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Edited on Wed Feb-16-05 04:39 PM by trof
and listen to the news with H. V. Kaltenborn. He was the Walter Cronkite (and then some) of his day. Then came Jack Benny, Amos & Andy, The Ted Mack Amateur Hour, and Double Or Nothing. I think you started out answering a question for one dollar and (MAYBE) progressed on up to The Sixty-Four Dollar Question. That's not a typo. The BIG prize was $64 back then. Have no idea how they arrived at that stopping point.
The S-C was a big mahogany thing about the size of a standard Wurlitzer juke box. Just without all the bubble lights. It had 4 or 5 radio bands, AM, short wave, long wave, medium wave, etc. No FM then. We could only get anything on the AM tuner.
It had a BUNCH of vacuum tubes about the size of a "D" cell battery. Every once in a while a tube would burn out and the radio would quit. You'd peek in the back and see which tube wasn't lit up, unplug it (after it had cooled down) and take it down to the drug store to get a replacement. There were a myriad of tube sizes in that radio, so you had to take the old one with you to make sure you got the right tube.
In the mornings Don McNeil's Breakfast Club was on. His sidekick was Sam something. A regular "gee whiz" segment was "Fiction and Fact With Sam's Almanac".
During the day the soaps were on. Young Widder Brown, Lorenzo Jones, Young Dr. Kildare, Stella Dallas, Portia Faces Life, Ma Brown. Also the ever popular "Queen for a Day". Monday through Friday they'd have some lady on with the worst sob story you ever heard. She won a bunch of prizes like washer, dryer, etc. for coming on and moaning her tale of woe into the microphone. A bit like our current tell-all shows.
When I got home from school I listened to Gene Autrey and the Melody Ranch, sponsored by Doublemint gum. I think Pat Buttram was Gene's sidekick. It was kinda standard that at some point during every program Gene would say "OK, lets go get those rustlers (bank robbers, train robbers, claim jumpers), but first I wanna sing a little song".
Also Bobby Benson and the B Bar B riders. Bobby was always getting out of one hair raising scrape after another. Ovaltine always played an important part in his escape...somehow. There was The Phantom and Captain Midnight too.
Saturdays I remember The Buster Brown Show with Smilin' Ed's gang and Froggy the Gremlin.
I also remember hearing the announcement of FDR's death. I was around 4 or 5, but I do remember it.
Thanks for stirring up the memories Mark.
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