Seventy-six years ago on this date, a program that would soon become the number one radio show in the nation premiered over the Red network of NBC.  The Chase and Sanborn Hour was big-time radio: it featured the likes of Nelson Eddy, Don Ameche, Dorothy Lamour and W.C. Fields—all of whom were audience pleasers at […]

Eighty-two years ago on this date, radio listeners paid their first visit to the sleepy little Arkansas hamlet of Pine Ridge to sit around the stove at the general mercantile known as “The Jot ‘Em Down Store.”  An emporium run by partners Columbus “Lum” Edwards (played by Chester “Chet” Lauck) and Abner Peabody (Norris “Tuffy” […]

One hundred and seven years ago on this date in New York City, Samuel and Margaret Benaderet welcomed one of radio and TV’s finest supporting comedic talents into the world.  Their daughter Beatrice—or Bea, as she was better known—would use her vocal gifts (including a one-of-a-kind giggle) on shows headlined by major radio-TV personalities like […]

In 1930, Oswald George Nelson—who would have been celebrating his 107th birthday today—graduated with a law degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey, and was ready to hang out his shingle for business.  Sadly, the world would soon know one less lawyer…though there are no doubt a few of you reading this who are remarking that this […]

Seventy-three years ago on this date, one of radio’s best-remembered running gags was introduced…and it was as simple as opening up a closet door.  The March 5, 1940 broadcast of The Johnson Wax Program with Fibber McGee & Molly introduced a radio sound effect that was rivaled only by the creaking door heard on Inner Sanctum […]

Seventy-two years ago on this date, radio audiences made their first visit to a dingy, dank East Side watering hole affectionately known as Duffy’s Tavern.  The half-hour sitcom, created by and starring Ed Gardner, would become show business’ most famous “place where everybody knows your name” until the television show Cheers premiered some forty years […]

If you were to go to a dictionary to look up the meaning of the term “foil” as it relates to comedy—dollars to donuts says it would be accompanied by a picture of Gale Gordon, born on this date in 1906 one Charles T. Aldrich, Jr. in New York City.  Gale, who would become one […]

Today is Valentine’s Day.  You’ve been seeing TV commercials for weeks now, and I’ll bet dollars to donuts most of the stores had their Valentine’s Day displays up the day after New Year’s.  Everyone proclaims it as “a holiday for love”—though some of the more cynical among us would argue it’s all a plot by […]