Bill Cullen
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Bill talked about making the
move from local Pittsburgh radio to New York City:
"I looked at other no-longer-young
guys in a deep rut on stations like mine, and said no, I'm not gonna be
like this -- even if I starve."
When he moved to New York, he
hardly starved. He was hired at CBS in less than a month.
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Before being hired at CBS, Bill
also auditioned successfully at NBC. There, he was told he would
replace Ed Herlihy when the popular announcer joined the Army. Herlihy
never did leave for the service, and Bill ended up at CBS.
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Crime Photographer made
its way to television in 1951. Bill wasn't involved in that version,
but when it went off the air in the summer of 1952, its replacement on
the CBS schedule was I've Got A Secret.
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Bill quickly established a reputation
for himself as an ad-libber. On his first show, Fun With Dunn,
he was only supposed to introduce the show and sign off at the end.
The producer once gave him a single gag line at the top of the show, and
he turned it into a five-minute bit.
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According to a 1948 Variety
article, John Reed King and Bill once ran out of prizes on their Give
And Take quizzer. Contestants won two jackpots in a row and the
show was unprepared for such a payout. Bill and JRK spent the remaining
minutes ad-libbing.
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Bill's early work in radio,
both as an announcer and as a quiz show host, was frequently sponsored
by Toni
Home Permanents. Check out a page about Toni's famous ad
campaign on a huge site dedicated to old-time radio.
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Footnotes in pop culture history:
Patti Clayton of The Patti Clayton Show was the first person to
record the Chiquita Banana jingle.
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Only two episodes of Sing
Along With The Landt Trio are known to survive. One of them,
the episode of June 7, 1944, was preserved along with the entire day's
CBS schedule due to the historical interest in the network's D-Day coverage.
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On December 8, 1948, Bill was
heard on the CBS radio program Dear Listener, a show that answered
questions submitted by the radio audience. Not surprisingly, Bill
was there to explain how quiz show contestants are selected.
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Read the June 6, 1946 review
of Winner Take All in Variety!
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Bill
worked for the CBS network as an announcer from the time he moved to New
York in April of 1944 until the early fifties. He introduced a large
number of series, some game shows but some dramas and variety shows as
well. This list is almost certainly incomplete, we're constantly
finding new information even after years of research.
As was common for staff announcers,
he worked for several CBS series at the same time, so a chronological list
would be difficult. Therefore, shows are listed alphabetically, along
with our best guesses as to when Bill worked on them.
THE ADVENTURES OF ELLERY QUEEN
June 18, 1939 to May 27, 1948 on various networks
and times
Durable detective Ellery Queen was
heard on radio for nearly a decade and at one time or another on three
different networks. Most reference sources don't mention Bill but
there is one listing for an episode dated February 19, 1947 for which he
is credited as an announcer. Our guess is that he was filling in for the
regular announcer.
ARTHUR GODFREY TIME
April 30, 1945 to April 30, 1972
Godfrey was one of the biggest and
most powerful stars of radio and early television. Many period sources
indicate that Bill at least wrote gags for Godfrey's early show, others
say he was occasionally heard on it as well. His second wife, Carol
Ames, was a singer for a while on the program, so his appearances may have
simply been visits in the early fifties. No modern sources acknowledge
Bill's contributions to the Godfrey show, so they were probably minimal.
CASEY, CRIME PHOTOGRAPHER
July 7, 1943 to November 16, 1950
Also January 13, 1954 to April 22, 1955
This long-running mystery series
was also known as Flashpot Casey and, simply, as Crime Photographer.
Casey would snap a picture at a crime scene, and before you know it, get
himself involved in the action. Bill was the announcer for the 1948-49
season, which was sponsored by Toni Home Permanents. Dozens of Casey
episodes survive, but we've only found four from Bill's one season.
One of the odd features of this
role was that he delivered one commercial in each show as if he was a character
in the program, usually talking about the virtues of Toni products at the
bar where the regulars gathered.
Hear Bill introduce a 1949 episode!
Hear the fictional characters of
the drama interact with Bill!
THE CONTINENTAL CELEBRITY CLUB
December 8, 1945 to June 29, 1946 (Saturdays
at 10:15pm)
A short-lived variety half-hour
sponsored by the Continental Can Company. The program was hosted
by John Daly, already a respected radio newsman and later the host of What's
My Line? The featured performers were comic Jackie Kelk
(famous as Homer Brown on The Aldrich Family), vocalist Margaret
Whiting and Ray Bloch's orchestra.
Each show featured a single celebrity
guest, often a dramatic actor who would perform in an original short play
and engage in scripted banter with Daly and Kelk. (Lovestruck Jackie routinely
swooned over the female guests.) Guests included such popular stars
of the day as Ann Rutherford, Diana Lynn and Pat O'Brien.
Bill was the original announcer for
the series and stayed with the show until at least March 30. By May,
Cullen and Daly were gone and Bud Collyer filled both their roles for the
final couple of months. At least five of the shows with Bill survive.
Hear Bill and Jackie open a
January, 1946 episode!
A CRIME LETTER FROM DAN DODGE
October 31, 1952 to February 27, 1953
(Fridays at 8:00pm on ABC)
This obscure (and short-lived) detective
show was blatantly patterned after The Adventures of Sam Spade,
which had been cancelled by NBC in 1951. Besides the heroes' alliterative
names, both had wacky secretaries, both told their adventures in flashback
and episode titles for both series ended in the word 'Caper'.
Two shows survive, sort of.
Each of the two badly edited recordings lasts only 8-10 minutes, suggesting
that the program may have only been a fifteen-minute affair in the first
place. Bill's commercials for Toni are all missing (darn it!), but
his unmistakable voice opens and closes each show. Surprising (to
us anyway) is that the airdates for Dan Dodge are several years
later than most of Bill's other announcing chores. By the time this
show aired, Bill was already a panelist on I've Got a Secret and
had several other television credits. It seems odd that he would
return to the relatively lower-profile role of merely announcing a radio
program.
Hear Bill introduce tonight's mystery!
THE DANNY O'NEIL SHOW
1945-1947
A 15-minute, unsponsored music series
consisting entirely of O'Neil singing four musical selections per show
and chatting between songs with "Kathleen", a young fan. The announcer's
role was limited to a brief introduction and close. There is some
evidence that the series continued as late as 1954 as a local NYC show,
but Bill apparently wasn't involved in that version.
In 1946, the show expanded to 25
minutes, included guest stars and was conveniently renamed Danny O'Neil
and His Guests. One reference book lists Bill as the announcer
for both versions of the series. However, we have four episodes of
the original series and each of them appear to be introduced by a different
announcer. None are identified by name, though one of them is obviously
Bill. Bill's episode, from April 9, 1945, is the earliest recording
of his work we've discovered so far.
Hear Bill and Kathleen start the show!
FUN WITH DUNN
1943-44
Eddie Dunn's comedy-variety show
probably started in early 1943. Three episodes are known to exist,
dating between March and November of that year. One magazine article
says this was Bill's first network show as an announcer. That
would have been around April, 1944. The series probably didn't
last much longer after that, however, and Bill moved on to Sing Along
With The Landt Trio.
Dunn also briefly hosted the TV series
Where Was I? on which Bill was
a panelist.
GIVE AND TAKE
August 25, 1945 to December 26, 1953
John Reed King was the host for
this simple but durable quiz game in which contestants chose their own
prize from a table, then answered a single question to win it. A
"second guesser" (chosen in an elimination round at the beginning of the
show) could win any prize with a correct answer to a missed question.
Toni sponsored the show from 1946-51,
and since Bill did a lot of work for that sponsor, he may have announced
during most of that time. Three episodes are known to exist, and
the two that have Bill on them are from January and August of 1949.
The show also had a brief TV run in
1952.
Hear Bill introduce JRK, a host
who talks even faster than Bill does!
HOLLYWOOD JACKPOT
September 30, 1946 to March 28, 1947 (Monday,
Wednesday, Friday 4:30-5pm)
Contestants tried to identify famous
lines of movie dialogue to win prizes. In a popular stunt segment,
members of the studio audience were selected to take part in a Hollywood
Screen Test, performing such stunts as flying to the balcony or reading
a part as Lassie. The host was Kenny Delmar, who later gained fame
as the voice of Senator Claghorn on The Fred Allen Show.
LAUGH OF THE PARTY
Early 1947
An audience participation show in
which "ordinary folks" (presumably from the studio audience) become radio
comedians. Jack Lescoulie was the host. Two consecutive episodes
from January 15 & 16, 1947 exist, and Bill is identified as the announcer
on both of them. Also known as The Fun House.
ONE NIGHT STAND
One Night Stand was one of
dozens, maybe hundreds of "band remotes" that filled the program schedules
of networks and local stations alike throughout the thirties and forties.
Typically half-hour shows, and usually heard late at night, these series
would originate from wherever a popular band was performing: hotels, nightclubs,
army bases and the like.
The single listing we have for Bill
is for July 6, 1944, from the Hotel Astor in New York City. Tommy
Tucker is the bandleader and introduces the songs himself, so Bill is left
with little to do. This was almost certainly not the only time Bill
announced for the series, but other listings from that time period fail
to name any announcer.
THIS IS NORA DRAKE
October 27, 1947 to January 2, 1959 (15 minute
daily serial at 2:30pm)
This long-running soap opera began
on NBC, was heard on both NBC and CBS during 1948 and became exclusively
a CBS show sometime in 1949. Bill was the show's original announcer,
making it the only NBC show on which he worked in this early part of his
career. Toni Home Permanents sponsored the show until 1951, which
was likely the end of Bill's tenure as well. At least eighteen
episodes with Bill survive, all from 1948.
The announcer's role in a continuing
drama such as this one was very important. Between the opening introductions,
the commercials at the beginning and end of each show, the recap at the
start of the program and the "tune in tomorrow" epilogue, Bill's contributions
amounted to about a third of the show's brief running time each day!
Hear Bill set the stage for tonight's
thrilling episode!
THE PATTI CLAYTON SHOW
1945
A fifteen-minute variety series
also known by the unusual name Waitin' For Clayton.
SING ALONG WITH THE LANDT TRIO
1941-46
Sometimes listed simply as Sing
Along (or even Sing-A-Long), and sometimes just known as The
Landt Trio this daytime variety show was Bill's second job as an announcer,
following Fun With Dunn. Dan, Karl and Jack Landt were among
the earliest radio stars. They had a decade-long NBC show that started
all the way back in 1928. Their CBS series ran for five years in
the early forties, and Bill probably joined the program sometime in late
1944. Bill met his second wife, vocalist Carol Ames, when both were
working on this series.
SKYLINE ROOF
c1946
No details are known about Bill's
involvement with this variety series, outside of a single reference in
a 1952 profile. A handful of 1946 episodes exist which do not include
Bill. From the episodes that exist, we gather that the program was
a fifteen minute daytime affair hosted by Gordon MacRae.
WINNER TAKE ALL
June 3, 1946 to September 11, 1946
Bill's big break. He started
as the announcer for this series when it debuted. Original host Wade
Wilson left the show three months into the run (some sources say he was
ill, others suggest he was fired) and Bill took over. He continued
to work as an announcer on other series for several more years, but this
set him on his way as a game show host. See the first listing under
QUIZ SHOWS for more information about Winner
Take All.
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