Sat 28 Oct 2017
THE OLD TIME RADIO HOST/ANNOUNCER, by Michael Shonk.
Posted by Steve under Old Time Radio[17] Comments
by Michael Shonk
One of old time radio’s (OTR) characters most fondly remembered is the series host/announcer. Radio programs needed a way to introduce the series and episode to the listener. Limited to just words and sounds radio created the host role.
Perhaps one of the appeals of listening to radio drama was how often the fourth wall was ignored. It began with the host/announcer who would talk directly to the listener. It gave the program and the listener at home a personal connection, as if the story was being told directly to you.
There were several basic types of host/announcer. It could be an announcer or famous celebrity or a fictional character. He or she could exist separate from the story or be a fictional character narrating the story or a real celebrity who introduces the story and at times joins the cast and performs as one of the characters in the story, or in rare cases a real announcer could interact with the fictional characters (usually to promote the sponsor).
One of the earliest radio series to have a fictional character as host was the 1930 CBS anthology DETECTIVE STORY HOUR. The character with the strange eerie voice was The Shadow, a character that has had a long successful career. For those who wish to learn more about the pulp/radio icon I recommend the book SHADOW SCRAPBOOK by the character’s creator Walter B. Gibson (with Anthony Tollin).
Here is the first episode from the Mutual Network version of THE SHADOW. “Death House Blues†aired September 26, 1937 and introduced him to the Mutual audience. In the story The Shadow played by Orson Welles works to save an innocent man from the electric chair.
Characters such as Philip Marlowe, Rocky Jordan, and Archie Goodwin for Nero Wolfe would break the fourth wall to talk to the audience, set the mood and begin narrating the story.
LIVES OF HARRY LIME was a BBC production and syndicated in America, airing various places including Mutual radio network. The series was based on the character from the film THE THIRD MAN, star Orson Welles would return to play Harry Lime in this prequel to the 1949 British film.
THE LIVES OF HARRY LIME “Too Many Crooks†(Mutual, August 3, 1951), It begins when Harry receives a letter asking for his help rob a bank in Budapest. As zither music sets the proper THIRD MAN mood, Harry profits from the plans of some very untrustworthy bank robbers.
The Shadow’s spooky voice fit radio well for establishing mood. Hosts for series such as LIGHTS OUT began to warn the listeners of the terrors to come. Some of the more entertaining hosts would go beyond the spooky voice to the rantings of an insane lunatic. Among the better ones were GUEST OF DOOM, DARKNESS, WITCH’S TALE, STRANGE DR WEIRD, WEIRD CIRCLE, HERMIT’S CAVE, and BLACK CHAPEL.
Forgotten BLACK CASTLE remains one of the best examples of the madman host. BLACK CASTLE featured host The Wizard and his pet raven Diablo. Don Douglas not only played the host but he also did all of the voices.
A warning about the episode “Jungle Adventure,†it was done during WWII and has a un-PC attitude about the Japanese and island natives.
BLACK CASTLE “Jungle Adventure†(Mutual, September 25, 1943). Two American airmen crash on a small Pacific island.
Some hosts could be downright judgmental towards the fictional characters in the story (THE WHISTLER) or some hosts were notably uncaring to what happened to the people of the story (THE CLOCK, DEVIL’S SCRAPBOOK and THE CROUPIER).
One who was judgmental and uncaring was Fate in DIARY OF FATE, played by Herbert Lytton.
DIARY OF FATE “The Entry of Tyler White†(ABC, April 6, 1948). Tyler White is about to be executed for a murder he did not commit.
Not all hosts were scary some were quite friendly such as in WORLD ADVENTURERS CLUB, and THE CASEBOOKS OF GREGORY HOOD.
The CRIME CLUB host The Librarian (Barry Thomson) was always eager to help us with that book or manuscript we wanted. Many of the stories were adaptations of actual books published by Doubleday’s Crime Club imprint .
CRIME CLUB “Mr. Smith’s Hat†(Mutual, January 22, 1947). Gilbert Shannon calls Inspector McKee to report his own murder. A few moments after he hangs up the Inspector gets a call from Shannon’s daughter who has discovered her father’s dead body. Witty dialog highlights the story based on a book by Helen Reilly and adapted by Stedman Coles.
Celebrities were popular choices to host drama anthologies, such as radio producer Arch Oboler (LIGHTS OUT), writers such as John Dickson Carr (MURDER BY EXPERTS) and actors such as Peter Lorre (MURDER IN THE AIR).
CREEPS BY NIGHT aired on the Blue network with Boris Karloff as host and actor. The series was done on the West coast. When the series moved to the East coast with episode #13 “The Walking Dead (May 16, 1944) Karloff stayed behind and the mysterious Dr. X took over as host. The name of the actor who played Dr. X was never revealed.
CREEPS BY NIGHT “The Final Reckoning†(Blue network, May 2, 1944). George Miller is out of prison after serving 20 years for a murder he did not commit. George feels his life has been wasted and is obsessed with revenge against the man who framed him.
One of the most important roles for the host/announcer was to promote the sponsor. Series such as MYSTERY HOUSE would take a comment made by the characters to remind everyone about the sponsor. INNER SANCTUM Mr. Host enjoyed his creaking door and pun filled introductions but then he would turn to Mary to discuss the perfection and joy the sponsor’s product would bring to the listener’s life.
But no host/announcer was more interested in the sponsor than the host of a kid’s show, radio serials such as CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT, JACK ARMSTRONG ALL AMERICAN BOY, DICK TRACY, and endless others push their promos like maps and code rings and nagged kids to get their Mom or Dad to buy the sponsor’s product.
TOM MIX RALSTON STRAIGHT SHOOTERS “The Green Man†(Mutual, June 30, 1944). A swami arrives and tries to buy Longwind Wilson house that keeps disappearing because of a former cactus now anti-social Green Man. Not the most PC but still fun. In this episode Tom Mix was played by Joe “Curley†Bradley.
Not all serials were aimed at kids and their parents’ bank account. There would be soap operas for Mom (ROMANCES OF HELEN TRENT and BACKSTAGE WIFE), adventure (ADVENTURES BY MORSE and SHADOWS OF FU MANCHU), mysteries (CHARLIE CHAN and I LOVE A MYSTERY), and spies (ANN OF THE AIRLINES).
But no matter the type of radio serial all of them needed the host/announcer to keep the audience up to date on the continuing story that usually aired three to five times a week.
Here is an episode from PERRY MASON, a radio series that would evolve into TV soap opera EDGE OF NIGHT.
PERRY MASON “The Case of the Puzzled Suitor’ (CBS, June 7, 1944). A rich scientist wants Mason to write his will, but a woman had early warned Mason that the scientist was being coerced.
One of the things the Internet has given us is access to the past unlike ever before. You can listen to OTR at YouTube, Internet Archive (archive.org) and various other places on the Internet. Whether you remember when the shows first aired or you are listening for the first time, OTR offers a variety of wonderful entertainment, shows more often than not introduced by a host/announcer.
SOURCES::
RadioGOLDINdex http://radiogoldindex.com/
ON THE AIR THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OLD-TIME RADIO (Oxford University
Press, 1998) by John Dunning
October 28th, 2017 at 4:45 pm
How I love to hear Curley Bradley. But not start the morning with Hot Ralston.
October 28th, 2017 at 7:28 pm
Barry, my favorite line came from the song at the end of the Tom Mix episode when the hero sings to the kids to “go rope yer ma” and get her to get that cereal. That line can mean something else in today’s world which goes to show how innocent and naive that un-pc stuff was in those days.
October 29th, 2017 at 12:41 am
During the 1970s and 80s I accumulated a huge collection of radio shows on reel-to-reel tape, maybe 20,000 hours worth, but don’t quote me on that. I never switched over to cassettes, but I was thinking of re-recording my shows on CD when the Internet came along and made all of that work unnecessary. Most of what I owned is now available for free online, and do you know what? I’m too busy to listen. It takes articles like this one to remind me of what fun my brother and I had listening to radio shows together as kids. I remember almost of the programs Michael mentions here. Good memories, but Michel, do you know what? you didn’t mention THE LONE RANGER, with Fred Foy as the announcer and one of the greatest openings of any radio show of all time.
October 29th, 2017 at 1:39 am
Nice overview, Michael. I’m not familiar with BLACK CASTLE or DIARY OF FATE, so I’ll definitely be checking out the episodes you included. THE SHADOW airing on Sunday afternoon is interesting, considering how gruesome its plots sometimes were. That time-slot must’ve guaranteed as many kid listeners to the show as it did adults. Maybe it even became a “family show” in some households!
October 29th, 2017 at 1:42 am
I left many off the list hoping for others to mention their favorites. I also tend to favor the forgotten one like BLACK CASTLE.
Here you go Steve…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsOY42mit74
From March 30 1938.
I actually got into OTR in the 70s buying episodes on cassette tapes.
October 29th, 2017 at 1:52 am
4. Gary R., radio apparently didn’t have a prime time line-up from 7pm-10pm like TV does. They aired shows from the early afternoon to late at night without any apparent reason beyond the daytime soaps for Mom when the kids were in school. You would think many of the adults would be at work or on way home at 5pm but then I realized it was a time when most lived in rural areas with less 9-5 jobs and more daybreak to sundown jobs.
October 29th, 2017 at 11:21 am
Steve, agree completely with your assessment of The Lone Ranger. Two great voices: Fred Foy and Brace Beemer, who was, is, and shall remain for me, the only Lone Ranger.
October 29th, 2017 at 10:56 pm
Many of the mystery and horror series had great fun with the narrator including some wonderfuly bad puns.
October 30th, 2017 at 3:03 am
Another great opening. It’s too bad so few episodes of this program have managed to survive. One of my all time favorites as I was growing up:
October 30th, 2017 at 10:47 am
And let me give credit where credit is due. The announcer was Frank Bingman and Milton Charles the organist. For a lot more inside information about the STRAIGHT ARROW program, check out this webpage:
http://www.otrsite.com/articles/artjf003.html
I’m not the only fan of the show!
October 30th, 2017 at 2:59 pm
8. David, the most famous host with the most puns was INNER SANCTUM. Here is a sample from 11/6/45 with Boris Karloff in “The Wailing Wall.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWDLTlk7ETE
October 30th, 2017 at 3:28 pm
Oh, I left the credit for the voice of Perry Mason out because there are three possible men would could have done the episode. It is most likely Bartlett Robinson who did the voice until the mid-40s. But Santos Ortega and Donald Briggs did the voice as well until 1947 when John Larkin took over.
There are even more choices for the announcer.
INNER SANCTUM in comment 11 voice of Mr Host was Paul McGrath and Mary was Mary Bennett.
I was surprised to discover the number of shows that had one man do all the voices. Paul Frees did all the voices in THE PLAYER series, Ted Osbourne did all the voices in BLACK CHAPEL (Crawling Terror is one of the scariest monologues I have ever heard), and William Conrad (radio GUNSMOKE, TV CANNON) did all the voices in CHAMBER OF HORROR “Waxwork.”
October 30th, 2017 at 4:03 pm
9. Steve, so did you do as the announcer ordered and make your Mom buy Shredded Wheat?
You will notice most of the hard to find radio series were on the Mutual Network. NBC and all its colors (Blue, Red, Orange) and CBS affiliates were strong enough to survive with a library somewhat intact. But Mutual was the weakest of networks and much of its library didn’t survive.
October 30th, 2017 at 6:29 pm
I tried Shredded Wheat once as a kid. Once was enough.
The reason why Mutual programs haven’t survived, or so it’s been suggested to me, is that (a) they were done live and no one bothered to make transcriptions, or (b) if they were made, or eventually taped, they erased and reused the tape.
I’m no expert on this but as an explanation, it sounds like a good one to me.
October 30th, 2017 at 8:17 pm
Steve, you could be right about Mutual. I am no expert on the history of radio. I know the shows but not a lot about the context.
When I was studying CREEPS BY NIGHT for this article I discovered how little I knew about the Blue network and how so much of OTR knowledge is slipping away.
Much of the information says Karloff was the host of the West Coast while Dr. X did the East coast. Then I listened to episode 13 Walking Dead and listened to the announcer explain Dr X was replacing Karloff. I read more and discovered that the show moved East and Karloff decided to remain in Hollywood. I found the confused mess that is the history of the Blue Network and it was not a simple as I thought that it was just ABC taking over from NBC.
I am a TV guy so I lack the time or interest to learn the details of that side of OTR. I have found some shows I hope to review and preserve here. But TV will be my focus.
I read it in some of the OTR people who are trying hard to save OTR that it is getting harder to find the complete truth about OTR’s past. I feel for them as the truth of past TV is fading and being replaced by the laziness of today in accepting rumor and misinformation that is current common knowledge.
October 31st, 2017 at 3:03 pm
Back in the 1970s and early 80s s good deal of my hobby time was spent on OTR, both collecting shows and working on detailed logs of many of them. In fact was working on a detailed list of my entire collection, by dates, stars, networks and sponsors.
I was up to the B’s, Bob Hope, perhaps, when I realized that I was duplicating the efforts of lot of other people who had better access to old radio magazines and newspaper listings than I did, so I stopped.
Back then many of the people involves, actors, announcers, directors etc were still around and were glad to talk about their careers. I occasionally was able to provide clips of shows to a Hartford based program called THE GOLDEN AGE OF RADIO, in which figures in OTR were interviewed, some very famous.
Here’s a list: http://www.goldenage-wtic.org/log.html
Most of these people are gone now, and as you say, Michael, first hand research is difficult. But people such as Martin Grams are doing a great job in finding documented records of old shows, and he’s done quite a few books about them.
But you’re also right in saying that lot’s of so-called researchers are only copying what other people have said, without doing the hard work of looking for contemporary sources.
February 27th, 2021 at 1:12 am
Brace Beemer is indeed the only Lone Ranger. I heard him interviewed once, on AM radio; talking about his career and interests. It was a privilege.
Clayton Moore is admirable too, but just not stellar as Beemer.
Series announcers: they are the ‘Ghost Corps’ of classic radio. No one remembers them. They were never intended to be remembered.
But: George Fenniman. Larry Thor. Harlow Wilcox; Bill Goodwin. Marvin Miller. George Walsh.