Old-Time Radio, Part 2

With radio you could be blind as a bat and see everything clearly. It was like a kid playing with a box that a toy fire engine came in. I had a toy fire engine once. It was a windup red plastic one with an extension ladder. It was always a fire engine, but the box could be anything. That was the way radio was. You didn’t need a fire engine or a rocket; all you needed was your imagination. There was nothing to see. All you needed was the sounds coming out of the darkness; sounds that conjured mental images: door slamming shut, police sirens screaming, footsteps loudly clicking on sidewalks, or barely heard stalking a helpless victim, squealing tires, heavy breathing, church bells - everything was there. The era was called the Golden Age of Radio. There were some music shows, but I mainly remember the comedy and suspense shows.

I remember many different shows over that period of the late 1940s. It was probably the peak of the Golden Days. We listened to some of the shows regularly. I can still hear the “Creaking Door” open and shut, as it did at the beginning and end of each “Inner Sanctum” episode. I can still see the junk come flying when the closet door in the Fibber McGee and Molly show was eventually opened. Sometimes you waited till the end of the show, but you knew that Fibber McGee was going to eventually open it. I remember the booming voice of The Great Gildersleeve and his grand schemes. There was the quote at the beginning of The Shadow, “Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men?”, then sinister laughter followed. The alter-ego of the Shadow, Lamont Cranston, would answer, “The Shadow Knows!”. Red Skeleton had a phalanx of characters, but the one I remember most was Klem Kadiddlehopper. The singing cab driver character was a good natured, slow-witted, country bumpkin that poked fun at city slickers, but he didn‘t seem to know he was doing it.

The Jack Benny Program with Rochester and Mary Livingston was one of my favorites. The perpetually 39 year old comedian played the part of a cheapskate that was vain and self-promoting. I can still hear Rochester’s scratchy voice.

There were many others: The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Marie Wilson of My Friend Erma, Eve Arden in Our Miss Brooks, Hattie McDaniel in The Beulah Show, Bob Hope as the Lemon-Drop Kid, Jack Armstrong the all-American Boy, Amos and Andy, Blondie and Dagwood, on and on…

We moved across town in 1950, and in 1952 Dad brought home a television set. All of our attention shifted in that direction after that. Many of the old radio shows moved on to television, but things were never quite the same. Radio shifted to a music format and to talk shows. It was never the same either. Garrison Kellor resurrected a facsimile in the 1980s that most resembled Old-Time Radio. I listen to A Prairie Home Companion when ever I can and I’m reminded of how it use to be.