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Category: NBC Radio Collection

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Bob and Ray

Posted by: Karen Fishman

This post was written by Matt Barton, curator, Recorded Sound Section. Born in the early 1920s, Bob Elliot (1923-2016) and Ray Goulding (1922 – 1990), better known as “Bob and Ray,” never knew a world without radio, and reveled in the medium from early childhood. They became professional announcers while still in their teens, eventually …

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The Guiding Light

Posted by: Karen Fishman

This blog post was written by Matt Barton, curator of the Recorded Sound Section. On September 18, 2009, The Guiding Light ended a television run that began June 30, 1952, and a broadcast history that began on radio on January 25, 1937.  The show’s run covered 72 Thanksgivings in all, but as we’ll see, the …

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Rex Stout on the Air

Posted by: Karen Fishman

This blog post was written by Matt Barton, curator of the Recorded Sound Section. Rex Stout (1886-1975) remains well known as the creator of Nero Wolfe, the blunt, erudite and mostly housebound detective with a passion for orchids and fine food. Stout wrote thirty-three novels and forty-one novellas from 1934 to 1975 detailing the exploits …

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The Mystery Chef

Posted by: Karen Fishman

This blog post was written by Matt Barton, curator of the Recorded Sound Section. When The Mystery Chef and his eponymous radio program first appeared on NBC’s Boston affiliate WBZ in May of 1930, they were an almost immediate hit, and were soon being heard nationally over the network. The Great Depression was hitting hard …

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Margaret Rupli, NBC War Correspondent

Posted by: Karen Fishman

This blog post was written by Matt Barton, curator of the Recorded Sound Section. Margaret Rupli (also known as Margaret Rupli Woodward, 1910 – 2012), a native of Washington, DC, had a long and distinguished career in public service. Her career as a war correspondent for NBC radio was much shorter, lasting only from January …

Arch Oboler and His Bathyspheres

Posted by: Matthew Barton

  “Arch Oboler, a restlessly intelligent man…utilized two of radio’s great strengths: the first in the mind’s innate obedience, its willingness to try to see whatever someone suggests it see, no matter how absurd: the second is the fact that fear and horror are blinding emotions that knock our adult pins from beneath us and …

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Crime Plays: The Phillips H. Lord Collection

Posted by: Karen Fishman

This guest post was written by Michelle Dubert-Bellrichard, Archivist, National Audio-Visual Conservation Center.  Phillips H. Lord was a pioneer in radio during its golden age. He produced radio and, eventually, television shows that captured real, American characters, but he would dramatize ordinary people — treating them like heroes. For example, Lord’s radio programs like Sky …

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James Farley and Early Radio Recordings

Posted by: Karen Fishman

Today’s post is by Harrison Behl, Reference Librarian at the Recorded Sound Research Center. Shortly after the formation of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division in 1978, one of our first reference librarians, James Smart, compiled a listing of the radio broadcast recordings the Library had acquired to that point. Covering the years …