Interstate Audio- Comedy Volume 2 Review
Interstate Audio- Comedy Volume 2 Overview
Journey back to a time when radio reigned supreme in the hearts and minds of most Americans. Enjoy four Comedy shows from the golden age of radio. 2 hours of rip-roaring comedy thrills.
CD1-
The Aldrich Family- The Barter System starring Ezra Stone and Jackie Kelk
Ezra Stone first starred as Henry Aldrich in Clifford Goldsmith s 1937 Broadway play What a Life. Stone reprised his Broadway role in skits on Rudy Vallee s Royal Gelatin Hour and The Kate Smith Hour before The Aldrich Family as the 1939 summer replacement for the Jack Benny Program. The Aldrich Family was awarded its own weeknight birth that fall, and was an immediate ratings powerhouse, achieving a mammoth Crossley rating of 33.4 in 1941. Henry answered his mother s call for 13 years on radio, with Stone voicing the title role through most of the run. Stone s understudy Norman Tokar, Dickie Jones and Raymond Ives filled in during Stone s World War II military service, while TV-Henry Bobby Ellis assumed the famous role for the final radio season. Jackie Kelk (who also costarred as Jimmy Olsen on Superman) costarred as Henry s friend Homer Brown through most of the run, with Johnny Fiedler, Jack Grimes, and Michael O Day taking over during the final 1952-53 radio revival.
Amos n Andy- Adoption Woes starring Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll-
Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll starred as Amos Jones and Andy Brown for a third of a century, creating serialized radio drama and later helping perfect the situation comedy. Inspired by serial nature of newspaper strips like The Gumps, Gosden and Correll set out to create a comic strip of the airwaves. The duo debuted as Sam n Henry on January 12, 1926 over the Chicago Tribune s WGN, and the 15 minute serial was relaunched as Amos n Andy when Gosden and Correll moved to WMAQ beginning March 19, 1928. The syndicated serial moved onto NBC network beginning August 19, 1929, and reigned as radio s most popular program for several years. During the early 1930 s, the nation virtually stopped for 15 minutes each day as a third of its citizens tuned into the comedic misadventures of Amos Jones, Andy Brown and the wily George Stevens, the Kingfish of the Mystic Knights of the Sea lodge. The daily serial left the airwaves on February 19, 1943, but the Amos n Andy show returned on October 8, 1943 as a weekly sitcom. The revamped half-hour series featured a large interracial cast that included such superb African-American performers as Lillian and Amanda Randolph, Eddie Green, Johnny Lee, Ernestine Wade and Oscar-winners Hattie McDaniel and James Baskett. In 1955, Gosden and Correll returned to a daily format with The Amos n Andy Music Hall, a disc jockey series that continued over the CBS airwaves through November 25, 1960.
CD2-
Fibber McGee & Molly- Back From Vacation- Unpacking starring Jim and Marion Jordan-
Fibber McGee and Molly starred the husband-and-wife team of Jim and Marion Jordan, who had first auditioned for radio in 1925 to win a bet with Jim s brother. The top-rated series by former cartoonist Don Quinn, who had first teamed up with the Jordans on their earlier Smackout series. During the first season, Fibber and Molly were portrayed as a middle-aged couple exploring America in their automobile, a format that provided plenty of opportunities to promote their sponsor s line of auto waxes. The McGees eventually settled down at their famous 79 Wistful Vista address, where their lives were continually interrupted by visits from their Wistful Vista neighbors.
The Great Gildersleeve- The Matchmaker starring Hal Peary
The Great Gildersleeve was radio s most-successful and longest-running spinoff, and pioneered the popular sitcom format of an inept single father figure raising children on his own.
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