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- This column by John Cosway
is a mix of 50 years of media memories and 15 years of buying
and selling experiences via live and online auctions, flea markets,
antique stores and markets etc
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- Cosway's Corner -
When radio was family entertainment
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- Old time radio lives on the Internet
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- By John Cosway
The quickest way for seniors to truly feel like dinosaurs is
to talk to younger friends and relatives about how they used
to sit with family after dinner to listen to radio programs.
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- Mom, dad and the kids all sitting together for dinner at
the same table is ancient enough, but gathering to listen to
the radio sounds downright prehistoric.
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- But that is what folks did daily from the advent of radio
in the early 1920s to the 1950s.
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- It was Theatre of the Mind in the Golden Age of Radio, before
television, home computers, the Internet, iPods, iPhones, iPads,
video games and other, more solitary, pastimes.
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- Family gatherings for radio are long gone, but thanks to
the Internet, a wide variety of early radio programming is available
on numerous free and paid sites. Just Google "old time radio"
and enjoy vintage news, sports, dramas, variety and comedy shows.
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- When radio was king, this writer's grandfather, a Toronto
streetcar driver, wound down in his Ossington Ave. home after
work in front of a 1930s floor model Stewart-Warner radio. The
well-polished mahogany front room centrepiece also picked up
police calls.
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- The first radio in our house on Euclid Ave. was a tabletop
model in the living room, but when the kids got older and could
afford their own radios, scary fare like Inner Sanctum and Suspense
got more play in upstairs bedrooms.
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 Big or small, plastic,
wood or metal, it was radio programming that mattered most. For
Canada, that first programming came in 1919 when Canadian Marconi
Co. launched XWA (Experimental Wireless Apparatus) in Montreal.
Canada's first commercial radio station soon became CFCF and
much later moved up the dial from 600 to AM940.
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- (Corus Entertainment Inc. pulled the plug on Canada's oldest
station last January saying the greatest hits station wasn't
profitable.)
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- In the early years of radio, if you owned one you were required
to pay for a license, but some old-timers we know say most people
didn't bother and the practice was dropped.
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- So after the initial purchase, radio was free and there have
been many memorable radio milestones from both sides of the border
since 1919.
In February of 1923, Foster Hewitt, 21, made Canadian broadcast
history in calling the first on-air hockey game, an intermediate
game at Arena Gardens in Toronto, later renamed Mutual Street
Arena.
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- Hewitt's dynamic "he shoots, he scores" radio play-by-plays
inspired countless young hockey players and kept a nation glued
to radios throughout the hockey season for several decades. Radio
play by play remains an NHL force in 2010.
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- Radio, as the prime source of breaking news, raised the bar
after Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbour just before 1 p.m.
our time on Dec. 7, 1941. Too late for the morning newspapers,
but afternoon and evening editions would have coverage.
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- When the bombing began, people in Ontario would have been
listening to afternoon football games, live entertainment and
other shows. Within 30 minutes, radio bulletins began interrupting
regular programming.
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- Canada, along with the remainder of the British Commonwealth,
was already at war. The radio bulletins on that date that would
"live in infamy" told Canadians they had a new ally
in World War 2 - the Americans.
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- Broadcast journalism, in its infancy, would quickly mature,
with Edward R. Murrow and other high-profile newsmen leading
the way.
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 Radio fiction also
had the power to panic a nation, as experienced with the Oct.
30, 1938, CBS War of the Worlds broadcast, a 60-minute Mercury
Theatre on the Air production by actor/director Orson Welles
and producer John Houseman.
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- Mercury Theatre on the Air presented a variety of productions
based on literary classics, but the reworked H.G. Wells classic
about a Martian invasion, staged that Sunday evening as breaking
news, was all too real for thousands of listeners across North
America.
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- The most widely publicized radio dramatization during the
Golden Age of Radio can be heard in its entirety online at tinyurl.com/ye7vwqy
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- While early radio created instant images of mayhem, real
or imagined, it could also be counted on to welcome each New
Year with an upbeat musical message from Guy Lombardo and his
Royal Canadians orchestra.
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 Lombardo, a London,
Ontario, native, launched his Guy Lombardo New Year's Eve Party
on Dec. 31, 1929, broadcasting live from the Roosevelt Grill
in New York. It became an annual radio tradition, later moving
to the posh Waldorf Astoria.
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- Millions of listeners welcomed each New Year with Lomdardo's
widely recognized rendition of Auld Lang Syne on radio and then
on television beginning in 1954. It remains a New Year's Eve
favourite - 33 years after his death at 75.
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- Other popular musical regulars on radio included Tommy and
Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Jimmy Durante.
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- Through good times and bad, radio also made you laugh, with
an abundance of comedy shows for the family, including Burns
and Allen, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Fibber McGee and Molly, Bob
and Ray, Amos 'n' Andy, The Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show,
Fred Allen, Red Skelton, Abbott and Costello and others.
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 Abbott
and Costello, by the way, first performed their Who's On First?
routine on radio in the 1930s and it still cracks people up in
more than 30 languages.
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- Wondering what "revoltin' development" Chester
A. Riley (William Bendix) would get himself into week after week
kept our family tuned to The Life of Riley on NBC. The radio
series ran from 1943 to 1951 before moving to television.
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- Another classic comedy moment was W.C. Fields bantering with
Charlie McCarthy.
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- For edge-of-your-seat Theatre of the Mind, there was The
Shadow, Inner Sanctum, Suspense, Boston Blackie, Dragnet, Johnny
Dollar etc. Or full live productions on Lux Radio Theatre, General
Electric Theatre, starring Hollywood stars of the day.
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- The Shadow, one of our favourites, was played by several
actors during its CBS run from the early 1930s to its exit in
1954, including Orson Welles. Best remembered narration: "Who
knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows."
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- Suspense, another CBS series that stirred the imagination
of listeners, was among the few radio series to remain on the
air well after television became popular, running from 1942 to
1962. Johnny Dollar also made its exit in 1962.
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- News, sports, drama, comedy, pre-TV radio had it all at the
turn of a dial. Much of it has been preserved and is now online
thanks to dedicated sites like the National Radio Hall of Fame
and Museum at radiohof.org/inducteesaz
iTunes - apple.com/itunes
- also provides hours of free old time radio podcasts.
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- Chatty and often divisive talk shows aside, radio remains
relevant in the 21st century when it comes to news, sports and
music. And there are more contemporary radio dramas being staged
for Theatre of the Mind faithful.
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- But long gone are the days when a Martian invasion of Grover's
Mill, New Jersey, was all too real for radio listeners until
being assured it was all a dramatization.
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