WBW Theater
By Dennis Moore
WBW TheaterOct 07, 2019
290. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Martin & Lewis Show - Bob Hope (Audition)
The National Broadcasting Company brings you transcribed from New York The Martin and Lewis Show with special guest Bob Hope, featuring Flo McMichael, Mike Roy, The Martingales, Dick Stabile and his orchestra and Starring Dean Martin with his wonderful singing voice and Jerry Lewis with his not so wonderful singing voice!
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis are two young men who have overnight become the nations comedy hit and they are still rather dazed by it all. Now we take you back a few hours to this afternoon. We find the boys in their apartment getting ready somewhat nervously to go to NBC for their first radio show…
Cast: Bob Hope, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis
Broadcast: December 21, 1948
289. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Breakfast With Dick and Dorothy - Leo Durocher and Lorraine Day
It’s 8.15 am and Dorothy Kilgallen and her husband Richard Kollmar bring you breakfast as usual from their New York apartment on 66th Street. Today they are very happy to have at their breakfast table two friends who are also neighbors, Leo Durocher and his wife Mrs Durocher otherwise known as Lorraine Day.
Cast: Richard Kollmar, Dorothy Kilgallen
Broadcast: May 9, 1947
288. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Breakfast With Dick and Dorothy - Florence Pritchett
It’s 8.15 am and Dorothy Kilgallen and her husband Richard Kollmar bring you breakfast as usual from their New York apartment on 66th Street. Today they are very happy to have at their breakfast table Florence Pritchett.
Cast: Dorothy Kilgallen, Richard Kollmar, Florence Pritchett
Broadcast: April 26, 1947
287. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - The Blue Beetle - Drug Ring
"Reaping down upon the underworld to smash ganglands comes a friend of the unfortunate an enemy of criminals, the mysterious all powerful character who is a problem to the police. A crusader for law, in reality Dan Garrett a rookie patrolman loved by everyone but suspected by none of being the Blue Beetle. As the Blue beetle he hides behind a strange mask and a suit of impenetrable blue chain armor flexible as silk but stronger than steel."
This episode sends the Blue beetle swooping down on a group of powerful underworld characheters whose racket is dope. Will he be able to ferret them out? Can he hope to be able to cope with this mysterious ring of ruthless men single handed? Can he discover their leader and bring him to justice? Listen now to both parts of this 2 part story.
Cast: Frank Lovejoy
Broadcast: May 15, 1940
286. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Big Jon and Sparkie - Over The Falls In An Airplane
“Hey kids its time for the party with Big Jon and Sparkie”. They were escaping from the dread Mon Gumsy pygmy tribe in Africa in Captain Squinty’s airplane. Captain Squinty Coco Joecal and the rest of the native boys had gone back to camp in their jeep and they were going to fly away from danger but as they got out in to the lake they discovered they were out of gas.
Cast: Jon Arthur
Broadcast: Not Known
285. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Dimension X - Mars is Heaven
When the first space rocket lands on Mars, what will we find? Will we be welcomed with open arms or will the Martians treat us as invaders? Only one thing is certain someday a giant metal ship will take off from earth and travel through the black velocities of the silent states to descend at last in the upper Martian atmospheres. That day man will finally know the answers. The day we first land on Mars.
Cast: Wendell Holmes
Broadcast: 7th January 1951
284. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Words at War - War Criminals and Punishment
A program based upon George Creel's book War Criminals and Punishment. It poses the question, "What are we going to do with Hitler when we have ended the war that he started?" The show is brought to you in the form of an open letter to Hitler, written by a man who has read Creel's book and wants to the American public to know what kind of job is ahead if justice is to be done.
Cast: Ned Wever
Broadcast: July 4, 1944
283. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - You Are the Jury - Episode 1 The People vs Professor Carver Simms
The famous criminologist Roy Post devised this series. Here is your chance to actually take part in the jury trial without leaving your own living room, the chance to find out what kind of juror you’d make. Be warned, it states that the verdict will not be heard while the next episode but in fact it is not heard at all on the recordings and was probably announced live on the radio.
Broadcast: Unknown
282. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Ripley's Believe It Or Not - Beautiful People
For over twenty years, in over 180 different countries, Robert Ripley has collected facts in their strangest, most remarkable form. So let's see what he has in store for you tonight, when he can show you how amazing he truth can be. But first, the show opens with a medley of tunes, from Ozzie Nelson and his orchestra. The first tune is called 'Puttin' On My White Tie'.
Cast: Robert Ripley, Harriet Hilliard, Gino Palmisano
Broadcast: November 3, 1935
281. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Ripley's Believe It Or Not - Aviation Oddities
Today's show is all about aviation oddities, thrills from high in the air, and some of the strangest and more daring aeronautical feats ever recorded.
Cast: Robert Ripley
Broadcast: December 1, 1935
280. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Ripley's Believe It Or Not - (061) Witchcraft
Today's show bring you lots more interesting facts from Robert Ripley, beginning with a quiz. Here's the first question. Which weighs more? A pound of gold, or a pound feathers? But before you get the answer, first the discussion of the day is one of the most frightening phobias ever to delude mankind - witchcraft. Believe it or not, it began with the publication of one book...
Host: Robert Ripley
Broadcast: August 4, 1947
279. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Tales of Tomorrow - Morrow on Mars
It's the year 4000, and the colonization of the planet Mars is a fact. The folks up there aren't much different to those on Earth - except maybe a little wiser. Today's tale is the story of Matt Morrow, editor of the successful telepaper The Morrow News, and of what happened after a strange little man walked into his office, wearing a shiny blue suede suit and a straw hat - the kind that went out of fashion on Earth hundreds of years ago. The strange man was little, he was incongruous, and he was frightened.
Cast: Maurice Tarplin, Raymond Edward Johnson, Rolly Bester, John Raby
Broadcast: April 2, 1953
278. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - The Mysterious Traveler - The Man Who Tried to Save Lincoln
Maurice Tarplin starred as the Mysterious Traveler in this supernatural drama series. The stories began; “This is the Mysterious Traveler, inviting you to join me on another journey into the strange and terrifying. I hope you will enjoy the trip, that it will thrill you a little and chill you a little. So settle back, get a good grip on your nerves, and be comfortable – if you can!"
Cast: Vicki Volante, Ann Sheppard, Bret Morrison, Lawson Zerbe, Maurice Tarplin, Orson Welles, Ted Osborne, Various, Jackson Beck, Lon Clark, Ed Begley, Lyle Sudrow, Eric Dressler, Roger DeKoven, Robert Dryden, Mary Jane Higby, Joyce Gordon, Ralph Bell, Cliff Carpenter, Joe Julian, Leon Janney, Bill Zuckert, Helen Shields, Bryna Raeburn, Jack Manning, Alan Manson, Art Carney, Chuck Webster, James Van Dyk
Broadcast History: 5 December 1943 to 16 September 1952
277. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - The Adventures of Ellery Queen - Number 31
Ellery Queen begins by dedicating this program to the fight against crime. Not merely crimes of violence and crimes of dishonesty but crimes of intolerance, discrimination, and bad citizenship, crimes against America.
He then tells us the story of a mysterious international figure suspected of diamond smuggling.
Cast: Hugh Marlowe
Broadcast: 7th September 1947
276. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - The Avenger - Mystery of the Giant Brain
Professor O’Donnell is a great scientist who has become cruel and inhuman and it is for that reason that his assistant Miss St Clair has decided to leave him. The Professor has created Mechanical robots, which go out and capture animals from the zoo so that the professor can use their brains to create a super brain for his robots. But of course he can’t let her go for fear of her telling the police. He intends to kill her and use her brain too.
Cast: James Monks
Broadcast: 15th June 1945
275. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Nightmare - Hollow Footsteps
Jeff Martin had been engaged to Gloria Bennett 15 years ago before he murdered her and now he believed her ghost was back to haunt him and his wife Helen.
Cast: Peter Lorre
Broadcast: 3rd February 1954
274. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Nightmare - The Leech
Did you ever have a dream in which you were running and running, running away from some grotesque horrible thing that was after you to kill you? And you scream and you keep running it runs too and no matter how you run, how fast you run it’s still after you. This thing, this thing runs fast and you can’t get away from it no matter where you turn. When you wake up you know you’ve been dreaming but the sweat soaks your body like a wet shroud and your heart beats wildly and you find it’s a silkscreen because even though you’re awake that thing is still there in the room with you. It clings like a leech.
Listen then to this story of a man and of a leech he couldn’t get away from but in this story the Leech was dead and it was human…
Cast: Peter Lorre
Broadcast: 7th April 1954
273. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - World War I Songs - America, I Love You
A mid fields of clover,
'T was just a little over a hundred years ago,
A handful of strangers,
they faced many dangers to make their country grow,
It's now quite a nation of wond'rous population,
And free from every king,
It's your land, it's my land,
A great do or die land,
And that's why I sing.
From all sorts of places,
They welcomed all the races to settle on their shore,
They didn't care which one,
The poor or the rich one,
They still had room for more,
To give them protection,
By popular election,
A set of laws they chose,
They're your laws and my laws,
For your cause and my cause,
That's why this country rose.
America, I love you,
You're like a sweetheart of mine,
From ocean to ocean,
For you my devotion, is touching each bound'ry line,
Just like a little baby,
Climbing it's mother's knee,
America, I love you,
And there's a hundred million other's like me.
Cast: Edgar Leslie, Archie Gottler
Broadcast: 1915
272. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Avalon Time - Fun at the Circus
Avalon Time with Red Foley, Janette Davis, Edna Stillwell, The Avalon Chorus, Bob Strong and his Orchestra and radio’s redheaded ragamuffin Richard “Red” Skelton. It’s Edna’s birthday and today she is having a party to celebrate.
Red Skelton opens the show with his topical stand-up comedy routine. Red Foley is first up to sing.
Cast: Red Skelton, Red Foley, Janette Davis, Edna Stillwell, Bob Strong
Broadcast: 1939
271. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Avalon Time - Sleeping Sickness
Avalon Time with Red Foley, Janette Davis, Edna Stillwell, The Avalon Chorus, Bob Strong and his Orchestra and radio’s redheaded ragamuffin Richard “Red” Skelton. It’s Edna’s birthday and today she is having a party to celebrate.
Red Skelton opens the show with his topical stand-up comedy routine. Red Foley is first up to sing.
Cast: Red Skelton, Janette Davis, Edna Stillwell
Broadcast: 1939
270. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - The Avenger - High Tide Murder
Jim Brandon – the Avenger – receives three messages in the last two weeks all on the same wave thought length with sounds of lapping water and wind and the shouting out of a mans name, Scrawny. It all becomes clear when he receives a call from inspector white about the body of a man been washed ashore.
Cast: James Monks
Broadcast: 8th June 1945
269. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Boxing Broadcasts - Baer vs. Louis
Edwin C. Hill noted newscaster and globetrotter and Clem McCarthy NBC and Pathe News sports announcer commentate the blow-by-blow account of the 1935 fight between Max Baer and Joe Louis from the Yankee Stadium in New York.
Broadcast: 24th September 1935
268. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Address Unknown - The Search for Gwen Moxon
This story is a dramatization of a real case of a missing person taken from the Missing Persons Bureau files in London but for obvious reasons names and addresses have been changed.
One of the strangest cases the missing persons bureau ever handled began one afternoon in March '57. Mr Clifford Moxon had arrived at the offices of Mr Henry Simon at the Missing Persons Bureau, to report his wife, Mrs Gwen Moxon as missing. According to Mr Moxon, she left him on 26th November, over four months ago, and although he has tried to locate her, he hasn't seen or heard anything since. As she was an only child, and both of her parents already passed away, there was no family to contact, and no friends that he is aware of. She has simply disappeared without a trace.
Cast: Henry Simon
Broadcast: Unknown
267. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - 5 Minute Mystery - Thomas Murders Partner
These five-minute mystery programs were used on stations as fillers. They are full dramatizations complete with sound effects and music. At the end of the program you are invited to identify the culprit and what led you to your conclusion. Then after the musical interlude, where station identification would be, the solution is given.
This is a great little show for budding detectives!
Broadcast: Unknown
266. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Adventures of Babe Ruth - Kidnapped
It's the last game of the season and all the Yankees are on the field except one - the greatest Yankee player ever. Nobody knows where Babe is. It's a mystery. The whole game goes by without Babe showing up and just as it finishes he walks in looking disheveled and with blood on his knuckles. The mystery deepens when Babe refuses to tell anyone where he's been.
Cast: George Herman Ruth
Broadcast: 25th June 1934
265. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - 20th Century Fox Presents - Song of the Islands
Cast: Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Jack Oakie, Hilo Hattie
Broadcast: 1942
264. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Adventure Ahead - Hill Lawyer
Cast: Jack Manning, Juano Hernandez, Ken Reynard, Jim Tansey, Nicholas Joy, Bernard Lenrow
Broadcast: October 14, 1944
263. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Adventure Ahead - One of the 28th
Cast: Jack Manning, Juano Hernandez, Ken Reynard, Jim Tansey, Nicholas Joy, Bernard Lenrow
Broadcast: October 21, 1944
262. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - House Of Mystery - Gift From The Dead
Starring: John Griggs
Broadcast Date: August 3, 1947
261. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - The Creaking Door - The Informer
Broadcast Date: January 11, 1965
260. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - The Railroad Hour - Starlight
songs include Picnic at the Palace and Starlight.
Starring: Gordon MacRae, Dorothy Warenskjold, Benny Rubin, Tyler McVey
Broadcast Date: July 20, 1953
259. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Philco Radio Time - Road To Hollywood
Starring: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour
Broadcast Date: January 29, 1947
258. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Grand Ole Opry - Ernest Tubb and Grandpa Jones
Broadcast Date: June 5, 1959
257. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - The Dinah Shore Show - Somebody Loves Me
Starring: Dinah Shore, Harry Von Zell
Broadcast Date: November 23, 1941
256. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Al Jolson Show - Guest Jimmy Durante
Starring: Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante
Broadcast Date: April 21, 1949
255. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Police Headquarters - Red Dugan Murder
These early shows of the police weren't fact based, but just good old crime drama. As was usual then, music filled the first and last parts of the show, so that the local station announcer could do a commercial or two.
In Episode 1, mobster Red Dugan is found sitting in his office, dead, stabbed in the back....
254. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Murder By Experts - Dark Island
The Mutual Broadcasting System presents Murder By Experts with your host and narrator Mr John Dickson Carr, world famous mystery novelist and author of the best seller “The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle”.
Look now at the small tree covered island lying in darkness several miles off the rocky coast of mainland. Now and then the moon breaks through the clouds revealing for a few brief moments the figure of a girl pacing back and forth on the boat landing by the waters edge. She watches anxiously as a small launch approaches the island…
Starring: Bernard Grant, Gertrude Warner
Broadcast Date: August 8, 1949
253. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Gangbusters - Basket Weaving Burglar
Tonight's case it's a very exciting one, about an unusually vicious criminal. The date is August 21st 1938, and at 7:15 that morning, in an outlying section in the Kentucky hills, we find Mrs Godfrey struggling with her dog, who has been poisoned. Whilst Mr and Mrs Godfrey were sleeping the previous evening, someone had been into the house, poisoned Tiger the dog, and then robbed them.
252. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Calling All Detectives - Ghost in the Apartment Building
Every now and then, a private detective like Jerry Browning, gets a case that gives him a new lease on life. The man who entered his office this week was a man who dealt in leases, and at a time when apartments were scarcer than hen's teeth, one place had had nine tenants in three months, and the last tenant was dead!
Starring: Paul Barnes
Broadcast Date: December 30, 1948
251. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Big Story - To Avenge A Murder
Paul Rogers, a 29 year old service station attendant was found to be missing from his post at 4:30am, along with approximately $50 missing from the cash register. In Helena, Montana, from the pages of the Independent Record, we bring you the story of Alan Cowperthwaite, a reporter who gambled his own life, to avenge a murder.
Broadcast Date: March 19, 1952
250. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Touchdown Tips - Top Ten In Football
A run down on the top ten teams in the nation as rated by the all American Gridiron index. Topping the list for the week 17th October 1953 Notre Dame. All American Elroy Crazy Legs Hirsch does a feature about, one of the great football teams to come out of the far west, the 1947 Stanford team.
Broadcast Date: October 17, 1953
249. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - NFL Broadcasts - 1953 Rose Bowl USC vs Wisconsin Pt4o4
The 1953 Rose Bowl was a college football bowl game played on New Year's Day in 1953, at the end of the 1952 college football season. It was the 39th Rose Bowl Game, but it was the first Rose Bowl game for Wisconsin, and the first Rose Bowl appearance for the Trojans since 1948. Played in Pasadena, California, the game featured the fewest points scored in a Rose Bowl since 1922, with both the Trojans and Badgers failing to score through the first half!
Broadcast Date: January 1, 1953
248. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - NFL Broadcasts - 1953 Rose Bowl USC vs Wisconsin Pt3o4
The 1953 Rose Bowl was a college football bowl game played on New Year's Day in 1953, at the end of the 1952 college football season. It was the 39th Rose Bowl Game, but it was the first Rose Bowl game for Wisconsin, and the first Rose Bowl appearance for the Trojans since 1948. Played in Pasadena, California, the game featured the fewest points scored in a Rose Bowl since 1922, with both the Trojans and Badgers failing to score through the first half!
Broadcast Date: January 1, 1953
247. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - NFL Broadcasts - 1953 Rose Bowl USC vs Wisconsin Pt2o4
The 1953 Rose Bowl was a college football bowl game played on New Year's Day in 1953, at the end of the 1952 college football season. It was the 39th Rose Bowl Game, but it was the first Rose Bowl game for Wisconsin, and the first Rose Bowl appearance for the Trojans since 1948. Played in Pasadena, California, the game featured the fewest points scored in a Rose Bowl since 1922, with both the Trojans and Badgers failing to score through the first half!
Broadcast Date: January 1, 1953
246. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - NFL Broadcasts - 1953 Rose Bowl USC vs Wisconsin Pt1o4
The 1953 Rose Bowl was a college football bowl game played on New Year's Day in 1953, at the end of the 1952 college football season. It was the 39th Rose Bowl Game, but it was the first Rose Bowl game for Wisconsin, and the first Rose Bowl appearance for the Trojans since 1948. Played in Pasadena, California, the game featured the fewest points scored in a Rose Bowl since 1922, with both the Trojans and Badgers failing to score through the first half!
Broadcast Date: January 1, 1953
245. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Your Hit Parade - First Song - A Little Bird Told Me
Reflecting the ultimate pop culture of the day, thousands of fans listened in rapture for the exciting countdown to the Number One song, from a group of 15, was hyped. Today's show opens with the number 4 hit, A Little Bird Told Me, performed by Frank Sinatra and the Hit Paraders.
Starring: Frank Sinatra
Broadcast Date: January 1, 1949
244. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Moon River - Program 19
Tonight’s poems were A Lover’s Sonnet by Dupont, Goodnight by Percy Bysshe Shelly and Flow Gently Sweet Afton by Bobby Burns.
243. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - GI Jive - Bing Crosby Rollio Rolling Along
G.I. Jive is an American Air Force Radio Service AFRS) program, which was produced during the Second World War to boost the morale of the US Army overseas. GI Jill who introduced big band and other popular music of the era often requested by the soldiers hosted it.
Starring: Bing Crosby
242. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Disney Preview - Song Of The South
Preview of Walt Disney's 1946 animated film Song of the South with heart warming stories based on the tales of uncle Remus with Walt Disney's animated star Br'er Rabbit. Songs include Sooner or Later and Zipa-dee Doo Dah.
Starring: Bobby Driscoll, Ruth Warrick, James Baskett, Walt Disney
Broadcast Date: 1946
241. WBW Theater Classic Old Time Radio - Arthur Godfrey - Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts - Winner Johnny Daggan
Lipton Tea and Lipton Soup present Arthur Godfrey and his Talent Scouts. Over the next 30 minutes Arthur Godfrey showcases 4 new young talents and the audience are asked to vote for the best act by their applause. The winner’s were then invited on to the Arthur Godfrey Time show for the following three mornings. The audience reaction indicator shows the winner to be Irish tenor singer Johnny Daggan.
Starring: Arthur Godfrey
Broadcast Date: March 11, 1947