[ComicMike]

It's my first time seeing a 'Henry Aldrich Comic', I didn't know this character before. I just read that there is both a radio series and a TV series. I'm pretty sure the TV series was never broadcast in Germany. I like this comic and I also like that the comic series is completely here at CB+ :-) , thanks to everyone involved. :-)

Link to the book: Henry Aldrich 01

[crashryan]

Comickraut...By the time I was old enough to know, both radio and TV versions of "Henry Aldrich" were off the air, but I knew about the character through my parents. The opening, Henry's mother calling "Hen-reeeeee! Henry Aldrich!" was still a familiar catchphrase with folks of their generation. During the American nostalgia fad of the 60s local radio stations sometimes played episodes. American media had a thing for comedies about adolescent boys. Major players were Penrod and his ilk in the teens and twenties, The Aldrich Family in the thirties and forties, Leave it to Beaver in the fifties and sixties. Then there was Archie, probably the biggest of all. I'm pretty sure Henry Aldrich was one of the inspirations for the early Archie.

The genre seemed to have petered out in the sixties. Perhaps the growth of the counterculture made teenagers less attractive to the grownups who wrote and watched the shows. Did Germany or other European countries have similar shows?

By the way, I read that the Aldrich Family radio shows are in the public domain and have been posted at the Internet Archive.

[SuperScrounge]

I think the character first appeared in a stage play and the character got so much attention it led to the radio show.

[Robb_K]

Comickraut...By the time I was old enough to know, both radio and TV versions of "Henry Aldrich" were off the air, but I knew about the character through my parents. The opening, Henry's mother calling "Hen-reeeeee! Henry Aldrich!" was still a familiar catchphrase with folks of their generation. During the American nostalgia fad of the 60s local radio stations sometimes played episodes. American media had a thing for comedies about adolescent boys. Major players were Penrod and his ilk in the teens and twenties, The Aldrich Family in the thirties and forties, Leave it to Beaver in the fifties and sixties. Then there was Archie, probably the biggest of all. I'm pretty sure Henry Aldrich was one of the inspirations for the early Archie.

The genre seemed to have petered out in the sixties. Perhaps the growth of the counterculture made teenagers less attractive to the grownups who wrote and watched the shows. Did Germany or other European countries have similar shows?

By the way, I read that the Aldrich Family radio shows are in the public domain and have been posted at the Internet Archive.

The Henry Aldrich radio series had 541 episodes from mid 1939 through much of 1953.  There were two Henry Aldrich films in the 1940s, and the TV series ran from 1949 to 1953.  I've heard only a few of the radio episodes, but I saw the films, and watched the TV show in 1952 and 1953.  And I had several of the comic books from 2 older girl cousins.  Internet Archive has 97 of the radio shows for cost free digital download - you can get them here:  https://archive.org/details/TheAldrichFamily

[paw broon]

Trying to search my memory nowadays is a long and frustrating process.  TV shows with kids?  Apart from Circus Boy and tha Australian, Magic Boomerang, I don't remember any humourous ones like Archie. There were the puppet shows incl Torchy and Twizzle and film versions of The Famous Five.  There must have been others but  I've forgotten them.  Any British members who can help? Please.

[The Australian Panther]

The opening, Henry's mother calling "Hen-reeeeee! Henry Aldrich!" was still a familiar catchphrase with folks of their generation. 

Any time my mother used my full name, I knew I was in Trouble.

Apart from Circus Boy and tha Australian, Magic Boomerang, I don't remember any humourous ones like Archie.   

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis?
Which I think had its own comic for a while. [DC?]
Yep.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/The_Many_Loves_of_Dobie_Gillis_Vol_1
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis: Season 1 Episode 1 - Caper At The Bijou (Full Episode)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGi9OZrhx94

[paw broon]

I'd not heard of Henry Aldrich until recently,, nor do I recall having Dobie Gillis or Archie on our TV, but our house didn’t have a set in the '5O's and when my dad finally rented one, we only had BBC.
On the radio there was The Clitheroe Kid, a Lancashire comedy featuring Jimmy Clitheroe as a mischievous, cheeky schoolboy.  Clitheroe though was an adult of restricted growth, not a boy. Loved the show.

[Robb_K]

I'd not heard of Henry Aldrich until recently, nor do I recall having Dobie Gillis or Archie on our TV, but our house didn’t have a set in the '5O's and when my dad finally rented one, we only had BBC.
On the radio there was The Clitheroe Kid, a Lancashire comedy featuring Jimmy Clitheroe as a mischievous, cheeky schoolboy.  Clitheroe though was an adult of restricted growth, not a boy. Loved the show.

My best friend in The UK (or should I say- "me best mate") lives in Clitheroe, a nice suburban Lancashire town far enough from Manchester to be lot less dirty, noisy, and hectic than the Eccles, Salford, Oldham, Southport I'm used to.  I never paid attention to the children's TV programming in The UK, as I've only spent time there as a late teenager, and adult. Although, I'd class Tommy Cooper's magic shows and Benny Hill as rather juvenile!   

[paw broon]

Oh, Robb, Tommy Cooper was a national treasure.  A useless magician, or so it appeared, but he was  a good magician making a complete horlicks of tricks and being incredibly funny.
  Benny Hill had a # 1 hit with Ernie the Fastest Milkman in the West.  Just goes to show that popularity is no guarantee of quality.
It's very PC to disparage Benny Hill, and you're probably right but he did make me laugh at the time.  It was the scantily clad ladies and the innuendos that did for the show.  Ivor Mill from Biggin Hill becoming Ivor Biggin from Mill Hill.
If you can stand it, lots of the Kids shows on you tube
https://m.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=Clitheroe+kid+

[The Australian Panther]

Benny Hill - Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e1xvyTdBZI

Benny Hill was hugely popular for years, Not really my thing tho, but I do appreciate him.

The constant double entendre in the lyrics to that song make it some kind of masterpiece.

[ComicMike]

The genre seemed to have petered out in the sixties. Perhaps the growth of the counterculture made teenagers less attractive to the grownups who wrote and watched the shows. Did Germany or other European countries have similar shows?

In the 1950s there were probably no teenage series in Germany and I really can't remember any from the 1960s. At that time, German TV was firmly in the hands of U.S. Series, or series from the U.K., or other countries. With great pleasure I remember, for example, the Australian series "The Magic Boomerang". The in-house productions of German TV at that time consisted mainly of music shows and crime series (Germans love crime series), TV guidebooks for cooking and other things and sports programs. From the 1970s there were also teen series, but from that point on I had other interests  because I became a teenager myself ... hahahaha

The Henry Aldrich radio series had 541 episodes from mid 1939 through much of 1953.

An impressive number of episodes. I assume that not all of them have been preserved, because as far as I can remember I read that at that time in the USA many radio plays were performed live in the studio and there were no tape recordings. Many early radio plays in Germany, so after 1945, were recorded on tape, but unfortunately later newly used for new recordings.