Entertainment During World War II

Fascination with Radio

ne of my children once asked, “Dad, when you are a boy what television programs did you watch?”   They must have thought I was really old when I told them that I was in college when we got a television set.  Even then, there was only one channel and it wasn’t on all day.   Believe it or not, we used to sit around and watch the test pattern.  They must have thought I was really old if I could remember a world without television.

But we did have radio. Song with war theme lyrics were really big.  I was drawn to  “Let’s Remember Pearl Harbor,” “Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer” and “There’ll be Bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover.”   

It was during this time I became aware of what today is known as country music or hillbilly music as it was known back then. Shortly after we got our radio we started listening to a Fort Worth station in the early morning.  They had a program that featured a young singer, who accompanied himself on the guitar – no other instruments.  His name was Ernest Tubb.  The same station also featured a gospel group known as The Chuckwagon Gang. 

But the radio was far more diverse than that.  There were no strictly country music stations.  Radio stations didn’t limit themselves to a single genre.  There was no teen age music.  There was one radio in the house, and you wanted to listen to it, you heard what the adults chose.

The programming included news, music, drama, comedy, quiz shows and soap operas.    The popular network news broadcasters were Walter Winchell and Gabriel Heatter, who seemed to always start his reports of the war by saying, “There’s ba-a-a-ad news tonight.   Another popular newscaster of that time was Cedric Foster, whom I later met when I was in college.

The most popular quiz show of the time combined big band music with the quiz show format.   It was called “Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge.”   We listened to big band programs, featuring bandleaders like the Dorsey Brothers, Benny Goodman and of course Glen Miller, who lost his life during the war.   My mother was devoted to the afternoon soaps.  Her favorites were “Portia Faces Life” and “Lorenzo Jones and His Wife Bell.”

My favorite programs were the kids’ adventure stories.   Like every kid my age I loved the “Lone Ranger.”  I couldn’t wait to hear the strains of “The William Tell Overture” followed by the familiar voice of announcer Fred Foy.  I could introduce the program just like he did.  “Return with us to those thrilling days in the early western United States.   From out of the past comes the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver.  The Lone Ranger rides again.”