The Guiding Light
https://youtu.be/egI5QDtHhC0 The Guiding Light was broadcast on NBC, then CBS radio from 1937-1956 and on CBS TV from 1952-2009. The original NBC radio series (broadcast in 15-minute episodes) was based on the personal experiences of writers Emmons Carlson and Irna...
Bob and Ray
Wikipedia Bob and Ray was the name of a popular American radio comedy show with Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding whose career spanned five decades. The duo typically satirized radio and television interviews, with deadpan,...
Radio Moscow
https://youtu.be/cznCttle760 Radio Moscow's interval signal. Radio Moscow (Pадио Москва) was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics until 1993. After the fall of the Soviet Union It was...
Armed Forces Radio Service
After WWII, the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) employed mobile radio vans and commandeered Japanese stations on the mainland, Korea, the Marianas, and the Ryukyus. After the Korean War broke out, broadcasts to Korea from Japan were transmitted from the Far...
Radio Free Europe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pQh2PjdziQ&t=65s Headquartered in Munich Germany, Radio Free Europe was founded as an anti-communist propaganda platform in 1949 by the National Committee for a Free Europe (a CIA front organization). Although...
Arthur Godfrey
https://youtu.be/3FlVhQTIL1Q Sponsored by Lipton Tea, Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts was broadcast on CBS radio and television from 1946 until 1958. Godfrey was also hosting Arthur Godfrey and His Friends at the same time. Arthur Godfrey delivered...
TV Soap Operas
Irna Phillips (Old Magazine Articles) In January 1949 NBC broadcast the first TV daytime soap opera entitled "These Are My Children." Written by long-time radio and screen writer Irna Phillips, the show was broadcast live from Chicago for just fifteen minutes at...
Martians Land in Ecuador
https://youtu.be/zJIHi78T5lA In February 1949 an Ecuadorian folk song was interrupted by a Radio Quito announcer with urgent news: Martian flying saucers had landed and used death rays to destroy a town 25 miles south of Quito.Soon a "reporter" breathlessly reported...
Texaco Star Theater
The Texaco Star Theatre with the comedian Milton Berle was first broadcast on radio (1938-1949) before it became an extremely popular American variety show on television (1948 -1956). As star of tThe Texaco Star Theater, Milton Berle earned the nickname "Uncle...
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian with a devilishly-quick wit and and somewhat off-color humor. Marx had a long stage and screen career, making 13 feature films with his brothers. Groucho walked with an...
Voice of America Calls USSR
Established in 1942 for Allied propaganda broadcasts during WWII, the Voice of America (VOA) continued broadcasts after the war aimed mostly at Western Europe. In September 1947, VOA began broadcasts aimed at the Soviet Union with: “Hello! This is New...
Censorship WWII USA
This 1944 U.S. Army instructional film about censorship incorporates the humor, sexuality and racism of the time. During the war, U.S. government control of the news by the Office of War Information was comprehensive. All correspondence between active duty military...
U.S. Pilot Defects
For years a devotee of the ultra-conservative radio ministry of Father Charles Edward Coughlin, a 23 year-old USAAF P-38 pilot named Martin James Monti defected to the Axis powers in October 1944. Why a young American might actually defect to the Axis is hard to...
American Music WWII
Unlike songs popular in America during WWI , many WWII songs focused more on romance and strength instead of patriotism. Particularly popular, were singers included Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, the Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby. Listen on YouTube to these popular...
Censorship – USA
We were all a part of the War Effort. We went along with it, and not only that, we abetted it. Gradually it became a part of all of us that the truth about anything was automatically secret and that to trifle with it was to interfere with the War Effort. By this I...
Gee
Gee was the code name given to a hyperbolic navigation system introduced by the RAF in 1942. Based on the difference in timing between the reception of two signals, Gee produced a "fix" on a target as far away as 350 miles, with accuracy > several hundred feet....
Nazi Radio
In the 1930s, most european radio stations were controlled by a government monopoly with emphasis on political programs. When Hitler came to power in 1933, the Reich Broadcasting Corporation became the major propaganda vehicle for the Nazi party. From 1933-39,...
Axis Sally
Axis Sally was the generic nickname given to female radio personalities who broadcast English-language propaganda for the European Axis Powers during World War II. Mildred Elizabeth Gillars, nicknamed "Axis Sally," was an American broadcaster employed by Nazi...
Listen, Germany!
Wikimedia Commons In 1940, Thomas Mann, the exiled German winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature , began recording 5-8 minute monthly radio broadcasts via BBC long-wave radio under the title “Deutsche...
Lord Haw-Haw
https://youtu.be/yI3IjZ5Ut9g Lord Haw Haw broadcast Lord Haw-Haw was a nickname applied to William Joyce whose Nazi propaganda broadcasts began with "Germany calling. Germany calling." Joyce spoke in a nasal, simulated upper-class British accent with a sarcastic and...
Tokyo Rose
Tokyo Rose was a generic name given by Allied troops in the Pacific War to several English-speaking female broadcasters from Japan. Intended to undermine the morale of Allied listeners, Tokyo Rose often delivered news scripts in a playful, sexy, tongue-in-cheek...
Abbott & Costello
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg Comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello teamed up in 1936. During the next few years, they performed on the burlesque circuit, perfecting their routines such as their famous baseball sketch “Who’s on First? In many ways,...
FDR Fireside Chat
"It is nearly five months since we were attacked at Pearl Harbor. ...American warships are now in combat in the North and South Atlantic, in the Arctic, in the Mediterranean, in the Indian Ocean, and in the North and South Pacific. American troops have taken...
Censorship in Wartime Japan
Since feudal times, the Empire of Japan had a long tradition of censorship of political discourse. In 1936, the Information and Propaganda Committee issued all official press statements and worked with the Publications Monitoring Department to censor all types of...
Rise of Japanese Nationalism
The motion picture 永遠のゼロ。(The eternal Zero) released in December 2013, was adapted from a novel about a young man searching for information about his grandfather's WWII special forces duty. The ultraconservative author of the novel, Naoki Hyakuta was recently...