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[boox909]

"The Big Broadcast is a Sunday night tradition for families throughout the WAMU listening area. Each week, Big Broadcast host Ed Walker offers listeners priceless recordings of popular radio programs from the '30s, '40s and '50s. Priceless, especially, for a man whose first sentence as a child was, 'Turn the radio on.' "

http://wamu.org/listen/

An example of the August 1st offering. The show can be listened to online!

* 07:00 p.m. Johnny Dollar -- 09/29/57 #556 Doubtful Dairy Matter (AFRS)(25:00)
* 07:30 p.m. Dragnet --  Dragnet: 12/14/54 #278 Big Lens (AFRS)(24:36)
* 08:00 p.m. Gunsmoke -- 12/25/60 #455 Minnie (CBS)(19:02)
* 08:30 p.m. Halls of Ivy -- 01/27/50 Charter Day Ceremonies (Schlitz Beer)(NBC)(29:26)
* 09:00 p.m. Tales of the Texas Rangers -- 12/10/50 #22 The Lucky Dollar (Sus.)(NBC)(29:50)
* 09:30 p.m. Sam Spade 07/10/49 #159 The Queen Bee Caper (Wildroot Cream Oil)(CBS)(28:18)
* 10:00 p.m. Dimension X -- 07/14/50 #15 The Man in the Moon (Wheaties)(NBC)(29:46)
* 10:30 p.m. Suspense 07/15/48 Summer Night w/Ida Lapino (Auto-Lite)(CBS)(29:18)

[bowers]

A thousand thanks, Boox, for sharing this excellent site ! Old-time radio programming is always a hit with me. Cheers, Bowers

[narfstar]

My son and I are both OTR fans. We have several disks full of it. Most of it is PD and can be bought cheap or downloaded free. My son liked Boston Blackie so much he bought the movies and tv series of the show. There were some great comedies also. Blondie and Dagwood, Life or Riley, Bickersons, Fibber and Molly, Red Skelton is my son's current favorite, Baby Snooks, and Archie had a short but good run.

[Menticide]

My son and I are both OTR fans. We have several disks full of it. Most of it is PD and can be bought cheap or downloaded free. My son liked Boston Blackie so much he bought the movies and tv series of the show. There were some great comedies also. Blondie and Dagwood, Life or Riley, Bickersons, Fibber and Molly, Red Skelton is my son's current favorite, Baby Snooks, and Archie had a short but good run.

I used to collect radio shows when I was a kid and I wish I still had some of those old records today. I always look for them when I visit stores that carry used vinyl. I'm also always on the lookout for old Peter Pan, Power, and other similar book and record sets. And, yes, Boston Blackie was awesome, I love those movies. Another favorite of mine is the Durango Kid.

[Menticide]

By the way, this thread just reminded me, does anyone know if there is an archive of Gene Autry's Melody Ranch radio show somewhere? I'm a huge fan of Autry, Roy Rogers, Smiley Burnette, Eddie Dean, and all of those guys. I have a bunch of Autry and Rogers records, but I have never seen any records of Autry's radio show.

[josemas]

Thanks Boox909.  Always glad to learn of another source for OTR.  I'm currently working my way through 4 collections I got from the library-Fibber McGee & Molly, Sam Spade, Amos 'N' Andy and an Arch Oboler collection.

Joe M

[bowers]

You can find about 60 episodes of "Melody Ranch" at http://www.archive.org/details/otr_geneautry    Archive .org has lots of comics, pulps and radio (even many of the wonderful "CBS Mystery Theater" episodes.) Also some other good sites for free downloads are  http://newportvintagebooks.com/otr/index.html   and   http://www.radiolovers.com/  My personal favorites were "Suspense", the Orson Welles "Shadow" episodes, Boston Blackie (radio, TV, and movies), and "Richard Diamond" the singing detective! These starred Dick Powell and many episodes were written by a young Blake Edwards. With Edwards writing, the scripts were, of course, filled with equal parts of action, humor and snappy repartee. And, no matter how badly beaten up, Dick always managed to work in a song at the end. This series never took itself too seriously, which was part of its charm.

[Menticide]

Bowers, thank you very much. I will be checking that out in a little while. Thanks again.