We start off tonight with another episode of that great quiz show, “Information Please.”  Are you up on babies and their guardians, military insignia, and devils in literature?  Then, since it’s almost time for Easter, here’s the Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble of OTR: Phil Harris and Elliot Lewis.  “The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show” starred actual married couple, Phil Harris, who was the band leader on “The Jack Benny Program,” and popular film star Alice Faye.  Tonight, Phil and his band’s guitarist, Elliot, attempt to use a drugstore chemistry set to color Easter eggs.  What could possibly go wrong?

Episodes

Information Please
March 13, 1944
“Guest:  Quentin Reynolds”
2:11

The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show
April 5, 1953
"Coloring Easter Eggs Phil's Way”
32:46

We start off tonight with an episode of “The Bob Hope Show.”  It’s December of 1945, and the war is over.  Hope had spent much of it broadcasting from military bases, but now he is back at the NBC studios in Hollywood.  His guest, Jimmy Durante, promises to take Bob to a swanky party, but is Bob ready for Society, and vice-versa?  Then, time for that excellent quiz show, “Information Please.”  It’s an Armed Forces recording, which means the original was transcribed and then all the ads were taken out.  Are you up on literary in-laws, animal gestation periods, and places to climb?

Episodes

The Bob Hope Show
December 4, 1945
“Guest:  Jimmy Durante”
3:48

Information Please
April 24, 1944
“Guests:  Deems Taylor and Irene Dunne”
35:02

For our New Year’s treat, here’s “The Lux Radio Theater” adaptation of the classic 1947 film “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.”  The film is an unconventional romance of sorts starring Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney as the title characters.  She’s a vibrant young widow, and he’s the ghost of a rollicking sea captain.  The captain isn’t French, so I’m not sure why they cast Charles Boyer in the role, except that he does have sonorous voice.  Madeleine Carroll takes on Tierney’s role.

Episode

The Lux Radio Theater
December 1, 1947
“The Ghost and Mrs. Muir”
2:30

More Christmas here on “Presenting the Transcription Feature.”  “Author’s Playhouse” was an anthology radio drama that ran from 1941 to 1945 on various networks.  It featured adaptations of popular short stories by authors like James Thurber, W.W. Jacobs, and, in this case, O. Henry.  The story you are about to hear first appeared in his 1907 collection “Heart of the West,” a collection of western tales.  Here, the setting is a mining town during the gold rush, and I love the incredibly ornate way the miners speak.  Reminds me of “Guys and Dolls.”  Then we finish off with “The Jack Benny Special Christmas Show,” a 40-minute-long special that Jack did in the mid-1950s.  It’s got all the usual holiday high jinks plus some special guest stars.

Episodes

Author’s Playhouse
December 21, 1941
“Christmas By Injunction”
2:04

“The Jack Benny Special Christmas Show”
December 2, 1956
32:03

Welcome to December on “Presenting the Transcription Feature.”  That means Christmas-themed episodes all month.  We’ll start off with George Burns and Gracie Allen in the eponymous “The Burns and Allen Show.”  Christmas is fast approaching, and George has no idea what to get his wife.  Then “The Great Gildersleeve” himself is in a very good mood as he goes holiday shopping and plans a party for friends and family.

Episodes

The Burns and Allen Show
December 18, 1947
“Gracie’s Last Minute Christmas Gift”
2:32

The Great Gildersleeve
December 24, 1944
“Twas the Night Before Christmas”  
34:05

“The Couple Next Door” was one of the many 15-minutes-a day, five-days a week programs that used to fill the airwaves.  It was, like “Vic and Sade” a show about “nothing.”  It lacks the absurdism of “Vic and Sade,” and that may have made it easier for its audience to relate to.  The show was the creation of one woman, Peg Lynch, who wrote and co-starred in every episode.  Tonight, we present two representative episodes depicting late 1950s suburban American life.  Then, who better to spend Thanksgiving with than the hard-boiled cast of “The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective”?  Someone is trying to kill a man -- a man named Tom Turkey.

 Episodes

The Couple Next Door

January 27, 1958
“Is The Couple Married”

October 3, 1960
“Living Room Wired For Stereo”
4:10

The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective
November 24, 1950
“The Terrified Turkey Caper”
33:35

It’s Halloween, and what says spooky goings-on more than … Jack Benny.  Tonight, we have two episodes of very different shows, but both starring Jack Benny. We start off with “The Jack Benny Program.”  Everyone is invited to Jack’s house for a Halloween party.  There’s crazy costumes, disappointing food and drink, and lots of jokes about the bygone days of vaudeville.  Then Jack takes a dramatic turn playing a mild-mannered piano tuner who stumbles into the worlds of theft and murder on “Suspense.”

Episodes

The Jack Benny Program
November 3, 1940
“Jack’s Halloween Party”
3:21

Suspense
April 5, 1951
“Murder in G Flat”
33:18

It’s back-to-school time on this episode of “Presenting the Transcription Feature.”  And we all need to laugh, so here’s two comedy episodes.  First, we’ll visit Ivy College, where the mellifluous British actor Ronald Colman and his real-life wife, the equally mellifluous Benita Hume, star as “The Halls of Ivy.”  He is the president of one of those small Midwestern colleges that predominated in movies and radio shows of the era.  She, his wife, who has given up her career on the stage to be his helpmeet.  This episode, while full of laughs, has a lot of heart too.  The show’s dialog is informed and witty – as befits Colman’s always-sophisticated persona, and “The Halls of Ivy” even won a Peabody Award in 1950.  Then we drop in on high school to see “Our Miss Brooks.”  Here, Eve Arden plans a relaxing pre-return-to-work picnic.  But those plans soon go awry.  This episode starts off a little silly.  There’s the sit-com trope of people pretending to be other people, but, as we approach the end, it really pays off hilariously.  Plus, you get Gale Gordon and Frank Nelson in one episode.

Episodes

The Halls of Ivy
March 19, 1952
“The Oldest Living Graduate”
2:35

Our Miss Brooks
September 11, 1949
“The School Board” aka “Head of the Board”
28:23

"HORNET, SAVE THYSELF"
AIRED: MARCH 3, 1967

Britt is accused of murder after he kills a former employee in a room full of witnesses.  Now, he must break ranks with Scanlon and go rogue as the Hornet in order to prove his innocence.    John and Jim use this episode as an example of a point they've been making since the very beginning of the podcast, the missed potential in only making these episodes thirty minutes in length.  Despite this, one of the two ranks this episode as one of the best in the series, plus Jim does a wicked impression of Roger Corby from Star Trek.  

The Green Hornet: A History of Radio, Motion Pictures, Comics and Television by Martin Grams and Terry Salomonson is a reference work we're consulting as we move through the series.  Pick up your copy by clicking on the link and getting it today.

 Take a listen and then let us know what you think of the episode by writing us here or at thebatcavepodcast@gmail.com.

"Bubi, Bubi, Who's Got the Ruby?" &
"1001 Faces of the Riddler"
Aired October 12, 1968

Catwoman and Penguin are at odds over a priceless ruby and the Terrific Trio are caught in the middle in our two-part story review.  Next, Riddler is back in town and he's using disguises to throw the Dynamic Duo off his trail even more so than his riddles.​

​In addition, John and Dan Greenfield, creator and author of the 13th Dimension discuss whether Ted Knight did the voice of Commissioner Gordon and how cool it would be if Funko's Pop Vinyl line did a series based on the Filmation cartoon. Plus, Dan talks about the relationship between Gordon and Bruce Wayne that started all the way at the beginning of the Batman comic in Detective Comics in 1939.

​Comment on the episode here or write thebatcavepodcast@gmail.com