When was this? Certainly sometime BEFORE the early 1950s.
Posted on 06/19/2020 8:46:55 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
MADISON, WI — Goodbye “Gunsmoke” and “The Great Gildersleeve.” So long to “The Shadow” and “Jack Benny.”
The Cancel Culture has claimed another victim: The Golden Age of Radio.
Wisconsin Public Radio recently announced it’s canceling “Old Time Radio Drama,” a long-time weekend programming staple that brought back many of the radio classics from the Greatest Generation — the shows many Baby Boomers grew up on.
Why?
Some of the shows, originally broadcast 60, 70, 80 years ago, are deemed “racist and sexist” by the progressive folks at the taxpayer-funded Wisconsin Public Radio.
“Despite significant effort over the years, it has been nearly impossible to find historic programs without offensive and outdated content,” said Mike Crane, WPR’s director, said in a press release.
That’s the problem for much of media amid the disastrous culture wars. Everything’s offensive to the perpetually aggrieved. So everything must go.
Once upon a time the left fought against burning books, movies, TV shows, radio programs. Now they’re outright banning them.
Such is the case with the ridiculously woke HBO. Recently HBO Max said it would temporarily remove classic Civil War drama “Gone With the Wind” from its lineup until it can add “cultural context” to the movie.
Good grief.
Frankly, my dear, we don’t give a damn about HBO, but we are offended by all of the offended.
Classic radio shows — when radio was king — are a significant and vital part of U.S. history. They entertained and connected a country in depression, at war and on the rise. They were magical, transportive, inspirational pastimes enjoyed by many, many millions of listeners, of all races, in their time. And yes, some were patently racist, by today’s standards, and even yesterday’s standards.
But they are part of the warts, scars, birthmarks, dimples and cleft chins of the body Americana.
The cultural elites, the deciders of what is good and bad, what we can write and think and feel, not only want to provide “cultural context” to our shared past, they want to burn it down.
Last weekend, Wisconsin Public Radio held a funeral for Old Time Radio Drama. It’s gone with the wind, so to speak. The long-running program’s time slot will be filled by something called PRX Remix, featuring “some of the best stories, podcasts and documentaries from independent creators …”
Goodbye Golden Age of Radio.
I’m sure we will see old movies and TV shows being banned as well.
With this cultural cleansing going on , almost anything made before about the year 2000 is going to be offensive in some way .
Pick any old show or movie and you will see that there is something objectionable to these radicals.
Leave it to Beaver is objectionable to feminist types because June Cleaver represents a stereotypical housewife. And with Leave it to Beaver or any old sitcom , there was no obligatory gay character on shows back in those days.
A silly sitcom such as Bewitched has got to be offensive, because Darren warned Samantha not to use Witchcraft , and he behaved like he was her boss, like he was dominant over her, in telling her not to use Witchcraft.
You could make a game out of this. Pick any old movie or TV show and then talk about what these radicals today would find offensive about it.
Bump
one can find many of these programs at archive.org. The entire run of Great Gildersleeve for example is there. As well as WW2 broadcasts, etc. You gotta take time to hunt, but its there and all downloadable—at least it was.
If you are into WWII history, YouTube has English subtitled copies of WWII German newsreels. Look for “die deutsche wochenschau english subtitles”.
It is interesting to watch the tone of the series as the war progresses. In 1940 it’s all “Our soldiers are saving Norway and Denmark from English invasion”. By 1944, it is more like “Our brave lads are repositioning to more defensible lines” i.e. retreating. In early 1945 it’s “You’ll find taking Aachen a lot tougher than Paris or Bucharest”. They never say they are losing, but I’m sure their audience had no illusions.
I’ve watched a lot of those.
If I want offensive content I watch CNN or MSNBC or ABC or CBS or NBC or read the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times.
Their anti-white prejudice deeply offends me.
We’ll get our old time radio back in heaven, and Rush Limbaugh will host the show for us, but in the meantime plenty of online sources till they take those too.
When I was in Germany for my time in the Army (1978-81), Armed Forces Radio had these same programs in the early afternoon. It was a good respite from their music.
The cultural revolution continues.
The Big Broadcast is WAMU’s longest running program. The show features a collection of radio from the golden age, the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, hosted by Tony-Award winning playwright, lyricist and director Murray Horwitz.
Each Sunday night you’ll hear shows like Gunsmoke, The Jack Benny Show, The Lone Ranger, Suspense, Fibber McGee and Molly, and Dragnet all woven together with historical tidbits — and links between the shows and entertainment today.
When was this? Certainly sometime BEFORE the early 1950s.
I don’t even know what online on-demand is. I am sure that there are at least 2 or 3 others out here who don’t know and could care less. It seems that young people find that we older people really don’t matter anymore so our past goes on the pile of burning books. RIP USA as we knew it.
Bump
I still buy and collect CDs. If I listen to them in my truck, I rip them to thumb drives, but the originals are still with me. At least until a gang of "protesters" decides to loot my house and burn it down.
The Shadow was an early incremental “cancel culture” proponent itself.
If you compare the endings - criminal gets his comeuppance - from the late 1930s through the end in the 1950s, there was a definite progression from dying on the spot, to death sentence to suicide to death-by-misadventure during the escape. (sequence may not be correct, but it’s there.)
I gave up re-listening when I noticed Lamont called Margo “a good little social worker” in an epi.
XM148 is the only reason I keep the service.
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