The run
- Network
- AFRS
- Years active
- 1943–1949
- Surviving broadcasts
- 47
- Genre
- variety
Mail Call was an Armed Forces Radio Service variety programme built around letters from servicemen overseas, recorded in Hollywood from 1942. Like all AFRS output it carried no sponsors and was pressed to transcription discs for shortwave and overseas station use. The surviving discs are public domain.
Restoration quality — measured from the surviving files
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
11 dated broadcasts across 7 years on the air, with 4 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 1943, in original transmission order.
- 1. Groucho Marx, Betty Grable, Judy Garland · 9 Jan 1943
- 2. Groucho Marx, Irene Manning, Paulette Goddard · 26 Aug 1943
- 3. Jack Benny, Judy Garland, Johnny Mercer, Delta Rhythm Boys · 5 Jan 1944
- 01
Groucho Marx, Betty Grable, Judy Garland
9 Jan 1943 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'MailCall' (public domain).
- 02
Groucho Marx, Irene Manning, Paulette Goddard
26 Aug 1943 · 30 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'MailCall' (public domain).
- 03
Jack Benny, Judy Garland, Johnny Mercer, Delta Rhythm Boys
5 Jan 1944 · 30 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'MailCall' (public domain).
- 04
Lionel Barrymore, Connie Haines, Eddie Cantor
8 Mar 1944 · 30 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'MailCall' (public domain).
- 05
Bing Crosby, Connie Haines, Betty Grable
26 Jul 1944 · 30 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'MailCall' (public domain).
- 06
Nelson Eddy, Burns & Allen, Jeanette MacDonald
23 Aug 1944 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'MailCall' (public domain).
- 07
Tallulah Bankhead, Danny Kaye, Pied Pipers
25 Oct 1944 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'MailCall' (public domain).
- 08
Ann Rutherford, Johnny Mercer, Garry Moore
10 Jan 1945 · 31 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'MailCall' (public domain).
Also on AFRS
AFRS in 1943–1949
Other series the network carried while Mail Call was on the air.
Same seasons
variety on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
Friends in front of a microphone
Jack Benny and Fibber McGee sold intimacy: recurring characters, in-jokes, a house style. The modern hang-out show is the same trick without the script.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of Mail Call
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
More to explore
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