JACK & MARY BENNY WITH THEIR 1939-40 TOP RATED CAST: DENNIS DAY, DON WILSON, EDDIE ANDERSON & PHIL HARRIS.
We’re In The Money
The 1939-40 Season
8th In A Series
Radio Revs Up. The networks and the entire radio industry enjoyed the first of three consecutive years of double digit revenue growth. To stifle grumbles in the press about over-commercialization, The National Association of Broadcasters stayed a step ahead of public resentment and government scrutiny in July by adopting a well publicized Commercial Code for its member stations and networks. Among other regulations which banned the advertising of hard liquor and commercials for fortune tellers, it ruled that sponsored programs - not programs with participating spot announcements - would be limited to the following lengths of commercial copy:
Daytime Before 6:00 p.m. Nighttime - After 6:00 p.m.
15 Minute Programs 3 Minutes, 15 Seconds (21.6%) 2 Minutes, 30 Seconds (16.7%)
30 Minute Programs 4 Minutes, 30 Seconds (15%) 3 Minutes (10%)
60 Minute Programs 9 Minutes (15%) 6 Minutes (10%)
A Dollar Saved, A Dollar Spent. Broadcast lines cost the networks an average of nine dollars a mile per month. Nevertheless, the average million dollars a year that each chain paid AT&T was a small cost of doing business with total network billings approaching a hundred million dollars a year.
The networks were riding high and others wanted a bigger piece of the action. The newly formed performers’ union, American Federation of Radio Artists, negotiated a contract calling for a minimum of $15 per network program. It was a long overdue and well deserved guarantee for the talent, but peanuts compared to the major hit planned by ASCAP for all broadcasters on January 1, 1941.
Broadcasters Compose Themselves. ASCAP wanted a 50% increase in its blanket music license fees for stations and networks, raising the ante from five to seven and a half percent of gross revenues. Based on 1939’s revenues, the increase threatened to raise the industry’s bill to nearly $14 Million a year. Instead of folding to ASCAP’s demands, the National Association of Broadcasters decided to fight - and in doing so, the NAB changed the course of popular music by opening its doors to new composers and rhythms.
On September 15, 1939, the NAB established Broadcast Music Incorporated , (BMI), as an alternate music licensing source with a fee structure less than half of ASCAP’s 1937 rate. The new operation immediately began to collect foreign compositions, update public domain melodies into arrangements for new copyright - and most importantly - invite new compositions from fledgling songwriters who didn’t meet ASCAP’s clubby standards for membership which favored established composers and virtually shut out newcomers. The last maneuver resulted in over a thousand new songs a week flooding into BMI. Within six months the new organization’s inventory and future seemed assured, and over a million dollars of its stock had been sold.
BMI began its licensing operations on April 1, 1940, with a roster of 250 member stations plus all four networks. All agreed to trim their use their of ASCAP music in favor of BMI compositions, ready for the inevitable showdown that was nine months away.
The Networks Station For War. Germany’s invasion of Poland in September put network news departments on a wartime status. All maintained bureaus in London, Paris and Berlin. CBS and NBC also established Rome offices and NBC had additional reporters stationed in Geneva, Shanghai, Tokyo and Danzig, (Gdansk), Poland. NBC maintained larger staffs working in each city but CBS was promoting its Edward R. Murrow and H.V. Kaltenborn in London, Eric Sevareid in Paris, William L. Shirer in Berlin and Cecil Brown in Rome as star personalities with their frequent appearances on Today In Europe, the network’s twice daily predecessor to The World Today.
Yet, it was NBC reporter James Bowen who scored the scoop of the year from Montevideo, Uruguay, on December 12th when he described via short wave the scuttling of the German battleship Graf Spree, which was barricaded in the harbor by British warships. Bowen’s reports were the first eyewitness descriptions of encounters between World War II combatants.
WW’s Double Digits. Americans were becoming more news hungry as world tensions continued to build. Walter Winchell fed raw meat to the hungry public every Sunday night with his own brand of rapid fire “insider” news and gossip. Blue moved the syndicated columnist’s frantic 15 minute Jergens Journal back from 9:30 to 9:00 p.m. ET. Winchell’s. rating jumped 38% for his first of eight consecutive Top Ten seasons The program remained at 9:00 for 15 years, registering an overall total of twelve Top Ten finishes. (See Walter Winchell)
The Man From Indiana. CBS executives Ed Klauber and Paul White had an idea that the promotion minded network embraced immediately. The concept was a Multiple Run, five minute news summary and commentary carved from the end of the hour at 8:55, seven nights a week. They reasoned that it was a service to listeners, a promotional boost for the CBS news image and one that could eventually became another profit source for the network. They were right on all three counts.
Their choice for the job was neither the mellow-voiced Bob Trout nor John Daly, but a newcomer to CBS, 50 year old former New York Times editor, Elmer Davis. The Indiana native didn’t have the voice for network radio, but he had the brains. Davis went on the air on September 18, 1939. His five-minute capsules weren’t rated by Hooper but Davis’ nasal, matter-of-fact delivery of the news interspersed with incisive comments quickly established him as a major voice. Within several years Davis would have an even greater influence on the news that America heard when President Roosevelt appointed him Director of The U.S. Office of War Information..
Sunday’s Food Fight. General Foods reported that it sold the most goods in its company’s history in 1939, netting just over $15 Million while advertising more than 80 products on 14 network radio programs. None of those programs was more important than Jack Benny’s Sunday night show on NBC for Jello which became the nation’s most popular program with an season average rating of 30.9. (See Sunday At Seven.)
No program was more important to General Foods’ competitor Standard Brands than its Sunday night NBC hour with Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy pushing Chase & Sanborn Coffee which racked up 22 consecutive months as the nation’s Number One program until Benny edged it out in November. (See The Monthlies.) But changes were brewing. Standard cut the show to 30 minutes at mid-season, Don Ameche and Dorothy Lamour left to pursue their film careers and Edgar Bergen was on his own, in a manner of speaking. He introduced a new character to add some variety to his routines, Mortimer Snerd, radio’s foremost slow-witted, slow-talking bumpkin.
Bergen and Benny finished the season in a virtual tie and Standard Brands had created a tighter show. It also saved 30 minutes’ worth of heavy production costs and had a new half hour at its disposal at 8:30 p.m. with a lead-in that was second to none - well, almost none except Jack Benny..
Haul In The Family. Standard Brands pulled Carleton E. Morse’s One Man’s Family from its Thursday timeslot and installed it following the streamlined Bergen show in January. The Barbour family saga picked up nearly 50% more audience and finished in the season’s Top Ten.
NBC had put in place a Sunday lineup at mid-season that had staying power: Jack Benny, Fitch Bandwagon, Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, One Man’s Family, Manhattan Merry Go Round, American Album of Familiar Music and The Hour of Charm remained in that order for the next five years. (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
Who’s The Dummy Now? Encouraged by the previous half-season’s good ratings against much weaker competition on Friday, Campbell Soup moved The Campbell Playhouse, aka Orson Welles' Mercury Theater, back to where it started. Welles was again pitted against the unbeatable Bergen & McCarthy. Perhaps the soup maker hoped that amateur magician Welles had another War of The Worlds in his bag of tricks. He didn’t. The program’s ratings sank 30%. Welles and Campbell Soup parted company in March.
Future Stars Shine Dimly. Sunday was the season’s home for Network Radio’s biggest hits and the incubator for three series that would run through the next decade. However, none of the rookies approached Sunday’s Top Ten in ratings...
Bill Stern’s Colgate Sports Newsreel began unwinding its tall tales of legendary sports heroes on Blue at 9:45 to a meager 4.8 rating - closing the nine o’clock hour that Walter Winchell opened with a 19.3. Stern never finished in a season’s Top 50 in his dozen years on Blue and NBC, yet he was continually voted the most popular sportscaster in fan magazine polls and was heard by millions more with his movie newsreel and two-reel “short subject” narrations. (See Bill Stern.)
Gene Autry was the singing hero of eight westerns cranked out by Republic Pictures in 1939. Another seven were planned for 1940 when he began his Melody Ranch series at 6:30 p.m. ET on CBS for Wrigley in January. The gum manufacturer paid Autry a reported $1,000 a week. He returned the investment with a 9.6 rating and continued his association with Wrigley and CBS for another twelve years.
Mr. District Attorney debuted on Blue at 7:30 opposite NBC’s Fitch Bandwagon and Screen Guild Theater on CBS. The two programs combined for a 28 rating, leaving little room for the new crime fighter who opened with a 9.1. It would be Mr. District Attorney’s only finish outside a nightly Top Ten. Mr. District Attorney became another promising series that was shifted from Blue to NBC where it settled into its longtime Wednesday night home the following season where it became a perennial favorite in the annual Top 50.
Reel Radio. Lux Radio Theater wasn’t the only Monday night program with a strong tie to the movies. Blondie, starring Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake - recreating the roles they had already established in three Columbia film comedies - debuted on CBS in July at 7:30 p.m. as the summer replacement for Eddie Cantor. The stand-ins became the timeslot’s permanent stars when sponsor Camel Cigarettes fired Cantor later in the summer for making political remarks deemed controversial. Blondie lost 32% of Cantor’s ratings in its first season but finished in Monday’s Top Ten and among the season’s Top 50 programs for the five years of its Monday night run. (See Bloonn…dee!)
Similarly typecast from their signature movie roles were Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce who starred in 14 Sherlock Holmes films for Fox and Universal. The two actors’ highly distinctive voices were ideal for radio drama. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ first season on Blue with Rathbone and Bruce finished in Monday’s Top Ten and the season’s Top 50. Then, like so many other promising Blue network programs, it was moved to NBC the following season.
The Joys & Noise of Wistful Vista. Fibber McGee & Molly’s first full season originating from NBC’s Hollywood studios was a big one. The sitcom was becoming a listener favorite in its Tuesday timeslot and its ratings jumped 41% for the season. Jim & Marian Jordan and their writer/partner Don Quinn now split $4,000 a week in salary, a long way from the $125 a week the trio earned just five years earlier. But it was still a terrific bargain for sponsor Johnson Wax. (See Money Well Spent.)
Fibber opened the door to even more laughs on March 5, 1940, when one of radio’s longest running sound effect gags was born. Without any advance buildup, McGee first opened his infamous hall closet door to a thundering cascade of accumulated junk. The heap of noisy rubble was pushed down a portable staircase by sound effects technicians and created five seconds of absolute cacophony that was always topped off by the tinkle of a small bell.
Hello, Gildy! A new nemesis for Fibber McGee was introduced on October 17th when Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve played by Hal Peary moved in next door to the McGee’s. At 31, Peary was an alumnus of Chicago radio and had played a number of characters on FM&M since 1937. Fibber and Gildy would go at each other for two seasons before Peary moved on to star in his highly successful spin-off, The Great Gildersleeve. (See The Great Gildersleeve(s).
Hope’s Roads To Success. With the Tuesday night lead-in of Fibber McGee & Molly, Bob Hope’s rating shot up 50% and placed him in the annual Top Five for the first of ten consecutive seasons. Hope helped his own cause with Paramount Pictures’ March release of The Road to Singapore, the first of seven musical comedies that teamed him with his pal Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour.
Pot O Gold: Hot & Cold. Bandleader/pianist Horace Heidt was a Network Radio veteran. The 38 year old Heidt had been frequently employed by different sponsors on CBS, NBC and Blue since 1932. He was first and foremost a showman fronting a band of highly skilled musicians. (1) Meanwhile, Ed Byron was the producer of Arlene Francis’ quiz, What’s My Name, on NBC’s Friday schedule and Sunday’s Mr. District Attorney in its first season on Blue. Heidt and Byron teamed to create an exciting new show for Lewis-Howe’s Tums Antacid Tablets.
They came up with Pot O Gold, radio’s first major giveaway program - awarding three persons every week a minimum of $1,000 for simply answering their telephones when the program called them. Wheels of chance were spun on stage by Heidt and co-host Ben Grauer to determine each lucky telephone number to be called and while Heidt’s Musical Knights band played, Grauer dialed the number, ready to stop the music and award the cash if somebody answered. If no one answered, the homeowner was sent a hundred dollar consolation prize and the remaining $900 was added to the jackpot. The jackpot never exceeded $2,800 - or three unanswered calls.
Pot O Gold was a one season roller coaster of ratings. Its climb started slowly in October with an 8.6. When word spread about the free money it offered its November rating jumped 47% into double digits. By February the show peaked at 25.4. Then listeners realized that the odds of being called were incredibly high and that they didn’t have to listen to the program to win, just pick up the phone. As a result, the show’s downward slide began in March with a 15.5% loss of audience and by June its ratings had plummeted to half of its season high. The show lasted only one season on NBC before it was shuttled off to Blue amid questions about its possible violation of lottery laws.
The One & Only Two. Married couples were well represented in radio comedy - Jack & Mary Benny, Jim & Marian Jordan, George & Gracie Burns, Fred & Portland Allen, Goodman & Jane Ace - all reading their scripted and well rehearsed lines. Only one husband and wife team, Frank Crumit & Julia Sanderson, sang and ad-libbed their way into prime time.
Crumit and his ukulele had taken the vaudeville route to stardom, accompanying himself on novelty songs he had written. There Is No One With Endurance Like A Man Who Sells Insurance was typical of the 250 ditties he recorded for RCA and Decca. In 1921 at age 32, he joined the Broadway cast of the musical, Tangerine. Sanderson, 34, had been a Broadway musical star for over a decade when she was cast in the lead of Tangerine. Unlike Crumit’s ditties, the song most closely identified with her career was Jerome Kern’s They Didn’t Believe Me, which she introduced in 1914.
A backstage romance blossomed between the two and after several years of touring together as a team, Frank and Julia were married in 1927 and ready to settle down. Radio seemed a perfect fit for the fortyish couple and they found work quickly doing network song and patter shows billed as America’s Singing Sweethearts. Two Top 50 seasons during their 1930-34 run on Blackstone Plantation were followed with a Sunday afternoon series for another two years.
Crumit & Sanderson returned to prime time in 1939 with The Battle of The Sexes for Sterling Drugs’ Molle Shaving Cream. They reached the season’s Top 50 for four consecutive seasons as part of NBC’s powerful Tuesday lineup. The quiz show pitted teams of men and women against each other, giving its co-hosts ample opportunity to display their relaxed and friendly rapport with contestants and each other.
The Battle of The Sexes was tied in Tuesday’s Top Ten with another promising sophomore, Information Please on Blue. Dan Golenpaul’s panel quiz received a boost in its ratings by becoming the first network program to be recorded for delayed broadcast in prime time on the West Coast - the result of the scrappy producer’s first of many battles with his networks and sponsors over the show’s ten year run. (See Information Please.)
That’s Right, You’re Wrong! Kay Kyser’s band clobbered Glenn Miller’s legendary orchestra in the ratings, right? Most big band buffs would shout, “Wrong!” Well, it’s true!
Liggett & Myers’ Chesterfield Cigarettes brought the Miller band to CBS for a Monday-Wednesday-Friday Multiple Run quarter hour at 10:00 p.m. Its Wednesday performance went head to head against Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge on NBC for American Tobacco‘s Lucky Strikes. The final ratings average after their three seasons of direct competition was Kyser, 17.7, Miller, 6.7. (2)
Kyser’s cause was helped along with the November release of his first of seven movies, five at RKO including That’s Right, You’re Wrong! Unlike most bands whose appearances in films were mere window dressing, Kyser and his troupe of sidemen and singers were featured members of the casts. Among them was vocalist Ginny Simms who went on to solo movie and Network Radio careers.
Gracie’s Surprise Party. Frequent timeslot hoppers George Burns & Gracie Allen switched day, time and sponsor for the fifth time in eight seasons. The couple made money with every jump - their 1939 CBS contract for Hind’s Honey & Almond Hand Cream paid them $9,000 every Wednesday, ($158,000 in today‘s money). The pair also appeared in 1939's MGM film Honolulu, and Gracie did a solo turn in a Paramount’s Gracie Allen Murder Case. If and when they had spare time, lucrative personal appearance contracts were theirs for the choosing. Despite all this success, Burns & Allen were in a three year ratings decline.
George and his brother/manager Willie Burns decided it was time for another stunt like 1933's Missing Brother gambit that kept Gracie busy with “surprise” guest appearances on dozens of different programs. This time they capitalized on the occasion of the 1940 elections by running Gracie for President of The United States. The idea wasn’t original. Will Rogers ran a mock presidential campaign in 1928 and Eddie Cantor repeated the stunt in 1932. Gracie, however, would make a “campaign tour” of other programs to whip up support for her Surprise Party nomination at its Omaha convention in May.
The stunt resulted in the desired cross-promotion that helped Burns & Allen establish themselves as CBS’ strongest Wednesday entry. But unlike the Missing Brother gag that resulted in an audience surge, Gracie’s run for President hardly made a ripple in their ratings which lost a point from the previous season.
The Doctor Is In. Dr Christian was removed from its uphill Tuesday competition with Bob Hope and given a safer slot in the CBS lineup on Wednesday. Listeners and ratings responded. The Jean Hersholt series scored its first of eight consecutive Top 50 seasons. Unlike the much-traveled Burns & Allen, Dr Christian didn’t budge from its familiar network, day and time until it left the air.15 years later. (See Dr. Christian.)
You’ve Been Great! You’re Fired! Two months short of their tenth anniversary together on NBC, Standard Brands cancelled Rudy Vallee’s Thursday night variety hour in August. The series had been a great success for Standard’s Fleischmann Yeast and Royal Gelatin brands since September, 1929. Beginning with Crossley’s first ratings of 1932-33, Vallee turned in a Top Ten show for six consecutive seasons - but his popularity had slipped steadily to less than half of its 1933-34 peak of 39.8.
What followed was a scheduling problem for Standard Brands. To cover Vallee’s hour, Standard moved Carleton E. Morse’s One Man’s Family into the first half at 8:00 and installed another well-traveled, but less successful serial, Those We Love, into the second half at 8:30. (3)
But in January Standard Brands needed the Barbour family to plug Sunday’s 8:30 vacancy created by its decision to cut Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy’s Chase & Sanborn Hour back to 30 minutes. With no acceptable program in reserve, Standard released the first half of its long held 8:00 hour on NBC’s Thursday schedule. Bristol Myers snapped it up for a short-lived George Jessel entry, For Men Only, which it replaced in April by the new and promising Mr. District Attorney.
Meanwhile, Standard Brands was left stuck the faltering Those We Love in its remaining half hour at 8:30. The company looked around and decided to play chess with another its existing properties.
Jack, Reggie & Doc. I Love A Mystery is remembered as one of radio’s best crafted adventure dramas. In Multiple Run format at 7:00 p.m. ET for its first six months of the 1939-40 season on NBC, it ranked among the Top Ten programs four nights a week.
Series creator Carleton E. Morse was given free rein by Standard Brands to make I Love A Mystery his outlet for everything he couldn’t do with One Man’s Family plots and dialogue. He obviously had fun concocting the wild adventures that confronted his three heroes with sinister forces worthy of The Shadow’s collection of blood thirsty villains. (4)
Morse crafted I Love A Mystery’s three lead characters with specific actors in mind - all college friends from Berkeley and all members of his One Man’s Family cast. Michael Raffetto, the Barbour family’s eldest son Paul, was Morse’s choice for Jack Packard - the straight-arrow, tough-as-nails senior partner of Hollywood’s A-1 Detective Agency. Barton Yarborough, son Cliff of One Man’s Family, played Packard’s sidekick, Doc Long - a down home Texan, ladies man and comic relief (5) Walter Patterson, a Barbour son in law, doubled as the third of Morse’s latter day musketeers, Reggie Yorke, a properly schooled Brit whose clipped dialect provided perfect counterpoint to Doc Long’s friendly drawl.
I Love A Mystery gave its fans a prime time version of the late afternoon serials for kids - except Morse’s spooky fantasies were spiced with more gore, violence and chilling effects. Listeners flocked to the ghoulish goulash that Morse served up at suppertime. The freshman serial’s ratings topped its Multiple Run competition on CBS - reliable network talents Lanny Ross and Lum & Abner - and Blue’s Mr. Keen. But the program also attracted protests from parents who objected to such violence interrupting family dinner hours. Standard Brands silenced the complaints with a rare move. It uprooted the 15 minute strip show and converted it to a weekly half hour format on Thursdays at 8:30, replacing the soapy Those We Love.
Ratings for the two versions of I Love A Mystery were almost identical, reflecting a steady, loyal audience. And although its 10.6 was terrific for a strip show, its 10.3 was disappointing for the Thursday series in the heart of prime time. In a rare, one-time occurrence, the half hour I Love A Mystery was edged out of Thursday’s Top Ten by itself in its former quarter hour Multiple Run form. Standard Brands exiled I Love A Mystery in half-hour form to Blue’s Monday schedule for the next two seasons where it rebounded into the night‘s Top Ten in 1941-42.
The program returned as a quarter hour strip show to CBS for an 18 month run in 1943, and moved on for a three year encore on Mutual beginning in 1949, with a series of past Multiple Run scripts recreated by a new cast. I Love A Mystery remains a favorite of Network Radio buffs who appreciate clever writing and high production values.
Vallee’s Vengeance. Rudy Vallee, still only 39, refused to roll over and play dead with the Standard Brands cancellation. He vowed to return and signed with Sealtest Dairies for a new half hour variety show beginning in March, 1940. His opportunity became available after General Foods cut its hour-long Good News starring Fanny Brice and Frank Morgan back to 30 minutes. That opened the door for Sealtest to buy the 9:30 timeslot for Vallee’s new show .
Vallee immediately had another of Thursday’s Top Ten shows, His ratings continued to climb steadily until he left for military service four years later. The success of Vallee’s new 9:30 program followed by Bing Crosby’s hour-long Kraft Music Hall at 10:00 gave National Dairies’ Sealtest-Kraft combine a solid 90 minutes of NBC advertising exposure on the eve of the week’s busiest day for grocery shopping.
Nobody Bought The Duck. Another young man who had experienced a season in the sun with a Top Ten show just four years earlier returned to Blue for a last stab at success. Joe Penner was only 34 but already considered a radio has-been, always associated with the hackneyed catch-phrase, “Wanna buy a duck?”.
His Tip Top Show featured Penner as the sad sack lead in a sitcom for Bond Bakeries’ Tip Top Bread, slotted at 8:30 against the NBC serial Those We Love and CBS’ oddity feature, Strange As It Seems, which resembled Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. Unfortunately, Penner’s comedy was similar to his show that had struggled on CBS the previous season. The program was cancelled in March and Penner left radio forever. He died of a heart attack two years later.
Ladies Night At The Radio. After Kate Smith’s three year, head to head ratings battle with Rudy Vallee on Thursdays, General Foods moved her variety show, featuring Abbott & Costello’s comedy routines and Aldrich Family sitcom skits, to CBS’s Friday schedule at 8:00 p.m. where it would remain for the next five seasons. (5) Unlike many schedule switches that backfired, the beloved singer’s move into the less competitive Friday time period resulted in a 16% audience gain and her all time high 16.8 rating for the season. It was the first of four Friday wins for The Kate Smith Hour. (See Kate’s Great Song.) (6)
First Nighter’s First Lady. Another CBS switch that paid dividends was moving Campana’s First Nighter into its sixth timeslot in its nomadic eight season history. The light anthology drama’s audience shot up 35% when Kate Smith joined the already strong CBS Friday lineup and First Nighter was installed in its 9:30 p.m. timeslot
The show received a bonus at mid-season when Radio Mirror magazine's poll of 800,000 readers named First Nighter co-star Barbara Luddy as the fans’ favorite radio actress. Luddy, 31, was in her third year with the show and would remain with it for the remainder of its long network run. The versatile Luddy was one of the few radio stars who wasn’t active in movies - at least in the typical sense. She made several silents followed by forgettable films in the early 1930's before moving to Chicago for her First Nighter role in 1936-37. She returned to Hollywood with the show ten years later but wasn’t active in film work until 1955 when she became a leading voiceover talent in Walt Disney animated films, best remembered as the voice of the soft spoken cocker spaniel Lady in the classic Lady & The Tramp.
A Half Century Career In Double Time. Like Barbara Luddy, Arlene Francis was another sexy voiced radio pro of 31 who contributed a show to Friday’s Top Ten. But unlike First Nighter’s ten Top 50 seasons, What’s My Name reached that list only once. A simple quiz that awarded small cash prizes to contestants who could identify famous personalities through a series of clues, What’s My Name bounced around NBC, Mutual and ABC for ten years like a spare tire - always available to roll when needed.
During the 1940’s Francis also stayed active in a number of daytime serial and prime time dramatic roles She served as hostess of the popular Blind Date from 1943-46, and as the lead in ABC’s private detective series, The Affairs of Ann Scotland. Yet, she was just hitting her stride. When television arrived Francis was in demand as one of its most versatile and popular performers and ranked among the highest paid women in the industry. She eventually returned to her radio roots for a weekday talk show on New York City’s WOR from 1960 through 1983.
Ganging Up On Music. Among Saturday’s Top Ten dominated by six music shows, Phillips H. Lord’s gritty Gangbusters took top honors in the fifth of its eleven Top 50 seasons. The crime drama registered a 15% increase in its audience. Meanwhile, Lucky Strike moved Your Hit Parade back an hour to 9:00 on CBS where it remained for seven seasons. The show remained a rarity among network programs at 45 minutes in length. Barry Wood replaced Lanny Ross and mid-season and was joined by the program’s first female leads as co-hosts - recording stars Bea Wain and “Wee” Bonnie Baker.
Meanwhile, Radio Guide magazine’s annual poll of listeners chose Wayne King’s sweet band as its favorite dance orchestra for the seventh consecutive year - beating the likes of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. Listeners called by the Hooper pollsters reconfirmed that choice. King’s Saturday program for Cashmere Bouquet soap scored 50% greater ratings than Benny Goodman’s Swing School for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco.
Can You Cop This? Ask any vintage radio buff to identify this 1939-40 series: It was a half hour Saturday night comedy show on NBC. Jokes were solicited from the listening audience for cash prizes. The submitted jokes then became the basis for a competition among a panel of wits including Harry Hirschfield, Senator Ed Ford and Ward Wilson. The answer is obviously Can You Top This? - and it’s wrong.
Instead, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One was a short lived series starring Milton Berle. Berle told the listeners’ jokes to the panelists who were challenged to beat him to the punch line from their memory of jokes and puns. The show reached Saturday’s Top Five and the season’s Top 50 ranks, but only lasted 26 weeks before sponsor Quaker Oats cancelled it. The joke telling concept inspired panelist Ed Ford to create a twist on the competition and produce Can You Top This? which was born in late 1940 on New York City's WOR.then moved up to NBC in 1942 where it became one of Saturday’s Top Five and the season’s Top 50 for five consecutive years. (See Can You Top This?)
The 7:00 Fight. Amos & Andy continued to lose audience. Its first full season on CBS at 7:00 p.m. ET resulted in another ten percent erosion of ratings. Nevertheless, the serial continued to provide the network and Campbell Soup with a Top Ten show for four of the five weeknights. NBC didn’t take its loss of the serial lying down. Liggett & Myers Tobacco picked up sponsorship of A&A’s direct competition, a new quarter-hour production featuring Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians orchestra and chorus. Waring’s Chesterfield Supper Club came within a point of Amos & Andy’s rating and would continue to nip at the venerable series’ popularity for the next three seasons, finally overtaking it four years later.
Nevertheless, Amos & Andy's tie for 47th place in 1939-40 Top 50 gave CBS its 28th program on the list, more than NBC's 18 and Blue's four combined.
(1) Heidt’s Alemite Brigadiers, Answers By Dancers, Ship of Joy and Anniversary Night orchestras of 1930's radio featured future bandleaders Frankie Carle and Alvino Rey and the four singing King Sisters.
(2) Legendary bandsman Miller was given one of the radio’s toughest time periods for his 15 minute show on CBS. His 10:00 timeslot was opposite Bob Hope on Tuesday, Kay Kyser on Wednesday and Bing Crosby on Thursday. Nevertheless, a million and a half homes were reported listening to Miller’s medleys of, “...Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue...,” three times a week.
(3) Rudy Vallee scored a 14.4 average rating for the 1938-39 season. Over the first three months of 1939-40, One Man’s Family delivered an a mediocre 16.2 rating and Those We Love a faltering 11.7.
(4) Eight Kinds of Murder, The Fear That Crept Like A Cat, The Monster In The Mansion, The Pirate Loot of The Island of Skulls, The Secret Passage To Death, The Snake With Diamond Eyes and The Temple of Vampires were just a few of the creepy titles that Morse gave his I Love A Mystery tales,
(5) Barton Yarborough also played Doc Long in Columbia’s three low budget movies based on the series - I Love A Mystery, The Devil’s Mask and The Unknown - also written by Morse.
(6) Rudy Vallee won the first two years of his Thursday night ratings competition with Kate Smith. Vallee topped Smith 16.4 to 8.8 in 1936-37 and 18.6 to 8.7 in 1937-38. Smith edged out Vallee 14.5 to 14.4 in 1938-39.
(7) General Foods and CBS also kept Smith busy with her daytime assignment, Kate Smith Speaks, a weekday, quarter hour talk show that debuted in October. The noontime strip program remained on CBS for eight years and then moved to Mutual for another four.
Network Radio's Top 50 Programs - 1939-40
C.E. Hooper Monthly Network Reports, Sep, 1939 - Jun, 1940
. Total Programs Rated 6-11 PM: 122 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 107.
27,500,000 Radio Homes 79.9% Coverage of US One Rating Point = 275,000 Homes
1 2 Jack Benny Program 30.9 General Foods/Jello Sun 7:00 30 NBC
2 1 Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy 30.7 Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 30 NBC (1)
3 5 Fibber McGee & Molly 24.8 Johnson Wax Tue 9:30 30 NBC
4 3 Lux Radio Theater 23.7 Lever Brothers/Lux Soap Mon 9:00 60 CBS
5 12 Bob Hope Show 23.1 Pepsodent Toothpaste Tue 10:00 30 NBC
6 4 Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall 21.1 Kraft Cheese Thu 10:00 60 NBC
7 16 One Man’s Family 20.3 Standard Brands/Tenderleaf Tea Sun 8:30 30 NBC (2)
8 19 Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal 19.3 Jergens Lotion Sun 9:00 15 Blue
9 10 Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour 18.4 Chrysler Corporation Thu 9:00 60 CBS
10t 9 Kay Kyser College of Musical Knowledge 18.0 Lucky Strike Wed 10:00 60 NBC
10t N Pot O Gold 18.0 Lewis Howe/Tums Antacid Tablets Tue 8:30 30 NBC
12 6 Good News of 1940 16.9 General Foods/Maxwell House Coffee Thu 9:00 30 NBC (3)
13 16 Kate Smith Hour 16.8 General Foods/Grape Nuts Cereal Fri 8:00 60 CBS
14 14 Fred Allen Show 16.3 Bristol Myers/Ipana/Sal Hepatica Wed 9:00 60 NBC
15 24 We The People 15.5 General Foods/Sanka Coffee Tue 9:00 30 CBS
16 31 First Nighter Program 15.4 Campana Sales/Italian Balm Fri 9:30 30 CBS
17 27 Fitch Bandwagon 15.2 FW Fitch/Fitch Shampoo Sun 7:30 30 NBC
18 14 Big Town 14.9 Lever Brothers/Rinso Tue 8:00 30 CBS
19 25 Gangbusters 14.7 Cue Magazine Sat 8:00 30 CBS
20 19 Lowell Thomas News 14.5 Sun Oil M-F 6:45 15 Blue
21 11 Burns & Allen Show 14.3 Hinds Hand Cream Wed 7:30 30 CBS
22t 35 Guy Lombardo Orch 13.6 Lady Esther Cosmetics Mon 10:00 30 CBS
22t 22 Your Hit Parade 13.6 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 9:00 45 CBS
24t 23 Al Pearce Gang 13.4 RJ Reynolds Tobacco/Camels Fri 7:30 30 CBS (4)
24t 18 Rudy Vallee Show 13.4 Sealtest Dairies Thu 9:30 30 NBC
24t N Silver Theater 13.4 International Silver Sun 6:00 30 CBS
27t 42 Battle of The Sexes 13.1 Sterling Drug/Molle Shaving Cream Tues 9:00 30 NBC
27t 66 Information Please 13.1 Canada Dry Ginger Ale Tue 8:30 30 Blue
29 40 Screen Guild Theater 12.8 Gulf Oi l Sun 7:30 30 CBS
30t N Ken Murray Texaco Star Theater 12.6 Texaco Wed 9:00 60 CBS
30t 52 Russ Morgan Orch 12.6 Phillip Morris Cigarettes Fri 9:00 30 CBS
30t N Wayne King Orch 12.6 Cashmere Bouquet Soap Sat 8:30 30 CBS
33t N Aldrich Family 12.2 General Foods/Jello Tue 8:00 30 Blue
33t 35 Pick & Pat’s Model Minstrels 12.2 Model Pipe Tobacco Mon 8:30 30 CBS
33t 76 Those We Love 12.2 Procter & Gamble/Teel Liquid Dentifrice Mon 8:00 30 CBS
36 32 Tommy Riggs & Betty Lou 12.0 Quaker Oats Mon 8:00 30 NBC
37 48 Grand Central Station 11.9 Listerine Antiseptic Fri 10:00 30 CBS
38 39 Professor Quiz 11.8 Procter & Gamble/Teel Liquid Dentifrice Fri 7:30 30 CBS
39t 59 Ask It Basket 11.7 Colgate Dental Cream Thu 8:00 30 CBS
39t N Blondie 11.7 R.J. Reynolds/Camel Cigarettes Mon 7:30 30 CBS
39t 79 Dr Christian 11.7 Chesebrough/Vaseline Wed 8:30 30 CBS 5
42t N Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 11.4 Bromo Quinine Cold Tablets Mon 8:00 30 Blue
42t N Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One 11,4 Quaker Oats Sat 8:30 30 NBC
44t 45 Second Husband 11.2 Sterling DrugBayer Aspirin Tue 7:30 30 CBS
44t 26 Hollywood Playhouse 11.2 Andrew Jergens/Woodbury Soap Wed 8:00 30 NBC
46 12 Campbell Playhouse 11.0 Campbell Soup Sun 8:00 60 CBS
47t 29 Amos & Andy 10.8 Campbell Soup M-F 7:00 15 CBS
47t 66 Ford Sunday Evening Hour 10.8 Ford Motors Sun 9:00 60 CBS
47t N Pipe Smoking Time 10.8 Model Pipe Tobacco Mon 8:30 30 CBS
47t N What’s My Name? 10.8 Procter & Gamble/Oxydol Fri 9:30 30 NBC (6)
(1) Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy Sep - Dec Standard Brands/Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 60 NBC
(2) One Man’s Family Sep - Dec Standard Brands/Tenderleaf Tea Thu 8:00 30 NBC
(3) Good News of 1940 Sep - Mar General Foods/Maxwell House Coffee Thu 9:00 60 NBC
(4) Al Pearce Gang Sep - Mar Hawaiian Pineapple Growers Wed 8:00 30 CBS
(5) Dr Christian Nov - Dec Vaseline Wed 10:00 30 CBS
(6) What’s My Name? Sep - Mar Procter & Gamble/Oxydol Sat 7:00 30 NBC
This post is in part abridged from Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953.
Copyright © 2012 & 2019, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
The 1939-40 Season
8th In A Series
Radio Revs Up. The networks and the entire radio industry enjoyed the first of three consecutive years of double digit revenue growth. To stifle grumbles in the press about over-commercialization, The National Association of Broadcasters stayed a step ahead of public resentment and government scrutiny in July by adopting a well publicized Commercial Code for its member stations and networks. Among other regulations which banned the advertising of hard liquor and commercials for fortune tellers, it ruled that sponsored programs - not programs with participating spot announcements - would be limited to the following lengths of commercial copy:
Daytime Before 6:00 p.m. Nighttime - After 6:00 p.m.
15 Minute Programs 3 Minutes, 15 Seconds (21.6%) 2 Minutes, 30 Seconds (16.7%)
30 Minute Programs 4 Minutes, 30 Seconds (15%) 3 Minutes (10%)
60 Minute Programs 9 Minutes (15%) 6 Minutes (10%)
A Dollar Saved, A Dollar Spent. Broadcast lines cost the networks an average of nine dollars a mile per month. Nevertheless, the average million dollars a year that each chain paid AT&T was a small cost of doing business with total network billings approaching a hundred million dollars a year.
The networks were riding high and others wanted a bigger piece of the action. The newly formed performers’ union, American Federation of Radio Artists, negotiated a contract calling for a minimum of $15 per network program. It was a long overdue and well deserved guarantee for the talent, but peanuts compared to the major hit planned by ASCAP for all broadcasters on January 1, 1941.
Broadcasters Compose Themselves. ASCAP wanted a 50% increase in its blanket music license fees for stations and networks, raising the ante from five to seven and a half percent of gross revenues. Based on 1939’s revenues, the increase threatened to raise the industry’s bill to nearly $14 Million a year. Instead of folding to ASCAP’s demands, the National Association of Broadcasters decided to fight - and in doing so, the NAB changed the course of popular music by opening its doors to new composers and rhythms.
On September 15, 1939, the NAB established Broadcast Music Incorporated , (BMI), as an alternate music licensing source with a fee structure less than half of ASCAP’s 1937 rate. The new operation immediately began to collect foreign compositions, update public domain melodies into arrangements for new copyright - and most importantly - invite new compositions from fledgling songwriters who didn’t meet ASCAP’s clubby standards for membership which favored established composers and virtually shut out newcomers. The last maneuver resulted in over a thousand new songs a week flooding into BMI. Within six months the new organization’s inventory and future seemed assured, and over a million dollars of its stock had been sold.
BMI began its licensing operations on April 1, 1940, with a roster of 250 member stations plus all four networks. All agreed to trim their use their of ASCAP music in favor of BMI compositions, ready for the inevitable showdown that was nine months away.
The Networks Station For War. Germany’s invasion of Poland in September put network news departments on a wartime status. All maintained bureaus in London, Paris and Berlin. CBS and NBC also established Rome offices and NBC had additional reporters stationed in Geneva, Shanghai, Tokyo and Danzig, (Gdansk), Poland. NBC maintained larger staffs working in each city but CBS was promoting its Edward R. Murrow and H.V. Kaltenborn in London, Eric Sevareid in Paris, William L. Shirer in Berlin and Cecil Brown in Rome as star personalities with their frequent appearances on Today In Europe, the network’s twice daily predecessor to The World Today.
Yet, it was NBC reporter James Bowen who scored the scoop of the year from Montevideo, Uruguay, on December 12th when he described via short wave the scuttling of the German battleship Graf Spree, which was barricaded in the harbor by British warships. Bowen’s reports were the first eyewitness descriptions of encounters between World War II combatants.
WW’s Double Digits. Americans were becoming more news hungry as world tensions continued to build. Walter Winchell fed raw meat to the hungry public every Sunday night with his own brand of rapid fire “insider” news and gossip. Blue moved the syndicated columnist’s frantic 15 minute Jergens Journal back from 9:30 to 9:00 p.m. ET. Winchell’s. rating jumped 38% for his first of eight consecutive Top Ten seasons The program remained at 9:00 for 15 years, registering an overall total of twelve Top Ten finishes. (See Walter Winchell)
The Man From Indiana. CBS executives Ed Klauber and Paul White had an idea that the promotion minded network embraced immediately. The concept was a Multiple Run, five minute news summary and commentary carved from the end of the hour at 8:55, seven nights a week. They reasoned that it was a service to listeners, a promotional boost for the CBS news image and one that could eventually became another profit source for the network. They were right on all three counts.
Their choice for the job was neither the mellow-voiced Bob Trout nor John Daly, but a newcomer to CBS, 50 year old former New York Times editor, Elmer Davis. The Indiana native didn’t have the voice for network radio, but he had the brains. Davis went on the air on September 18, 1939. His five-minute capsules weren’t rated by Hooper but Davis’ nasal, matter-of-fact delivery of the news interspersed with incisive comments quickly established him as a major voice. Within several years Davis would have an even greater influence on the news that America heard when President Roosevelt appointed him Director of The U.S. Office of War Information..
Sunday’s Food Fight. General Foods reported that it sold the most goods in its company’s history in 1939, netting just over $15 Million while advertising more than 80 products on 14 network radio programs. None of those programs was more important than Jack Benny’s Sunday night show on NBC for Jello which became the nation’s most popular program with an season average rating of 30.9. (See Sunday At Seven.)
No program was more important to General Foods’ competitor Standard Brands than its Sunday night NBC hour with Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy pushing Chase & Sanborn Coffee which racked up 22 consecutive months as the nation’s Number One program until Benny edged it out in November. (See The Monthlies.) But changes were brewing. Standard cut the show to 30 minutes at mid-season, Don Ameche and Dorothy Lamour left to pursue their film careers and Edgar Bergen was on his own, in a manner of speaking. He introduced a new character to add some variety to his routines, Mortimer Snerd, radio’s foremost slow-witted, slow-talking bumpkin.
Bergen and Benny finished the season in a virtual tie and Standard Brands had created a tighter show. It also saved 30 minutes’ worth of heavy production costs and had a new half hour at its disposal at 8:30 p.m. with a lead-in that was second to none - well, almost none except Jack Benny..
Haul In The Family. Standard Brands pulled Carleton E. Morse’s One Man’s Family from its Thursday timeslot and installed it following the streamlined Bergen show in January. The Barbour family saga picked up nearly 50% more audience and finished in the season’s Top Ten.
NBC had put in place a Sunday lineup at mid-season that had staying power: Jack Benny, Fitch Bandwagon, Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, One Man’s Family, Manhattan Merry Go Round, American Album of Familiar Music and The Hour of Charm remained in that order for the next five years. (See Sunday's All Time Top Ten.)
Who’s The Dummy Now? Encouraged by the previous half-season’s good ratings against much weaker competition on Friday, Campbell Soup moved The Campbell Playhouse, aka Orson Welles' Mercury Theater, back to where it started. Welles was again pitted against the unbeatable Bergen & McCarthy. Perhaps the soup maker hoped that amateur magician Welles had another War of The Worlds in his bag of tricks. He didn’t. The program’s ratings sank 30%. Welles and Campbell Soup parted company in March.
Future Stars Shine Dimly. Sunday was the season’s home for Network Radio’s biggest hits and the incubator for three series that would run through the next decade. However, none of the rookies approached Sunday’s Top Ten in ratings...
Bill Stern’s Colgate Sports Newsreel began unwinding its tall tales of legendary sports heroes on Blue at 9:45 to a meager 4.8 rating - closing the nine o’clock hour that Walter Winchell opened with a 19.3. Stern never finished in a season’s Top 50 in his dozen years on Blue and NBC, yet he was continually voted the most popular sportscaster in fan magazine polls and was heard by millions more with his movie newsreel and two-reel “short subject” narrations. (See Bill Stern.)
Gene Autry was the singing hero of eight westerns cranked out by Republic Pictures in 1939. Another seven were planned for 1940 when he began his Melody Ranch series at 6:30 p.m. ET on CBS for Wrigley in January. The gum manufacturer paid Autry a reported $1,000 a week. He returned the investment with a 9.6 rating and continued his association with Wrigley and CBS for another twelve years.
Mr. District Attorney debuted on Blue at 7:30 opposite NBC’s Fitch Bandwagon and Screen Guild Theater on CBS. The two programs combined for a 28 rating, leaving little room for the new crime fighter who opened with a 9.1. It would be Mr. District Attorney’s only finish outside a nightly Top Ten. Mr. District Attorney became another promising series that was shifted from Blue to NBC where it settled into its longtime Wednesday night home the following season where it became a perennial favorite in the annual Top 50.
Reel Radio. Lux Radio Theater wasn’t the only Monday night program with a strong tie to the movies. Blondie, starring Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake - recreating the roles they had already established in three Columbia film comedies - debuted on CBS in July at 7:30 p.m. as the summer replacement for Eddie Cantor. The stand-ins became the timeslot’s permanent stars when sponsor Camel Cigarettes fired Cantor later in the summer for making political remarks deemed controversial. Blondie lost 32% of Cantor’s ratings in its first season but finished in Monday’s Top Ten and among the season’s Top 50 programs for the five years of its Monday night run. (See Bloonn…dee!)
Similarly typecast from their signature movie roles were Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce who starred in 14 Sherlock Holmes films for Fox and Universal. The two actors’ highly distinctive voices were ideal for radio drama. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ first season on Blue with Rathbone and Bruce finished in Monday’s Top Ten and the season’s Top 50. Then, like so many other promising Blue network programs, it was moved to NBC the following season.
The Joys & Noise of Wistful Vista. Fibber McGee & Molly’s first full season originating from NBC’s Hollywood studios was a big one. The sitcom was becoming a listener favorite in its Tuesday timeslot and its ratings jumped 41% for the season. Jim & Marian Jordan and their writer/partner Don Quinn now split $4,000 a week in salary, a long way from the $125 a week the trio earned just five years earlier. But it was still a terrific bargain for sponsor Johnson Wax. (See Money Well Spent.)
Fibber opened the door to even more laughs on March 5, 1940, when one of radio’s longest running sound effect gags was born. Without any advance buildup, McGee first opened his infamous hall closet door to a thundering cascade of accumulated junk. The heap of noisy rubble was pushed down a portable staircase by sound effects technicians and created five seconds of absolute cacophony that was always topped off by the tinkle of a small bell.
Hello, Gildy! A new nemesis for Fibber McGee was introduced on October 17th when Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve played by Hal Peary moved in next door to the McGee’s. At 31, Peary was an alumnus of Chicago radio and had played a number of characters on FM&M since 1937. Fibber and Gildy would go at each other for two seasons before Peary moved on to star in his highly successful spin-off, The Great Gildersleeve. (See The Great Gildersleeve(s).
Hope’s Roads To Success. With the Tuesday night lead-in of Fibber McGee & Molly, Bob Hope’s rating shot up 50% and placed him in the annual Top Five for the first of ten consecutive seasons. Hope helped his own cause with Paramount Pictures’ March release of The Road to Singapore, the first of seven musical comedies that teamed him with his pal Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour.
Pot O Gold: Hot & Cold. Bandleader/pianist Horace Heidt was a Network Radio veteran. The 38 year old Heidt had been frequently employed by different sponsors on CBS, NBC and Blue since 1932. He was first and foremost a showman fronting a band of highly skilled musicians. (1) Meanwhile, Ed Byron was the producer of Arlene Francis’ quiz, What’s My Name, on NBC’s Friday schedule and Sunday’s Mr. District Attorney in its first season on Blue. Heidt and Byron teamed to create an exciting new show for Lewis-Howe’s Tums Antacid Tablets.
They came up with Pot O Gold, radio’s first major giveaway program - awarding three persons every week a minimum of $1,000 for simply answering their telephones when the program called them. Wheels of chance were spun on stage by Heidt and co-host Ben Grauer to determine each lucky telephone number to be called and while Heidt’s Musical Knights band played, Grauer dialed the number, ready to stop the music and award the cash if somebody answered. If no one answered, the homeowner was sent a hundred dollar consolation prize and the remaining $900 was added to the jackpot. The jackpot never exceeded $2,800 - or three unanswered calls.
Pot O Gold was a one season roller coaster of ratings. Its climb started slowly in October with an 8.6. When word spread about the free money it offered its November rating jumped 47% into double digits. By February the show peaked at 25.4. Then listeners realized that the odds of being called were incredibly high and that they didn’t have to listen to the program to win, just pick up the phone. As a result, the show’s downward slide began in March with a 15.5% loss of audience and by June its ratings had plummeted to half of its season high. The show lasted only one season on NBC before it was shuttled off to Blue amid questions about its possible violation of lottery laws.
The One & Only Two. Married couples were well represented in radio comedy - Jack & Mary Benny, Jim & Marian Jordan, George & Gracie Burns, Fred & Portland Allen, Goodman & Jane Ace - all reading their scripted and well rehearsed lines. Only one husband and wife team, Frank Crumit & Julia Sanderson, sang and ad-libbed their way into prime time.
Crumit and his ukulele had taken the vaudeville route to stardom, accompanying himself on novelty songs he had written. There Is No One With Endurance Like A Man Who Sells Insurance was typical of the 250 ditties he recorded for RCA and Decca. In 1921 at age 32, he joined the Broadway cast of the musical, Tangerine. Sanderson, 34, had been a Broadway musical star for over a decade when she was cast in the lead of Tangerine. Unlike Crumit’s ditties, the song most closely identified with her career was Jerome Kern’s They Didn’t Believe Me, which she introduced in 1914.
A backstage romance blossomed between the two and after several years of touring together as a team, Frank and Julia were married in 1927 and ready to settle down. Radio seemed a perfect fit for the fortyish couple and they found work quickly doing network song and patter shows billed as America’s Singing Sweethearts. Two Top 50 seasons during their 1930-34 run on Blackstone Plantation were followed with a Sunday afternoon series for another two years.
Crumit & Sanderson returned to prime time in 1939 with The Battle of The Sexes for Sterling Drugs’ Molle Shaving Cream. They reached the season’s Top 50 for four consecutive seasons as part of NBC’s powerful Tuesday lineup. The quiz show pitted teams of men and women against each other, giving its co-hosts ample opportunity to display their relaxed and friendly rapport with contestants and each other.
The Battle of The Sexes was tied in Tuesday’s Top Ten with another promising sophomore, Information Please on Blue. Dan Golenpaul’s panel quiz received a boost in its ratings by becoming the first network program to be recorded for delayed broadcast in prime time on the West Coast - the result of the scrappy producer’s first of many battles with his networks and sponsors over the show’s ten year run. (See Information Please.)
That’s Right, You’re Wrong! Kay Kyser’s band clobbered Glenn Miller’s legendary orchestra in the ratings, right? Most big band buffs would shout, “Wrong!” Well, it’s true!
Liggett & Myers’ Chesterfield Cigarettes brought the Miller band to CBS for a Monday-Wednesday-Friday Multiple Run quarter hour at 10:00 p.m. Its Wednesday performance went head to head against Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge on NBC for American Tobacco‘s Lucky Strikes. The final ratings average after their three seasons of direct competition was Kyser, 17.7, Miller, 6.7. (2)
Kyser’s cause was helped along with the November release of his first of seven movies, five at RKO including That’s Right, You’re Wrong! Unlike most bands whose appearances in films were mere window dressing, Kyser and his troupe of sidemen and singers were featured members of the casts. Among them was vocalist Ginny Simms who went on to solo movie and Network Radio careers.
Gracie’s Surprise Party. Frequent timeslot hoppers George Burns & Gracie Allen switched day, time and sponsor for the fifth time in eight seasons. The couple made money with every jump - their 1939 CBS contract for Hind’s Honey & Almond Hand Cream paid them $9,000 every Wednesday, ($158,000 in today‘s money). The pair also appeared in 1939's MGM film Honolulu, and Gracie did a solo turn in a Paramount’s Gracie Allen Murder Case. If and when they had spare time, lucrative personal appearance contracts were theirs for the choosing. Despite all this success, Burns & Allen were in a three year ratings decline.
George and his brother/manager Willie Burns decided it was time for another stunt like 1933's Missing Brother gambit that kept Gracie busy with “surprise” guest appearances on dozens of different programs. This time they capitalized on the occasion of the 1940 elections by running Gracie for President of The United States. The idea wasn’t original. Will Rogers ran a mock presidential campaign in 1928 and Eddie Cantor repeated the stunt in 1932. Gracie, however, would make a “campaign tour” of other programs to whip up support for her Surprise Party nomination at its Omaha convention in May.
The stunt resulted in the desired cross-promotion that helped Burns & Allen establish themselves as CBS’ strongest Wednesday entry. But unlike the Missing Brother gag that resulted in an audience surge, Gracie’s run for President hardly made a ripple in their ratings which lost a point from the previous season.
The Doctor Is In. Dr Christian was removed from its uphill Tuesday competition with Bob Hope and given a safer slot in the CBS lineup on Wednesday. Listeners and ratings responded. The Jean Hersholt series scored its first of eight consecutive Top 50 seasons. Unlike the much-traveled Burns & Allen, Dr Christian didn’t budge from its familiar network, day and time until it left the air.15 years later. (See Dr. Christian.)
You’ve Been Great! You’re Fired! Two months short of their tenth anniversary together on NBC, Standard Brands cancelled Rudy Vallee’s Thursday night variety hour in August. The series had been a great success for Standard’s Fleischmann Yeast and Royal Gelatin brands since September, 1929. Beginning with Crossley’s first ratings of 1932-33, Vallee turned in a Top Ten show for six consecutive seasons - but his popularity had slipped steadily to less than half of its 1933-34 peak of 39.8.
What followed was a scheduling problem for Standard Brands. To cover Vallee’s hour, Standard moved Carleton E. Morse’s One Man’s Family into the first half at 8:00 and installed another well-traveled, but less successful serial, Those We Love, into the second half at 8:30. (3)
But in January Standard Brands needed the Barbour family to plug Sunday’s 8:30 vacancy created by its decision to cut Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy’s Chase & Sanborn Hour back to 30 minutes. With no acceptable program in reserve, Standard released the first half of its long held 8:00 hour on NBC’s Thursday schedule. Bristol Myers snapped it up for a short-lived George Jessel entry, For Men Only, which it replaced in April by the new and promising Mr. District Attorney.
Meanwhile, Standard Brands was left stuck the faltering Those We Love in its remaining half hour at 8:30. The company looked around and decided to play chess with another its existing properties.
Jack, Reggie & Doc. I Love A Mystery is remembered as one of radio’s best crafted adventure dramas. In Multiple Run format at 7:00 p.m. ET for its first six months of the 1939-40 season on NBC, it ranked among the Top Ten programs four nights a week.
Series creator Carleton E. Morse was given free rein by Standard Brands to make I Love A Mystery his outlet for everything he couldn’t do with One Man’s Family plots and dialogue. He obviously had fun concocting the wild adventures that confronted his three heroes with sinister forces worthy of The Shadow’s collection of blood thirsty villains. (4)
Morse crafted I Love A Mystery’s three lead characters with specific actors in mind - all college friends from Berkeley and all members of his One Man’s Family cast. Michael Raffetto, the Barbour family’s eldest son Paul, was Morse’s choice for Jack Packard - the straight-arrow, tough-as-nails senior partner of Hollywood’s A-1 Detective Agency. Barton Yarborough, son Cliff of One Man’s Family, played Packard’s sidekick, Doc Long - a down home Texan, ladies man and comic relief (5) Walter Patterson, a Barbour son in law, doubled as the third of Morse’s latter day musketeers, Reggie Yorke, a properly schooled Brit whose clipped dialect provided perfect counterpoint to Doc Long’s friendly drawl.
I Love A Mystery gave its fans a prime time version of the late afternoon serials for kids - except Morse’s spooky fantasies were spiced with more gore, violence and chilling effects. Listeners flocked to the ghoulish goulash that Morse served up at suppertime. The freshman serial’s ratings topped its Multiple Run competition on CBS - reliable network talents Lanny Ross and Lum & Abner - and Blue’s Mr. Keen. But the program also attracted protests from parents who objected to such violence interrupting family dinner hours. Standard Brands silenced the complaints with a rare move. It uprooted the 15 minute strip show and converted it to a weekly half hour format on Thursdays at 8:30, replacing the soapy Those We Love.
Ratings for the two versions of I Love A Mystery were almost identical, reflecting a steady, loyal audience. And although its 10.6 was terrific for a strip show, its 10.3 was disappointing for the Thursday series in the heart of prime time. In a rare, one-time occurrence, the half hour I Love A Mystery was edged out of Thursday’s Top Ten by itself in its former quarter hour Multiple Run form. Standard Brands exiled I Love A Mystery in half-hour form to Blue’s Monday schedule for the next two seasons where it rebounded into the night‘s Top Ten in 1941-42.
The program returned as a quarter hour strip show to CBS for an 18 month run in 1943, and moved on for a three year encore on Mutual beginning in 1949, with a series of past Multiple Run scripts recreated by a new cast. I Love A Mystery remains a favorite of Network Radio buffs who appreciate clever writing and high production values.
Vallee’s Vengeance. Rudy Vallee, still only 39, refused to roll over and play dead with the Standard Brands cancellation. He vowed to return and signed with Sealtest Dairies for a new half hour variety show beginning in March, 1940. His opportunity became available after General Foods cut its hour-long Good News starring Fanny Brice and Frank Morgan back to 30 minutes. That opened the door for Sealtest to buy the 9:30 timeslot for Vallee’s new show .
Vallee immediately had another of Thursday’s Top Ten shows, His ratings continued to climb steadily until he left for military service four years later. The success of Vallee’s new 9:30 program followed by Bing Crosby’s hour-long Kraft Music Hall at 10:00 gave National Dairies’ Sealtest-Kraft combine a solid 90 minutes of NBC advertising exposure on the eve of the week’s busiest day for grocery shopping.
Nobody Bought The Duck. Another young man who had experienced a season in the sun with a Top Ten show just four years earlier returned to Blue for a last stab at success. Joe Penner was only 34 but already considered a radio has-been, always associated with the hackneyed catch-phrase, “Wanna buy a duck?”.
His Tip Top Show featured Penner as the sad sack lead in a sitcom for Bond Bakeries’ Tip Top Bread, slotted at 8:30 against the NBC serial Those We Love and CBS’ oddity feature, Strange As It Seems, which resembled Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. Unfortunately, Penner’s comedy was similar to his show that had struggled on CBS the previous season. The program was cancelled in March and Penner left radio forever. He died of a heart attack two years later.
Ladies Night At The Radio. After Kate Smith’s three year, head to head ratings battle with Rudy Vallee on Thursdays, General Foods moved her variety show, featuring Abbott & Costello’s comedy routines and Aldrich Family sitcom skits, to CBS’s Friday schedule at 8:00 p.m. where it would remain for the next five seasons. (5) Unlike many schedule switches that backfired, the beloved singer’s move into the less competitive Friday time period resulted in a 16% audience gain and her all time high 16.8 rating for the season. It was the first of four Friday wins for The Kate Smith Hour. (See Kate’s Great Song.) (6)
First Nighter’s First Lady. Another CBS switch that paid dividends was moving Campana’s First Nighter into its sixth timeslot in its nomadic eight season history. The light anthology drama’s audience shot up 35% when Kate Smith joined the already strong CBS Friday lineup and First Nighter was installed in its 9:30 p.m. timeslot
The show received a bonus at mid-season when Radio Mirror magazine's poll of 800,000 readers named First Nighter co-star Barbara Luddy as the fans’ favorite radio actress. Luddy, 31, was in her third year with the show and would remain with it for the remainder of its long network run. The versatile Luddy was one of the few radio stars who wasn’t active in movies - at least in the typical sense. She made several silents followed by forgettable films in the early 1930's before moving to Chicago for her First Nighter role in 1936-37. She returned to Hollywood with the show ten years later but wasn’t active in film work until 1955 when she became a leading voiceover talent in Walt Disney animated films, best remembered as the voice of the soft spoken cocker spaniel Lady in the classic Lady & The Tramp.
A Half Century Career In Double Time. Like Barbara Luddy, Arlene Francis was another sexy voiced radio pro of 31 who contributed a show to Friday’s Top Ten. But unlike First Nighter’s ten Top 50 seasons, What’s My Name reached that list only once. A simple quiz that awarded small cash prizes to contestants who could identify famous personalities through a series of clues, What’s My Name bounced around NBC, Mutual and ABC for ten years like a spare tire - always available to roll when needed.
During the 1940’s Francis also stayed active in a number of daytime serial and prime time dramatic roles She served as hostess of the popular Blind Date from 1943-46, and as the lead in ABC’s private detective series, The Affairs of Ann Scotland. Yet, she was just hitting her stride. When television arrived Francis was in demand as one of its most versatile and popular performers and ranked among the highest paid women in the industry. She eventually returned to her radio roots for a weekday talk show on New York City’s WOR from 1960 through 1983.
Ganging Up On Music. Among Saturday’s Top Ten dominated by six music shows, Phillips H. Lord’s gritty Gangbusters took top honors in the fifth of its eleven Top 50 seasons. The crime drama registered a 15% increase in its audience. Meanwhile, Lucky Strike moved Your Hit Parade back an hour to 9:00 on CBS where it remained for seven seasons. The show remained a rarity among network programs at 45 minutes in length. Barry Wood replaced Lanny Ross and mid-season and was joined by the program’s first female leads as co-hosts - recording stars Bea Wain and “Wee” Bonnie Baker.
Meanwhile, Radio Guide magazine’s annual poll of listeners chose Wayne King’s sweet band as its favorite dance orchestra for the seventh consecutive year - beating the likes of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. Listeners called by the Hooper pollsters reconfirmed that choice. King’s Saturday program for Cashmere Bouquet soap scored 50% greater ratings than Benny Goodman’s Swing School for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco.
Can You Cop This? Ask any vintage radio buff to identify this 1939-40 series: It was a half hour Saturday night comedy show on NBC. Jokes were solicited from the listening audience for cash prizes. The submitted jokes then became the basis for a competition among a panel of wits including Harry Hirschfield, Senator Ed Ford and Ward Wilson. The answer is obviously Can You Top This? - and it’s wrong.
Instead, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One was a short lived series starring Milton Berle. Berle told the listeners’ jokes to the panelists who were challenged to beat him to the punch line from their memory of jokes and puns. The show reached Saturday’s Top Five and the season’s Top 50 ranks, but only lasted 26 weeks before sponsor Quaker Oats cancelled it. The joke telling concept inspired panelist Ed Ford to create a twist on the competition and produce Can You Top This? which was born in late 1940 on New York City's WOR.then moved up to NBC in 1942 where it became one of Saturday’s Top Five and the season’s Top 50 for five consecutive years. (See Can You Top This?)
The 7:00 Fight. Amos & Andy continued to lose audience. Its first full season on CBS at 7:00 p.m. ET resulted in another ten percent erosion of ratings. Nevertheless, the serial continued to provide the network and Campbell Soup with a Top Ten show for four of the five weeknights. NBC didn’t take its loss of the serial lying down. Liggett & Myers Tobacco picked up sponsorship of A&A’s direct competition, a new quarter-hour production featuring Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians orchestra and chorus. Waring’s Chesterfield Supper Club came within a point of Amos & Andy’s rating and would continue to nip at the venerable series’ popularity for the next three seasons, finally overtaking it four years later.
Nevertheless, Amos & Andy's tie for 47th place in 1939-40 Top 50 gave CBS its 28th program on the list, more than NBC's 18 and Blue's four combined.
(1) Heidt’s Alemite Brigadiers, Answers By Dancers, Ship of Joy and Anniversary Night orchestras of 1930's radio featured future bandleaders Frankie Carle and Alvino Rey and the four singing King Sisters.
(2) Legendary bandsman Miller was given one of the radio’s toughest time periods for his 15 minute show on CBS. His 10:00 timeslot was opposite Bob Hope on Tuesday, Kay Kyser on Wednesday and Bing Crosby on Thursday. Nevertheless, a million and a half homes were reported listening to Miller’s medleys of, “...Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue...,” three times a week.
(3) Rudy Vallee scored a 14.4 average rating for the 1938-39 season. Over the first three months of 1939-40, One Man’s Family delivered an a mediocre 16.2 rating and Those We Love a faltering 11.7.
(4) Eight Kinds of Murder, The Fear That Crept Like A Cat, The Monster In The Mansion, The Pirate Loot of The Island of Skulls, The Secret Passage To Death, The Snake With Diamond Eyes and The Temple of Vampires were just a few of the creepy titles that Morse gave his I Love A Mystery tales,
(5) Barton Yarborough also played Doc Long in Columbia’s three low budget movies based on the series - I Love A Mystery, The Devil’s Mask and The Unknown - also written by Morse.
(6) Rudy Vallee won the first two years of his Thursday night ratings competition with Kate Smith. Vallee topped Smith 16.4 to 8.8 in 1936-37 and 18.6 to 8.7 in 1937-38. Smith edged out Vallee 14.5 to 14.4 in 1938-39.
(7) General Foods and CBS also kept Smith busy with her daytime assignment, Kate Smith Speaks, a weekday, quarter hour talk show that debuted in October. The noontime strip program remained on CBS for eight years and then moved to Mutual for another four.
Network Radio's Top 50 Programs - 1939-40
C.E. Hooper Monthly Network Reports, Sep, 1939 - Jun, 1940
. Total Programs Rated 6-11 PM: 122 Programs Rated 13 Weeks & Ranked: 107.
27,500,000 Radio Homes 79.9% Coverage of US One Rating Point = 275,000 Homes
1 2 Jack Benny Program 30.9 General Foods/Jello Sun 7:00 30 NBC
2 1 Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy 30.7 Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 30 NBC (1)
3 5 Fibber McGee & Molly 24.8 Johnson Wax Tue 9:30 30 NBC
4 3 Lux Radio Theater 23.7 Lever Brothers/Lux Soap Mon 9:00 60 CBS
5 12 Bob Hope Show 23.1 Pepsodent Toothpaste Tue 10:00 30 NBC
6 4 Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall 21.1 Kraft Cheese Thu 10:00 60 NBC
7 16 One Man’s Family 20.3 Standard Brands/Tenderleaf Tea Sun 8:30 30 NBC (2)
8 19 Walter Winchell’s Jergens Journal 19.3 Jergens Lotion Sun 9:00 15 Blue
9 10 Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour 18.4 Chrysler Corporation Thu 9:00 60 CBS
10t 9 Kay Kyser College of Musical Knowledge 18.0 Lucky Strike Wed 10:00 60 NBC
10t N Pot O Gold 18.0 Lewis Howe/Tums Antacid Tablets Tue 8:30 30 NBC
12 6 Good News of 1940 16.9 General Foods/Maxwell House Coffee Thu 9:00 30 NBC (3)
13 16 Kate Smith Hour 16.8 General Foods/Grape Nuts Cereal Fri 8:00 60 CBS
14 14 Fred Allen Show 16.3 Bristol Myers/Ipana/Sal Hepatica Wed 9:00 60 NBC
15 24 We The People 15.5 General Foods/Sanka Coffee Tue 9:00 30 CBS
16 31 First Nighter Program 15.4 Campana Sales/Italian Balm Fri 9:30 30 CBS
17 27 Fitch Bandwagon 15.2 FW Fitch/Fitch Shampoo Sun 7:30 30 NBC
18 14 Big Town 14.9 Lever Brothers/Rinso Tue 8:00 30 CBS
19 25 Gangbusters 14.7 Cue Magazine Sat 8:00 30 CBS
20 19 Lowell Thomas News 14.5 Sun Oil M-F 6:45 15 Blue
21 11 Burns & Allen Show 14.3 Hinds Hand Cream Wed 7:30 30 CBS
22t 35 Guy Lombardo Orch 13.6 Lady Esther Cosmetics Mon 10:00 30 CBS
22t 22 Your Hit Parade 13.6 American Tobacco/Lucky Strike Sat 9:00 45 CBS
24t 23 Al Pearce Gang 13.4 RJ Reynolds Tobacco/Camels Fri 7:30 30 CBS (4)
24t 18 Rudy Vallee Show 13.4 Sealtest Dairies Thu 9:30 30 NBC
24t N Silver Theater 13.4 International Silver Sun 6:00 30 CBS
27t 42 Battle of The Sexes 13.1 Sterling Drug/Molle Shaving Cream Tues 9:00 30 NBC
27t 66 Information Please 13.1 Canada Dry Ginger Ale Tue 8:30 30 Blue
29 40 Screen Guild Theater 12.8 Gulf Oi l Sun 7:30 30 CBS
30t N Ken Murray Texaco Star Theater 12.6 Texaco Wed 9:00 60 CBS
30t 52 Russ Morgan Orch 12.6 Phillip Morris Cigarettes Fri 9:00 30 CBS
30t N Wayne King Orch 12.6 Cashmere Bouquet Soap Sat 8:30 30 CBS
33t N Aldrich Family 12.2 General Foods/Jello Tue 8:00 30 Blue
33t 35 Pick & Pat’s Model Minstrels 12.2 Model Pipe Tobacco Mon 8:30 30 CBS
33t 76 Those We Love 12.2 Procter & Gamble/Teel Liquid Dentifrice Mon 8:00 30 CBS
36 32 Tommy Riggs & Betty Lou 12.0 Quaker Oats Mon 8:00 30 NBC
37 48 Grand Central Station 11.9 Listerine Antiseptic Fri 10:00 30 CBS
38 39 Professor Quiz 11.8 Procter & Gamble/Teel Liquid Dentifrice Fri 7:30 30 CBS
39t 59 Ask It Basket 11.7 Colgate Dental Cream Thu 8:00 30 CBS
39t N Blondie 11.7 R.J. Reynolds/Camel Cigarettes Mon 7:30 30 CBS
39t 79 Dr Christian 11.7 Chesebrough/Vaseline Wed 8:30 30 CBS 5
42t N Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 11.4 Bromo Quinine Cold Tablets Mon 8:00 30 Blue
42t N Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One 11,4 Quaker Oats Sat 8:30 30 NBC
44t 45 Second Husband 11.2 Sterling DrugBayer Aspirin Tue 7:30 30 CBS
44t 26 Hollywood Playhouse 11.2 Andrew Jergens/Woodbury Soap Wed 8:00 30 NBC
46 12 Campbell Playhouse 11.0 Campbell Soup Sun 8:00 60 CBS
47t 29 Amos & Andy 10.8 Campbell Soup M-F 7:00 15 CBS
47t 66 Ford Sunday Evening Hour 10.8 Ford Motors Sun 9:00 60 CBS
47t N Pipe Smoking Time 10.8 Model Pipe Tobacco Mon 8:30 30 CBS
47t N What’s My Name? 10.8 Procter & Gamble/Oxydol Fri 9:30 30 NBC (6)
(1) Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy Sep - Dec Standard Brands/Chase & Sanborn Sun 8:00 60 NBC
(2) One Man’s Family Sep - Dec Standard Brands/Tenderleaf Tea Thu 8:00 30 NBC
(3) Good News of 1940 Sep - Mar General Foods/Maxwell House Coffee Thu 9:00 60 NBC
(4) Al Pearce Gang Sep - Mar Hawaiian Pineapple Growers Wed 8:00 30 CBS
(5) Dr Christian Nov - Dec Vaseline Wed 10:00 30 CBS
(6) What’s My Name? Sep - Mar Procter & Gamble/Oxydol Sat 7:00 30 NBC
This post is in part abridged from Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953.
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