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For the kids of course, especially the boys, it was those thrilling adventure series that attracted them to radio. Some parents also worried about the impact of the War reporting as well as some vilent radio programs would have on their children--a concern which has continued to this daty. Children listened to radio adventure programs an average of 14 hours a week, much less than the moder TV generation. Some of the programs most popular with children during World War II were Captain Midnight, The Shadow ("Who knows what evil lurkes in the minds of men. The Shadow knows."), The Green Hornet, Jack Armstong--the all American Boy, Dick Tracey, The Lone Ranger, Tom Mix, Sky King, Terry and the Pirates and the most popular radio hero, Superman (who was introduced in 1938 just as the NAZI menace was becoming apparent to many Americans). These heros except for dated ones like the Lone Ranger pitched right into the War effort. The plots of many of the shows involved foiling the misdeeds of Japanese and German evil dooers. Many of these programs were based on popular comic strips and would be some of the most important early television programs after the War. The radio adventure programs as well as the daytime series had a simplistic moral tone of good versus. evil with justice always prevailing in the end. Listening to these programs today one is struck by how much more evil the Japanese milatarists and German NAZIs actually were than the comic book presentations. Children were often encouraged at the end of the program to help out in any way they could: collecting scrap materials, buying war bonds, planting a victory garden, writing to a service person, and a variety of other suggested activities. Radio continued to be important for a few years after the War before television became dominate. There were more thrilling adventures such as 'Gang Busters' and 'Gunsmoke'.
For the kids of course, especially the boys, it was those thrilling adventure series that
attracted them to radio. Some parents also worried about the impact of the War reporting
as well as some vilent radio programs would have on their children--a concern which has continued to this daty. Children listened to radio adventure programs an
average of 14 hours a week, much less than the moder TV generation.
Some of the programs most popular with children during World War II were Captain Midnight, The Shadow ("Who
knows what evil lurkes in the minds of men. The Shadow knows."), The Green Hornet, Jack Armstong--the all American Boy, Dick Tracey, The Lone Ranger, Tom
Mix, Sky King, Terry and the Pirates and the most popular radio hero, Superman (who was introduced in 1938 just as the NAZI menace was becoming apparent to many Americans). These heros except for dated ones like the 'Lone Ranger' pitched right into the War effort. The plots of many of the shows involved foiling the misdeeds of Japanese and German evil dooers. The radio adventure programs as well as the daytime series had a simplistic moral tone of good versus. evil with justice always prevailing in the
end. Listening to these programs today one is struck by how much more evil the Japanese milatarists and German NAZIs actually were than the comic book presentations. Children were often encouraged at the end of the program to help out in any way they could: collecting scrap materials, buying war bonds, planting a
victory garden, writing to a service person, and a variety of other suggested activities.
Radio continued to be important for a few years after the War before television became dominate. There were more thrilling adventures such as Gang Busters and Gunsmoke.
Many of these programs were based on popular comic strips and would be some of the most important early television
programs after the War.
We have persued theatricals primarily because of the clothing and fashion information involved. As radio was purely a audio medium, there was very limited fashion information involved, except when for some reason clothing may have beem involved in the plot line. Thus the programming is not of as much interest to us as movies, plays, and television. We will, however, mention the programs that we know of that had important child characters. There were primarily family-type shows, but we also see or more accurately hear adventure stories in which the main character had a juvenile side-kick. We do not yet have a lot of information about radio prigrans, but they were very important in the 1930s and 40s before the emergence of television as a major force. Our information, however is much more limited than what we know about television.
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