Seniors, what popular radio shows did your family listen to before the appearance of TV?

Question

Seniors, what popular radio shows did your family listen to before the appearance of TV?

Answer 1

Probably the most popular Radio show in the UK was, Two Way Family Favourites.

It was a radio request programme which passed greetings and played favourite record tracks

from British Forces in Germany to family and friends at home in England, on Sunday lunchtimes

between 12 noon and 13.00 hours. The show ran from the end of the war until 1980.

Living in BFPO 44 in the 1950's we kept in touch through snail mail and the radio in those days.

I believe that AFN broadcast similar shows for the US Forces from Germany too.



The first TV in my experience was one small box like affair with a tiny 12 inch screen which my

Grandfather rented for the Coronation in 1953. Soon afterwards we bought one, and the TV seems

to have evolved into the 32 inch product that I have now.



I attach a photo of the mock up of a 1950's room which we had in York Castle Museum,

it shows a typical radio on the left and the box like TV in the right hand corner.

Answer 2

As kids we had to go to bed after the Dick Barton radio serial - which was on nightly 6.57 - 7.00 pm.

Other radio programes I recall were 2-way family favourites (for British servicemen abroad).

Other programmes I clearly recall were:

Workers' Playtime

Life with the Lyons

Ray's a Laugh

The Navy Lark

Billy Cotton Band Show

Round the Horne

The Archie Andrews' Show (bizarrely starring a ventriloquist and his dummy - on radio !)



In common with many others, we hired a TV set just in time for Queen Ellizabeth II's Coronation in in 1953.

It was a large thingummy with a 9" screen and a bulbous magnifying front screen which increased it to about 12".

Early black & white TV shows were mainly US stuff -The Cisco Kid, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, Amos 'n Andy, Jack Benny, Liberace, Gun Law and Joe Friday as the cop in Dragnet. Also Highway Patrol with Broderick Crawford.

Happy days - when after Commercial TV started we had only 3 channels instead of the multitude available nowadays - broadcasting more hours of programmes no-one has time to follow.

Answer 3

In the U.K. before we had T.V. my brother listened to Dick Barton Special Agent. Mum liked the Archers and mum and dad both like classical music. If there was none on the radio they'd play it on the radiogram (huge records which had one song each side and needed a new needle every time. As small children we had Listen with Mother. There was a request music programme on Sunday lunchtimes linking families with their relatives who were abroad with the Forces. Cliff Michelmore and his wife (Jean Metcalf) were presenters (one in the U.K. and the other in West Germany). It was called Two Way Family Favourites. I think that programme was the favourite of many households soon after World War 2.

Answer 4

We particularly enjoyed Fred Allen. Godfrey;s talent show. Red Skelton, Edgar Bergan. The Firestone hour, and the Saturday performances from the Metropolitan Opera. I listened to some drama programs. Shadow, Gunsmoke. Lone Ranger, Sgt.Preston, etc. Judy Collin's father, Chuck, used to have an early morning program that I always listened to.

Answer 5

On British radio in the 1940s: "It's that man again," "Saturday night theatre." "Country magazine", ... The earliest television programs began in late 1936 (the BBC was in a rush to have them up and running in time for the May 1937 coronation of George VI). The sets were large upright boxes that stood on the floor and had screens the size of a picture postcard. They needed big rooftop aerials and the government was taken by surprise at how many houses had no television licences, until they discovered people who could not afford television were erecting aerials to deceive their neighbours into believing they could.

Answer 6

"The Shadow" was one (What evil lurks in the hearts of men? Only 'The Shadow' knows.)

The one that I find interesting,in retrospect, is Candice Bergans dads show. We didn't know if Edgar, a ventriloquist, was moving his lips or not, it was radio.

But we liked Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, so we overlooked the shortcomings of audio

I also liked Sgt. Preston. He fought crime in the Yukon. He inspired his dog team with "On King,(obviously the lead dog) on you Huskies"!

Our first TV was a 10 inch Emerson. Seems like the TV repairman would be called frequently.

We had one of the first TV's on our block, and the kids in the neighborhood would sit around and watch Rassling, but Friday nights was for the Gillette fight of the night. Boxers going at it.Dad's time.

Answer 7

The only one I really remember listening to was The Lone Ranger. I know there were others, but that's the one that sticks with me. I used to have a couple of LPs that had Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Shadow, Burns and Allen, etc. But I was too late for most of the actual shows, and we had a television when I was very little at my grandma's house. There was a large radio that sat in our kitchen on the island and it was always, always tuned to a Detroit Tiger baseball game. At least, it seemed that way.

Answer 8

Ray's a Laugh, Life With the Lyons, Hancock's Half-Hour, Meet the Huggetts.

Answer 9

Before 1948 when TV in the U.S. began my parents listened to radio but I didnt. I was too young. When Milton Berle came on we all watched that. After 1953 we all watched TV. They lived in England until 1950. I remember watching Hopalong Cassidy in 1952 and I still do.

Answer 10

I remember being home one night a week while my parents went out. My sister and I sat in a darkened room and listened to a tale about a boy surrounded by wolves. I ha nightmares for weeks and when I think about how much it scared me, it is still creepy. The radio is much more effective than TV.

Answer 11

My Dad used to listen to Dick Barton Special Agent and The Goons, my mother liked The Archers and Woman's Hour.

I was nearly 12 years old when we finally got a television. I just remember it being big and bulky and the picture would go blurry when the weather was bad outside. Did not stop my Dad and I watching the western shows!

Answer 12

Amos and Andy, Jack Benny, Gang Busters, The Shadow, Hit Parade, and best of all Fibber McGee and Molly.

Answer 13

Don't remember listening to the radio....too busy playing and working on the farm. I do remember the tv....huge boxy thing with a small screen, black and white, often fuzzy and shows only on a few hours a day.

Answer 14

I missed out on American radio, we had BBC.

I do recall, after moving here listening to a broadcast of Orson Well's "War of the Worlds" on Halloween.

Answer 15

TV came along when I was about 3 or 4 years old. I don't remember the shows my parents listened to.

(I am 66 years old, and a senior).

Answer 16

Gun smoke, Dragnet. Sam Spade, Jack Benny Show, Red Skeleton Show, Bulldog Drummond, Lum and Abner, Bob Hope Show. Those are the ones I remember now.

Answer 17

Hancocks half hour i think i saw on television but remember being less than impressed when television was first introduced in our home. in fact i don't remember watching much between homework and bed time while at the weekend we were usually out and about. i do remember my dad later watching the sport on saturday afternoons and placing imaginary bets on the horses.

Answer 18

I was born in 1951 we a always had a TV,

But I still listened to Amos and Andy, Gunsmoke and a few others

Answer 19

I was born in very late 1954 and remember always having a tv set in our home.

My mother said we were the first in our neighborhood to own one.

Not exactly sure when sets were available for sale but I can still see the facial reactions in my mind of my mother when Elvis was on the set and swinging his hips, it was funny to me even as a very young kid to see they moved the camera off from his hips to his face.

My father used to have Friday nite Fight parties at our home. He had a few guys over every Friday to watch the fights. One of his best friends was a black guy from his place of work, he was a regular at our home on Friday's.The sad thing was he had to sneak in and sneak out, neither my father or he wanted anyone in our neighborhood to see him in our home, sad really.

Answer 20

The Goon Show

Answer 21

Same as your parents. Also "Let's Pretend" on Saturday morning.

Answer 22

Burns and allen

long ranger

he benny

This is your life

lone ranger

The Who

Answer 23

Mr. Keen tracer of lost persons