65 years ago Jack Benny had his final episode of the season that featured both Fred Allen and Jack Paar.

60 years ago this week Fred MacMurray kept us in Suspense, before he became absent minded, invented Flubber, or had three sons!

60 years ago today, Judy and Bing had a lot of fun and talked about "The Continental."

60 years ago with Jack and the gang doing Ma and Pa Kettle!

60 years ago this week, Julius was missing. Phil and Remely must be beside themselves!

75 years ago Phil, Kenny, and Don take over the show.

A real fun one! Judy's last appearance on Bob Hope's show? Great sound on this one too!

The guys from Gunsmoke come together on Suspense for a great science fiction adventure! Written by Ray Bradbury!

What a fun exciting adventure, one of my favorites.

Our summer preview double feature night!

70 years ago Jack pushes back on Fred Allen!

70 years ago, did Gildersleeve really go to college?

Today's podcast focuses on Kitty (Georgia Ellis) and the adult nature of Gunsmoke!

70 years ago Red talked about vacations.

65 years ago Jack had a visit with Al Jolson!

65 years ago Robert Mitchum kept us in Suspense!

65 years ago Bing had comedy legend Groucho Marx on his show!

60 years ago a young Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns on The Simpsons TV show) played the character of Butch the Beaver!

Here is another great color special I've found.

Jack  Benny 's Twentieth Anniversary Special - 1970

with Don Wilson, Rochester, Dennis Day, Mary Livingstone, Mel Blanc,  Benny  Rubin, Frank Nelson, Dinah Shore, Bob Hope, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, and believe it or not it is not a clip show!!

60 years ago Phil and Alice's kids got onto television way before Phil ever would.

75 years ago Jack, Andy, Don, and Kenny sang a song off of Paul McCartney's new 2012 album, "Kisses on The Bottom!"

70 years ago Fred had a nice beginning segment about Jack's show from last night!

70 years ago, was there a spy?

70 years ago Jack entertained more troops for his Mother's Day show.

Oooh Goody, a mystery voice!

60 years ago this week Gunsmoke had it's third episode! This podcast was really meant for last weeks episode, but I promised to bring it to you, so here it is!

70 years ago with Red and the circus!

65 years ago Jack's in Chicago with Marjorie Reynolds, and he is wiped out after doing a ton of performances.

60 years ago Dinah Shore kept us in Suspense!

65 years ago with Bing, Al, and legendary composer Irving Berlin!

60 years ago with Bing and Donald!

60 years ago with Jack and the gang!

60 years ago Phil and Alice clean up!

70 years ago Jack starts of our celebration of Mother's Day!

Another fun episode of the Jimmy Stewart Saturday!

70 years ago with Fibber!

70 years ago with Jack in the War Years with Ann Sheridan!

70 years ago this week with Gildy at war time!

80 years ago today! Jack's very first episode ever, with a new podcast opening, no offense Canadians! This podcast includes Jack's re-creation of his very first long lost appearance in radio from 10 years after he was on the Ed Sullivan Show. It also includes a complete interview with Jack! Then his entire first episode!

70 Years ago read focused on newspapers!

65 years ago Jack, Alice Faye and most of the cast from Phil's show go to the train station!

65 years ago Ava Gardner kept us in Suspense.

Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress.

She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers (1946). She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Mogambo (1953).

She appeared in several high-profile films from the 1950s to 1970s, including The Hucksters (1947), Show Boat (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956), On the Beach (1959), Seven Days in May (1964), The Night of the Iguana (1964), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Earthquake (1974), and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). Gardner continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death from pneumonia , at age 67, in 1990.

She is listed 25th among the American Film Institute 's Greatest female stars .

60 years ago this week an episode that we unfortunately only have a fragment of, but this rare fragment is better than nothing. Sorry it's on Monday, but I have a special presentation of Jack reserved for the Wednesday slot!

65 years ago with Bing and Groucho!

60 years ago Jack plays Buck Benny again, but this time with Jimmy Stewart!

60 years ago Phil was directed to fire his band!

75 years ago with Jack Benny on his 5th anniversary in radio with Eddie Anderson's second appearance on the show!

Wow! One folks have been requesting for a long time! Judy Garland in the 1950 Lux Radio version of Wizard of Oz!

70 years ago! Fred's back!!!

70 years ago with Fibber and Molly!

70 years ago with Jack and the gang!

70 years ago this week with Gildy and his goat!

60 years ago this week, the first official episode of Gunsmoke!

Richard Beals as Ralph Phillips in From A to Z-Z-Z-Z!  (1953)

Richard Beals as Ralph Phillips in Boyhood Daze!  (1957)

In 1952, after performing in an episode of The Green Hornet , WXYZ station manager Jack McCarthy  referred Beals to Forrest Owen  of Wade Advertising . Owen showed Beals a rendering of a proposed product spokesman for their client, Alka-Seltzer and had him record a voice audition. Four months later, Beals was notified that he had been selected as the voice for Speedy Alka-Seltzer as well as the voice of Sticky, the Vaseline mascot.

Beals moved to Los Angeles where he continued making commercials as Speedy Alka-Seltzer and also provided voices for other commercials, such as Oscar Mayer, the Campbell Soup Kids, and Bob's Big Boy.[2]

In 1953, Beals was hired to do the voice for his first cartoon character. This was Ralph Phillips, a Walter Mitty  type boy in From A to Z-Z-Z-Z  by Warner Brothers. The cartoon was nominated for an Academy Award .

Beals continued doing voices for Warner Brothers  cartoons, often as un-credited secondary characters. When Hanna-Barbera started with the Flintstones , and then The Jetsons , Beals did many of the kid's voices on those shows,[2]  sometimes performing several different minor characters on the same show. One of his recurring roles was as Mr. Spacely's son Arthur on The Jetsons .

Beals voiced the famous claymation  character Gumby  when it was first televised on NBC  in 1957. From 1960 to 1964, he played the voice of Davey Hansen, as well as other child voices, on Davey and Goliath .[4] He did not do any voices for that series after 1965, when Norma MacMillan  replaced him as Davey Hansen.

Beals provided voices for both the characters "Yank" and "Dan" of the "American Eagles" troupe in the mid-1960s cartoon series Roger Ramjet . In 1967, Beals was the singing voice of child actor Bobby Riha  as Jack in the NBC-TV  special Jack and the Beanstalk  starring Gene Kelly . He was the voice of Buzz Conroy, the boy scientist on Frankenstein, Jr. and The Impossibles , and Richie Rich's mischievous cousin, Reggie Van Dough on Richie Rich . Beals was also the voice of Birdboy on Birdman and the Galaxy Trio .

During the late 1980s, Beals provided the voices for various characters on Garfield and Friends  his most major character being Jon's cruel nephew Rosco.

From 1989-1993 he played Nicholas Adamsworth on the Focus on the Family  radio drama Adventures in Odyssey .

In 1996, Beals provided the voice of the Pinocchio puppet in the horror film Pinocchio's Revenge .

Beals continues doing occasional voice acting, appears as a guest at Old Time Radio  conventions and works as a motivational speaker. He is active as an alumnus of Michigan State University  and in his spare time he enjoys spending time on his yacht.

Beals wrote in his autobiography, Think Big . His high voice and boyish appearance are due to a glandular problem; he did not go through puberty (much like Walter Tetley , who had provided the voice for Sherman on The Bullwinkle Show ). Beals is 4 foot 7 inches tall and just under 70 pounds. Despite his short stature, he has been able to fly planes using modified controls.

 

 

 

 

65 years ago this week! Unfortunately, this is the last circulating episode that we have for this season, so Goodbye Dennis until next season.

70 years ago with Red and the gang!

65 years ago with Jack and the Colemans with one of the longest laughs ever recorded.

60 years ago Herbert Marshall kept us in Suspense!

65 years ago today Bing had wildly diverse musical guests folk acoustic guitar performer, Burl Ives and cutting edge electric guitar inventor and player, Les Paul!

Last currently circulating show of the season, sorry!

60 years ago Jack entertains more troops!

The complete "Jack Benny's Bag," color hour Special with guest Dick Clark from 1968!

60 years ago Phil and Alice have Boyfriend trouble!

75 years ago this week Jack was joined by actor Cliff Nazarro!

Wow! What a great show we have for you today with wonderful sound! Judy performs a "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" Duet with Bing!

Dennis Day on a special day!

70 years ago with Jack and the gang and Percy Kilbride.

Jack's first stint at hosting the Academy Awards!

70 years go Gildy returns!

Here is the second audition of Gunsmoke with some info about the Lone Ranger Gunsmoke links!

Is this the missing link of Cowboy Noir to Gunsmoke? Listener Mitch thinks so, how about you?

70 years ago with Red and wartime food prices!

65 years ago with Jack and the gang spoofing the "Egg and I."

Just found this this weekend! Hope you all enjoy Jack Hosting the Academy Awards!

60 years ago Richard Widmark kept us in Suspense!

65 years ago today with Bing and Jimmy!

60 years ago Boris Karloff had some fun with Dean and Jerry!

Jack and Mary are joined by great character actor and voice talent Arthur Q Bryan (Elmer Fudd).

Arthur Q Bryan came to prominence in his late 1930s as the voice of Egghead  and Elmer Fudd  at Warner Brothers  animation unit, headed by Leon Schlesinger .

Along with several characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, or Porky Pig, all voiced by Mel Blanc , one of Warner's early big stars was Bryan's Elmer Fudd. The slow-talking, slower-witted, enunciation-challenged Mr. Fudd is a game hunter whose Brooklynesque speech (courtesy of Bryan's own childhood upbringing in the borough) was exaggerated for memorable effect by his habitual substitution of W  for the letters L  and R , an effect further immortalized by the tongue-in-cheek screen credits of the 1941 Bugs Bunny short Wabbit Twouble .

When watching him perform, director Bob Clampett  (or "Wobert Cwampett" in the screen credit) thought Bryan's girth added to the hilarity of his dialogue, and redesigned Fudd as a fat man patterned after Bryan's real-life appearance. After a few shorts, Clampett decided it was a mistake, and Fudd returned to his classical form. But fat or slimmed, Bryan's Fudd was so popular that the character's shorts were used to create and develop the character of Bugs Bunny, with the first official Bugs Bunny  appearance coming in the Fudd cartoon, A Wild Hare .

Bryan's name does not appear in Looney Tunes credits because of Mel Blanc's contract with Warner Brothers, which stipulated that only Blanc would receive on-screen credit for voice work.

Bryan's work in animation did not go unnoticed by radio producers. Although his first forays into that medium were inevitably accompanied by instructions that he use the Fudd voice, Bryan soon came to the attention of Don Quinn  and Phil Leslie , the production and writing team responsible for Fibber McGee and Molly  and their supporting characters, two of whom spun off into their own radio hits, The Great Gildersleeve and Beulah .

The Gildersleeve character, played by Harold Peary , became series broadcasting's first successful spin-off hit; that plus the onset of World War II (which cost Fibber McGee & Molly  their Mayor LaTrivia, when Gale Gordon  went into the Coast Guard in early 1942, and "The Old Timer" Bill Thompson  was drafted almost a year later) nabbed nearly every other remaining male voice.

Bryan was first hired for the new Great Gildersleeve  series, to play the part of one of Gildersleeve's cronies, Floyd Munson, the barber. His work on the series (in Bryan's natural voice) so impressed the Quinn and Leslie, that Bryan was added to the cast of their main show, Fibber McGee and Molly , in 1943.

On Fibber , Bryan found himself in the unusual position of being smarter than, more educated than, and generally superior to his foil, titular braggart McGee. Playing Doc Gamble, Bryan was a polar opposite of the Fudd character—Gamble was well-spoken, even-tempered, and usually got the best of McGee, which Elmer could never do with Bugs.

60 years ago with Phil and Alice on Easter!

75 years ago the cast was really starting to loosen up and have a great time! I think this photo is from this exact week on the show!

Wow doggy! Just found this today! Delighted to share this with you! The Academy Awards hosted by Bob Hope and Jimmy Stewart!

70 years ago with Fred Allen with a podcast intro about Alan Reed.

 

Complete Chuck Schaden interview Alan Reed!

70 years ago at the Spring Festival!

70 years ago Jack had this episode filmed, and here it is!

Jack at Camp Hahn Video part 1

Jack at Camp Hahn Video part 2

First audition show for Gunsmoke, when it was basically Cowboy Noir!

65 years ago with Dennis Day!

70 years ago with Red and the gang!

65 years ago with Jack and the gang!

65 years ago today Kirk Douglas, who is still alive, kept us in Suspense!

60 years ago today with Bob and Bing!

Virginia Mayo signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn and appeared in several of Goldwyn's movies. With Danny Kaye she played the dream-girl heroine in comedies including Wonder Man (1945), The Kid from Brooklyn (1946) and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947).

At the zenith of her career, Mayo was seen as the quintessential voluptuous Hollywood beauty. It was said that she "looked like a pinup painting come to life," and she played just such a role in the 1949 film comedy, The Girl from Jones Beach . According to widely published reports from the late 1940s, the Sultan of Morocco declared her beauty to be proof of the existence of God.

In 1949's White Heat she took on the unsympathetic role of the cold and treacherous "Verna Jarrett", opposite James Cagney . She was also cast against type as a shallow golddigger in The Best Years of Our Lives . Her career continued strong through the 50s, frequently in B-movie westerns and adventure films. By the start of the 60s, the pace of her work slowed, but she continued occasional film appearances in the following decades, her last role being in The Man Next Door (1997). While she also appeared in musicals, Mayo's singing voice was always dubbed .

Mayo and her husband, actor Michael O'Shea (of Jack London film fame) co-starred in such stage productions as Tunnel of Love , Fiorello , and George Washington Slept Here . She also starred in stage productions of Cactus Flower , How the Other Half Loves , and the musical comedy, Good News .

Mayo has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine. In 1996 she received a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame .[

60 years ago with Jack and the gang at Jack's pool!

60 years ago Don Wilson announced the Phil Harris and Alice Faye show!

 

Radio Spirits is having a big sale on the five Phil Harris show sets.   Use the coupon word N04NC001 AT CHECK OUT AND SAVE AN ADDITIONAL 15%.

 

75 years ago Burns and Allen stopped by for a visit!

Nice variation starring Judy Garland on the original film that starred Kathrine Hepburn and Fred MacMurray.

Alice Adams is a 1935 romantic film made by RKO . It was directed by George Stevens and produced by Pandro S. Berman . The screenplay was by Dorothy Yost , Mortimer Offner , and Jane Murfin . The film was adapted from the novel Alice Adams , by Booth Tarkington . The music score was by Max Steiner and Roy Webb , and the cinematography by Robert De Grasse .

The film is about young woman in a medium-sized town in the United States in the early 1900s, and her pretentious attempts to appear upper-class and wed a wealthy man while concealing her poverty. It stars Katharine Hepburn , Fred MacMurray , Fred Stone , Evelyn Venable , Frank Albertson , Ann Shoemaker , Hedda Hopper , and Hattie McDaniel .

Fun Podcast about emails and Fibber and Molly!

70 years ago with Jack and talk of Easter.

Another great western on the road to Gunsmoke with John Dehner!

Alright, alright, a week late is better than never!

70 years ago with Red and the gang rehearsing!

Jack has a unique guest this week in the form of studio head Samuel Goldwyn!

65 years ago comedian Phil Silvers kept us in Suspense!

65 years ago Bing with the ultimate minstrel Al Jolson.