Originally broadcast on CBS, 15 November 1943. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Vox Pop collection (public domain).
The run
- Network
- NBC / CBS
- Years active
- 1938–1951
- Surviving broadcasts
- 219
- Genre
- talk
Information Please ran from 1938 to 1951, first on NBC and later CBS and Mutual. Listeners mailed in questions intended to defeat the resident panel — Franklin P. Adams, John Kieran and the pianist Oscar Levant, joined weekly by guests including Wendell Willkie, Boris Karloff and Gracie Allen — and were paid when they succeeded. It was among the first American programmes electronically transcribed for repeat broadcast on both coasts. The surviving recordings are public domain.
1941 · 51940 · 201939 · 411938 · 24
Restoration quality — measured from the surviving files
Listenable · 97 of 219Rough but complete · 122 of 219
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
Every broadcast below carries its own provenance sheet — transfer quality, file source and rights.Archive record: Information-Please
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
70 dated broadcasts across 14 years on the air, with 6 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
JFMAMJJASOND
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
Clean transferListenableRough but complete No surviving recording
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 1938, in original transmission order.
- 1. Harry Overstreet Marcus Dufield · 17 May 1938
- 2. John Erskine Bernard Jaffe Marcus Duffield · 7 Jun 1938
- 3. Marc Connolly · 14 Jun 1938
Harry Overstreet Marcus Dufield
17 May 1938 · 30 min
Originally broadcast on NBC, 17 May 1938. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Information Please collection (public domain).
John Erskine Bernard Jaffe Marcus Duffield
7 Jun 1938 · 30 min
Originally broadcast on NBC, 7 June 1938. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Information Please collection (public domain).
Marc Connolly
14 Jun 1938 · 30 min
Originally broadcast on NBC, 14 June 1938. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Information Please collection (public domain).
Oscar Levant
21 Jun 1938 · 25 min
Originally broadcast on NBC, 21 June 1938. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Information Please collection (public domain).
Carmen Show
28 Jun 1938 · 29 min
Originally broadcast on NBC, 28 June 1938. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Information Please collection (public domain).
Oscar Levant
5 Jul 1938 · 28 min
Originally broadcast on NBC, 5 July 1938. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Information Please collection (public domain).
Quincy Howe George S Kaufman
12 Jul 1938 · 28 min
Originally broadcast on NBC, 12 July 1938. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Information Please collection (public domain).
Thomas Craven Ben Hect
19 Jul 1938 · 30 min
Originally broadcast on NBC, 19 July 1938. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Information Please collection (public domain).
Same night on the air
15 Nov 1943
Everything else the archive still holds from the night of 15 Nov 1943.
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'JubileeOldTimeRadio' (public domain).
Also on NBC / CBS
NBC / CBS in 1938–1951
Other series the network carried while Information Please was on the air.
Same seasons
talk on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
If you liked this
More to explore
Chosen by the same editors.
