Article: Mutual Radio Theater remembered

[CrankyYankee]

Thought it's program life was short, Mutual Radio Theater gave radio drama a shot. Here's a link to a recent article on Mutual Radio Theater:

http://booksteveslibrary.blogspot.com/2008/07/mutual-radio-theater.html

 

[kirkiefan]

Mutual tried it's hand at radio drama several times.

In the 1940s and 50s "Family Theater" was aired and was a rather popular award winning show. Radio Maria USA still airs its repeats on Sunday afternoons. Father Patrick Peyton was the program's founder and originated the phrase: "The family that prays together stays together."

http://www.familytheater.org http://www.radiomaria.us

Also "Zero Hour", a half hour nightly program hosted by Rod Serling aired in 1973 until his passing in 1974.

http://members.aol.com/radiodrama/zerohour.html

It later inspired "CBS Radio MysteryTheater" afterward in that decade."

http://home.twcny.rr.com/myafchak/

 

[ercjncpr]

Mutual tried it's hand at radio drama several times.

In the 1940s and 50s "Family Theater" was aired and was a rather popular award winning show. Radio Maria USA still airs its repeats on Sunday afternoons. Father Patrick Peyton was the program's founder and originated the phrase: "The family that prays together stays together."

http://www.familytheater.org http://www.radiomaria.us

Also "Zero Hour", a half hour nightly program hosted by Rod Serling aired in 1973 until his passing in 1974.

http://members.aol.com/radiodrama/zerohour.html

Family Theater actually lasted in re runs until the early 60s. Mutual was also the home of The Shadow from 1938-1954

It later inspired "CBS Radio MysteryTheater" afterward in that decade."

http://home.twcny.rr.com/myafchak/

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

Mutual had several programs of note on its network even in the mid-1960's. Unfortunately, as that was a time of disc-jockeys and local programming, not many stations picked them up. I was at WCTM in Eaton, Ohio in 1966 and they did carry some of them. There was as "Hawaii Calls" which had a long broadcast history and featured Hawaiian music, "The Big Lie" which debunked false claims on communist stations from Moscow and Cuba. There was even an all-night music program on Mutual called, fittingly, "Music Beyond the Stars".

 

[BrigThomson]

I remember that Mutual didn't run the shows down the network. Instead they used to send us the shows on discs.

 

[kirkiefan]

You are probably referring to the Dick Clark National Music Survey in the early 1980s. The ones I mentioned were sent down the network line as I worked for an affilliate in the 70s. A "one minute mystery" thriller program also aired in 1974-75 called "Nightwatch" after "Zero Hour" left the air due to Serling's passing. I might add that Mutual was the first to use sattellite starting in 1978 (before RKO) and by 1981 all affilliates were off the unequalized land lines for good. That took place shortly after Amway bought the network and the Mutual Black Network was sold to Sheridan.