LIONEL BARRYMORE, GEORGE MURPHY & LIZ TAYLOR ON "HOLLYWOOD CALLING."
HOLLYWOOD CALLING
It was mid-summer, 1949, and Jack Benny had been on vacation from his Sunday night show on CBS since Memorial Day. NBC figured that July was a perfect time to introduce a new show designed to make Benny wish he had never left for CBS six months earlier.
To do the job they called on Louis G. Cowan, already the creator of three weekend network shows, NBC’s Quiz Kids and RFD America, and ABC’s headline grabbing Stop The Music! (1) The press quickly caught NBC’s publicity theme that if anyone could bring Jack Benny down from his lofty Top Ten perch, it was Lou Cowan, whose ABC givaway show was credited with driving Fred Allen from the air. (See Stop The Music!)
Cowan responded with Hollywood Calling - so close in concept to his ABC success that it might be called Stop The Movies! There was no element of surprise behind ithe introduction of Hollywood Calling to the listening public - it was just the opposite.
The network let its plans known in a constant barrage of press releases of how the new hour-long giveaway show of huge proportions would be based on the movies much as Cowan’s Stop The Music! was based in music. Each week, movie stars would talk directly to contestants whose telephone numbers were selected at random, again much like Stop The Music! The entire, elaborately produced Hollywood Calling package would be hosted by George Murphy, a movie star popular with millions and the former president of The Screen Actors Guild.
NBC was so convinced that the show would enjoy the 1948-49 success of Stop The Music! that it scheduled Hollywood Calling’s starting time on Sundays at 6:30 p.m. The purpose was to get an audience-building half-hour head start on Benny, getting listeners so involved with Hollywood Calling’s appeal of glamour and prizes that they’d forget to switch to CBS at 7:00.
To prove its point, Hollywood Calling’s first season would begin on July 10th, which would give the new show a two month run while Benny was still on summer vacation and CBS placed little competition - its sustaining standby, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar at 6:30 and the mediocre Your Hit Parade On Parade at 7:00 which American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike cigarettes sponsored to keep the half hour warm for Jack Benny’s return in the fall. (2)
Finally, the third innovation in NBC’s promotional effort was to remove any question whatsoever of what Hollywood Calling promised to lure listeners. For this purpose, the network presented an hour-long "preview" of Hollywood Calling on July 3, 1949.
The alleged theme of this contrived broadcast hosted by Dick Powell was to celebrate George Murphy’s July 4th birthday, involving guests Ronald Reagan and Audie Murphy. The preview finally got into explaining Hollywood Calling’s details at half past the hour with George Murphy attempting to explain them to a confused Jimmy Durante. Jane Russell was then introduced, (obviously reading from a script by transcription), to describe additional souvenir gifts donated by movie stars for called on the show.
Following a lengthy patriotic medley by Henry Russell’s orchestra and chorus, Murphy and Powell read the list of 15 prizes that comprised the much heralded, and often repeated, "$31,000 jackpot," offered by Hollywood Calling’s initial broadcast. Their hurried, unexcited presentation contained as much excitement as reading a list of merchandise from a Montgomery Ward catalog.
NBC obviously believed that the $31,000 jackpot would attract listeners to Hollywood Calling. However, during the week of the preview program, Radio Daily reported that the four networks were presenting a combined total of 33 giveaway programs with a cash value of $205,000. What a difference a year had made since Lou Cowan and Stop The Music! had the field of giveaways all to themselves. Giveaway shows were fast going the way of bank nights in movie theaters.
Nevertheless, the July 10th premiere of Hollywood Calling had all the trappings of a Hollywood opening. Host George Murphy fronted a cast involving a 35 piece orchestra and 12 voice chorus, plus MGM stars Walter Pidgeon and June Allyson. No air-checks of this or any subsequent broadcasts are available in general circulation which is probably best for all concerned. John Duning’s Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio (one of the few texts that recognizes the program), says, “…by virtually every account, the result was a wretched show.”
Variety of July 13, 1949, was kindest: “NBC, the last major holdout on giveaways, has gone into that type of programming on a grand scale. … “Hollywood Calling“ has been given one of the heaviest advance exploitations of any program on the NBC roster. Public expectations has been built up to the boiling point. Program, however, didn’t exactly pan out on the premiere, despite the array of film talent and breathtaking loot. The pace and punch of the show eluded the show’s designers but program is such that these two items can be easily hurried in subsequent shows. The very pretentiousness of the layout reacts against the show. It sort of puts the listener on his best company manners when listening. George Murphy, the emcee, has a banquet-table type of humor that doesn’t fully meet radio’s requirements and guestars June Allyson and Walter Pidgeon seemed a bit too condescending in their telephone talks to obtain maximum efficiency. … Program indicates a great deal of painstaking preparation. It seems the planners hoped for an easy and informal tone which didn’t come out. However, the defects can be corrected once the top personnel get accustomed to the giveaway medium. There is a knack of donating loot entertainingly that’s an essential to any undertaking of this type. That’s another of the principal ingredients still to be acquired.”
Newsweek said, …“it failed to excite the approval of a single major radio critic…”, while Time remarked that, “…Hollywood Calling seemed more intent on revenge, (against CBS and Jack Benny), than entertaining.”
Nevertheless, the program continued into its second week with Murphy and guest stars Deborah Kerr & Van Johnson. Then Ava Gardner & Frank Morgan supported Murphy on the show of July 24. (3) MGM continued to provide Murphy’s guests for the following two weeks, pairing Van Heflin & Margaret O’Brien, followed by Elizabeth Taylor & Lionel Barrymore. Warner Brothers took over in mid-August, providing guest twosomes Dennis Morgan & Doris Day and Virginia Mayo & Jack Carson.
Then the bottom fell out and George Murphy was the fall guy. The feeble August 15-21 rating of 2.6 cost Murphy his $1,250 a week job as Hollywood Calling’s host. The future U.S. Senator from California was notified shortly before air-time on August 28th that he was fired. Yet, he went through with the broadcast with guests Gordon MacRae & Alexis Smith and ended it with a simple, “This will be my last broadcast.“ (4) The show’s director, Vick Knight, followed Murphy out the door in a dispute with NBC and sponsor Gruen Watches over the show’s failed format
Just as Hollywood Calling was reorganizing from the loss of its host and director, Jack Benny returned for the 1949-50 season on CBS. Jack McCoy took over host duties from George Murphy but Jack Benny‘s first show of the season on CBS scored a 14.7 Hooperating to the struggling giveaway show‘s 4.0. (5)
In a related move, CBS smartly scheduled Our Miss Brooks, the summer’s surprise ratings hit, at 6:30, opposite Hollywood Calling’s first half hour. Eve Arden’s sitcom easily doubled the giveaway show’s ratings. (See Our Miss Arden.)
The last quarter of 1949 was no better for NBC as these Hooperatings indicate:
October November December
Our Miss Brooks 9.6 11.6 12.1
Jack Benny 20.3 22.1 25.4
Hollywood Calling 3.3 4.3 4.2
Hollywood Calling received a backhanded endorsement in late December when NBC announced that it would continue the show, “…until something better comes along.” Rumors had the network planning to slot comedian Henry Morgan into the 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. period and a whodunit in the second half.
“Something better” did come along several weeks later. Hollywood Calling’s final broadcast as an hour was January 8, 1950 Henry Morgan took the first half hour on January 15th against Our Miss Brooks on CBS. (Our Miss Brooks actually rose in the ratings from 12.1 to 13.5 in January against the new comedy competition provided by Henry Morgan.) A sample of Morgan’s studio show from May 9, 1950 is posted and demonstrates that NBC was generous with its budget - and its obviously “augmented” laughter.
Meanwhile, Hollywood Calling was reduced to 30 minutes for what became its final broadcast. True to the reports of a month earlier, the second half hour of Hollywood Calling was taken by a new mystery series, Christopher London starring Glenn Ford which the credits proudly proclaimed was written by Earle Stanley Gardner and directed by William Robeson. A sample episode from the series is posted from February 5, 1950. The heavyweight talent NBC pitted against Jack Benny didn’t budge the comedian’s CBS show which remained Number One in Network Radio during December, January and February with 25+ ratings. (See Sunday At Seven.)
Hollywood Calling, which six months earlier had been the most highly publicized new show of the decade, quietly vanished. If you think that NBC learned anything from its expensive experience with Hollywood Calling, think again. And then see Tallulah’s Big Show. (Some people just never learn, do they?)
(1) Louis G. Cowan moved to television with CBS and helped develop popular programs including Captain Kangaroo and The $64,000 Question. His success led to his elevation to the presidency of CBS-TV in 1958. He resigned under pressure one year later during the notorious quiz show scandals.
(2) The pre-season start was used by Cowan's Stop The Music! beginning, (by necessity), in March, 1948. (See Stop The Music!)
(3) It would be one of Morgan's last Network Radio appearances. He died eight weeks later on September 18th.
(4) Murphy's studio, MGM, pulled out of its agreement to provide guest stars on a rotating basis to Hollywood Calling a few weeks later.
(5) Jack McCoy was a journeyman announcer who had built a reputation as the capable host for Kay Kyser's weekday show on ABC.
Copyright © 2020, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
It was mid-summer, 1949, and Jack Benny had been on vacation from his Sunday night show on CBS since Memorial Day. NBC figured that July was a perfect time to introduce a new show designed to make Benny wish he had never left for CBS six months earlier.
To do the job they called on Louis G. Cowan, already the creator of three weekend network shows, NBC’s Quiz Kids and RFD America, and ABC’s headline grabbing Stop The Music! (1) The press quickly caught NBC’s publicity theme that if anyone could bring Jack Benny down from his lofty Top Ten perch, it was Lou Cowan, whose ABC givaway show was credited with driving Fred Allen from the air. (See Stop The Music!)
Cowan responded with Hollywood Calling - so close in concept to his ABC success that it might be called Stop The Movies! There was no element of surprise behind ithe introduction of Hollywood Calling to the listening public - it was just the opposite.
The network let its plans known in a constant barrage of press releases of how the new hour-long giveaway show of huge proportions would be based on the movies much as Cowan’s Stop The Music! was based in music. Each week, movie stars would talk directly to contestants whose telephone numbers were selected at random, again much like Stop The Music! The entire, elaborately produced Hollywood Calling package would be hosted by George Murphy, a movie star popular with millions and the former president of The Screen Actors Guild.
NBC was so convinced that the show would enjoy the 1948-49 success of Stop The Music! that it scheduled Hollywood Calling’s starting time on Sundays at 6:30 p.m. The purpose was to get an audience-building half-hour head start on Benny, getting listeners so involved with Hollywood Calling’s appeal of glamour and prizes that they’d forget to switch to CBS at 7:00.
To prove its point, Hollywood Calling’s first season would begin on July 10th, which would give the new show a two month run while Benny was still on summer vacation and CBS placed little competition - its sustaining standby, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar at 6:30 and the mediocre Your Hit Parade On Parade at 7:00 which American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike cigarettes sponsored to keep the half hour warm for Jack Benny’s return in the fall. (2)
Finally, the third innovation in NBC’s promotional effort was to remove any question whatsoever of what Hollywood Calling promised to lure listeners. For this purpose, the network presented an hour-long "preview" of Hollywood Calling on July 3, 1949.
The alleged theme of this contrived broadcast hosted by Dick Powell was to celebrate George Murphy’s July 4th birthday, involving guests Ronald Reagan and Audie Murphy. The preview finally got into explaining Hollywood Calling’s details at half past the hour with George Murphy attempting to explain them to a confused Jimmy Durante. Jane Russell was then introduced, (obviously reading from a script by transcription), to describe additional souvenir gifts donated by movie stars for called on the show.
Following a lengthy patriotic medley by Henry Russell’s orchestra and chorus, Murphy and Powell read the list of 15 prizes that comprised the much heralded, and often repeated, "$31,000 jackpot," offered by Hollywood Calling’s initial broadcast. Their hurried, unexcited presentation contained as much excitement as reading a list of merchandise from a Montgomery Ward catalog.
NBC obviously believed that the $31,000 jackpot would attract listeners to Hollywood Calling. However, during the week of the preview program, Radio Daily reported that the four networks were presenting a combined total of 33 giveaway programs with a cash value of $205,000. What a difference a year had made since Lou Cowan and Stop The Music! had the field of giveaways all to themselves. Giveaway shows were fast going the way of bank nights in movie theaters.
Nevertheless, the July 10th premiere of Hollywood Calling had all the trappings of a Hollywood opening. Host George Murphy fronted a cast involving a 35 piece orchestra and 12 voice chorus, plus MGM stars Walter Pidgeon and June Allyson. No air-checks of this or any subsequent broadcasts are available in general circulation which is probably best for all concerned. John Duning’s Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio (one of the few texts that recognizes the program), says, “…by virtually every account, the result was a wretched show.”
Variety of July 13, 1949, was kindest: “NBC, the last major holdout on giveaways, has gone into that type of programming on a grand scale. … “Hollywood Calling“ has been given one of the heaviest advance exploitations of any program on the NBC roster. Public expectations has been built up to the boiling point. Program, however, didn’t exactly pan out on the premiere, despite the array of film talent and breathtaking loot. The pace and punch of the show eluded the show’s designers but program is such that these two items can be easily hurried in subsequent shows. The very pretentiousness of the layout reacts against the show. It sort of puts the listener on his best company manners when listening. George Murphy, the emcee, has a banquet-table type of humor that doesn’t fully meet radio’s requirements and guestars June Allyson and Walter Pidgeon seemed a bit too condescending in their telephone talks to obtain maximum efficiency. … Program indicates a great deal of painstaking preparation. It seems the planners hoped for an easy and informal tone which didn’t come out. However, the defects can be corrected once the top personnel get accustomed to the giveaway medium. There is a knack of donating loot entertainingly that’s an essential to any undertaking of this type. That’s another of the principal ingredients still to be acquired.”
Newsweek said, …“it failed to excite the approval of a single major radio critic…”, while Time remarked that, “…Hollywood Calling seemed more intent on revenge, (against CBS and Jack Benny), than entertaining.”
Nevertheless, the program continued into its second week with Murphy and guest stars Deborah Kerr & Van Johnson. Then Ava Gardner & Frank Morgan supported Murphy on the show of July 24. (3) MGM continued to provide Murphy’s guests for the following two weeks, pairing Van Heflin & Margaret O’Brien, followed by Elizabeth Taylor & Lionel Barrymore. Warner Brothers took over in mid-August, providing guest twosomes Dennis Morgan & Doris Day and Virginia Mayo & Jack Carson.
Then the bottom fell out and George Murphy was the fall guy. The feeble August 15-21 rating of 2.6 cost Murphy his $1,250 a week job as Hollywood Calling’s host. The future U.S. Senator from California was notified shortly before air-time on August 28th that he was fired. Yet, he went through with the broadcast with guests Gordon MacRae & Alexis Smith and ended it with a simple, “This will be my last broadcast.“ (4) The show’s director, Vick Knight, followed Murphy out the door in a dispute with NBC and sponsor Gruen Watches over the show’s failed format
Just as Hollywood Calling was reorganizing from the loss of its host and director, Jack Benny returned for the 1949-50 season on CBS. Jack McCoy took over host duties from George Murphy but Jack Benny‘s first show of the season on CBS scored a 14.7 Hooperating to the struggling giveaway show‘s 4.0. (5)
In a related move, CBS smartly scheduled Our Miss Brooks, the summer’s surprise ratings hit, at 6:30, opposite Hollywood Calling’s first half hour. Eve Arden’s sitcom easily doubled the giveaway show’s ratings. (See Our Miss Arden.)
The last quarter of 1949 was no better for NBC as these Hooperatings indicate:
October November December
Our Miss Brooks 9.6 11.6 12.1
Jack Benny 20.3 22.1 25.4
Hollywood Calling 3.3 4.3 4.2
Hollywood Calling received a backhanded endorsement in late December when NBC announced that it would continue the show, “…until something better comes along.” Rumors had the network planning to slot comedian Henry Morgan into the 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. period and a whodunit in the second half.
“Something better” did come along several weeks later. Hollywood Calling’s final broadcast as an hour was January 8, 1950 Henry Morgan took the first half hour on January 15th against Our Miss Brooks on CBS. (Our Miss Brooks actually rose in the ratings from 12.1 to 13.5 in January against the new comedy competition provided by Henry Morgan.) A sample of Morgan’s studio show from May 9, 1950 is posted and demonstrates that NBC was generous with its budget - and its obviously “augmented” laughter.
Meanwhile, Hollywood Calling was reduced to 30 minutes for what became its final broadcast. True to the reports of a month earlier, the second half hour of Hollywood Calling was taken by a new mystery series, Christopher London starring Glenn Ford which the credits proudly proclaimed was written by Earle Stanley Gardner and directed by William Robeson. A sample episode from the series is posted from February 5, 1950. The heavyweight talent NBC pitted against Jack Benny didn’t budge the comedian’s CBS show which remained Number One in Network Radio during December, January and February with 25+ ratings. (See Sunday At Seven.)
Hollywood Calling, which six months earlier had been the most highly publicized new show of the decade, quietly vanished. If you think that NBC learned anything from its expensive experience with Hollywood Calling, think again. And then see Tallulah’s Big Show. (Some people just never learn, do they?)
(1) Louis G. Cowan moved to television with CBS and helped develop popular programs including Captain Kangaroo and The $64,000 Question. His success led to his elevation to the presidency of CBS-TV in 1958. He resigned under pressure one year later during the notorious quiz show scandals.
(2) The pre-season start was used by Cowan's Stop The Music! beginning, (by necessity), in March, 1948. (See Stop The Music!)
(3) It would be one of Morgan's last Network Radio appearances. He died eight weeks later on September 18th.
(4) Murphy's studio, MGM, pulled out of its agreement to provide guest stars on a rotating basis to Hollywood Calling a few weeks later.
(5) Jack McCoy was a journeyman announcer who had built a reputation as the capable host for Kay Kyser's weekday show on ABC.
Copyright © 2020, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com