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In addition to his early
radio game shows, and his even earlier work as a CBS staff announcer, Bill
continued to be active in radio throughout his entire career, even after
he had stopped appearing on television regularly. We've divided this
final radio page into several sections, which are roughly chronological.
Local Pittsburgh Radio
(1938-1944)
LOCAL PITTSBURGH RADIO Bill began his broadcasting career on WWSW, a tiny Pittsburgh station, early in 1938. He was a frequent, though unpaid guest on the station's overnight show, called the 1500 Club. He joined the payroll that summer, and his staff duties included news and sports, as well as routine announcing and platter spinning. He was the announcer on an audience participation show called Have You Got It? for Walt Framer, who would go on to become a successful radio and TV producer in New York. He also worked with sportscaster Joe Tucker on coverage of Pittsburgh Steelers football games and Pittsburgh Hornets hockey from 1940 to 1943. Bill eventually moved to the larger
Pittsburgh station KDKA, where his duties included hosting a local variety
show. In 1944, he moved to New York where he almost immediately became
a CBS staff announcer.
EARLY NETWORK AND NYC RADIO SHOWS GOING NOWHERE
This five-minute morning program featured funny and unusual news items submitted by listeners. Bill shared hosting duties with Arlene Francis, and the two traded stories at a fast pace. We have one undated CBS episode (the only one we know of) sponsored by White Rain and Prom. The series was first heard on the
CBS network in spring, 1952 on Saturday afternoons following Fun
For All, another Cullen/Francis collaboration sponsored by Toni.
It quickly became a daily affair from 4:00 to 4:05pm. In January,
1953 it was moved to 3:55pm. As with so many radio shows of the era,
it's hard to tell exactly when the series moved from CBS to Mutual, but
our best information suggests it was some time in the fall of 1953.
When the show moved to the Mutual network, it was heard at 8:55am and sponsored
by Block Drug Company. (Thanks to Kenneth Johannessen for much of this
information!)
ROADSHOW
According to the publicity effort for the series, this four-hour weekly radio show was one of the first programs designed for drivers to enjoy in their cars. Bill introduced a variety of recorded and live entertainment, including regular performances from a young Steve Lawrence at about the same time he was being "discovered" on Steve Allen's Tonight show. The show's origination was moved to the west coast at some point in order to accommodate Bill's transcontinental commute to host Place the Face. Several episodes of Roadshow are preserved in the Library of Congress, though we have yet to find any collectors who have one. NATIONAL RADIO
FAN CLUB
The NRFC was a Friday night series
of live and recorded music, featuring young rising stars as well as veteran
performers. A March, 1956 issue of Hit Parader magazine welcomes
Bill as the new "Chairman" of the NRFC, which appears to simply mean that
he hosted this weekly program. Young fans could write in, not only to become
a member of the NRFC but to choose a radio personality whose specific club
they wanted to join. Despite his published views on rock music (see
Pulse below), Bill was pushing the young artists as much as the
established talents on the show.
ARMY FOOTBALL
STARS FOR SUMMER
PULSE/THE BILL CULLEN SHOW Our great thanks to Kenneth Johannessen, whose intensive research has turned up several vintage news articles and reviews that helped give us a much better sense of this important period in Bill's career. Kenneth is also responsible for tracking down the Variety reviews for many radio and television series sprinkled throughout these pages. WRCA (later WNBC), September 19, 1955 to September 29, 1961 Originally heard daily 6:30-9:30am, expanded to 6-10am (Also Saturdays in a two-hour version at various morning hours) 
Bill was already a nationally known figure when he was tapped to host the local morning program for NBC's flagship station in New York. He had spent six weeks filling in as a temporary morning host in the spring of 1955, and became the permanent host that fall. Originally, the three-hour show (which was known as The Bill Cullen Show) still retained some vestiges of what we now think of as old-time radio, most notably a live, nine-piece orchestra. Less than two months into the new gig, Bill's show changed to match the format and structure of the popular NBC weekend series Monitor. (A daily network version of Monitor known as Weekday debuted at about the same time.) Renamed New York Pulse with Bill Cullen (and later shortened to the single-word title), the show eliminated its live orchestra but added an ambitious mix of features, interviews and reports from all over the city, emphasizing news and information over music and entertainment. Eventually, the ambitious features gave way to a more streamlined entertainment program similar to what is still common on morning radio shows today. Bill spun records, read commercials, chatted with guests, stopped for news and weather reports, even ran contests, including a regular "Finders Keepers" game in which he would offer clues to the location of a hidden thousand-dollar bill. Even though Bill was the morning deejay for the flagship radio station of the National Broadcasting Company, his program wasn't nearly as popular as other NYC morning shows of the day. This may partly be because he was among the last to realize the significance and impact of rock and roll music. "I'm not a rock 'n' roll fan," he said in 1958. "I'm not young enough to be savage. When I hear the beat, I don't want to get up and dance. I just feel like going to sleep." Sometime in the late fifties, the
title of the series reverted back to The Bill Cullen Show.
We have bits and pieces from Pulse over the years, from Bill's personal
collection. A small handful of episodes and partial episodes, all
from 1957, are preserved in the Library of Congress.
NBC NETWORK RADIO PROGRAMS Our thanks to Dennis Hart for his information about these NBC series. Dennis has a marvelous web site devoted to Monitor Radio that we strongly recommend to anyone interested in radio history. EMPHASIS
Other contributors to the series included Dr. Joyce Brothers (Mind Over Matter), Ann Landers (Everyday Living), Gene Shalit (Man About Everything) and Edwin Newman (Critic At Large). Newsmen Frank Blair, John Chancellor and Russ Ward were among the journalists who contributed. A 1967 article says Bill was doing
five short features a week for the series. He continued to contribute
segments to the series until it left the air in 1975.
Bill contributed to this ambitious weekend radio series but frankly, what NBC personality didn't? Monitor was a wide-ranging program encompassing news, sports, interviews, features, even traditional record spinning. (Imagine All Things Considered crossed with your favorite easy listening station.) It ran for hours every weekend on NBC radio stations. There was no single, regular host. Instead, a virtual "Who's Who" of NBC newscasters, announcers, hosts and other personalities took turns serving as anchors, who were known as "communicators". Besides Bill, the list included Frank Blair, Hugh Downs, Art Fleming, Joe Garagiola, Dave Garroway, Monty Hall, Don Imus, Murray the K, Hal March, Frank McGee, Ed McMahon, Garry Moore, Henry Morgan, Bert Parks, Gene Rayburn, John Bartholomew Tucker, David Wayne and many others. Bill hosted Saturday afternoon Monitor
broadcasts in 1971 and 1972. He succeeded Joe Garagiola as host,
who had succeeded Ed McMahon. Bill also sat in as Monitor
host at other times.
SYNDICATED SERIES Bill stayed very busy from the sixties until the end of his career recording a variety of short features that were pressed onto vinyl discs and distributed at no cost to radio stations across the country. These typically were no more than four minutes in length, and sometimes much shorter. Sponsors footed the bill for the programs in exchange for brief mentions at the beginning and end of each episode. The first four series listed below were produced by the Robert G. Jennings Corporation (later Aerial Communications, Inc.) and tended to be general interest programs with little connection between sponsor and content. The ones after that were produced by David J. Clark Enterprises (listed by some sources as Celebrity Radio Productions). These shows more cleverly incorporated content that expanded on the sponsor's own message, so that the entire program worked as a marketing tool. These were essentially early versions of what would become known as infomercials. Bill was one of many celebrities hosting programs for David J. Clark. Others included Peter Graves, Florence Henderson and Chuck Connors. Celebrity Radio Productions remains active today, producing a variety of series that mostly target an older, middle-America audience. CULLEN'S ADVENTURES
Despite the title, there was nothing adventurous about the program. There wasn't even musical accompaniment. For each session, Bill gave four unadorned minutes of interesting facts and unusual trivia about a subject. Subjects could be almost anything: Mount Everest, centipedes, hair dying, youth hostels and sorcery were discussed in one week. Since episodes were designed to play on a specific date, anniversaries of famous events would frequently be topic material. We have managed to obtain dozens
and dozens of examples from this series, some from Bill's personal collection.
Based on the numbering of the episodes, we believe the program began September
30, 1963. At least 980 episodes were produced, with program #980
airing on June 26, 1967. We'd like to think it ran at least
four more weeks, which would take it up to a thousand shows, but we reallly
don't know for sure.
IDEAS FOR BETTER LIVING
KNOWLEDGE MOD STYLE
LOOKING INSIDE SPORTS
Helbros Watches sponsored the series,
and each episode featured a plug for a sports-themed Helbros contest, for
which the grand prize was a trip to the Super Bowl. We have
the entire series.
PEOPLE WHO ARE DIFFERENT
GOOSE WHO'S COMING TO DINNER
FUJI FACTS
THE PARENT'S
NOTEBOOK
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