Raised on Radio - Softcover

Nachman, Gerald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520223039 ISBN 13: 9780520223035

Publisher: University of California Press, 2000

Synopsis

In the late 1920s radio exploded almost overnight into being America's dominant entertainment, just as television would do twenty-five years later. Gerald Nachman, himself a product of the radio years, takes us back to the heyday of radio, bringing to life the great performers and shows, as well as the not-so-great and not-great-at-all. Nachman analyzes the many genres that radio exploited or invented, from the soap opera to the sitcom to the quiz show, zooming in to study closely key performers like Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Fred Allen. Raised on Radio is a generous, instructive, and sinfully readable salute to an extraordinary American phenomenon.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

y "raised on radio" -- and that's everybody brought up in the thirties, forties, and early fifties -- this is the ultimate book, combining nostalgia, history, judgment, and fun, as it reminds us of just how wonderful (and sometimes just how silly) this vanished medium was. Of course, radio still exists -- but not the radio of The Lone Ranger and One Man's Family, of Our Gal Sunday and Life Can Be Beautiful, of The Goldbergs and Amos 'n' Andy, of Easy Aces, Vic and Sade, and Bob and Ray, of The Shadow and The Green Hornet, of Bing Crosby, Kate Smith, and Baby Snooks, of the great comics, announcers, sound-effects men, sponsors, and tycoons.

In the late 1920s radio exploded almost overnight into being America's dominant entertainment, just as television would do twenty-five years later. Gerald Nachman, himself a product of the radio years -

About the Author

Gerald Nachman has for thirty-eight years covered theater, movies, cabaret, and television for newspapers and magazines across the country. The author of three previous books, he lives in San Francisco.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0520223039
• ISBN 13: 9780520223035
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544