Breaking Walls

This episode was originally released on 5/1/2021. While new episodes of Breaking Walls are on hiatus I'll be going back and posting the older episodes.

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In Breaking Walls episode 115, we focus on one of the last experimental programs on the air, The CBS Radio Workshop, and the man at its Hollywood helm, William Froug. We’ll listen to episodes, hear interviews with men and women known and unknown, and find out why this show was so critically acclaimed in its day.

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Highlights:
• Who is Bill Froug and what does he do?
• What do Norman Corwin, Orson Welles, Ray Bradbury, Burgess Meredith, and Bernard Hermann have in common?
• Network radio in 1936
• Network radio in 1956
• The CBS Radio Workshop is revived
• Season Of Disbelief & Hail And Farewell
• A Report on ESP
• Subways Are For Sleeping
• Winding down the Workshop
• Looking ahead to Monitor

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The WallBreakers:
thewallbreakers.com
Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts.

To support the show:
patreon.com/TheWallBreakers

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The reading material used in today’s episode was:

On the Air - By John Dunning

As well as articles from:
Broadcasting Magazine
The New York Daily News

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On the interview front:
• Lilian Buyeff, Don Diamond, John Dehner, Lawrence Dobkin, Bill Froug, Jack Johnstone, Byron Kane, Elliott Lewis, and Peggy Webber were with SPERDVAC. For more information, go to SPERDVAC.com.

• Norman Corwin, Virginia Gregg, Carlton E. Morse, Alan Reed, and Russell Thorson spoke with Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Bill Robson spoke with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear this full interview at Goldenage-WTIC.org.

• William Paley spoke while receiving a citation in November of 1958.

• Ray Bradbury was interviewed by Jerry Haendiges in October of 1976.

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:
• Don’t Fence Me In — By Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters
• February Sea — By George Winston
• Heartbreak Hotel — By Elvis Presley
• Seance on a West Afternoon — By John Barry

This episode was originally released on 4/1/2021. While new episodes of Breaking Walls are on hiatus I'll be going back and posting the older episodes.

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In Breaking Walls episode 114, as America moves to the suburbs in the mid-1950s, we move with them and examine a radio western called Fort Laramie. Although it only aired for ten months, it’s one of the most critically acclaimed western shows the genre ever produced.

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Highlights:
• The Network Radio Landscape in 1956
• Norman MacDonnell loses Gunsmoke’s TV Production
• Who Is William Raymond Stacy Burr and What Has He Really Done?
• Launching Fort Laramie
• Easter Sunday, 1956
• Lost Child
• The Birth of Rock and Roll
• Jeanette Nolan’s Stagecoach Stop
• The New Recruit
• Fort Laramie Dies, Gunsmoke Lives On
• Looking Ahead to the CBS Radio Workshop

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The WallBreakers:
thewallbreakers.com
Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts.

To support the show:
patreon.com/TheWallBreakers

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The reading material used in today’s episode was:

• On the Air — By John Dunning
• Network Radio Ratings, 1932-53 — By Jim Ramsburg

As well as articles from
• Broadcasting Magazine
• The Los Angeles Times

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On the interview front:
• Eve Arden, Dick Beals, Edgar Bergen and Shirley Mitchell, spoke to Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Harry Bartell, Lilian Buyeff, Lawrence Dobkin, Lou Krugman, Jeanette Nolan, and Vic Perrin were with SPERDVAC. For more information, go to SPERDVAC.com.

• John Dehner, John Dunkel, Norman MacDonnell and John Meston were with John Hickman for his History of Gunsmoke documentary.

• John Dehner and Vic Perrin were with Neill Ross for KMPC.

• Jack Kruschen and Shirley Mitchell were with Jim Bohannon.

• Raymond Burr was with Jack Webster.

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:
• Don’t Fence Me In — By Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters
• February Sea — By George Winston
• Heartbreak Hotel — By Elvis Presley
• Seance on a West Afternoon — By John Barry

This episode was originally released on 3/1/2021. While new episodes of Breaking Walls are on hiatus I'll be going back and posting the older episodes.

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In Breaking Walls episode 113 it’s September of 1953 and Elliott Lewis is one of the busiest men in radio. He’s the producer/director of four shows and the star of two. We’ll join him that fall, following for a week to find out what life was like for the man affectionately dubbed by his peers as “Mr. Radio.”

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Highlights:
• Phil and Alice Court Elliott Lewis
• Broadway is My Beat, Still Going Strong
• Agnes Moorehead Guest-Stars on Suspense
• Finding and Losing Love On Stage
• The Very Suspicious Borden Family Murders
• Radio’s Golden Age Draws to a Close
• Looking Ahead to Go Back in time to Wyoming

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The WallBreakers:
thewallbreakers.com
Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts.

To support the show:
patreon.com/TheWallBreakers

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The reading material used in today’s episode was:

• On the Air — By John Dunning
• Network Radio Ratings, 1932-53 — By Jim Ramsburg
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On the interview front:
• Sam Edwards, Alice Faye, Phil Harris, Elliott Lewis, Agnes Moorehead, Arch Oboler, and Paula Winslowe were with Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Lilian Buyeff, Mary Jane Croft, Sam Edwards, Betty Lou Gerson, Byron Kane, Lou Krugman, Elliott Lewis, and Jeanette Nolan were with SPERDVAC. For more information, go to SPERDVAC.com.

• Elliott Lewis and E. Jack Neuman were with John Dunning for his 71KNUS program from Denver.

• Elliott Lewis was also with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear this full interview at Goldenage-WTIC.org.

• Jack Kruschen, Shirley Mitchell, and George Walsh were with Jim Bohannon.

• Morton Fine spoke with Dan Hafele for SPERDVAC in 1988.

• WIlliam Conrad spoke with Chris Lambesis.

• Norman MacDonnell with John Hickman.

• Raymond Burr was with Jack Webster.

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:
• Rags to Riches — By Tony Bennett
• Manhattan — By Blossom Dearie
• Pyramid of the Sun — By Les Baxter
• The Venice Dreamer Parts 1 & 2 — By George Winston
• I’ll Be Seeing You — By the Harry James Band
• Caravan — By Gordon Jenkins

This episode was originally released on 2/1/2021. While new episodes of Breaking Walls are on hiatus I'll be going back and posting the older episodes.

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In Breaking Walls episode 112, we finish our five-part mini-series by examining NBC’s business and programming during the 1949-50 radio season in the wake of the CBS talent raids by examining the steps NBC took to regain their footing as the television era began.

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Highlights:
• Garroway
• Frank Sinatra’s Tailspin
• Monday Night of Music
• Ivy College and their Hallowed Halls
• Christopher London vs. Jack Benny
• Randy Stone Prowls Chicago’s Night
• Dimension X and Arnold Moss
• Cloak and Dagger
• Vincent Price and Simon Templar
• Looking Ahead to Elliott Lewis

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The WallBreakers:
http://thewallbreakers.com
Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts.

To support the show:
http://patreon.com/TheWallBreakers

——————————

The reading material used in today’s episode was:

• On the Air — By John Dunning
• Network Radio Ratings, 1932-53 — By Jim Ramsburg

As well as articles from the archives of:
• Broadcasting Magazine
• Radio Daily
• Variety
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On the interview front:
• Ken Carpenter, Dave Garroway, Jim Jordan, Phil Leslie, Vincent Price, Lurene Tuttle, and Herb Vigran were with Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Raymond Edward Johnson, Arnold Moss, Vincent Price, and Bill Robson were with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these at Goldenage-WTIC.org.

• Lawrence Dobkin and Elliott Lewis were with SPERDVAC. For more information, go to SPERDVAC.com.

• Don Quinn was interviewed by Owen Cunningham in 1951,

• Frank Sinatra was with Walter Cronkite in 1965,

• Lurene Tuttle spoke with Same Time, Same Station in 1972.

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:
• I Can Dream, Can't I — By The Andrews Sisters
• Salute to Charlie Christian — By Barney Kessel
• Holo Holo Haa — With Lani McIntyre
• It All Depends on You — By Frank Sinatra
• The Look of Love — By Billy May
• Moon Moods — By Les Baxter
• Spooky — By Dusty Springfield

This episode was originally released on 1/1/2021. While new episodes of Breaking Walls are on hiatus I'll be going back and posting the older episodes.

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In Breaking Walls episode 111 we resume our mini-series in January of 1949. CBS is now the nation’s number one network, and NBC is left to come up with programming answers. We’ll focus on the shows they launched in the spring and summer of 1949.

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Highlights:
• Jack Benny: Now on CBS
• First The News
• Network Radio Opens 1949 with Record Earnings
• John Wayne, Claire Trevor, John Ford, and Ward Bond Open The NBC Theater
• David Sarnoff and the Mass NBC Exodus
• It’s the Martin and Lewis Show!
• Alan Young and Henry Morgan
• Richard Diamond
• Jack Webb Launches Dragnet
• Fred Allen Finally Has Enough
• William Conrad, The Killers, and The Four Star Playhouse
• Dangerous Assignment
• San Francisco’s YUkon 3-8309 Lady Detective
• Looking Ahead to the Fall of 1949

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The WallBreakers:
http://thewallbreakers.com
Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts.

To support the show:
http://patreon.com/TheWallBreakers

——————————

The reading material used in today’s episode was:

• On the Air — By John Dunning
• Network Radio Ratings, 1932-53 — By Jim Ramsburg

As well as articles from:
• Billboard Magazine
• Broadcasting Magazine
• Radio Daily

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On the interview front:
• Virginia Gregg, Lurene Tuttle, Herb Vigran, Mike Wallace, Don Wilson were with Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Parley Baer, Lilian Buyeff, Herb Ellis, Betty Lou Gerson, Virginia Gregg, and Peggy Webber were with SPERDVAC. For more information, go to SPERDVAC.com

• Arnold Stang was with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these at Goldenage-WTIC.org.

• Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin were with Cedric Adams

• Fred Allen was on Tex and Jinx

• Donald Vorhees was interviewed for Allen’s Biography In Sound

• Jack Kruschen was with Jim Bohannon

• John Dehner was with Neil Ross

• William Conrad was with Chris Lambesis

• E. Jack Neuman was with John Dunning

• Frank Sinatra was with Walter Cronkite

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:
• Takin’ A Chance on Love — By Helen Forrest
• The Pavane — By Steve Erquiaga
• Lenore Overture Number 3 — By Ludwig Van Beethoven
• And Fly Me To The Moon — By Frank Sinatra