BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:NOTES ON OLD-TIME RADIO

radio (n.)
"wireless transmission of voice signals with radio 
waves," 1907, abstracted or shortened from earlier 
combinations such as radio-receiver (1903), radiophone 
"instrument for the production of sound by radiant 
energy" (1881), radio-telegraphy "means of sending 
telegraph messages by radio rather than by wire" (1898), 
from radio- as a combining form of Latin radius "beam" 
(see radius). Use for "radio receiver" is attested 
by 1913; sense of "sound broadcasting as a medium" 
also is from 1913."
    from THE ONLINE ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY
**

PAUL VON DULLAC  talked continuously
for 82 1/2 hours on a Chicago radio show.

from BELIEVE IT OR NOT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE BIZARRE
**

WXYZ- "Radio station for which Alan Scott (The Green 
Lantern)is program director (comic books). Actually.
WXYZ is a Detroit radio station on which the radio
series 'The Lone Ranger'(1933), 'The Green Hornet'
(1936), and 'Challenge of the Yukon' (1947) premiered."

from The Complete Unabridged Super Trivia 
Encyclopedia by Fred L. Worth (Los Angeles: 
Brooke House,1977).
**

"Shirley Temple--'Presh' to her mother --now
a radio actress, has long been a radio fan.
She has six or eight radio sets at her 
command and in her daily comings and goings
likes Gang Busters almost as much as her 
favorite The Lone Ranger. But because of
studio and parental objections she has never
been allowed to act on a radio program before
this week."
   Time. January 1,1940
**

              REMEMBERING THE QUIZ KIDS

Quiz Kids was a radio and TV series of the 1940s and 1950s. 
Created by Chicago public relations and advertising man 
Louis G. Cowan, and originally sponsored by Alka-Seltzer, 
the series was first broadcast on NBC from Chicago, 
June 28, 1940, airing as a summer replacement show for 
Alec Templeton Time. It continued on radio for the next 
13 years. On television, the show was seen on NBC and CBS 
from July 6, 1949 to July 5, 1953, with Joe Kelly as 
quizmaster,[2] and again from January 12 to September 27, 1956, 
with Clifton Fadiman as host.
                              WIKIPEDIA 

"In many American homes in the early 1940s, tuning
in the Quiz Kids was nearly as habitual as turning
on the evening news to hear how our boys were doing
overseas. The press followed our feats almost as
closely as the troop maneuvers in Europe and the
Pacific."
...
"Children all over the country Quiz Kids Magazine,
played with Quiz Kid toys and games, and wore Quiz
Kid club badges on their Quiz Kids sweatshirts.They
looked up words in the Quiz Kids Dictionary, read
our favorite stories and poems in the Quiz Kids
anthology, and tried to 'Beat the Quiz Kids' by
topping our scores in a syndicated quiz column."

Ruth Duskin Feldman. Whatever Happened to the
Quiz Kids? (Chicago: Chicago Review Press,1982)

**
INFORMATION PLEASE 

Another popular quiz show was INFORMATION PLEASE.
"which aired on NBC from May 17, 1938 to April 22, 1951. The title was the contemporary phrase used to request from telephone operators what was then called "information" but is now called "directory assistance"." Wikipedia

The show, with its 3 regular panelists Oscar Levant, 
John Kiernan, and Franklin Pierce Adams, inspired a 
bit of light verse by Irwin Edman, who was the chairperson 
of the Philosophy Department at Columbia University. 
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Herman Wouk (Columbia 
class of 1934),  dedicated his first novel to Edman. 
I quote the closing 3 stanzas from

                 INFORMATION, PLEASE!

            I listen as they quip and quiz
            And get a joke or get an answer:
               What's the pluperfect tense of Is?
               Whose head was carried by what dancer?

             I listen to the poems and dates,
             The facts, the whimsies, and the sparks,
             The prompt mind that infuriates,
             The quick recall, the bright remarks.

             And as the quizzes end I go
             (Sometimes I last but half-way through them)
             To study hard until I know
             So much I needn't listen to them.