THREE OF THE MANY VOICES OF "YOURS TRULY, JOHNNY DOLLAR" - EDMOND O'BRIEN, JOHN LUND & BOB BAILEY.
CBS PACKAGES UNWRAPPED
CBS Radio was riding high in August, 1950.
For the first time in nine years, it dominated the 1949-50 Top 50 with seven of the Top Ten shows and 15 of the Top 20. The famous CBS talent raid of NBC’s top names had a lot to do with it as Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen and Amos & Andy all landed in the season’s Top Ten while Red Skelton wasn’t far behind.
Bill Paley’s negotiating skills also lured Bing Crosby and Groucho Marx over from ABC. Crosby had his first Top Ten show in three seasons and Marx’s You Bet Your Life just missed.
But there was more to the CBS success than just marquee names.
Since he returned from World War II and found his network in decline, Paley had become an advocate of CBS developing its own low-cost programs instead of depending on sponsors and advertising agencies as the primary source of network programming. (1) There was more money to be made for CBS by creating and selling its own packages of programs to augment the more costly advertiser-provided fare. If no single sponsors could be found for the shows, they could be used as schedule fillers and sold as “spot carriers” for participating sponsorships which Paley correctly realized was the way all radio and television advertising was headed.
The parade of successful CBS packaged programs began slowly but impressively. By the banner season of 1949-50, two of them, Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts and My Friend Irma, were in the Annual Top Ten, Casey Crime Photographer finished the season in 21st place and Life With Luigi scored a respectable 32nd place against Bob Hope on NBC. (2)
The success of these four in-house programs and the confidence that more were on the way led the network to take out a double-page ad in the August, 1950, trade press. The ad identifies twelve new CBS Package Programs only by name, yet boasts that one of them will hit “The Top Twenty” in the 1950-51 season.
Beneath the CBS ad copy, directly quoted here, is a list of the programs for which “Top Twenty” futures were predicted - and what really happened to them:
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE THE TOP TWENTY?
Depends on your show, of course. And advertisers have found the quickest way to get there is with a CBS Package Program.
Like Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts…remember? It hit the Top Twenty after only nine weeks of sponsorship. Or My Friend Irma that made it in three weeks. Or Crime Photographer…two weeks. Or Life With Luigi…one week.
With a record unmatched by any other network, CBS Programming has amply proved it knows how. Now it’s ready with a brand new bunch of promising packages. Whatever your budget, whatever kind of advertising job you want to do, there’s a show that could fit like a glove. Take a look at the round dozen here.
On the record, one of them will appear in the Top Twenty next season…it might as well be yours.
Here, for the record, is the "round dozen" and how close each came to success. There's no record what happened to the copywriter who predicted a “Top Twenty” future for one of them.
1. Granby’s Green Acres debuted on July 3, 1950 as the summer replacement for the second half-hour of Lux Radio Theater. The rural sitcom starred Gale Gordon & Bea Benaderet as a retired bank teller and his wife who move to the country and become apprentice farmers. If this sounds familiar, it should. Although Granby’s lasted for only eight episodes, its creator, Jay Sommers, twisted the format for CBS-TV’s Green Acres in 1965 and the series starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor enjoyed five seasons of popularity. An episode from the short-lived radio series is posted below.
2. The Lineup. Jack Webb’s Dragnet created a sensation when it was first broadcast on NBC in June, 1949. Webb's realistic, low-key treatment of case histories from the Los Angeles police department won its timeslot on CBS-dominated Thursday in its freshman season and was headed to become a radio and television institution. As such, it begged for imitators. CBS was happy to oblige with The Lineup on July 6, 1950.
As Dragnet opened each episode with, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the story you are about to hear is true…”, The Lineup began with, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we take you now behind the scenes of a police headquarters in a great American city…” The similarities didn’t end there. Both series were well written and very well acted by some of Hollywood’s top radio talents who sometimes showed up on both shows during the same week. (Raymond Burr, for example, had a continuing role on Dragnet and often appeared on The Lineup.)
Although Bill Johnstone and Wally Maher were experienced and capable as the leads of The Lineup, they lacked the distinctive voices and delivery of Dragnet’s Webb and Barton Yarborough. The Lineup also lacked another element of Dragnet - a sponsor.
Liggett & Myers Tobacco took Dragnet’s radio run under its corporate wing for its Fatima and Chesterfield Cigarettes from the fall of 1949 until 1955. The Lineup went wanting for a sponsor and a permanent timeslot for most of its three seasons on CBS until it was cancelled on February 20, 1953. An episode written by Blake Edwards from 1950 is posted below.
3. Much About Doolittle starred gruff-voiced comedian Jack Kirkwood as madcap inventor Col. Lucius P. Doolittle. Kirkwood was a popular personality on West Coast regional programs and as a supporting player on national shows - most notably Bob Hope’s where Kirkwood traditionally appeared as a sidewalk Santa demanding of Hope, “Put something in the pot, boy!“ Much About Doolittle debuted on Sunday, July 2, 1950, in Red Skelton’s timeslot. It was replaced eight weeks later by David Rose’s orchestra which marked time until Skelton’s return on October 1st.
4. The Adventures of Philip Marlow. Although the CBS ad pitched the Raymond Chandler private detective series as new, it had been kicking around the network schedule for almost two years looking for a sponsor. Marlow’s first radio adaptation starred Van Heflin in July 1947, as Bob Hope’s summer replacement on NBC. The CBS series with tough talking Gerald Mohr supported by some of Hollywood’s leading character voices, debuted on September 26, 1948, as a sustaining series and remained until September 29, 1950 - just a little over a month after the CBS ad appeared in the trade press. An episode of the well-crafted series is posted below.
5. Rate Your Mate. Comedian Joey Adams starred in this sustaining audience participation show that gave couples the opportunity to predict their spouse’s ability to answer general knowledge questions. It replaced We Take Your Word on Sunday, July 30, 1950, less than a month before the CBS ad appeared, and lingered as a spot catcher on the CBS schedule until February 20, 1951. It returned in July, 1951, for a month as the summer replacement for Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch.
6. Somebody Knows was the pet project of Bob Hope’s manager, Jimmy Saphier, who was also behind the 1950-51 radio revival of The Saint on NBC. Unlike Leslie Charteris' fictional hero, however, Somebody Knows was based on the known facts of unsolved murders and offered a $5,000 reward to whoever “knew” the information leading to the conviction of the guilty party. Jack Johnstone narrated the well-produced series that was intended to be the eight installment summer replacement for Suspense unless it could find a sponsor. It didn’t.
7. Songs For Sale. Unlike the other eleven shows, Songs For Sale was fairly expensive project. Its format called for the weekly presentation of four new songs offered “for sale” by their composers, then performed and judged by guest artists - including Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, Peggy Lee, Teresa Brewer and Rosemary Clooney among others, all accompanied by Ray Bloch’s studio orchestra. Nine episodes were simulcast on CBS-TV from June 30 to September 1, 1950, with host Jan Murray and the show remained a Friday night fixture on CBS Radio until June 15, 1951 registering a 5.6 rating. It returned with a new host, Steve Allen, two weeks later on Saturday, June 30, 1951 and ran until June 28, 1952 - again as a simulcast with CBS-TV. It’s radio rating during the season was a mediocre 4.0
8. T-Man was an action drama about U.S Treasury Agents with film actor Dennis O’Keefe who starred in the 1947 Eagle-Lion film T-Men. Produced and directed by William Robeson, T-Man premiered on Saturday, July 1, 1950 between Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch and Gangbusters as the summer replacement for The Goldbergs. It left the air after nine broadcasts on August 26th.and was replaced by The Lineup.
9. Too Many Cooks was a contrived sitcom that starred Hal March & Mary Jane Croft as the parents of ten children. The show debuted on July 10, 1950, as the summer replacement for the first half of Lux Radio Theater. Like Granby’s Green Acres which occupied the second half of the Monday night hour on CBS, Too Many Cooks was cancelled after eight weeks.
10. Up For Parole. “Actual Criminal Case Histories” provided by the National Probation & Parole Association and narrated by host Harry Marble replaced Leave It To Joan with Joan Davis at 9:00 p.m. on March 10, 1950. The program’s format introduced the candidate for parole and dramatized the events leading to his or her conviction, then presented the unanimous decision of the Parole Board for granting or denying parole.
For promotional purposes CBS lined up three of its packaged shows, Up For Parole, Philip Marlow and Songs For Sale from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. for ten weeks on Friday, July 28 1950. Up For Parole was last heard on December 8, 1950, after 39 episodes.
11. We Take Your Word was a unique game show because it was produced by CBS News. Similar in appeal to Information Please, panelists John K.M. McCaffery, John Daly, Abe Burrows and Lymon Bryson attempted to provide the definitions, derivations and histories of words submitted by the audience. We Take Your Word debuted at 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 2, 1950, as the summer replacement for Meet Corliss Archer.
It was replaced by Rate Your Mate three weeks later and moved to Friday night - but only in the Eastern states while the rest of the country heard a variety show starring singing cowboy Rex Allen. We Take Your Word died a quiet death on radio in October, 1950, but remained on the CBS-TV schedule for much of the 1950-51 season.
12. Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. Of all the CBS Package Programs touted in the network’s 1950 ad, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar had staying power. It remained on the air longer than all the other programs featured in the ad combined.
Johnny Dollar was originally designed by writers Paul Dudley and Gil Doud as a vehicle for Dick Powell. Powell cut an audition record for “America’s fabulous freelance insurance investigator” in December, 1948, but decided instead to take the title role of Richard Diamond, Private Detective on NBC which paid more and gave him the opportunity to sing. (See Dick Powell on this site.)
Meanwhile, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar debuted on CBS on February 18, 1949, with unknown Charles Russell in the lead. Russell was replaced a year later by film actor Edmond O’Brien, who had gained a following from his role in the 1950 surprise movie hit, D.O.A. An episode of Dollar featuring O’Brien is also posted below.
The show attracted Wrigley Gum sponsorship in the spring and managed a respectable 6.5 rating by June. But for the most part Johnny Dollar was a sustaining nomad on the CBS schedule. O’Brien left the role in 1952 and was replaced by another of Hollywood’s secondary leading men, handsome John Lund. It was during this 1952-54 period that Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar became the only one of the dozen programs featured in the 1950 CBS ad to almost fulfill the Top 20 promise. The show finished in 22nd place over the 1952-53 season when it became the Tuesday night replacement for Life With Luigi.
The show was off the air for the 1954-55 season but returned to CBS on October 3, 1955, as a weeknight strip of stories broken into five, 15-minute segments. This phase of the series introduced the actor most listeners consider the quintessential Johnny Dollar - Bob Bailey.
Bailey was a veteran of the Chicago school of radio who cut his teeth in soap operas like Girl Alone, Kitty Keene and The Story of Holly Sloan. He had no trouble finding work on the West Coast and landed the lead in Let George Do It, a detective series sponsored by Standard Oil on the Mutual-Don Lee Network for eight seasons. He was considered a natural for the role of Johnny Dollar and remained in the lead when the show returned to half-hour format in November, 1956. Bailey stayed for the next four years until the show was moved to New York. A 1956 episode of Johnny Dollar with Bailey is also posted.
Bob Readick became Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar when the show shifted to New York for the 1960-61 season and Mandel Kramer took over from June 1961 until it left the air on September 30, 1962 - the last dramatic program heard on Network Radio until The CBS Radio Mystery Theater debuted in 1974.
In all fairness, not many of the CBS or NBC packaged shows offered for sale in the summer of 1950 had much of a chance for survival. Here’s a list of each network’s new offerings that year - only a few are still familiar today. Those that survived with sponsors, however briefly, are underscored:
CBS: Correspondent’s Scratch Pad, The Garry Moore Show (Simulcast with CBS-TV), Granby’s Green Acres, The Line-Up, Leave It To Joan, Look Your Best, Much About Doolittle, Music In The Air, Rate Your Mate, Somebody Knows, Starlight Operetta, Songs For Sale (Simulcast with CBS-TV), Stepping Out and Too Many Cooks.
NBC: $1,000 Reward, The Big Guy, The Cass Daley Show, Cloak & Dagger, Dangerous Assignment (Brian Donlevy), Dimension X, Jack Lait Commentary, The Joe DiMaggio Show, Nightbeat (Frank Lovejoy), The Penny Singleton Show, Presenting Charles Boyer, Sarah’s Private File, Stars & Starters (Jack Barry), Tales of The Texas Rangers (Joel McCrea), Top Secret (Ilona Massey), Wanted and Western Caravan (Tex Williams).
NBC loaded its 17 packages with names familiar to fans of radio (Daley, Lovejoy, Singleton, Barry), of movies (Donlevy, Boyer, McCrea, Massey), sports (DiMaggio) and records (Williams). Yet, only five NBC shows attracted sponsors while four of the 14 CBS packages returned some advertising money.
By August, 1951, a year after the CBS ad promoting its packaged programs appeared, things had gotten even better for the junior network. It claimed nine of the 1950-51 Top Ten and 15 of the season’s Top 20. It had plenty to brag about. But it wasn’t making any more rosy predictions - at least not in print where they could be spotted by some snoopy historian over 60 years later and checked for accuracy.
(1) NBC took 33 of the Top 50 Program positions in both the 1944-45 and 1945-46 seasons. CBS scored only half as many of the Top 50 shows and only two of the Top Ten - Monday’s Lux Radio Theater and Screen Guild Players.
(2) For the record Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts first aired as a sustaining program on Tuesday, July 2, 1946 and My Friend Irma was sustaining on Friday, April 11 1947. Both shows were bought by Lever Brothers as bookends to Lux Radio Theater in August, 1947. Casey, Crime Photographer - aka Flashbulb Casey and Crime Photographer - was first broadcast on Wednesday, July 7 1943 and roamed the CBS schedule until Thursday, August 8 ,1946, when Phllip Morris began its sponsorship. Life With Luigi debuted on Tuesday, September 21, 1948, as sustaining and was picked up by Wrigley Gum on January 3,1950.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
CBS Radio was riding high in August, 1950.
For the first time in nine years, it dominated the 1949-50 Top 50 with seven of the Top Ten shows and 15 of the Top 20. The famous CBS talent raid of NBC’s top names had a lot to do with it as Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen and Amos & Andy all landed in the season’s Top Ten while Red Skelton wasn’t far behind.
Bill Paley’s negotiating skills also lured Bing Crosby and Groucho Marx over from ABC. Crosby had his first Top Ten show in three seasons and Marx’s You Bet Your Life just missed.
But there was more to the CBS success than just marquee names.
Since he returned from World War II and found his network in decline, Paley had become an advocate of CBS developing its own low-cost programs instead of depending on sponsors and advertising agencies as the primary source of network programming. (1) There was more money to be made for CBS by creating and selling its own packages of programs to augment the more costly advertiser-provided fare. If no single sponsors could be found for the shows, they could be used as schedule fillers and sold as “spot carriers” for participating sponsorships which Paley correctly realized was the way all radio and television advertising was headed.
The parade of successful CBS packaged programs began slowly but impressively. By the banner season of 1949-50, two of them, Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts and My Friend Irma, were in the Annual Top Ten, Casey Crime Photographer finished the season in 21st place and Life With Luigi scored a respectable 32nd place against Bob Hope on NBC. (2)
The success of these four in-house programs and the confidence that more were on the way led the network to take out a double-page ad in the August, 1950, trade press. The ad identifies twelve new CBS Package Programs only by name, yet boasts that one of them will hit “The Top Twenty” in the 1950-51 season.
Beneath the CBS ad copy, directly quoted here, is a list of the programs for which “Top Twenty” futures were predicted - and what really happened to them:
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE THE TOP TWENTY?
Depends on your show, of course. And advertisers have found the quickest way to get there is with a CBS Package Program.
Like Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts…remember? It hit the Top Twenty after only nine weeks of sponsorship. Or My Friend Irma that made it in three weeks. Or Crime Photographer…two weeks. Or Life With Luigi…one week.
With a record unmatched by any other network, CBS Programming has amply proved it knows how. Now it’s ready with a brand new bunch of promising packages. Whatever your budget, whatever kind of advertising job you want to do, there’s a show that could fit like a glove. Take a look at the round dozen here.
On the record, one of them will appear in the Top Twenty next season…it might as well be yours.
Here, for the record, is the "round dozen" and how close each came to success. There's no record what happened to the copywriter who predicted a “Top Twenty” future for one of them.
1. Granby’s Green Acres debuted on July 3, 1950 as the summer replacement for the second half-hour of Lux Radio Theater. The rural sitcom starred Gale Gordon & Bea Benaderet as a retired bank teller and his wife who move to the country and become apprentice farmers. If this sounds familiar, it should. Although Granby’s lasted for only eight episodes, its creator, Jay Sommers, twisted the format for CBS-TV’s Green Acres in 1965 and the series starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor enjoyed five seasons of popularity. An episode from the short-lived radio series is posted below.
2. The Lineup. Jack Webb’s Dragnet created a sensation when it was first broadcast on NBC in June, 1949. Webb's realistic, low-key treatment of case histories from the Los Angeles police department won its timeslot on CBS-dominated Thursday in its freshman season and was headed to become a radio and television institution. As such, it begged for imitators. CBS was happy to oblige with The Lineup on July 6, 1950.
As Dragnet opened each episode with, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the story you are about to hear is true…”, The Lineup began with, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we take you now behind the scenes of a police headquarters in a great American city…” The similarities didn’t end there. Both series were well written and very well acted by some of Hollywood’s top radio talents who sometimes showed up on both shows during the same week. (Raymond Burr, for example, had a continuing role on Dragnet and often appeared on The Lineup.)
Although Bill Johnstone and Wally Maher were experienced and capable as the leads of The Lineup, they lacked the distinctive voices and delivery of Dragnet’s Webb and Barton Yarborough. The Lineup also lacked another element of Dragnet - a sponsor.
Liggett & Myers Tobacco took Dragnet’s radio run under its corporate wing for its Fatima and Chesterfield Cigarettes from the fall of 1949 until 1955. The Lineup went wanting for a sponsor and a permanent timeslot for most of its three seasons on CBS until it was cancelled on February 20, 1953. An episode written by Blake Edwards from 1950 is posted below.
3. Much About Doolittle starred gruff-voiced comedian Jack Kirkwood as madcap inventor Col. Lucius P. Doolittle. Kirkwood was a popular personality on West Coast regional programs and as a supporting player on national shows - most notably Bob Hope’s where Kirkwood traditionally appeared as a sidewalk Santa demanding of Hope, “Put something in the pot, boy!“ Much About Doolittle debuted on Sunday, July 2, 1950, in Red Skelton’s timeslot. It was replaced eight weeks later by David Rose’s orchestra which marked time until Skelton’s return on October 1st.
4. The Adventures of Philip Marlow. Although the CBS ad pitched the Raymond Chandler private detective series as new, it had been kicking around the network schedule for almost two years looking for a sponsor. Marlow’s first radio adaptation starred Van Heflin in July 1947, as Bob Hope’s summer replacement on NBC. The CBS series with tough talking Gerald Mohr supported by some of Hollywood’s leading character voices, debuted on September 26, 1948, as a sustaining series and remained until September 29, 1950 - just a little over a month after the CBS ad appeared in the trade press. An episode of the well-crafted series is posted below.
5. Rate Your Mate. Comedian Joey Adams starred in this sustaining audience participation show that gave couples the opportunity to predict their spouse’s ability to answer general knowledge questions. It replaced We Take Your Word on Sunday, July 30, 1950, less than a month before the CBS ad appeared, and lingered as a spot catcher on the CBS schedule until February 20, 1951. It returned in July, 1951, for a month as the summer replacement for Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch.
6. Somebody Knows was the pet project of Bob Hope’s manager, Jimmy Saphier, who was also behind the 1950-51 radio revival of The Saint on NBC. Unlike Leslie Charteris' fictional hero, however, Somebody Knows was based on the known facts of unsolved murders and offered a $5,000 reward to whoever “knew” the information leading to the conviction of the guilty party. Jack Johnstone narrated the well-produced series that was intended to be the eight installment summer replacement for Suspense unless it could find a sponsor. It didn’t.
7. Songs For Sale. Unlike the other eleven shows, Songs For Sale was fairly expensive project. Its format called for the weekly presentation of four new songs offered “for sale” by their composers, then performed and judged by guest artists - including Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, Peggy Lee, Teresa Brewer and Rosemary Clooney among others, all accompanied by Ray Bloch’s studio orchestra. Nine episodes were simulcast on CBS-TV from June 30 to September 1, 1950, with host Jan Murray and the show remained a Friday night fixture on CBS Radio until June 15, 1951 registering a 5.6 rating. It returned with a new host, Steve Allen, two weeks later on Saturday, June 30, 1951 and ran until June 28, 1952 - again as a simulcast with CBS-TV. It’s radio rating during the season was a mediocre 4.0
8. T-Man was an action drama about U.S Treasury Agents with film actor Dennis O’Keefe who starred in the 1947 Eagle-Lion film T-Men. Produced and directed by William Robeson, T-Man premiered on Saturday, July 1, 1950 between Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch and Gangbusters as the summer replacement for The Goldbergs. It left the air after nine broadcasts on August 26th.and was replaced by The Lineup.
9. Too Many Cooks was a contrived sitcom that starred Hal March & Mary Jane Croft as the parents of ten children. The show debuted on July 10, 1950, as the summer replacement for the first half of Lux Radio Theater. Like Granby’s Green Acres which occupied the second half of the Monday night hour on CBS, Too Many Cooks was cancelled after eight weeks.
10. Up For Parole. “Actual Criminal Case Histories” provided by the National Probation & Parole Association and narrated by host Harry Marble replaced Leave It To Joan with Joan Davis at 9:00 p.m. on March 10, 1950. The program’s format introduced the candidate for parole and dramatized the events leading to his or her conviction, then presented the unanimous decision of the Parole Board for granting or denying parole.
For promotional purposes CBS lined up three of its packaged shows, Up For Parole, Philip Marlow and Songs For Sale from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. for ten weeks on Friday, July 28 1950. Up For Parole was last heard on December 8, 1950, after 39 episodes.
11. We Take Your Word was a unique game show because it was produced by CBS News. Similar in appeal to Information Please, panelists John K.M. McCaffery, John Daly, Abe Burrows and Lymon Bryson attempted to provide the definitions, derivations and histories of words submitted by the audience. We Take Your Word debuted at 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 2, 1950, as the summer replacement for Meet Corliss Archer.
It was replaced by Rate Your Mate three weeks later and moved to Friday night - but only in the Eastern states while the rest of the country heard a variety show starring singing cowboy Rex Allen. We Take Your Word died a quiet death on radio in October, 1950, but remained on the CBS-TV schedule for much of the 1950-51 season.
12. Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. Of all the CBS Package Programs touted in the network’s 1950 ad, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar had staying power. It remained on the air longer than all the other programs featured in the ad combined.
Johnny Dollar was originally designed by writers Paul Dudley and Gil Doud as a vehicle for Dick Powell. Powell cut an audition record for “America’s fabulous freelance insurance investigator” in December, 1948, but decided instead to take the title role of Richard Diamond, Private Detective on NBC which paid more and gave him the opportunity to sing. (See Dick Powell on this site.)
Meanwhile, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar debuted on CBS on February 18, 1949, with unknown Charles Russell in the lead. Russell was replaced a year later by film actor Edmond O’Brien, who had gained a following from his role in the 1950 surprise movie hit, D.O.A. An episode of Dollar featuring O’Brien is also posted below.
The show attracted Wrigley Gum sponsorship in the spring and managed a respectable 6.5 rating by June. But for the most part Johnny Dollar was a sustaining nomad on the CBS schedule. O’Brien left the role in 1952 and was replaced by another of Hollywood’s secondary leading men, handsome John Lund. It was during this 1952-54 period that Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar became the only one of the dozen programs featured in the 1950 CBS ad to almost fulfill the Top 20 promise. The show finished in 22nd place over the 1952-53 season when it became the Tuesday night replacement for Life With Luigi.
The show was off the air for the 1954-55 season but returned to CBS on October 3, 1955, as a weeknight strip of stories broken into five, 15-minute segments. This phase of the series introduced the actor most listeners consider the quintessential Johnny Dollar - Bob Bailey.
Bailey was a veteran of the Chicago school of radio who cut his teeth in soap operas like Girl Alone, Kitty Keene and The Story of Holly Sloan. He had no trouble finding work on the West Coast and landed the lead in Let George Do It, a detective series sponsored by Standard Oil on the Mutual-Don Lee Network for eight seasons. He was considered a natural for the role of Johnny Dollar and remained in the lead when the show returned to half-hour format in November, 1956. Bailey stayed for the next four years until the show was moved to New York. A 1956 episode of Johnny Dollar with Bailey is also posted.
Bob Readick became Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar when the show shifted to New York for the 1960-61 season and Mandel Kramer took over from June 1961 until it left the air on September 30, 1962 - the last dramatic program heard on Network Radio until The CBS Radio Mystery Theater debuted in 1974.
In all fairness, not many of the CBS or NBC packaged shows offered for sale in the summer of 1950 had much of a chance for survival. Here’s a list of each network’s new offerings that year - only a few are still familiar today. Those that survived with sponsors, however briefly, are underscored:
CBS: Correspondent’s Scratch Pad, The Garry Moore Show (Simulcast with CBS-TV), Granby’s Green Acres, The Line-Up, Leave It To Joan, Look Your Best, Much About Doolittle, Music In The Air, Rate Your Mate, Somebody Knows, Starlight Operetta, Songs For Sale (Simulcast with CBS-TV), Stepping Out and Too Many Cooks.
NBC: $1,000 Reward, The Big Guy, The Cass Daley Show, Cloak & Dagger, Dangerous Assignment (Brian Donlevy), Dimension X, Jack Lait Commentary, The Joe DiMaggio Show, Nightbeat (Frank Lovejoy), The Penny Singleton Show, Presenting Charles Boyer, Sarah’s Private File, Stars & Starters (Jack Barry), Tales of The Texas Rangers (Joel McCrea), Top Secret (Ilona Massey), Wanted and Western Caravan (Tex Williams).
NBC loaded its 17 packages with names familiar to fans of radio (Daley, Lovejoy, Singleton, Barry), of movies (Donlevy, Boyer, McCrea, Massey), sports (DiMaggio) and records (Williams). Yet, only five NBC shows attracted sponsors while four of the 14 CBS packages returned some advertising money.
By August, 1951, a year after the CBS ad promoting its packaged programs appeared, things had gotten even better for the junior network. It claimed nine of the 1950-51 Top Ten and 15 of the season’s Top 20. It had plenty to brag about. But it wasn’t making any more rosy predictions - at least not in print where they could be spotted by some snoopy historian over 60 years later and checked for accuracy.
(1) NBC took 33 of the Top 50 Program positions in both the 1944-45 and 1945-46 seasons. CBS scored only half as many of the Top 50 shows and only two of the Top Ten - Monday’s Lux Radio Theater and Screen Guild Players.
(2) For the record Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts first aired as a sustaining program on Tuesday, July 2, 1946 and My Friend Irma was sustaining on Friday, April 11 1947. Both shows were bought by Lever Brothers as bookends to Lux Radio Theater in August, 1947. Casey, Crime Photographer - aka Flashbulb Casey and Crime Photographer - was first broadcast on Wednesday, July 7 1943 and roamed the CBS schedule until Thursday, August 8 ,1946, when Phllip Morris began its sponsorship. Life With Luigi debuted on Tuesday, September 21, 1948, as sustaining and was picked up by Wrigley Gum on January 3,1950.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
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