over 3,000 performances. The premise of the radio is that the co-author and star of the play, Howard Lindsay, would play host to “famous fathers”. Program #24, in the next post, takes the form of a conversation and interview about fatherhood, while the program in this post, #12, features Lowell Thomas telling a dramatized story about two men that are stranded after their airplane crashes. Ray Green is the announcer.
I’m not sure I quite understand the concept behind the series - the show in the next post, with Col. Roosevelt, is a conversation about fatherhood, but this episode with Lowell Thomas doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the topic of fathers.
If anyone has further info about the series, leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll add some info the post. I’m wondering if it may have had a limited regional distribution in the Northeast because of the connection to the Broadway show or activity by the sponsor only in certain areas of the country.
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