Radio Soap Opera Discussion

[dc11786]

Was researching "Road of Life" and came across another actress playing Mama Bauer around March, 1949... Martha Wentworth. 

[Matt]

This 1st installment of Daytime Diary soap opera synopses from the November 1949 issue of Radio Mirror.

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Edited January 10, 2024 by Matt
incorrect date

[Paul Raven]

@Matt thanks for posting and reviving the thread.

Thanks for Tomorrow must have been fairly short lived as it is quite obscure. Hasit been mentioned here before? And it seems Mary Jane Higby was the lead in this and When A Girl Marries.

Oh and I think it should Nov 1951.

Edited January 10, 2024 by Paul Raven

[Matt]

Daytime Diary soap opera recaps from the December 1949 issue of Radio Mirror.

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[jam6242]

Here's a review of Thanks for Tomorrow, from July 1949, Variety.

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[Paul Raven]

@jam6242 Thanks for finding that.  One of many later soaps that never took off. I think This Is Nora Drake was the last successful radio soap launched. I see Paul Roberts in the credits. Pretty sure that's the same Paul Roberts who was headwriter on ATWT in the early 80's.

[Matt]

Daytime Diary soap opera recaps from the January 1950 issue of Radio Mirror.

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[dc11786]

"Thanks for Tomorrow" is a bit of a mystery. The doesn't seem to last that long. I've seen it described as a summer replacement and the number of papers listing in in their listings definitely seems to drop around mid-September, 1949, though some places list it well until the end of 1949. There is a Teri Keane article that floats around during this period claiming her character on "Thanks for Tomorrow" has recently married. 

In 1950, there is some publicity regarding a revival of the show that NBC is shopping around as a West Coast recorded serial starring Charles Boyer in the lead role. I don't think this proposed soap ever occurred. Also, there is a play by a Roy Bailey from 1937-1938 called "Thanks for Tomorrow" about a spoiled young man who gets involved in crime and has a blind sister. I can't help wonder if that wasn't some of the source material. Articles at the time suggest that TfT was also a bit of a version of the film "Enchanted Cottage."

The conversations in "The Guiding Light" thread have me intrigued about the first years of the new "Guiding Light" so I've been looking into 1947-1950. Basically, the material leading up to the long stretch of episodes available. 

The show seems to move through a lot of story in the first year. The opening plot involving Roger Barton's decision to reinvent himself as Ray Brandon after fifteen years in prison for a crime he didn't commit is intriguing. Ray's decision to build a legal career puts him in an interesting position. It gives him insight into both sides of the law. The need for connection with the life he was forced to leave behind (his wife, Julie, and his son, Roger Barton (now Collins), Jr. ) shaped Roger/Ray as a character in the vein of many Phillips' complicated heroines, young women who have had lost access to their children. 

In my opinion, it would seem that the Ray story borrows the most from the earlier Frances Holden/Frederika Lang plot. Frances had been in a bad marriage and abandoned her child with Rev. Rutledge to give her child Ned a life while she was on the run because of her involvement in a crime her husband committed. Ray was forced to give his child up under similar circumstances; he was implicated in a crime he didn't commit, except he was taken from his child rather than being given a choice. I imagine, like Frederika, that Ray and Roger must have met eventually. And while Frederika's murder of her duplicitious husband Paul nearly landed her on death row, Ray's revenge plot against Martin McClaine (who set him up for embezzlement) threatens to destroy his son's love for Susan, Martin's daughter.  There are deviations. Instead of Ray on trial, it is Julie Barton Collins, Ray's former wife, who ends up on trial for the murder/accidental death of her second husband, Frank Collins. I imagine that it is Ray who helps Julie get off. 

Julie gets off in the spring of 1948, just about the time that Ray Brandon has married radio sensation Charlotte Wilson, which would seem to set the next stage of the drama (a Julie / Ray / Charlotte triangle with a newly single Julie going after a life she never had). Though, maybe this angle wasn't explored as much as the show also quickly married off Susan and Roger (by no later than June, 1948) with Susan soon having a baby, Betty Ann Collins (also voiced by Mary Lansing). I could definitely see Julie being a utility player who could have been the link to Ray's past that he never completely gotten over as well as potentially the meddling mother-in-law/grandmother given her own two children, Betty and Michael, had died in 1947. It's also possible that none of this was as complex as this. 

The Bauers arrive in the show's second year. Jan Carter/Meta Bauer first around June/July, 1948. Eve McVeagh is said to be Jan Carter #2 so I'd be curious who she repalced. Her roommate Mary Leland was also introduced. I'm curious how Leland fit into the bigger story initially. Potential romantic interest for married Dr. Jonathan McNeill? Or replacement as Lurene Tuttle (Mary Leland #2) was earlier Clare Lawrence McNeill? Anyway, the rest of the Bauers are introduced in the fall. I suspect that Jan Carter might have been a career rival for Charlotte Brandon, who's successful program "Radio Stardust" was occasssionally the focus of entire episodes. 

I am also curious if Ray's prior experience with being forced away from his own child had any impact on how he handled himself during the custody trial for little Chucky, who it hadn't dawned on me was named after Dr. Charles Matthews. Ray could have gone either way on this issue. He could have understood Meta's pain given his own experience or been fueled by animosity towards a woman who gave up something he had been deprived of. In the end, I know Charlotte was more sympathetic to Meta, but I imagine her drug problem (that was being stoked by her involvement with her old flame, Larry Lawrence, in late 1949) would have eventually played into Meta and Ted's favor. 

The "guiding light" figure seems to switch from Dr. Charles Matthews to Dr. Paul Keeler around February, 1950. Matthews is listed in ads for the beginning of February and sometimes beyong, but Keeler is mentioned by the end of the month. Keeler, I believe, fades out in 1953 and I don't think there is a replacement. 

 

[Matt]

Daytime Diary soap opera recaps from the February 1950 issue of Radio Mirror.

 

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[Matt]

Daytime Diary soap opera recaps from the March 1950 issue of Radio Mirror.

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[Paul Raven]

To think, in 10 years they would all be gone...

Looking at how TGL ,within a few years, dropped most of the characters and shifted to the Bauers. And people complain about that happening later to soaps in the TV era.

Dorothy Dix at Home seems to have replaced Thanks for Tomorrow and was even more obscure.

Interesting concept that listeners didn't take to.

[Matt]

Daytime Diary soap opera recaps from the April 1950 issue of Radio Mirror.

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[Matt]

Daytime Diary soap opera recaps from the May 1950 issue of Radio Mirror.

 

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[Matt]

Daytime Diary soap opera recaps from the June 1950 issue of Radio Mirror.

 

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[Matt]

Daytime Diary soap opera recaps from the July 1950 issue of Radio Mirror.

 

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