Old Radio

November 2, 1950: Actress Tallulah Bankhead gave the opening announcement of one and half hour long American radio program ‘ The Big Show ’. It stated “The greatest stars of our time on one big program”. The program was discontinued due to financial losses of over $1 million within 3 years after its first broadcast. The Big Show' was a larger than life radio show with the brightest stars on board.  Tallulah Bankhead   hosted the show and opened each airing by introducing an impressive roster. The show ended in when it couldn't pull ratings from The Benny Program, but ' The Big Show ' still holds a place in the hearts of many Americans.

  November 1, 1937: On this date, the first transmission of Hilltop House took place on CBS. Also, the action-adventure comic strip  Terry and the Pirates  was aired for the first time.  Hilltop House was a radio soap opera that aired from 1937 to 1957. It starred Bess Johnson, who played as a dedicated case worker on an orphanage called the Hilltop House in Glendale. In the latter part of this series, it was shown that Johnson left the orphanage to begin her new job as superintendent of a boarding school. She was replaced as orphanage supervisor by Julie Erickson. Hilltop House was the first radio program sponsored by Palmolive. Terry and the Pirates , on the other hand, was a radio series based on the comic strip created by Milton Carniff. It featured the main character Terry Lee played by different actors such as Bill Fein, Owen Jordan, Cliff Carpenter, and Jackie Kelk. Terry Lee was a teenager who lived during the war years. The series lasted until 1948.

October 30, 1938: On this date, H.G. Well's The War of the World was shown on The Mercury Theater on the Air at 8 p.m.  The radio adaptation of this novel made the little known actor and filmmaker Orson Welles famous. He was known previously for providing the voice for title character of The Shadow radio show. The show was delivered in news bulletin form.  Due to the manner in which the episode was delivered, some listeners, who failed to hear the introduction, mistakenly thought that it was a real report of an alien invasion. Because of this, in 1975, a docudrama based on those events was made.  It was entitled The Night That Panicked America .