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Old Time Radio Comedy ran the spectrum from the early circumstance comedy of Jack Benny to the country style humor of Lum and Abner and everyplace in between.
America has a lasting love affair with comedy radio and those lovable personalities that made every one burst out laughing. Our Miss Brooks, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Life of Riley, Duffy’s Tavern, Dean martin and Jerry Lewis, My Friend Irma, My Favorite Husband with Lucille Ball, Ozzie and Harriet, Abbott and Costello, The Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Minnie Pearl, Mae West, Amos and Andy, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Father Knows Best, The Bickersons, The Aldrich Family, Bringing Up Father, Moon Mullins, Mel Blanc, Henry Morgan, Jean Shepherd, Stan Freberg and the list goes on and on!
Plus that’s just the American Shows. Old Time Radio and therefore Old Time Radio Comedy was a international phenomena. With magnificent radio shows originating from England, Europe, Africa, Australia and elsewhere.
So, where to tap in to all of this wealth? The giant Old Time Radio archives to be found at such outstanding OTR internet sites as Bookzap and Radio Treasury comprise more comedy routines, shows and amusement than most could listen to in a lifetime! These two great internet sites have it all and with crystalline clear sound quality. Below are just a few of the most unforgettable and wqell loved old time radio show collections that you may acquire on Bookzap or Radio Treasury. Below at the end of this article you may find the link to these two exemplary websites.
Jack Benny, among the most beloved American entertainers of the 20th century, was recognise by some as the “King of Comedy”. Jack Benny was an extraordinarily sweet comedian who could crwack you up wjust by looking at you!
Our Miss Brooks was a big comedy hit on radio from the beginning. Within just months of it is debute the show landed assorted honors. It depicted a woman comic in a new way which was niether clutzy or scatterbrained.
Fibber McGee and Molly were disputable the most loveable couple on odl time radio. The Humor was so funny and the characters so intimate and unforgettable that this series ran in one form or another for when it comes to full two decades.
The Life of Riley,
The Life of Riley was an early version of a typical American circumstance comedy, it was co-developed by Gummo the non-performing fellow member of the Marx Brother family. The Life of Riley appeared on both radio and television in the 1940s and 1950s. It helped to introduce “nuclear family” conception to American broadcasting. THE LIFE OF RILEY was an early version of the “dumb husband” type of comedy, which is a formula oftentimes repeated still in TV sitcoms.
Duffy’s Tavern
Duffy’s Tavern was heard on the radio from 1940 to 1952 and was widely loved from the beginning by both critics and the working-class. Though DUFFY’S TAVERN made the transition to television in 1954, it only lasted for one season. Duffy’s Tavern ran for years on radio but didn’t translate as well to film or television.
An American radio circumstance comedy which aired on both CBS and NBC, Duffy’s Tavern oftentimes featured famous stage and film guest stars. But the show closely always centered around the misadventures, schemes, and romantic missteps of the title establishment’s manager, Archie, played by Ed Gardner.
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were a little-known vaudeville team when they made their screen debuts in a movie adaptation of the 1940s radio show MY FRIEND IRMA (1949). They became the biggest comedy team of the late 1940s and early 1950s. They were peculiarly a usual team in the 1950s, making a lot of movies, television appearnces, and various comedy radio performances together.
My Friend Irma
My Friend Irma, formulated by writer-director-producer Cy Howard, was a top rated, long-running radio circumstance comedy. It was so ordinary in the late 1940s that it is success escalated to films and television.
My Friend Irma, played by Marie Wilson, tells the tales of a very dim-witted blonde secretary named Irma Peterson, and the each day high-jinx that she gets into with her respective screwy friends.
My Favorite Husband with Lucille Ball
My Favorite Husband was Lucille Ball’s very ordinary late 1940s radio program which preceded her famous Lucy Ricardo reputation of I Love Lucy. Lucille Ball was one of radio and television’s foremost pioneers, and galore believe, the pre-eminent woman in the history of American comedy.
Ozzie and Harriet
Before they got their own radio show (1944), Ozzie and Harriet were regulars on Red Skelton’s radio show. However, When Skelton was drafted into the military in 1944, Ozzie and Harriet were offered the vacated time slot. So they filled it with The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
The children of Ozzie and Harriet were in the first place played by actors. But were soon the actors were substituted by their own two sons, David and Ricky Nelson.
An early portrayal of the established American nuclear family, with Dad bringing home the bacon and Mom cooking it for him and the kids, Ozzie and Harriet was a very standard and agreeably diverting show for a great deal of years on radio for the duration of the 40′s and later TV for the duration of the 50′s.
Abbott and Costello
Abbott and Costello were amid the most successful comics at making the transition from burlesque to radio and film. A quintessential American comedy duo, Abbott and Costello’s work in radio, film, and television made them one of the most standard comedy teams in history. Not known for droll or witty humor, they were straightout comics relying more on verbal than physical humor.
The Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were masters of slapstick and double entendre comedy which enabled them to get past the censors of their time. Somewhat less well know is the fact that they were also gifted they were likewise musicians. The Marx brothers were American radio, stage, and film stars who for the duration of the 1930′s domiated comedy with their lunatic antics.
W.C. Fields,
Of comedy Fields once said, “The funniest thing regarding comedy is that you never know why people laugh.
After Vaudeville, W.C. Fields made a heap of films for the duration of his career, but he also continued to carry out on the radio. Fields could always deliver the clever phrase, and he delighted radio listeners with his long standing feud with Charley McCarthy.
Amos and Andy
Amos and Andy were simple down to world characters for the intent of comedy. They were black characters portrayed by white actors wearing blackface makeup. Amos and Andy were a very frequent comedy team on radio, but NAACP objections to the show occurred because it was considered to stereotype African Americans.
Bob Hope,
Bob Hope was a comedian from the latter days of vaudeville who achieved terrifi success in radio and television. He was definately a triple-threat superstar of radio, film and television for the duration of the 1940s and 1950s. Bob Hope, was the king of the spontaneous one-liner, a beloved performer, and a great supporter of our men in uniform. Bob Hope was among the primary performers to entertain the troops.
George Burns and Gracie Allen
Burns and Allen were a very usual American comedy duo consisting of George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen. Married for forty years, Burns and Allen primary met on the vaudeville circuit in the 1920′s. The were considered by some to be the finest husband/wife comedy team of all time.
Father Knows Best
Father Knows Best was basi a radio series on NBC Radio. The show debuted in August of 1949. Four years later, the show moved to CBS television and was a general TV series allround the 1950′s and early 60′s. It was a situational comedy in the setting of a typical Midwestern community. Father Knows Best’s Andersons portrayed the idealisti middle class American family.
The Bickersons
The Bickersons was a general American radio comedy program that aired from 1946 to 1951. The battling couple may have seemed to have no business being married at all, but their show was funny and it functioned as an early prototype later comic couples as Ralph and Alice Kramden of The Honeymooners and Peg and Al Bundy of Married With Children.
The Aldrich Family
The Aldrich Family was so ordinary circumstance comedy all over America that it aired for closely 14 years from 1939 through 1953.
Of course there are a good deal of more outstanding ccomedy acts that sprung up for the duration of the golden age of old time radio. These are but a few of the the most standard in my opinion. If you want to revisit a great deal of of these shows, or thousands of other old time radio programs I highly commend visiting Bookzap or Radio Treasury and enjoying the shows!
Great American Broadcast Alice Faye
Disc 1: The Great American Broadcast Disc 2: Four Jills in a Jeep Disc 3: Rose of Washington Square Disc 4: Hollywood Cavalcade Disc 5: Hello, Frisco, Hello
Here’s round two of Alice Faye’s career at Twentieth Century Fox, five films that without apparent effort capture the all-American appeal of “the lady with the velvet throat,” as she is introduced in Four Jills and a Jeep. Until she plainly walked away from film in 1945, Faye’s star burned brightly in the nonsensical backstage musicals Fox churned out, a daffy World That Never Was. Only one title, Four Jills, is set in it is era (1944), and it’s not an Alice Faye picture–she pops up for a cameo, singing “You’ll Never Know.” The movie’s actually when it comes to USO performers Kay Francis, Martha Raye, Carole Landis, and Mitzi Mayfair, who actually had toured in England and North Africa performing “for the boys.” The rest of the films are with resolute determination set in studio chief Darryl Zanuck’s beloved past: Hollywood Cavalcade is a typical Fox nostalgia trip, set for the duration of the birth of silent cinema. Budding conductor Don Ameche builds his moviemaking career on the talent of his star (Faye), without noticing that she’s in love with him. The film lets Buster Keaton stage a few slapstick sequences, and there are bits from silent-movie luminaries, including Ben Turpin, Mack Sennett, and Al Jolson. Jolson has a major role in Rose of Washington Square (1939), in all likelihood the most interesting film in the set. This one’s a lightly-fictionalized version of the story of Fanny Brice’s unhappy marriage to Nicky Arnstein (later the basis for Funny Girl), with Faye a very WASPish Brice and Tyrone Power the ne’er-do-well she just can’t support lovin’. Faye tries Brice’s signature song, “My Man,” and Jolson does numerous of his signature stuff, including his blackface routine. In the event, Fanny Brice was not pleased; as a helpful DVD featurette explains, she sued and won.
E20 1941′s The Great American Broadcast, directed by workhorse Archie Mayo, does for radio what Cavalcade did for silent pictures. This time John Payne and Jack Oakie are inventing the wireless network; Alice is a saloon singer whose crooning helps their plan succeed (but of course fails to impress Payne for far too long). Along with Faye’s singing, a good deal of terrific numbers by the Ink Spots and the unbelievable Nicholas Brothers help this formula along. A huge hit in 1943, Hello, Frisco, Hello brought Payne and Oakie back, with Alice once again waiting around for Barbary Coast enterpriser Payne to observe that they’re in love. This is where Faye’s marvelous low, mellow voice introduced “You’ll Never Know,” which the movie wisely keeps reprising. Technicolor-ful to the point where you might need sunglasses, this is one of those loony, stupefyingly mush-headed musicals that make you wonder whether Hollywood had collectively gone mad, or perchance ingested hallucinogenic substances. The splendid prints for these films show off Fox’s scrupulous studio style. No commentary tracks, but a selection of featurettes gives smart and applicable background for the movies. –Robert Horton
Great American Broadcast Alice Faye Image
Great American Broadcast Alice Faye Photo
Great American Broadcast Alice Faye Pic
Great American Broadcast Alice Faye Picture
Most helpful client reviews
39 of 43 people found the following review helpful.
 Charming Alice Faye in comprehensive package
By Douglas M
The availability of a second collection of films of the charming Alice Faye is welcome. It seems that a new generation are discovering this quality performer and actress and this DVD collection is a worthy valentine to her legacy. Faye’s films tended to follow a proven box office formula. She was cited in later life as drily stating that they plainly rotated her leading men as she perpetually remade the same story. These films surely aid that view as all the cliches are on view, each with their own twist.
- primary off is the 1939 “Rose of Washington Square”. This is a dramatic musical with a more gutsy part for Faye than popular and an splendid role for matinee idol Tyrone Power as a heel. The story was based on the life of “Funny Girl” Fanny Brice who sued the studio for plagiarism. Al Jolson, as Faye’s vaudeville buddy, and Faye sing superbly. The film was severely edited before release and galore of the cut scenes survive, a good deal of of which have been included here.
- next, likewise freed in 1939, is the technicolour romantic comedy “Hollywood Cavalcade”. This is a nostalgic look at the coming of talkies, a Reader’s Digest potted history of Hollywood, with Faye’s role based loosely on, among others, Mabel Normand, a silent screen comedian, and Don Ameche on Mack Sennett, a silent comedy director. The film is very well made with soft colouring and splendid performances by the leads but the conductor Irving Cummings, while meticulous, always directed at a plod. The best scenes are the Keystone Cop comedy recreations, not directed by Cummings, before the films descends into the general cliches with Faye neglected by her leading man and wearing her heart on her sleeve.
- in 1941, “The Great American Broadcast” adhered rigidly to the girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl reunites with boy formula, this time set around the advent of radio. The plot is a rehash of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” stirred in with “Tin Pan Alley” with John Payne and Jack Oakie re-appearing from the latter film. While it may be flawed history, it is a mighty agreeably diverting film. Faye’s rendition of the war time Harry Warren lament “Where you are”, backed by the Ink Spots, is unforgettable and the Nicholas Brothers are in there too, performing a breathtaking dance as usual.
- in 1943, “Hello Frisco Hello”, one of Faye’s best remembered films, was released. A amount of time musical rich in intimate and, in this case, in particular tiresome plot cliches, it gains from spectacular colour, great production values, superb sound and Faye herself, slim, radiant, warm and sympathetic. This is the film in which she mesmerised the audience with her signature tune “You’ll Never Know”, but there are other goodies like “The Grizzly Bear” and “Pick on me”. John Payne and Jack Oakie are with her for the third time, the former as a very stiff and humorless leading man and the latter for a great deal of hokey overacted comedy.
- the inclusion in the set of the lousy war time propaganda film “Four Jills in a Jeep” is hard to fathom, unless you view it as a sort of bonus. This boring musical traces the factual trip by 4 second rate stars to entertain the boys at the front. Most of the musical numbers are dull with wooden Dick Haymes, piercing Martha Raye and voluptuous Carole Landis, amidst others. One spotlight is the athletic dancing of Mitzi Mayfair. Faye makes a guest aspect reprising “You’ll Never Know”. She seems reserved.
With all the agreeably diverting films available to include in the package, “Four Jills in Jeep” is a rotten choice. It likewise will have to be pointed out that “Hollywood Cavalcade” is not a musical, given that this set is another of Fox’s “Marquee Musicals”. The film surely has the feel of one with a delightful soundtrack of old favourites supporting the melodrama but Faye does not sing.
The set has been beautifully packaged. All of the prints have been restored and are in outstanding condition and the 2 technicolour prints are outstanding. Every film has it is own documentary, not only focusing on Faye and her colleagues but on the historical distinct elements of the yarns – Fanny Brice for “Rose”, the advent of radio for “Broadcast”, the history of Hollywood for “Cavalcade” and USO tours for “Jills”. Each of the films with Faye as the lead hit a bullseye at the box office. “Frisco” has a charming featurette on Faye herself and her daughter Alice appears, as well as Michael Feinstein and Hugh Hefner amid others.
All the general selling material is included such as theatrical trailers, on set stills and advertising. In fact my only complaint is that Faye’s exquisite rendition of “I’ll see you in my dreams” is not amid the deleted numbers from “Rose”. A colourful booklet comes in the box, devoting 2 pages of anecdotes and background data to each film. This nicely complements the featurettes on each DVD. Lastly, “Rose”, “Jills” and “Frisco” have audio only tracks. You may view the films with the firstborn studio recordings matched cautiously to what is on the screen without dialog disruption etc – a very neat feature.
The DVD set is magnificent value and with the documentaries, the progressed viewer will start out to comprehend just what an primary star Alice Faye was and that her contribution to American pop music was big in her heyday.
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful.
 Inclusion of 4 Jills in a Jeep – A Joke?
By Philip R. Jaeger
why in the world include a film in which Alice Faye is a guest star and is on screen less than five minutes with all the starring vehicles she did for Fox? It makes so little sense one suspects that the people putting these sets together are either idiots or just thumbing their nose at fans.
Sally, Irene, and Mary, Wake Up and Live, Sing Baby Sing ,You Can’t Have Everything with Don Ameche and the Ritz Bros. – any of these would be much more priceless releases.Too much to hope that the Fox persons read these posts and realize their “mistake”.
Otherwise , this is is a outstanding release with four terrific starring Faye vehicles long wanted by fans on dvd.
8 of 8 persons found the following review helpful.
A few titles that were never available on VHS
By D. S. Wymore
As a few others have mentioned, the inclusion of “Four Jills in a Jeep” is completely a misfire in this collection due to Alice Faye’s 5 minute appearance. Why wasn’t “Tin Pan Alley” included? That film was a big hit in 1940 – and has Betty Grable! Or how with regards to “In Little Old New York” with Fred MacMurray? I also want to mention that 3 out of the 5 films are available on VHS. The two that have never been available are: The Great American Broadcast and Hollywood Cavalcade. I have had bad “taped from TV” videos of these two films for years merely because they were never available commercially. One may only hope that by not including a lot of of her never freed to video films from the 1930s, that the big scheme (future volumes) will include galore of those. I ought to also mention that “Hollywood Cavalcade” has no musical numbers.
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