Author: Denis Gifford
Publisher: Trafalgar Square Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description

Author: Kathryn Fuller-Seeley
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520295056
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
"Jack Benny became one of the most influential entertainers of the 20th century--by being the top radio comedian, when the comics ruled radio, and radio was the most powerful and pervasive mass medium in the US. In 23 years of weekly radio broadcasts, by aiming all the insults at himself, Benny created Jack, the self-deprecating "Fall Guy" character. He indelibly shaped American humor as a space to enjoy the equal opportunities of easy camaraderie with his cast mates, and equal ego deflation. Benny was the master of comic timing, knowing just when to use silence to create suspense or to have a character leap into the dialogue to puncture Jack's pretentions. Jack Benny was also a canny entrepreneur, becoming one of the pioneering "showrunners" combining producer, writer and performer into one job. His modern style of radio humor eschewed stale jokes in favor informal repartee with comic hecklers like his valet Rochester (played by Eddie Anderson) and Mary Livingstone his offstage wife. These quirky characters bouncing off each other in humorous situations created the situation comedy. In this career study, we learn how Jack Benny found ingenious ways to sell his sponsors' products in comic commercials beloved by listeners, and how he dealt with the challenges of race relations, rigid gender ideals and an insurgent new media industry (TV). Jack Benny created classic comedy for a rapidly changing American culture, providing laughter that buoyed radio listeners from 1932's depths of the Great Depression, through World War II to the mid-1950s"--Provided by publisher.

Author: Alfred Balk
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
A sweep of radio history from its birth as Marconi's "wireless telegraph" through its status under deregulation, this book analyzes the changing medium's social, political, and cultural impact. It casts light on many topics, including the roles of women and African Americans, programming sources outside the Hollywood-Broadway nexus, and more.

Author: Arthur Anderson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781593930196
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Let's Pretend actually went under a different title and slight variations of formats before settling down to the now-familiar children's program heard today through surviving recordings. On October 27, 1928, a Saturday morning children's program offering whimsical tales of fantasy and fairy tales premiered under the title of Aunt Jymmie and Her Tots in Tottyville. Very little is known about this program except for the format. The hostess of the series (Aunt Jymmie) would introduce each week's drama to the juvenile audience, which would be enacted by a cast of young children known as "the tots." The young "tots" would then travel to Tottyville, a make-believe world of king and queens, princesses, witches and magic spells. This series lasted for eighteen broadcasts from October 27, 1928 to February 23, 1929, originating from the WABC studio in New York City, the flagship station for CBS. Aunt Jymmie was replaced by a second children's radio program known as The Children's Club Hour with Howard Merrill. Merrill functioned as both the host and the scriptwriter. Later, during the 1940s, Merrill would write scripts for The Gay Nineties Revue, Secret Missions, and detective series such as Sherlock Holmes, Leonidas Witherall and the Abbott Mysteries. Just as the title suggests, The Children's Club Hour also featured fairy tales enacted by juvenile cast members, but why the word "hour"; is in the program's title is not all too clear - the program was only on the air for a thirty-minute time slot. After seventeen broadcasts of The Children's Club Hour, the time slot was handed over to Estelle Levy and Patricia Ryan who created a third Saturday morning children's program, this one titled The Adventures of Helen and Mary. Third time was the charm. The Adventures of Helen and Mary has been documented in encyclopedias such as John Dunning's On the Air as the forerunner of Let's Pretend, and this statement is correct but it should be known that Aunt Jymmie and the Children's Club Hour programs were not previous incarnations of Let's Pretend. The producers, directors, cast and staff of those two previous were totally different programs. The only similarity was the fact that they both offered renditions of fairy tales for young radio listeners. The Children's Club Hour began on March 2, 1929. The exact date of the final broadcast of The Children's Club Hour is June 22, 1929. The first broadcast of The Adventures of Helen and Mary was June 29, 1929. The Adventures of Helen and Mary was very successful and was heard for a total of 229 broadcasts. Interesting trivia: For a very brief time during December 1930 and January 1931, the name of the program changed from The Adventures of Helen and Mary to Land O' Make Believe. There is no evidence explaining why the program changed its title for the few brief weeks and back again and it's not clear how many broadcasts went by the name Land O' Make Believe. After 229 broadcasts, Nila Mack, who by then was heavily involved with the program, took over the reins and changed the title from The Adventures of Helen and Mary to Let's Pretend. (Anyone slightly confused can recall the example of how Counterspy and David Harding, Counterspy are the same program, it's just that the title changed over the years.) "The best book about radio I've read since Mary Jane Higby's Tune in Tomorrow. You have made the whole golden age of radio come alive." - Ron Lackmann, author

Author: Ed Salamon
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738572239
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Pittsburgh is the birthplace of radio, the location of many of radio's first and most influential stations and broadcast personalities, and a key market for the development of new formats. Pittsburghers' reaction to the music they heard on the radio helped to break records and create stars. Radio provided an unprecedented audience for live performances by local artists. After the big band era, radio gave voice to pop, rock and roll, and rhythm and blues. Pittsburgh's Golden Age of Radio celebrates the city's radio history, deejays, contests, concerts, public service, and promotions from radio's beginnings in the 1920s through the late 1970s, when listening on FM exceeded that on AM for the first time.

Author: Barbara Dianne Savage
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 9780807848043
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
Tells how Blacks used radio

Author: Randal L. Hall
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 081318925X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
In the 1930s radio stations filled the airwaves with programs and musical performances about rural Americans—farmers and small-town residents struggling through the Great Depression. One of the most popular of these shows was Lum and Abner, the brainchild of Chester "Chet" Lauck and Norris "Tuffy" Goff, two young businessmen from Arkansas. Beginning in 1931 and lasting for more than two decades, the show revolved around the lives of ordinary people in the fictional community of Pine Ridge, based on the hamlet of Waters, Arkansas. The title characters, who are farmers, local officials, and the keepers of the Jot 'Em Down Store, manage to entangle themselves in a variety of hilarious dilemmas. The program's gentle humor and often complex characters had wide appeal both to rural southerners, who were accustomed to being the butt of jokes in the national media, and to urban listeners who were fascinated by descriptions of life in the American countryside. Lum and Abner was characterized by the snappy, verbal comedic dueling that became popular on radio programs of the 1930s. Using this format, Lauck and Goff allowed their characters to subvert traditional authority and to poke fun at common misconceptions about rural life. The show also featured hillbilly and other popular music, an innovation that drew a bigger audience. As a result, Arkansas experienced a boom in tourism, and southern listeners began to immerse themselves in a new national popular culture. In Lum and Abner: Rural America and the Golden Age of Radio, historian Randal L. Hall explains the history and importance of the program, its creators, and its national audience. He also presents a treasure trove of twenty-nine previously unavailable scripts from the show's earliest period, scripts that reveal much about the Great Depression, rural life, hillbilly stereotypes, and a seminal period of American radio.

Author: Jim Cox
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476601194
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
This history of radio news reporting recounts and assesses the contributions of radio toward keeping America informed since the 1920s. It identifies distinct periods and milestones in broadcast journalism and includes a biographical dictionary of important figures who brought news to the airwaves. Americans were dependent on radio for cheap entertainment during the Great Depression and for critical information during the Second World War, when no other medium could approach its speed and accessibility. Radio's diminished influence in the age of television beginning in the 1950s is studied, as the aural medium shifted from being at the core of many families' activities to more specialized applications, reaching narrowly defined listener bases. Many people turned elsewhere for the news. (And now even TV is challenged by yet newer media.) The introduction of technological marvels throughout the past hundred years has significantly altered what Americans hear and how, when, and where they hear it.

Author: Susan Siegel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The first ever guide to 3,800 primary and seconary sources that explore radio's contribution to America's cultural heritage.Index integrates separate listings in Special Collections, Bibliography and Internet chapters and can be searched by program title, person or subject.

Author: Leonard Maltin
Publisher: NAL
ISBN: 9780451200785
Category : Radio broadcasting
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This account of the Golden Age of Radio offers behind the scenes stories about Orson Welles, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, and many more stars, as well as the histories of radio soap operas, westerns and other shows. Includes hundreds of personal interviews and more than 125 rare photos and illustrations.