Category: Old-Time Radio

Make Mine Swinging—and Spooky

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As of now, we’re all spooks all the time here at Cladrite Radio. We’re playing nothing but songs about murder and mayhem, ghosts and goblins, but the ghoulish fun ends soon, so listen while you can.

Speaking of Halloween on the radio, OTRCat.com, purveyors of old-time radio programs, are offering an assortment of spooky shows free of charge (they offer many more collections of shows that you can pay for, if you’re so inclined). The free shows run the gamut from adventure to mystery, horror—even comedy.

Here’s a sample program, an episode of Inner Sanctum starring none other than Boris Karloff.

Inner Sanctum: “Wailing Wall” (first aired November 6, 1945; 27 min, 7 sec.)

An OTR Thanksgiving

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As we’ve stated in this space before, we have nothing whatsoever to do with OTRCat.com, purveyors of audio collections of old-time radio programs. We don’t benefit in any way from offering plugs for them.

But we enjoy listening to old radio programs and we like it that, when major holidays roll around, the good folks at OTRCat make it a practice to offer a round-up of timely broadcasts for the streaming (or, if you prefer, the downloading), absolutely free.

This week, as you might guess, they’ve got a line-up of shows with a Thanksgiving theme, and the range of genres and decades is impressive. You can catch everything from comedies (Burns and Allen, Jack Benny) to westerns (Gunsmoke—and from 1958, if you can believe it. It’s easy to forget radio drams were still airing that late), musical programs (Command Performance, featuring Dinah Shore) and even hardboiled detective shows (The Adventures of Sam Spade).

Speaking of The Adventures of Sam Spade, we’re sharing that one below, just to whet your appetite, so to speak—but we strongly recommend you head over to OTRCat.com to see the entire line-up. And why not consider making a purchase of one of their entertaining collections of OTR programs while you’re at it? They couldn’t be more affordable, and they make great holiday gifts for those vintage-minded individuals on your gift list.

The Adventures of Sam Spade: “The Terrified Turkey Caper” (11/24/1950; 28:20)

Happy birthday, Rose Marie

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Rose MarieMost folks over the age of thirty surely know the actress Rose Marie, who turns 89 years old today.

After all, she starred as Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show, one of the most acclaimed sit-coms of all time. She was a regular on the original Hollywood Squares, sitting just atop Paul Lynde in the center top square. And she appeared such later shows as Murphy Brown and Wings.

But did you know she was a hugely popular child star? It’s true. In 1926, at the age of three, she began performing as Baby Rose Marie. She had a brassy singing voice one doesn’t often find in someone so young, and by the age of five she had her own radio show on NBC.

She also worked the vaudeville circuits and made a number of appearances in movies, including a Vitaphone short that was on the bill with the first talking feature, The Jazz Singer. She even appeared at the White House three times, performing for Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

By her teens, she dropped the “Baby” and began the transition to a career as a singer. She made a go of it, continuing to work in nightclubs and acting on radio, in theatre and in pictures, but it was in the 1960s that her career really took off again.

We wish the happiest of birthdays to Ms. Marie, and we invite you to help us celebrate the occasion by watching this video from her days as a child star. This is a scene from 1933’s International House. Rose was 10 years old.

A night to remember

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If you’ve not been hiding under a rock the past couple of weeks, you know that this weekend marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

We thought we’d mark the occasion by sharing this recording of a 1936 radio broadcast featuring a recollection of the events of that tragic night by Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller, who was the most senior officer to survive the disaster. This broadcast, nearly 76 years old, was at the time looking back at a relatively recent event, a sea disaster that had occurred just 24 years earlier.

Would that we had similar accounts from witnesses to all of history’s memorable events.

I Was There: Commander C. H. Lightoller (23 min.; Nov. 1, 1936)

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 … Happy New Year!

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Well, it’s New Year’s Eve Eve. Just two more days, and we’ll all be cursing ourselves for writing 2011 on our checks.

With just a few hours remaining till the ball drops in Times Square, toasts are raised, and midnight smooches are shared, we thought we’d make a present to the Cladrite community of All Star New Years Dancing Party, an hour-long radio program that originally aired on the Armed Forces Radio Service on December 31st, 1945.

The program, which is hosted by Harry James, features performances from across the country and around the world by such legendary big bands as the Count Basie Orchestra in New York City, Freddy Martin‘s outfit performing from Los Angeles’ Cocoanut Grove night club, Woody Herman and His Orchestra in New Jersey, Louis Armstrong and His All-Stars from Club Zanzibar in Manhattan, and many more.

It’s a fine way to welcome in a brand new year.

All-Star New Year’s Eve Dancing Party—12/31/1945 (1 hr., 4 sec.)