OLD TIME RADIO
Shows from "The Golden Age of Radio"
> Radio Echoes
http://www.radioechoes.com
Radio Echoes is an Old Time Radio (OTR) web site put together by a father and son team in the USA. While we may be geographically apart, we are connected by the internet and a desire to offer you as much free OTR as possible.
Every file we offer has been checked and “cleaned” to make it totally compatible with modern devices.
Listen to and download all the episodes you want and take them with you on your MP3 player, CDs or your cell phone, but they are also available on the internet 24/7/.
We want to spread the joy of OTR, preserve what we can and attempt to reach a varied audience.
Fireside Chat with FDR
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, one in four Americans was out of work nationally, but in some cities and some industries unemployment was well over 50 percent. Equally troubling were the bank panics. Between 1929 and 1931, 4,000 banks closed for good; by 1933 the number rose to more than 9,000, with $2.5 billion in lost deposits.
Banks never have as much in their vaults as people have deposited, and if all depositors claim their money at once, the bank is ruined. Millions of Americans lost their money because they arrived at the bank too late to withdraw their savings. The panics raised troubling questions about credit, value, and the nature of capitalism itself. And they made clear the unpredictable relationship between public perception and general financial health—the extent to which the economy seemed to work as long as everyone believed that it would. To stop the run on banks, many states simply closed their banks the day before Roosevelt’s inauguration.
Roosevelt himself declared a four-day “bank holiday” almost immediately upon taking office and made a national radio address on Sunday, March 12, 1933, to explain the banking problem. Then until 1944 FDR spoke to America as the depression gave rise to World War II.
Stella Dallas
Stella Dallas was an America radio soap opera that ran from 1937 to 1955. The New York Times described the title character as “the beautiful daughter of an impoverished farmhand who had married above her station in life.”[1] She was played for the entire run of the series by Anne Elstner (1902–1982). Her husband Stephen Dallas was portrayed at various times by Leo McCabe, Arthur Hughes and Frederick Tazere. Initially, Joy Hathaway played Stella’s daughter Laurel with Vivian Smolen later taking over the role. Laurel’s husband was Dick Grosvenor (played by Carleton Young, Macdonald Carey, Spencer Bentley, George Lambert and Michael Fitzmaurice).
Fibber McGee and Molly
Fibber McGee and Molly is an American radio show from the old-time radio era, and one of its longest-running comedies. The series premiered on NBC Radio in 1935 and remained popular until its demise in 1959, long after radio had ceased to be the dominant form of entertainment in American popular culture.
The stars of the program were real-life husband James “Jim” Jordan (16 November 1896 – 1 April 1988) and his wife Marian Driscoll (15 April 1898 – 7 April 1961), who were natives of Peoria, Illinois.
Mr. District Attorney
Mr. District Attorney is a popular radio crime drama which aired on NBC and ABC from April 3, 1939 to June 13, 1952 (and in transcribed syndication through 1953). The series focused on a crusading D.A., initially known only as “Mister District Attorney,” or “Chief”, and was later translated to television. On television the D.A. had a name, Paul Garrett, and the radio version picked up this name in the final years when David Brian played the role. A key figure in the dramas was the D.A.’s secretary, Edith Miller (Vicki Vola).
Terry and the Pirates
Terry and the Pirates was a radio serial adapted from the comic strip of the same name created in 1934 by Milton Caniff. With storylines of action, high adventure and foreign intrigue, the popular radio series entralled listeners from 1937 through 1948. With scripts by Albert Barker, George Lowther and others, the program’s directors included Cyril Armbrister, Wylie Adams and Marty Andrews.
Our Gal Sunday
Our Gal Sunday was an American soap opera produced by Frank and Anne Hummert and heard on CBS from 1937 to 1959.
The origin of this radio series was a 1904 Broadway production, Sunday, which starred Ethel Barrymore. This play was the source of the catchphrase, “That’s all there is, there isn’t any more.”
The Hummerts adapted the Broadway play into a long-running melodramatic radio serial about a Colorado orphan who marries a British aristocrat. It began when two grizzled miners, Jackie and Lively, found a child abandoned and left at the door of their mountain cabin. She was given the name Sunday because that was the day she entered their lives. Later, her last name was given as Smithson. As an adult, she was desired by her childhood friend, Bill Jenkins. She fell under the spell of wealthy Englishman Arthur Brinthrope, who came to check his silver mine. Arthur was shot by Jackie, who wanted to prevent him from running away with Sunday. Arthur’s brother, Henry, arrived, eventually marrying Sunday. The couple moved to their Black Swan Hall estate in Virginia, where they lived with their adopted son, Lonnie, and their two natural children, Caroline and Little Davy, who was crippled by a hit-and-run driver.
Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy
Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy was a radio adventure series which maintained its popularity from 1933 to 1951. The program originated at WBBM in Chicago on July 31, 1933, and was later carried on CBS, then NBC and finally ABC.
The storylines centered around the globe-trotting adventures of Armstrong (played by Jim Ameche until 1938), a popular athlete at Hudson High School, his friends Billy Fairfield and Billy’s sister Betty, and their Uncle Jim, James Fairfield, an industrialist. Frequently, Uncle Jim Fairfield would have to visit an exotic part of the world in connection with his business, and he would take Jack Armstrong and the Fairfield siblings along with him. Many of the adventures provided listeners with the equivalent of a travelogue, providing facts about the lands they were visiting. The show was created by writer Robert Hardy Andrews. Sponsored throughout its long run by Wheaties, the program was renamed Armstrong of the SBI when Jack graduated high school and became a government agent in the final season, when it shifted from a 15-minute serial to a half-hour complete story format. Throughout its broadcast span, the program offered radio premiums that usually related to the adventures in which Jack and his friends were involved.
Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009), better known as Paul Harvey, was a conservative American radio broadcaster for the ABC Radio Networks. He broadcast News and Comment on weekday mornings and mid-days, and at noon on Saturdays, as well as his famous The Rest of the Story segments. From the 1950s through the 1990s, Harvey’s programs reached as many as 24 million people a week. Paul Harvey News was carried on 1,200 radio stations, 400 Armed Forces Network stations and 300 newspapers.