OLD TIME RADIO - CD-ROM - 52 mp3

The Damon Runyon Theatre was another of Alan Ladd's Mayfair Transcription Company productions. Ladd, long an admirer of 'The Brighter Side', Damon Runyon's long-running newspaper column, initially signed Pat O'Brien to star as 'Broadway' in the program. Indeed we have an alleged audition from the program, titled "Princess O'Hara" in which O'Brien and Wendy Barrie are heard announcing the next production of the series, 'A Piece of Pie'. Newspaper listings of the era describe Pat O'Brien slated to cut all 52 programs upon completing principal filming of the Howard Hughes/RKO feature, The Boy with Green Hair. But the quixotic Hughes decided the 'message' element of The Boy with Green Hair was a bit too risky for late-1940s audiences. He directed that the film be re-shot, as needed, to remove the social intolerance message from the completed celluloid.

Newspaper accounts cite O'Brien as anticipating a New York recording session for all 52 episodes of The Damon Runyon Theatre sometime during the Summer of 1948. But owing to the re-shoot and re-cutting of The Boy with Green Hair, the movie wasn't completed until September of 1948. This may--or may not--explain Pat O'Brien's absence from the remaining episodes of The Damon Runyon Theatre--or whether any were recorded beyond Princess O'Hara. Given the common practice of cutting two to five transcribed recordings in one session, one might well imagine that O'Brien recorded as many as five Damon Runyon Theatre programs before his performances were cut short. But it's intriguing to wonder how many of the episodes they actually did record before O'Brien had to rush back to RKO's West Coast studios to complete The Boy with Green Hair.

As it turns out, Ladd tapped short-lived veteran Radio actor John Brown to voice the recurring 'Broadway' character so central to the exposition of every episode of The Damon Runyon Theatre. As most fans of the program would attest, John Brown's 'Broadway' was as good as it gets in Radio. Brown had already begun performing a similar character on My Friend Irma (1947) as Irma's (Marie Wilson) shiftless boyfriend, so the leap to yet another Lower East Side accent wasn't that great for Brown. Indeed, one wonders if Brown ever got out of character for the seven years that My Friend Irma aired over CBS.

The Damon Runyon Theatre stands as one of Mayfair's finest contributions to The Golden Age of Radio and remains a valuable addition to any Golden Age Radio collector's library. As an artifact of American Society it represents an invaluable time capsule of period vernacular. But most of all it stands as an enduring reminder of the genius of Damon Runyon's insight into the class warfare that evolved during and after the Roaring 20s and The Great Depression.

 

 

 

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EPISODES LIST

THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-01-02-Tobias the Terrible
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-01-09-Little Miss Marker
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-01-16-Romance in the Roaring Forties
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-01-23-The Lemon Drop Kid
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-01-30-A Nice Price
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-02-06-The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-02-13-For a Pal
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-02-20-Princess O Hara
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-02-27-Butch Minds the Baby
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-03-06-Breach of Promise
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-03-13-Dancing Dans Christmas
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-03-20-Pick a Winner
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-03-27-Hold Em Yale
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-04-03-The Brain Goes Home
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-04-10-Blood Preasure
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-04-17-Old Ems Kentucky Home
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-04-24-Blonde Mink
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-05-01-Leopards Spots
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-05-08-All Horse Players Die Broke
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-05-15-The Hottest Guy in the World
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-05-22-A Piece of Pie
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-05-29-Barbecue
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-06-05-Lonely Heart
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-06-12-Broadway Complex
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-06-19-Madame La Gimp
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-06-26-Baseball Hattie
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-07-03-The Big Umbrella
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-07-10-Earthquake
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-07-17-The Bloodhounds of Broadway
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-07-24-The Lily of St Pierre
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-07-31-It Comes up Mud
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-08-07-Broadway Financier
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-08-14-Bred for Battle
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-08-21-So You Wont Talk
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-08-28-Social Error
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-09-04-Cemetery Bait
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-09-11-The Melancholy Dane
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-09-18-The Brakemans Daughter
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-09-25-The Lacework Kid
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-10-02-Maybe a Queen
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-10-09-Joe Terrace
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-10-16-Lillian
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-10-23-Palm Beach Santa Claus
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-10-30-Tight Shoes
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-11-06-That Ever-Lovin Wife of Hymies
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-11-13-A Light in France
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-11-20-A Story Goes with It
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-11-27-Dark Dolores
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-12-04-What No Butler
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-12-11-Neat Strip
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-12-18-Sense of Humor
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATER 49-12-25-Dream Street Rose