BW - EP148—012: February 1944 With Bob Hope—Looking Ahead to The Great Gildersleeve

Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

Well, that brings our look at Bob Hope’s career in February of 1944 to a close. We’ll be staying in 1944 the remainder of the year and next month we’ll spend March 1944 with a program considered to be the first spin-off in sitcom history. Next time on Breaking Walls we spotlight Hal Peary and The Great Gildersleeve, which between February and March of 1944 pulled a rating of nineteen points, making it the most-listened to show airing at 6:30PM in radio history. The reading material used in today’s episode was: • On The Air — By John Dunning • Bob Hope: The Road Well-Traveled — By Lawrence J. Quirk • The Spirit of Bob Hope: One Hundred Years, One Million Laughs — By Richard Grudens • Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg • Bob Hope: The Road from Eltham — By Charles Thompson As well as articles from: • Aces of World War II • Broadcasting Magazine • The Military Times • Radio Daily • The Seattle Times —————————— On the interview front: • Bob Hope was with both Dick Cavett in 1972 and Johnny Carson in 1974. • Ken Carpenter, Jim Jordan, Hariet Nelson, Wendell Niles, Hal Peary, and Lurene Tuttle spoke with Chuck Schaden. Hear these chats at Speakingofradio.com • Jim Jordan also spoke to Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these interviews at Goldenage-WTIC.org • Red Skelton spoke with Merv Griffin in 1975 • Bing Crosby spoke with Same Time, Same Station —————————— Selected music featured in today’s episode was: • Thanks For the Memory — By Bob Hope and Shirley Ross • Ghost Bus Tours — By George Fenton —————————— A special thank you to Ted Davenport, Jerry Haendiges, and Gordon Skene. For Ted go to RadioMemories.com, for Jerry, visit OTRSite.com, and for Gordon, please go to PastDaily.com. An extra special thanks to Doug Hopkinson who provided the Bob Hope episode with Bing Crosby that aired February 15th, 1944. —————————— Thank you to: Tony Adams Steven Allmon Orson Orsen Chandler Phil Erickson Gerrit Lane Jessica Hanna Perri Harper Thomas M. Joyce Ryan Kramer Earl Millard Gary Mollica Barry Nadler Christian Neuhaus Ray Shaw Filipe A Silva John Williams Jim W. —————————— WallBreakers Links: Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers Social Media - @TheWallBreakers