JACK, MARY, STRAWBERRY, RASBERRY, CHERRY, ORANGE, LEMON & LIME.
"Jello, Again..."
The 1936-37 Season
5th In A Series
Auto Audience Accelerates. Despite the Depression the number of automobiles with radios jumped 75% to 3.5 Million. Since first introduced as bulky aftermarket accessories in 1930 with Crosley’s Roamio and Galvin Manufacturing’s Motorola - smaller and more technically advanced car radios had become standard options in most new cars in 1936. The broadcasting industry was given millions of new listeners - plus additional advertisers who appealed to the driving public.
One of those advertisers, automaker Chrysler, made programming headlines by stealing the Number One program from its sponsor and network. Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour won September for General Foods and NBC. It was Bowes’ twelfth consecutive month as the country’s most popular program. Then, like Eddie Cantor two years earlier, Bowes jumped to CBS in October at the encouragement of his friend, Walter Chrysler. Chrysler assumed Bowes’ sponsorship and moved The Original Amateur Hour to Thursday nights - and forever out of first place in the rankings. Bowes remained with CBS for the next nine seasons until his retirement. (See Major Bowes’ Original Money Machine.)
CBS Goes & Mutual Grows. Despite its theft of Major Bowes from NBC, CBS had a big problem behind the scenes. Its West Coast group of affiliated stations, the Don Lee Network, was presenting intolerable clearance difficulties for CBS programs. CBS had to have the assurance of unrestricted coverage to be sold as a coast to coast network to advertisers. So, when powerful KNX/Los Angeles became available for $1.25 million, (21.9 Mil in today’s money), in September, 1936, CBS snapped it up and became the first network to own a station in California’s largest city and America’s film capital.
The writing was on the wall for Don Lee’s KHJ and its affiliation with CBS in Los Angeles. What’s more, CBS openly negotiated with KSFO to replace Lee’s KFRC as its San Francisco affiliate. The split between the two chains became effective on December 31st. But the crafty Don Lee wasn’t without a backup plan.
Loss of its 500,000 watt Cincinnati powerhouse WLW had convinced Mutual to abandon its chummy super-station cooperative concept and pursue all the affiliates and advertising revenue that it could. Mutual would accept the Don Lee stations on any terms Lee dictated. When Don Lee’s new Mutual affiliation began on January 1, 1937, MBS became a coast to coast network, boasting a roster of 39 affiliates and a Los Angeles base in Lee’s KHJ. It was just the beginning of growth for what would eventually become the largest network. (See Mutual Led The Way.)
Let Me Repeat That! American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike Cigarettes and its Lord & Thomas ad agency, kicked off a summer long promotion linked to Your Hit Parade in June that ran into late September. During those weeks, listeners who could predict the show’s Top Ten songs in order were awarded free cartons of cigarettes. Your Hit Parade was broadcast simultaneously over both the NBC and Blue networks on Wednesdays and then repeated Saturdays on CBS at a weekly combined cost of $40,000 plus thousands of cigarettes. (See The Lucky Strike Sweepstakes.) Blue was dropped from the Lucky lineup in October but the weekly countdown of hits continued in its NBC and CBS editions and both finished among the season’s Top 25 rated programs.
Competitor R.J. Reynolds' Camels countered with Russ Morgan’s popular dance band on NBC’s Tuesday schedule and CBS’s Saturday night lineup. Ford Motors briefly joined the double-play trend with Fred Waring’s musical troupe, The Pennsylvanians. The automaker plugged Waring into CBS on Tuesday, (42nd), and Blue on Friday from September through December, (87th).
But Lady Esther remained the queen of repetitive musical programming. The Chicago maker of popular priced cosmetics placed all three of its weekly Wayne King Lady Esther Serenade shows in the season’s Top 50. King‘s Monday half hour on CBS placed 27th and his NBC show on Tuesday and Wednesday finished in 46th and 49th place. It was the first and only time a Top 50 hat trick would be scored. (See The Waltz King and The Aragon’s Last Stand.)
Radio’s Knows For News. The Press Radio Bureau folded a year earlier and radio news was coming into its own. In September, 1936, CBS dispatched former Brooklyn Eagle editor Hans Von (H.V.) Kaltenborn to cover the Spanish Civil War. The feisty Kaltenborn was 58, already a six year veteran of Network Radio, and soon found himself under gunfire in Spain. He later became one of NBC's most popular newscasters. H.V. Kaltenborn and Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
The most famous shortwave broadcast of the pre-war era took place on December 12th when England’s King Edward VIII delivered his famous “Woman I Love” abdication speech. NBC continued to follow the royal soap opera by shortwave, climaxing five months later when it broadcast the coronation of his brother, King George VI - all seven consecutive hours of it.
The most famous remote broadcast of the period - and arguably of all time - happened by accident on May 6, 1937, when Herb Morrison of WLS/Chicago was helping to test the potential uses of portable recording equipment at Lakehurst, New Jersey, awaiting the arrival and mooring of the massive German dirigible Hindenberg. Morrison’s report of the airship’s sudden explosion and his emotional reaction, (“Oh, the humanity!”), were recorded for the ages and deemed important enough that NBC suspended its ban against recorded programming to broadcast Morrison's transcription disc later that day. (Hear it at May In The Golden Age.)
Fiddling With A Feud. NBC plucked General Foods’ Jack Benny from Blue for an October debut - with obviously no more brotherly spirit than it displayed when it took over Amos & Andy the previous season. With a new production contract worth $390,000 per season. Benny and his growing troupe - including wife Mary Livingston, announcer Don Wilson, band leader Phil Harris and romantic tenor Kenny Baker - took solid possession of Sundays at 7:00 and gave NBC the season’s Number One program to replace Major Bowes’ amateurs.
Radio stars taking good humored shots at each other was nothing new. Walter Winchell and Ben Bernie started a “feud” earlier in the decade that resulted in two 1937 movies, Wake Up & Live and Love & Hisses. The heckling cross-plugging of each other’s shows - both on Blue - was good for ratings.
But the mock feud that captured the nation’s fancy for 20 years began innocently enough on Jack Benny’s program of December 27th, when Benny’s ineptitude on his beloved violin was the major topic of his Sunday show. Fred Allen was listening and seized on Benny’s fiddling gag to ignite their feud on his Town Hall Tonight the following Wednesday night.
Allen was enjoying his third of four consecutive Top Ten seasons with an hour-long variety format that often involved amateur talent. His holiday show of December 30, 1936, was a revue of talented children - including ten year old violin prodigy, Stewart Canin, who flawlessly performed Francois Schubert's short but difficult The Bee. Allen, playing off Jack Benny’s violin gags three nights before, congratulated the youngster and added, “After hearing you play, Jack Benny should hang his head in shame. Benny is the only violinist who makes you feel the strings would sound better back in the cat’s intestine!”
Benny retorted on his show the following Sunday with cracks about Allen’s baggy eyes and nasal voice. The feud was on - each comedian hurling insults at the other and each benefiting from the high ratings their mock battle generated. Their verbal battle - which some listeners mistook as the real thing - resulted in the 1940 movie Love Thy Neighbor, and 1945’s It’s In The Bag! It continued between the two good friends on until Allen’s death in 1956. (See The Feud.)
The Pro Bono No-No. The big question in Network Radio was what Standard Brands would do with its hour on Sunday night without Major Bowes. J. Walter Thompson had discovered Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour on New York’s WHN for its client, and the agency thought it found another local winner in A .L. Alexander’s Goodwill Court.
Goodwill Court had evolved on WMCA/New York as an hour’s worth of free legal advice for guests who presented their problems - sometimes a dozen or more per hour. The program employed lower court judges to dispense the advice and was endorsed by the populist governors of both New York and New Jersey as a public service. With all of that going for it, what could possibly go wrong?
The program made its NBC debut for Chase & Sanborn Coffee on September 20th, out-rating Vick’s Open House at 8:00 and narrowly trailing Eddie Cantor at 8:30 on CBS in both October and November. Goodwill Court was on its way. Alexander also invited listeners who couldn’t afford legal counsel to submit questions and problems by mail for personal answers from his staff. Letters arrived by the thousands. So did a subpoena from the New York County Lawyers’ Association who claimed that Goodwill Court implied that legal assistance was expensive.
The attorneys took their grievance to the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division. Standard Brands and NBC soon found themselves in court trying to defend Goodwill Court. In a questionable decision, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and forbade all New York State lawyers - including judges - from appearing on the program. Goodwill Court adjourned on December 20th and never returned.
Stalling For Time. The loss of their second show in the same peak timeslot within 13 weeks again left programming chiefs John Reber of J. Walter Thompson and NBC’s John Royal with a prime hour to fill at 8:00 for Standard Brands. They needed something fast - and the cheaper the better - while they searched for permanent replacement.
Do You Want To Be An Actor? - an amateur hour for actors - debuted on December 27th. The hour long series of hastily written skits were auditions for fledgling actors. Hollywood screen tests were dangled as prizes for winners. The low budgeted hour was hosted by “Director” Haven MacQuarrie. Actor achieved a 10.4 rating in January and then steadily lost a rating point per month - approximately a quarter million radio homes - to limp in with a 6.3 in early May The once proud Chase & Sanborn Hour, home to radio’s Number One shows, had fallen on its hardest times.
But Reber and Royal hadn’t given up. A promising newcomer from the nightclub circuit - 33 year old ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his wisecracking dummy, Charlie McCarthy - had been a 13 week sensation on Standard’s Thursday night Royal Gelatin Hour hosted by Rudy Vallee. With just a few weeks left in the season they gave Sunday’s Chase & Sanborn Hour to Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, (supported by W.C. Fields, Don Ameche, Dorothy Lamour and guest stars), on May 9th. Sunday night radio would never be the same.
Cantor’s Canadian Kids. Texaco took over sponsorship of Eddie Cantor’s Sunday show and smartly pulled him out of direct competition with Jack Benny at 7:00. With Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour gone from NBC’s lineup and the eight o’clock hour up for grabs, the slumping Cantor was inserted into the CBS schedule at 8:30.
Cantor played fatherly host to two young Canadian singers during the late 1930's. Seven year old Bobby Breen from Toronto sang with Cantor for three years and enjoyed a brief movie career of nine RKO films that was over by the time he was 15.
On the other hand, Deanna Durbin’s film career was just beginning at 13 when she joined Cantor’s troupe in 1936. The young soprano from Winnipeg had started a string of 20 box office hits for Universal Pictures and her solos were a weekly highlight of the Cantor shows until 1939. By that time she was making over $250,000 a year as one of Hollywood’s highest paid female stars. (See Radio Goes To The Movies.)
Out of Benny’s shadow and with the talented juveniles at his side, Cantor’s rating jumped 54% and pushed him back into the season’s Top Five. Combined with comedian Phil Baker’s Gulf Headliners at 7:30 and singing movie star Nelson Eddy hosting Vick’s Open House at 8:00, CBS had a strong Sunday block in the heart of prime time and easily won the night’s most listeners with five of its Top Ten programs. The CBS reign wouldn’t last long.
NBC Moves In At 79 Wistful Vista. Blue lost another winner to its big brother when Johnson Wax moved Fibber McGee & Molly to NBC for the 1936-37 season. But the Chicago based sitcom remained in its 8:00 Monday timeslot where it had been developing an audience on Blue. Jim & Marian Jordan were sailing along, supported by Ted Weems’ popular orchestra featuring future stars Perry Como and Marvel (Marilyn) Maxwell. FM&M’s September rating of 7.1 had grown steadily every month to a strong 16.8 in March. Johnson Wax set new sales records and rewarded the couple with a new contract and weekly salary of $2,650.
Fibber & Molly won their time period going away and it seemed that nothing could stop their progress - until their own sponsor and network did. In what can been seen in retrospect as one of the strangest - if not stupidest - programming moves of Network Radio’s Golden Age, Fibber McGee & Molly was moved ahead one hour in April to directly compete for listeners with CBS’s runaway hit, Lux Radio Theater. Believing that the simple couple from Wistful Vista and their neighbors could vie for listeners against the likes of Clark Gable and Joan Crawford recreating scenes from their recent movie hits was optimistic absurdity. Lux doubled Fibber McGee & Molly’s ratings and the sitcom fell back to single digit ratings in the May and June surveys. (See Fibber McGee Minus Molly.)
Dancing On The Air. Fred Astaire was big box office when the 1936-37 season arrived. The 38 year old song and dance man had just released Swing Time, the sixth in his series of legendary RKO Radio musicals co-starring Ginger Rogers in which he crooned the Academy Award winning The Way You Look Tonight. He had also sung the Oscar nominated Lovely To Look At and Cheek To Cheek in his two 1935 films with Rogers. Yet, he didn’t think of himself as much of a singer. What’s more, Astaire didn’t consider himself a personality of any great degree. He’d even displayed a bit of mike fright in his early radio appearances. In his own mind, Fred Astaire was simply a hoofer and he was most comfortable playing a role - not being himself. Nevertheless, Packard Autos and NBC decided he’d be just dandy on Tuesday night radio - and he was.
Astaire, supported by comedian Charles Butterworth, announcer Ken Carpenter and Johnny Green’s big studio orchestra, finished among the season’s Top 20 programs - although Astaire reportedly hated every minute of it. He left the show in May and never returned to series radio.
Burns & Allen Burns Allen. The public couldn’t get enough of ditzy Gracie Allen. She and husband George Burns were in their fifth season on CBS’s Wednesday schedule with solid ratings.
They had co-starred with Jack Benny in The Big Broadcast of 1937 released by Paramount in the fall 1936. The movies’ promotional push helped radio’s favorite couple of the decade to edge out Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight as Wednesday’s top rated program. George & Gracie finished the season with radio’s fifth most popular program, the highest ranking of their 18 year Network Radio career.
Bowes Torpedoes Showboat. When Chrysler installed Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour into CBS’s struggling Thursday night lineup, the program lost 43% of its stratospheric 1935-36 rating. The show fell from the season’s Number One ranking to third. But the maneuver was even more costly to Bowes’ 9:00 competition on NBC. Maxwell House Showboat lost over half its audience and dropped out of the season’s Top 25. It sank from Network Radio altogether two years later. (See Major Bowes Original Money Machine.)
Crosby’s Kraft Music Haul. The only program from NBC’s once dominant Thursday night lineup that escaped damage from the revamped CBS schedule led by Major Bowes and Kate Smith was Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall at 10:00.
During his second season for Kraft, Crosby had become a full-fledged movie star with three Paramount hits - Pennies From Heaven, in which he sang the Academy Award nominated title song, Rhythm On The Range and Waikiki Wedding which featured Crosby crooning the Oscar winning Sweet Leilani. With Hollywood’s best songs going for him, Crosby’s records were selling in the millions.
Kraft Music Hall benefited from Crosby’s movie and recording successes. At mid-season the program’s ratings broke into the 20's for the first time - a neighborhood that would become very familiar to him the following year. Crosby’s reward for all of this work was a reported 1936 personal income of $320,000 - and the best was yet to come.
Friday Is Chi Day. Their days as a national phenomenon behind them, Friday was last nightly win for Chicago’s Amos & Andy in its original 15 minute serial form. Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll wouldn’t win another night until their comeback with a half hour sitcom in the 1943-44 season.
Four of the night’s Top Ten programs - Amos & Andy, First Nighter, Lum & Abner and Uncle Ezra’s Radio Station - originated in Chicago. It was the last time that would happen because the shift of prime time programming from Chicago to New York and Los Angeles was well underway. First Nighter became a major Chicago holdout against relocating, although the program lost its leading man to Hollywood before the season began when Don Ameche left to pursue a film career. Les Tremanyne and Barbara Luddy became First Nighter’s co-stars and sponsor Campana Balm moved the Friday show to CBS at 9:30, in February. Despite the cast, time and network changes, First Nighter remained among the season’s Top 15 programs and it would continue from Chicago for another ten years. (See Friday's All Time Top Ten.)
Take My Town...Please. Six top Multiple Run programs finished among the season’s Top 50. Among them, Blue’s Lum & Abner was on a promotional roll that resulted in the first of its two Top 50 seasons.
Arkansas natives Chet Lauck, (Lum Edwards), and Norris Goff, (Abner Peabody), introduced their serialized 15 minute sitcom to a regional NBC audience from Chicago in 1931. Despite numerous scheduling shifts across the four networks over the next 22 years, Lum & Abner built a loyal following. They peaked with a 34th place finish among the annual Top 50 in the 1936-37 season.
Lauck and Goff drew most of their program’s gentle humor and characterizations from the rural areas of their home state, particularly around the small community of Waters, Arkansas. Capitalizing on the program’s popularity, the enterprising town council of Waters began a highly publicized and successful move to rename their community Pine Ridge, the fictional home of Lum & Abner and their Jot ‘Em Down Store. The renamed but real Pine Ridge remains to this day in Montgomery County, Arkansas, and has since become home of the Lum & Abner Museum - a lasting tribute to the homespun radio comedy that gave the town its name.
Network Radio's Top 50 Programs - 1936-37*
Clark-Hooper Radio Advertisement Reports, Sep 1936 - Jun 1937
Total Programs Rated 6-11 PM: 129. Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 118.
22,869,000 Radio Homes 68.4% Coverage of US One Rating Point = 228,690 Homes
1 2 Jack Benny Program 28.9 General Foods/Jello Sun 7:00 30 NBC
2 13 Eddie Cantor Show 23.0 Texaco Petroleum Sun 8:30 30 CBS
3 1 Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour 21.3 Chrysler Corporation Thu 9:00 60 CBS
4 15 Lux Radio Theater 21.0 Lever Brothers/Lux Soap Mon 9:00 60 CBS
5 6 Burns & Allen 20.9 Campbell Soup Wed 8:30 30 CBS
6 5 Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight 20.2 Bristol Myers Wed 9:00 60 NBC
7 8 Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall 17.4 Kraft Cheese Thu 10:00 60 NBC
8 3 Rudy Vallee Show 16.4 Standard Brands/Royal Gelatin Thu 8:00 60 NBC
9 13 Phil Baker’s Gulf Headliners 15.8 Gulf Oil Sun 7:30 30 CBS
10 9 Al Jolson Show 15.4 Lever Brothers/Lifebuoy Soap Tue 8:30 30 CBS
11 18 Amos & Andy 15.3 Pepsodent Toothpaste M-F 7:00 15 NBC
12t 10 Hollywood Hotel 14.9 Campbell Soup Fri 9:00 60 CBS
12t 21 Vick’s Open House 14.9 Vick’s Vap-O-Rub Sun 8:00 30 CBS
14 12 First Nighter 13.7 Campana Sales/Italian Balm Fri 9:30 30 CBS (1)
15 38 Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal 13.1 Jergens Lotion Sun 9:30 15 Blue (2)
16 16 One Man’s Family 13.0 Standard Brands/Tenderleaf Tea Wed 8:00 30 NBC
17t 32 Boake Carter News 12.8 Philco Radios M-F 7:45 15 CBS
17t 19 Your Hit Parade 12.8 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Wed 10:00 45 NBC (3)
19 N Fred Astaire Show 12.5 Packard Automobiles Tue 9:30 60 NBC
20 37 Gangbusters 12.0 Colgate Palmolive Peet Wed 10:00 30 CBS
21 63 Fibber McGee & Molly 11.5 Johnson Wax Mon 9:00 30 NBC (4)
22 44 Pick & Pat 11.3 Dill’s Best Pipe Tobacco Mon 8:30 30 CBS
23 71 Ken Murray Show 11.0 Lever Brothers Tue 8:30 30 CBS
24 19 Your Hit Parade 10.9 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 10:00 45 CBS (5)
25 11 Robert Ripley’s Bakers Broadcast 10.6 Standard/Fleischmann Yeast Sun 7:30 30 Blue
26 24 Lowell Thomas News 10.4 Sun Oil M-F 6:45 15 Blue
27t 4 Maxwell House Showboat 10.1 General Foods/Maxwell House Thu 9:00 60 NBC
27t 42 Wayne King Orchestra 10.1 Lady Esther Cosmetics Mon 10:00 30 CBS
29 83 Vox Pop Sidewalk Interviews 9.7 Sterling Drug/Molle Shave Cream Tue 9:00 30 NBC
30 N Jack Oakie’s College 9.6 Reynolds Tobacco/Camel Tue 9:30 30 CBS
31 92 Al Pearce Gang 9.5 Ford Motors Tue 9:00 30 CBS
32t 38 Ford Sunday Evening Hour 9.2 Ford Motors Sun 9:00 60 CBS
32t 62 Uncle Ezra’s Radio Station 9.2 Miles Laboratories MWF 7:15 15 NBC
34t 60 Kate Smith’s A&P Bandwagon 8.8 Atlantic & Pacific Stores Thu 8:00 60 CBS
34t 70 Lum & Abner 8.8 Horlick Malted Milk M-F 7:30 15 Blue
36 N Do You Want To Be An Actor? 8.6 Standard/Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 60 NBC
37 34 Shell Chateau/Joe Cook 8.5 Shell Oil Sat 9:30 60 NBC
38t 50 Ed Wynn Show 8.4 Axton Fisher Tobacco/Spud Cigarettes Sat 8:00 30 Blue
38t 23 General Motors Concert 8.4 General Motors Sun 10:00 30 NBC
38t N Russ Morgan Orchestra 8.4 Philip Morris Cigarettes Tue 8:00 30 NBC
41 N Uncle Jim’s Question Bee 8.3 George Washington Coffee Sat 7:30 30 Blue
42 32 Fred Waring Show 8.2 Ford Motors Tue 9:00 30 CBS
43 N Professor Quiz 7.7 American Home Prods/George Washington Coffee Sat 8:00 30 CBS
44 17 Ben Bernie Show 8.1 American Can Co. Tue 9:00 30 Blue
45 52 Court of Human Relations 7.5 Macfadden Pubs/True Story Magazine Fri 9:30 30 NBC 46t 105 Voice of Experience 7.4 Lydia Pinkham Vegetable Compound Tu-Th 7:15 15 NBC
46t 31 Voice of Firestone 7.4 Firestone Tire & Rubber Mon 8:30 30 NBC
46t 42 Wayne King Orchestra 7.4 Lady Esther Cosmetics Tue 8:30 30 NBC
49t 20 Beauty Box Theater 7.2 Colgate Palmolive Peet/Palmolive Soap Wed 9:30 30 CBS
49t 27 Helen Hayes Theater 7.2 General Foods/Sanka Tue 9:30 30 Blue
49t 42 Wayne King Orchestra 7.2 Lady Esther Cosmetics Wed 8:30 30 NBC
* Total: 51. (Three programs tied for 49th.)
(1) First Nighter Sep-Jan Campana Balm Fri 10:00 30 NBC
(2) Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal Sep-Mar Jergens Lotion Sun 9:00 15 Blue
(3) Your Hit Parade Sep-Nov American Tobacco Wed 10:00 60 NBC
Your Hit Parade Dec-Mar American Tobacco Wed 10:00 30 NBC
(4) Fibber McGee & Molly Sep-Apr Johnson Wax Mon 8:00 30 NBC
(5) Your Hit Parade Sep-Nov American Tobacco Sat 10:00 60 CBS
Your Hit Parade Dec-Jan American Tobacco Sat 10:00 30 CBS
. This post is in part abridged from Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953.
Copyright © 2012 & 2019, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
The 1936-37 Season
5th In A Series
Auto Audience Accelerates. Despite the Depression the number of automobiles with radios jumped 75% to 3.5 Million. Since first introduced as bulky aftermarket accessories in 1930 with Crosley’s Roamio and Galvin Manufacturing’s Motorola - smaller and more technically advanced car radios had become standard options in most new cars in 1936. The broadcasting industry was given millions of new listeners - plus additional advertisers who appealed to the driving public.
One of those advertisers, automaker Chrysler, made programming headlines by stealing the Number One program from its sponsor and network. Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour won September for General Foods and NBC. It was Bowes’ twelfth consecutive month as the country’s most popular program. Then, like Eddie Cantor two years earlier, Bowes jumped to CBS in October at the encouragement of his friend, Walter Chrysler. Chrysler assumed Bowes’ sponsorship and moved The Original Amateur Hour to Thursday nights - and forever out of first place in the rankings. Bowes remained with CBS for the next nine seasons until his retirement. (See Major Bowes’ Original Money Machine.)
CBS Goes & Mutual Grows. Despite its theft of Major Bowes from NBC, CBS had a big problem behind the scenes. Its West Coast group of affiliated stations, the Don Lee Network, was presenting intolerable clearance difficulties for CBS programs. CBS had to have the assurance of unrestricted coverage to be sold as a coast to coast network to advertisers. So, when powerful KNX/Los Angeles became available for $1.25 million, (21.9 Mil in today’s money), in September, 1936, CBS snapped it up and became the first network to own a station in California’s largest city and America’s film capital.
The writing was on the wall for Don Lee’s KHJ and its affiliation with CBS in Los Angeles. What’s more, CBS openly negotiated with KSFO to replace Lee’s KFRC as its San Francisco affiliate. The split between the two chains became effective on December 31st. But the crafty Don Lee wasn’t without a backup plan.
Loss of its 500,000 watt Cincinnati powerhouse WLW had convinced Mutual to abandon its chummy super-station cooperative concept and pursue all the affiliates and advertising revenue that it could. Mutual would accept the Don Lee stations on any terms Lee dictated. When Don Lee’s new Mutual affiliation began on January 1, 1937, MBS became a coast to coast network, boasting a roster of 39 affiliates and a Los Angeles base in Lee’s KHJ. It was just the beginning of growth for what would eventually become the largest network. (See Mutual Led The Way.)
Let Me Repeat That! American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike Cigarettes and its Lord & Thomas ad agency, kicked off a summer long promotion linked to Your Hit Parade in June that ran into late September. During those weeks, listeners who could predict the show’s Top Ten songs in order were awarded free cartons of cigarettes. Your Hit Parade was broadcast simultaneously over both the NBC and Blue networks on Wednesdays and then repeated Saturdays on CBS at a weekly combined cost of $40,000 plus thousands of cigarettes. (See The Lucky Strike Sweepstakes.) Blue was dropped from the Lucky lineup in October but the weekly countdown of hits continued in its NBC and CBS editions and both finished among the season’s Top 25 rated programs.
Competitor R.J. Reynolds' Camels countered with Russ Morgan’s popular dance band on NBC’s Tuesday schedule and CBS’s Saturday night lineup. Ford Motors briefly joined the double-play trend with Fred Waring’s musical troupe, The Pennsylvanians. The automaker plugged Waring into CBS on Tuesday, (42nd), and Blue on Friday from September through December, (87th).
But Lady Esther remained the queen of repetitive musical programming. The Chicago maker of popular priced cosmetics placed all three of its weekly Wayne King Lady Esther Serenade shows in the season’s Top 50. King‘s Monday half hour on CBS placed 27th and his NBC show on Tuesday and Wednesday finished in 46th and 49th place. It was the first and only time a Top 50 hat trick would be scored. (See The Waltz King and The Aragon’s Last Stand.)
Radio’s Knows For News. The Press Radio Bureau folded a year earlier and radio news was coming into its own. In September, 1936, CBS dispatched former Brooklyn Eagle editor Hans Von (H.V.) Kaltenborn to cover the Spanish Civil War. The feisty Kaltenborn was 58, already a six year veteran of Network Radio, and soon found himself under gunfire in Spain. He later became one of NBC's most popular newscasters. H.V. Kaltenborn and Multiple Runs All Time Top Ten.)
The most famous shortwave broadcast of the pre-war era took place on December 12th when England’s King Edward VIII delivered his famous “Woman I Love” abdication speech. NBC continued to follow the royal soap opera by shortwave, climaxing five months later when it broadcast the coronation of his brother, King George VI - all seven consecutive hours of it.
The most famous remote broadcast of the period - and arguably of all time - happened by accident on May 6, 1937, when Herb Morrison of WLS/Chicago was helping to test the potential uses of portable recording equipment at Lakehurst, New Jersey, awaiting the arrival and mooring of the massive German dirigible Hindenberg. Morrison’s report of the airship’s sudden explosion and his emotional reaction, (“Oh, the humanity!”), were recorded for the ages and deemed important enough that NBC suspended its ban against recorded programming to broadcast Morrison's transcription disc later that day. (Hear it at May In The Golden Age.)
Fiddling With A Feud. NBC plucked General Foods’ Jack Benny from Blue for an October debut - with obviously no more brotherly spirit than it displayed when it took over Amos & Andy the previous season. With a new production contract worth $390,000 per season. Benny and his growing troupe - including wife Mary Livingston, announcer Don Wilson, band leader Phil Harris and romantic tenor Kenny Baker - took solid possession of Sundays at 7:00 and gave NBC the season’s Number One program to replace Major Bowes’ amateurs.
Radio stars taking good humored shots at each other was nothing new. Walter Winchell and Ben Bernie started a “feud” earlier in the decade that resulted in two 1937 movies, Wake Up & Live and Love & Hisses. The heckling cross-plugging of each other’s shows - both on Blue - was good for ratings.
But the mock feud that captured the nation’s fancy for 20 years began innocently enough on Jack Benny’s program of December 27th, when Benny’s ineptitude on his beloved violin was the major topic of his Sunday show. Fred Allen was listening and seized on Benny’s fiddling gag to ignite their feud on his Town Hall Tonight the following Wednesday night.
Allen was enjoying his third of four consecutive Top Ten seasons with an hour-long variety format that often involved amateur talent. His holiday show of December 30, 1936, was a revue of talented children - including ten year old violin prodigy, Stewart Canin, who flawlessly performed Francois Schubert's short but difficult The Bee. Allen, playing off Jack Benny’s violin gags three nights before, congratulated the youngster and added, “After hearing you play, Jack Benny should hang his head in shame. Benny is the only violinist who makes you feel the strings would sound better back in the cat’s intestine!”
Benny retorted on his show the following Sunday with cracks about Allen’s baggy eyes and nasal voice. The feud was on - each comedian hurling insults at the other and each benefiting from the high ratings their mock battle generated. Their verbal battle - which some listeners mistook as the real thing - resulted in the 1940 movie Love Thy Neighbor, and 1945’s It’s In The Bag! It continued between the two good friends on until Allen’s death in 1956. (See The Feud.)
The Pro Bono No-No. The big question in Network Radio was what Standard Brands would do with its hour on Sunday night without Major Bowes. J. Walter Thompson had discovered Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour on New York’s WHN for its client, and the agency thought it found another local winner in A .L. Alexander’s Goodwill Court.
Goodwill Court had evolved on WMCA/New York as an hour’s worth of free legal advice for guests who presented their problems - sometimes a dozen or more per hour. The program employed lower court judges to dispense the advice and was endorsed by the populist governors of both New York and New Jersey as a public service. With all of that going for it, what could possibly go wrong?
The program made its NBC debut for Chase & Sanborn Coffee on September 20th, out-rating Vick’s Open House at 8:00 and narrowly trailing Eddie Cantor at 8:30 on CBS in both October and November. Goodwill Court was on its way. Alexander also invited listeners who couldn’t afford legal counsel to submit questions and problems by mail for personal answers from his staff. Letters arrived by the thousands. So did a subpoena from the New York County Lawyers’ Association who claimed that Goodwill Court implied that legal assistance was expensive.
The attorneys took their grievance to the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division. Standard Brands and NBC soon found themselves in court trying to defend Goodwill Court. In a questionable decision, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and forbade all New York State lawyers - including judges - from appearing on the program. Goodwill Court adjourned on December 20th and never returned.
Stalling For Time. The loss of their second show in the same peak timeslot within 13 weeks again left programming chiefs John Reber of J. Walter Thompson and NBC’s John Royal with a prime hour to fill at 8:00 for Standard Brands. They needed something fast - and the cheaper the better - while they searched for permanent replacement.
Do You Want To Be An Actor? - an amateur hour for actors - debuted on December 27th. The hour long series of hastily written skits were auditions for fledgling actors. Hollywood screen tests were dangled as prizes for winners. The low budgeted hour was hosted by “Director” Haven MacQuarrie. Actor achieved a 10.4 rating in January and then steadily lost a rating point per month - approximately a quarter million radio homes - to limp in with a 6.3 in early May The once proud Chase & Sanborn Hour, home to radio’s Number One shows, had fallen on its hardest times.
But Reber and Royal hadn’t given up. A promising newcomer from the nightclub circuit - 33 year old ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his wisecracking dummy, Charlie McCarthy - had been a 13 week sensation on Standard’s Thursday night Royal Gelatin Hour hosted by Rudy Vallee. With just a few weeks left in the season they gave Sunday’s Chase & Sanborn Hour to Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, (supported by W.C. Fields, Don Ameche, Dorothy Lamour and guest stars), on May 9th. Sunday night radio would never be the same.
Cantor’s Canadian Kids. Texaco took over sponsorship of Eddie Cantor’s Sunday show and smartly pulled him out of direct competition with Jack Benny at 7:00. With Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour gone from NBC’s lineup and the eight o’clock hour up for grabs, the slumping Cantor was inserted into the CBS schedule at 8:30.
Cantor played fatherly host to two young Canadian singers during the late 1930's. Seven year old Bobby Breen from Toronto sang with Cantor for three years and enjoyed a brief movie career of nine RKO films that was over by the time he was 15.
On the other hand, Deanna Durbin’s film career was just beginning at 13 when she joined Cantor’s troupe in 1936. The young soprano from Winnipeg had started a string of 20 box office hits for Universal Pictures and her solos were a weekly highlight of the Cantor shows until 1939. By that time she was making over $250,000 a year as one of Hollywood’s highest paid female stars. (See Radio Goes To The Movies.)
Out of Benny’s shadow and with the talented juveniles at his side, Cantor’s rating jumped 54% and pushed him back into the season’s Top Five. Combined with comedian Phil Baker’s Gulf Headliners at 7:30 and singing movie star Nelson Eddy hosting Vick’s Open House at 8:00, CBS had a strong Sunday block in the heart of prime time and easily won the night’s most listeners with five of its Top Ten programs. The CBS reign wouldn’t last long.
NBC Moves In At 79 Wistful Vista. Blue lost another winner to its big brother when Johnson Wax moved Fibber McGee & Molly to NBC for the 1936-37 season. But the Chicago based sitcom remained in its 8:00 Monday timeslot where it had been developing an audience on Blue. Jim & Marian Jordan were sailing along, supported by Ted Weems’ popular orchestra featuring future stars Perry Como and Marvel (Marilyn) Maxwell. FM&M’s September rating of 7.1 had grown steadily every month to a strong 16.8 in March. Johnson Wax set new sales records and rewarded the couple with a new contract and weekly salary of $2,650.
Fibber & Molly won their time period going away and it seemed that nothing could stop their progress - until their own sponsor and network did. In what can been seen in retrospect as one of the strangest - if not stupidest - programming moves of Network Radio’s Golden Age, Fibber McGee & Molly was moved ahead one hour in April to directly compete for listeners with CBS’s runaway hit, Lux Radio Theater. Believing that the simple couple from Wistful Vista and their neighbors could vie for listeners against the likes of Clark Gable and Joan Crawford recreating scenes from their recent movie hits was optimistic absurdity. Lux doubled Fibber McGee & Molly’s ratings and the sitcom fell back to single digit ratings in the May and June surveys. (See Fibber McGee Minus Molly.)
Dancing On The Air. Fred Astaire was big box office when the 1936-37 season arrived. The 38 year old song and dance man had just released Swing Time, the sixth in his series of legendary RKO Radio musicals co-starring Ginger Rogers in which he crooned the Academy Award winning The Way You Look Tonight. He had also sung the Oscar nominated Lovely To Look At and Cheek To Cheek in his two 1935 films with Rogers. Yet, he didn’t think of himself as much of a singer. What’s more, Astaire didn’t consider himself a personality of any great degree. He’d even displayed a bit of mike fright in his early radio appearances. In his own mind, Fred Astaire was simply a hoofer and he was most comfortable playing a role - not being himself. Nevertheless, Packard Autos and NBC decided he’d be just dandy on Tuesday night radio - and he was.
Astaire, supported by comedian Charles Butterworth, announcer Ken Carpenter and Johnny Green’s big studio orchestra, finished among the season’s Top 20 programs - although Astaire reportedly hated every minute of it. He left the show in May and never returned to series radio.
Burns & Allen Burns Allen. The public couldn’t get enough of ditzy Gracie Allen. She and husband George Burns were in their fifth season on CBS’s Wednesday schedule with solid ratings.
They had co-starred with Jack Benny in The Big Broadcast of 1937 released by Paramount in the fall 1936. The movies’ promotional push helped radio’s favorite couple of the decade to edge out Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight as Wednesday’s top rated program. George & Gracie finished the season with radio’s fifth most popular program, the highest ranking of their 18 year Network Radio career.
Bowes Torpedoes Showboat. When Chrysler installed Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour into CBS’s struggling Thursday night lineup, the program lost 43% of its stratospheric 1935-36 rating. The show fell from the season’s Number One ranking to third. But the maneuver was even more costly to Bowes’ 9:00 competition on NBC. Maxwell House Showboat lost over half its audience and dropped out of the season’s Top 25. It sank from Network Radio altogether two years later. (See Major Bowes Original Money Machine.)
Crosby’s Kraft Music Haul. The only program from NBC’s once dominant Thursday night lineup that escaped damage from the revamped CBS schedule led by Major Bowes and Kate Smith was Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall at 10:00.
During his second season for Kraft, Crosby had become a full-fledged movie star with three Paramount hits - Pennies From Heaven, in which he sang the Academy Award nominated title song, Rhythm On The Range and Waikiki Wedding which featured Crosby crooning the Oscar winning Sweet Leilani. With Hollywood’s best songs going for him, Crosby’s records were selling in the millions.
Kraft Music Hall benefited from Crosby’s movie and recording successes. At mid-season the program’s ratings broke into the 20's for the first time - a neighborhood that would become very familiar to him the following year. Crosby’s reward for all of this work was a reported 1936 personal income of $320,000 - and the best was yet to come.
Friday Is Chi Day. Their days as a national phenomenon behind them, Friday was last nightly win for Chicago’s Amos & Andy in its original 15 minute serial form. Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll wouldn’t win another night until their comeback with a half hour sitcom in the 1943-44 season.
Four of the night’s Top Ten programs - Amos & Andy, First Nighter, Lum & Abner and Uncle Ezra’s Radio Station - originated in Chicago. It was the last time that would happen because the shift of prime time programming from Chicago to New York and Los Angeles was well underway. First Nighter became a major Chicago holdout against relocating, although the program lost its leading man to Hollywood before the season began when Don Ameche left to pursue a film career. Les Tremanyne and Barbara Luddy became First Nighter’s co-stars and sponsor Campana Balm moved the Friday show to CBS at 9:30, in February. Despite the cast, time and network changes, First Nighter remained among the season’s Top 15 programs and it would continue from Chicago for another ten years. (See Friday's All Time Top Ten.)
Take My Town...Please. Six top Multiple Run programs finished among the season’s Top 50. Among them, Blue’s Lum & Abner was on a promotional roll that resulted in the first of its two Top 50 seasons.
Arkansas natives Chet Lauck, (Lum Edwards), and Norris Goff, (Abner Peabody), introduced their serialized 15 minute sitcom to a regional NBC audience from Chicago in 1931. Despite numerous scheduling shifts across the four networks over the next 22 years, Lum & Abner built a loyal following. They peaked with a 34th place finish among the annual Top 50 in the 1936-37 season.
Lauck and Goff drew most of their program’s gentle humor and characterizations from the rural areas of their home state, particularly around the small community of Waters, Arkansas. Capitalizing on the program’s popularity, the enterprising town council of Waters began a highly publicized and successful move to rename their community Pine Ridge, the fictional home of Lum & Abner and their Jot ‘Em Down Store. The renamed but real Pine Ridge remains to this day in Montgomery County, Arkansas, and has since become home of the Lum & Abner Museum - a lasting tribute to the homespun radio comedy that gave the town its name.
Network Radio's Top 50 Programs - 1936-37*
Clark-Hooper Radio Advertisement Reports, Sep 1936 - Jun 1937
Total Programs Rated 6-11 PM: 129. Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 118.
22,869,000 Radio Homes 68.4% Coverage of US One Rating Point = 228,690 Homes
1 2 Jack Benny Program 28.9 General Foods/Jello Sun 7:00 30 NBC
2 13 Eddie Cantor Show 23.0 Texaco Petroleum Sun 8:30 30 CBS
3 1 Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour 21.3 Chrysler Corporation Thu 9:00 60 CBS
4 15 Lux Radio Theater 21.0 Lever Brothers/Lux Soap Mon 9:00 60 CBS
5 6 Burns & Allen 20.9 Campbell Soup Wed 8:30 30 CBS
6 5 Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight 20.2 Bristol Myers Wed 9:00 60 NBC
7 8 Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall 17.4 Kraft Cheese Thu 10:00 60 NBC
8 3 Rudy Vallee Show 16.4 Standard Brands/Royal Gelatin Thu 8:00 60 NBC
9 13 Phil Baker’s Gulf Headliners 15.8 Gulf Oil Sun 7:30 30 CBS
10 9 Al Jolson Show 15.4 Lever Brothers/Lifebuoy Soap Tue 8:30 30 CBS
11 18 Amos & Andy 15.3 Pepsodent Toothpaste M-F 7:00 15 NBC
12t 10 Hollywood Hotel 14.9 Campbell Soup Fri 9:00 60 CBS
12t 21 Vick’s Open House 14.9 Vick’s Vap-O-Rub Sun 8:00 30 CBS
14 12 First Nighter 13.7 Campana Sales/Italian Balm Fri 9:30 30 CBS (1)
15 38 Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal 13.1 Jergens Lotion Sun 9:30 15 Blue (2)
16 16 One Man’s Family 13.0 Standard Brands/Tenderleaf Tea Wed 8:00 30 NBC
17t 32 Boake Carter News 12.8 Philco Radios M-F 7:45 15 CBS
17t 19 Your Hit Parade 12.8 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Wed 10:00 45 NBC (3)
19 N Fred Astaire Show 12.5 Packard Automobiles Tue 9:30 60 NBC
20 37 Gangbusters 12.0 Colgate Palmolive Peet Wed 10:00 30 CBS
21 63 Fibber McGee & Molly 11.5 Johnson Wax Mon 9:00 30 NBC (4)
22 44 Pick & Pat 11.3 Dill’s Best Pipe Tobacco Mon 8:30 30 CBS
23 71 Ken Murray Show 11.0 Lever Brothers Tue 8:30 30 CBS
24 19 Your Hit Parade 10.9 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 10:00 45 CBS (5)
25 11 Robert Ripley’s Bakers Broadcast 10.6 Standard/Fleischmann Yeast Sun 7:30 30 Blue
26 24 Lowell Thomas News 10.4 Sun Oil M-F 6:45 15 Blue
27t 4 Maxwell House Showboat 10.1 General Foods/Maxwell House Thu 9:00 60 NBC
27t 42 Wayne King Orchestra 10.1 Lady Esther Cosmetics Mon 10:00 30 CBS
29 83 Vox Pop Sidewalk Interviews 9.7 Sterling Drug/Molle Shave Cream Tue 9:00 30 NBC
30 N Jack Oakie’s College 9.6 Reynolds Tobacco/Camel Tue 9:30 30 CBS
31 92 Al Pearce Gang 9.5 Ford Motors Tue 9:00 30 CBS
32t 38 Ford Sunday Evening Hour 9.2 Ford Motors Sun 9:00 60 CBS
32t 62 Uncle Ezra’s Radio Station 9.2 Miles Laboratories MWF 7:15 15 NBC
34t 60 Kate Smith’s A&P Bandwagon 8.8 Atlantic & Pacific Stores Thu 8:00 60 CBS
34t 70 Lum & Abner 8.8 Horlick Malted Milk M-F 7:30 15 Blue
36 N Do You Want To Be An Actor? 8.6 Standard/Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 60 NBC
37 34 Shell Chateau/Joe Cook 8.5 Shell Oil Sat 9:30 60 NBC
38t 50 Ed Wynn Show 8.4 Axton Fisher Tobacco/Spud Cigarettes Sat 8:00 30 Blue
38t 23 General Motors Concert 8.4 General Motors Sun 10:00 30 NBC
38t N Russ Morgan Orchestra 8.4 Philip Morris Cigarettes Tue 8:00 30 NBC
41 N Uncle Jim’s Question Bee 8.3 George Washington Coffee Sat 7:30 30 Blue
42 32 Fred Waring Show 8.2 Ford Motors Tue 9:00 30 CBS
43 N Professor Quiz 7.7 American Home Prods/George Washington Coffee Sat 8:00 30 CBS
44 17 Ben Bernie Show 8.1 American Can Co. Tue 9:00 30 Blue
45 52 Court of Human Relations 7.5 Macfadden Pubs/True Story Magazine Fri 9:30 30 NBC 46t 105 Voice of Experience 7.4 Lydia Pinkham Vegetable Compound Tu-Th 7:15 15 NBC
46t 31 Voice of Firestone 7.4 Firestone Tire & Rubber Mon 8:30 30 NBC
46t 42 Wayne King Orchestra 7.4 Lady Esther Cosmetics Tue 8:30 30 NBC
49t 20 Beauty Box Theater 7.2 Colgate Palmolive Peet/Palmolive Soap Wed 9:30 30 CBS
49t 27 Helen Hayes Theater 7.2 General Foods/Sanka Tue 9:30 30 Blue
49t 42 Wayne King Orchestra 7.2 Lady Esther Cosmetics Wed 8:30 30 NBC
* Total: 51. (Three programs tied for 49th.)
(1) First Nighter Sep-Jan Campana Balm Fri 10:00 30 NBC
(2) Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal Sep-Mar Jergens Lotion Sun 9:00 15 Blue
(3) Your Hit Parade Sep-Nov American Tobacco Wed 10:00 60 NBC
Your Hit Parade Dec-Mar American Tobacco Wed 10:00 30 NBC
(4) Fibber McGee & Molly Sep-Apr Johnson Wax Mon 8:00 30 NBC
(5) Your Hit Parade Sep-Nov American Tobacco Sat 10:00 60 CBS
Your Hit Parade Dec-Jan American Tobacco Sat 10:00 30 CBS
. This post is in part abridged from Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953.
Copyright © 2012 & 2019, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com