*An Afternoon of Old-Time Radio with the Metropolitan Washington Old-Time
Radio Club!!*This Saturday, August 13 (2:00 p.m.) at the Library of
Congress Coolidge Auditorium, Washington, DC.


*OLD TIME RADIO AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS*



On August 13th, 2016 at 2:00 pm in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library
of Congress, members of the Metropolitan Washington Old Time Radio Club
will re-create three broadcasts complete with sound effects the Golden Age
of Radio:  a 1940 episode of the soap opera, *John’s Other Wife*, a 1936
episode of the children’s series*Little Orphan Annie* (two examples of
daily, 15 minute radio serials), and a 1949 episode of the private-eye
series *Pat Novak for Hire*, a self-contained thirty minute evening
program. Founded in 1984, the Metropolitan Washington Old-Time Radio Club
honors, collects and preserves information on vintage radio, meeting each
month in Northern Virginia. Members have hosted OTR panel discussions and
made presentations at the Smithsonian Institute, NOVA College, The National
Air and Space Museum, The Newseum, and for numerous senior citizens’ groups
and retirement homes. In 2015 and again this year, they performed for
sell-out crowds in the Library of Congress’s Packard Theater at the
National Audiovisual Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA. In addition to
the three programs described below, there will be a live demonstration of
the art of sound effects. This event is free to the public.



*PAT NOVAK FOR HIRE (Original Broadcast: June 5, 1949)*



*Pat Novak For Hire *referred to itself as “one of radio’s most unusual
programs,” and that it was. Created in 1946 by writer Richard L. Breen and
actor/announcer Jack Webb, Pat Novak lived on the San Francisco waterfront, and
rented boats, although he mainly served as a “man-of-all-work.” Usually he
was hired to perform some unsavory task, and always – *always *– it led him
to the scene of a murder. Novak had one friend, a former doctor named
Jocko Madigan,
who gave up his practice to concentrate on full-time drinking, and one
major adversary, Inspector Hellman of the police force, who tried
repeatedly to pin every murder on poor Novak.



*JOHN’S OTHER WIFE (Original Broadcast: week of January 1, 1940)*



Frank Hummert, and his wife Anne, created and produced over fifty different
soap operas in the Golden Age of Radio. Many of them were very popular and
aired for decades, including *Stella Dallas, Young Widder Brown, The
Romance of Helen Trent*, and *Ma Perkins*. Some of their other productions
had a shorter tenure and are not as well-known today, such as *John’s Other
Wife*. This Hummert show began on September 14, 1936 and aired weekdays
until March 20, 1942 on NBC. It told of the tribulations of a Midwestern
couple: John Perry, a store operator, and his wife, Elizabeth. She
occasionally referred to his secretary, Annette, as his “other wife”, and
later in the series, used that same term to describe his executive
assistant, Martha. In addition to her jealous nature, Elizabeth was
secretly convinced she could run the store better than John. In this
episode, she gets the chance to prove it.



*LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE (Original Broadcast: October, 1936)*



The curly-haired darling and her dog, Sandy, who became the most loved
twosome on the musical stage and movie screen, were created by newspaper
comic strip artist Harold Gray in 1924. Within five years, it had become
one of the most popular comic strips in the syndicate and was still going
strong 44 years later when Gray died in 1968. Annie launched her airwaves
career in 1930 on WGN Chicago, making her the first juvenile adventure
series on radio. One year later, under the sponsorship of Ovaltine, it
achieved network status on NBC. By 1937 it was so popular it aired on both
NBC and Mutual. The series would continue until April 26, 1942. Ovaltine
offered a multitude of premiums, many for just a proof of purchase and “one
thin dime.” These included drinking mugs,lapel pins, books, maps, bandanas,
rings, puzzles, and of course, decoder badges, immortalized in the 1983
film *A Christmas Story*.



Kimberly Peach
ARSC Web Editor www.arsc-audio.org
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