╌>

Vintage Radio - Who Can Remember?

  

Category:  Entertainment

By:  buzz-of-the-orient  •  5 years ago  •  25 comments

Vintage Radio - Who Can Remember?

Vintage Radio - Who Can Remember?

If you were born in the 1950s or more recently, you probably grew up with TV, and vintage radio programs were probably on the way out.  Having been born in January of 1937 I can remember many of the programs, and I had my favourites.  The Shadow was one, Lux Radio Theater was another, Fibber McGee and Molly, Jack Benny, Hockey Night in Canada, and my favourite of all time, L for Lanky. "The Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men" and a scary laugh shivered my timbers.  The 60 second crash of things falling out of Fibber McGee's closet when he opened the door is unforgettable. Jack Benny's long pauses, Dennis and Rochester with distinctive voices and accents, and "He shoots, he scores" yelled by Foster Hewitt every Saturday night back in the days when my team the Maple Leafs used to win the Stanley Cup.  However, of all of those my real favourite, and I bet nobody else on NT will ever have listened to it, was L for Lanky.  I believe it was only broadcast in Canada.  Here's an explanation about it from AS YOU WERE WAR YEARS: MOTES & QUOTES V March 2000 Edition


L FOR LANKY: The radio drama exploits of a Lancaster bomber

The CBC radio programme, "L for Lanky," was a very imaginative program which many of us remember fondly from our childhoods.  "L for Lanky" means the Lancaster bomber that was the central figure in the show. It was about a WWII flight crew and their adventures going out on raids with this bomber -- but the "narrator" of the program was the Lancaster bomber itself.   The plane was given a voice and a personality, and it began each show setting up the premise, in a slightly echoed voice with airplane sound behind it, and it always started out by saying "I'm L for Lanky.  I'm a Lancaster bomber....."  And on it went from there, setting up that week's story and then the regular actors as airmen  took over. The voice of Lanky was played by an actor named Herb Gott.  A great example of how well radio tapped into the theatre of the mind - one simply bought the premise without question. Otherwise they were standard WW2 air adventures.  Apparently most of the ETs were destroyed after the war and apparently there is little evidence of the show in the CBC archives. There are rumours of excerpts still in existence.

http://www.airmuseum.ca/web/ammq0003.html

One person (Ron Lehman) who still remembered listening to the programs described them as follows:

"Here's one for all the old timers who remember WWII Bomber Command over Europe. I listened to this radio show when the war was raging in Europe, and the Allies were bombing Hitler's "Fortress Europe" into oblivion. "Lanky" aircraft were better known as Lancs; Lancaster bombers that could carry a 22 ton "Big Boy" bomb to be used on strategic targets such as submarine pens in France, Pointe du Hoc gun emplacements before D-Day. They were used extensively over Berlin, the Ruhr Valley and any other target that needed blowing up ie: Peenumunde rocket sites.  This radio show gave us the hope that we would succeed and go on to victory, which we did, with a lot of help from brave men and the great Lancaster Bomber."

It was broadcast during the war, and I and my brother, who is 4 years older than me, shared a bedroom and slept in a bunk bed where I had the top bunk.  While we listened, we play-acted along with the crew.  Since I was on the top bunk I was the top gunner while my brother was the pilot.

About 700 Lancaster Bombers with Rolls Royce Merlin engines were built in the A.V.Roe plant near Toronto, and one Lancaster is still flyable at the Air Museum near Hamilton, Ontario (my original home town).

http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix

This web site enables you to listen to many great old programs, even FDR's Fireside Speeches.

http://www.oldradioworld.com/


Tags

jrDiscussion - desc
[]
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1  author  Buzz of the Orient    5 years ago

Who can remember......?

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
2  Kavika     5 years ago
Who can remember......?

I sure can. Great radio programs and one of my favorites was ''Inter Sanctum'' was one of my favorites. My younger brother Dolt, would hide in the closet when it came on the radio. 

Sargent Preston of the Yukon and his dog King was another favorite. 

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
2.1  author  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Kavika @2    5 years ago

Yeah, Inner Sanctum - you just reminded me about that one.

 
 
 
dave-2693993
Junior Quiet
2.2  dave-2693993  replied to  Kavika @2    5 years ago
one of my favorites was ''Inter Sanctum''

That was another big one for my dad.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
3  Vic Eldred    5 years ago

I seem to recall that "Gunsmoke" began on radio.

This may be in the "other than" category:  I recall a local popular music show with Arnie "Woo Woo" Ginsberg. The Night Train Show. That's mainly what I listened to as a boy. I can remember doing my homework with that on.

 
 
 
dave-2693993
Junior Quiet
3.1  dave-2693993  replied to  Vic Eldred @3    5 years ago
I seem to recall that "Gunsmoke" began on radio.

I never knew that. That must have been fun.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
3.1.1  Vic Eldred  replied to  dave-2693993 @3.1    5 years ago

It was fun. The voices fit the characters. As I recall Kitty was something a bit more naughty than just a saloon girl. Or it was just my imagination.

 
 
 
dave-2693993
Junior Quiet
3.1.2  dave-2693993  replied to  Vic Eldred @3.1.1    5 years ago
Or it was just my imagination.

The wonder of radio.

 
 
 
Greg Jones
Professor Participates
3.1.3  Greg Jones  replied to  Vic Eldred @3.1.1    5 years ago

She was lady of the night.

Amanda Blake played her on TV. Wonder who did her character on the radio.

Lots of recording of these programs on YouTube.

 
 
 
Jasper2529
Professor Quiet
3.1.4  Jasper2529  replied to  Greg Jones @3.1.3    5 years ago
Amanda Blake played her on TV. Wonder who did her character on the radio.

I don't remember it on radio, but Gunsmoke was one of my favorite TV shows.

Kitty was played by  Georgia Ellis  on radio, and by  Amanda Blake  on TV. Georgia Ellis first appeared in the radio episode "Billy the Kid" (April 26, 1952) as "Francie Richards", a former girlfriend of Matt Dillon and the widow of a criminal. "Miss Kitty" did not appear until the May 10, 1952, episode "Jaliscoe". Kitty's profession was hinted at, but never explicit; in a 1953 interview with  Time,  Macdonnell declared, "Kitty is just someone Matt has to visit every once in a while". [11]  The magazine observed that she is "obviously not selling chocolate bars". [12]  An out-take from the program makes this hilariously obvious. [13]  The television show first portrayed Kitty as a saloon employee (dance-hall girl/prostitute), then from season three as half owner of the Long Branch Saloon. Sometime in 1959, Ellis was billed as Georgia Hawkins instead of Georgia Ellis.

 
 
 
arkpdx
Professor Quiet
3.1.5  arkpdx  replied to  Vic Eldred @3.1.1    5 years ago
The voices fit the characters

Their voices fit the but the appearance didn't according to the TV producers. That's why the replaced William Conrad with James Arness as Matt and Dennis Weaver as Chester 

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
3.1.6  Vic Eldred  replied to  Greg Jones @3.1.3    5 years ago
Lots of recording of these programs on YouTube.

The TV series holds the record for most episodes of a TV show. I believe it's over 600. That went on for a long time.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
3.1.7  Vic Eldred  replied to  arkpdx @3.1.5    5 years ago
That's why the replaced William Conrad with James Arness

Yup, Exactly, lol, do you remember when Conrad got to play TV detective Cannon? It used to crack me up to see him running down the street chasing someone!

 
 
 
arkpdx
Professor Quiet
3.2  arkpdx  replied to  Vic Eldred @3    5 years ago

There was one show that I know of the went the other way. It started on TV then went to radio. Anybody know which one? 

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
3.2.1  Vic Eldred  replied to  arkpdx @3.2    5 years ago

No?

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
3.2.2  author  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  arkpdx @3.2    5 years ago

???

 
 
 
arkpdx
Professor Quiet
3.2.3  arkpdx  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @3.2.2    5 years ago

Have Gun Will Travel

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
3.2.4  author  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  arkpdx @3.2.3    5 years ago

That's interesting. I used to watch it on TV, didn't know about the radio versions.

 
 
 
dave-2693993
Junior Quiet
4  dave-2693993    5 years ago

I can only remember people talking about them, the radio shows.

The Shadows Knows was a big one for my dad.

Those Rolls Royce Merlin engines were works of art. When they were substituted for the Allisons, that is when the P-51 Mustangs became a dominant air superiority aircraft.

My cousins piloted B-26 Marauders, aka Widowmakers and would, at time, fly on the deck following rivers to their targets.  Hopping or flying under bridges could be a life of death challenge.

I think I would enjoy the L for Lanky show.

Back in the early 70s a Sunday evening radio show aired by a local station, and originated from a station which  I think was out of Chicago(?) and IIRC featured some of the original SNL members, was usually a pretty good adventure of the mind.

 
 
 
arkpdx
Professor Quiet
4.1  arkpdx  replied to  dave-2693993 @4    5 years ago
My cousins piloted B-26 Marauders, aka Widowmakers

It was also called the "Baltimore Whore". It was built in Maryland and they said the wings were so small that the plane had no visible means of support. 

 
 
 
dave-2693993
Junior Quiet
4.1.1  dave-2693993  replied to  arkpdx @4.1    5 years ago

Yeah, you are right about that. Forgot about that one.

The short wings probably gave it that hot rodder look too.

 
 
 
Jasper2529
Professor Quiet
5  Jasper2529    5 years ago
If you were born in the 1950s or more recently, you probably grew up with TV, and vintage radio programs were probably on the way out. 

As a young child in the very early 1950s, I remember my parents listening to 15 minute episodes of soap operas on the radio - Search for Tomorrow and The Guiding Light - before they transferred to TV.

When I was a young adult, I enjoyed listening to a radio station that broadcast old radio shows from the 1930s and 1940s with my dad. It was great to share a re-broadcast of 1938's  "War of the Worlds" with him. When he first heard it, he was a teenager. We also listened to Inner Sanctum and The Shadow together. Fun memories!

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
5.1  author  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Jasper2529 @5    5 years ago

Orson Welles doing "War of the Worlds" caused new rules to be applied to radio broadcasting (and I assume they've been extended to TV as well) requiring announcements to be made throughout such a program indicating that it is not real but merely a fictional episode.

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
5.2  Ender  replied to  Jasper2529 @5    5 years ago

I was going to say, soap operas started on radio.

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
6  Ender    5 years ago

I think Lucille Ball did radio.

I remember seeing an old filmed production of a radio show. It showed how they did sound effects and all.

 
 

Who is online




93 visitors