The Damon Runyon Theatre
Syndicated (Mayfair)
Syndicated (Mayfair) · 1940–1950
104 EpisodesFortnightlyPGSince 1940
The run
- Network
- Syndicated (Mayfair)
- Years active
- 1940–1950
- Surviving broadcasts
- 104
- Genre
- theatre
THE DAMON RUNYON THEATRE The Damon Runyon Theatre was another of Alan Ladd's Mayfair Transcription Company productions. Ladd, long an admirer of 'The Brighter Side', Damon Runyon's long-running newspaper column, initially signed Pat O'Brien to star as 'Broadway' in the program. Indeed we have an alleged audition from the program, titled "Princess O'Hara" in which O'Brien and Wendy Barrie are heard announcing the next production of the series, 'A Piece of Pie'. Newspaper listings of the era describe Pat O'Brien slated to cut all 52 programs upon completing principal filming of the Howard Hughes/RKO feature, The Boy with Green Hair . But the quixotic Hughes decided the 'message' element of The Boy with Green Hair was a bit too risky for late-1940s audiences. He directed that the film be re-shot, as needed, to remove the social intolerance message from the completed celluloid. Digitised by the Old Time Radio Researchers and streamed from the Internet Archive item “OTRR_Damon_Runyon_Singles”; these recordings are in the public domain.
Source collection
Old Time Radio Researchers Group
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
0 dated broadcasts across 11 years on the air, with 11 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 NaN, in original transmission order.
- 1. Tobias the Terrible · Date unknown
- 2. Damon_Runyon__4x-xx-xx_ep13_Hold_`Em_Yale · Date unknown
- 3. Bred for Battle · Date unknown
Tobias the Terrible
Date unknown · 26 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Damon_Runyon__4x-xx-xx_ep13_Hold_`Em_Yale
Date unknown · 26 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Bred for Battle
Date unknown · 27 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Neat Strip
Date unknown · 26 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
DamonRunyonTheatre 490410 015 Blood Pressure
Date unknown · 28 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
DamonRunyonTheatre_490918_038_The_Breakman's_Daughter
Date unknown · 28 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
The Lemon Drop Kid
Date unknown · 26 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Earthquake
Date unknown · 27 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Same seasons
theatre on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
Theatre of the mind
Full-cast drama with a live orchestra and a studio full of sound effects. Lux Radio Theater and the CBS Radio Workshop are the direct ancestors of scripted podcast fiction.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of The Damon Runyon Theatre
Modern series carrying this form forward.
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