Yes What?
Australian commercial radio
Australian commercial radio · 1940–1950
175 EpisodesFortnightlyPGSince 1940
The run
- Network
- Australian commercial radio
- Years active
- 1940–1950
- Surviving broadcasts
- 175
- Genre
- comedy
Yes, What? was an Australian radio comedy first broadcast in 1936, and is one of the best known examples of Australian radio drama. Originally called The Fourth Form at St Percy's, it was a comedy set in a school classroom. The program ran for 520 episodes and was written, produced and directed by Rex Dawe. Yes, What? began its life as The Fourth Form at St. Percy's. It was based on the radio serial The Fourth Form at St. Michael's by Will Hay, which aired in the 1920s. Rex Dawe, a young Adelaide broadcaster, decided to write the program. 5AD Programme Manager Morrie Chapman granted a fifty shillings budget for the show as well as an additional ten shillings for the writer / producer. The cast were mostly chosen from a youth production group The Kangaroo Club. Fifteen-year-old Ralph Peterson was hired to play the larrikin Bottomly and is often described a being a classroom rebel himself. Digitised by the Old Time Radio Researchers and streamed from the Internet Archive item “0225-yes-what-episode-225-poets-and-their-phone-numbers”; these recordings are in the public domain.
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
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. 0003-Yes What Episode (03) · Date unknown
- 2. 0191-Yes What Episode (191) School Fire Part 1 · Date unknown
- 3. 0230-Yes What Episode (230) The House Of Tudor · Date unknown
0003-Yes What Episode (03)
Date unknown · 12 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
0191-Yes What Episode (191) School Fire Part 1
Date unknown · 12 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
0230-Yes What Episode (230) The House Of Tudor
Date unknown · 12 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
0258-Yes What Episode (258) Geography
Date unknown · 11 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
0281-Yes What Episode (281) Mr Snootles' Salary Arrears
Date unknown · 11 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
0315-Yes What Episode (315) The Bucket Hits Greenbottle
Date unknown · 13 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
0072-Yes What Episode (072) Bottomly's Birthday
Date unknown · 10 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
0213-Yes What Episode (213) Greenbottle Working Out How Not To Be Late
Date unknown · 12 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Same seasons
comedy 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 Yes What?
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
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