The title of this thread is a qoute from inside this 80 year old book I was just skimming through. Not sure it belongs in this catagory, but it is about programming, so...
THE RAPE OF RADIO
by ROBERT WEST, — Ph.D.
Director, Radio Arts Guild of America
AUTHOR OF
“So-o-o You’re Going on the Air”
Copyright 1941 by Robert West
https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Commentary/The-Rape-of-Radio-West-1941.pd
It begins with a poem..
MY NAME IS RADIO!
BY ROBERT WEST
My name is RADIO! My influence shall abide!
I, Magic Box, am something years ago
The wizards dreamed of in the Arabian Nights.
Science has conceived and brought to birth,
More wondrous far than legends’ figments wrought
By the ingenious bards of long ago...
The poem continues, but skimming deeper I came to chapter 5 "LISTEN MY CHILDREN!" - It talks about The Child’s Study Association of America concerns about what kids are listening to in 1941... The Lone Ranger, Buck Rodgers, Dick Tracy, Superman, Little Orphan Annie... How damaging is it?, here's the excerpted section beginning on page 157...
"....Carrie Lillie who directs WMCA’S juvenile programs claims that children have been brought up on blood and
thunder tales for centuries, and points out the horrors contained in nursery rhymes about horrible giants, persecuted princesses, the unfortunate wives of Bluebeard, without any particular ill-effects.
She opines that the young American listener could not be thrilled by any milder variety after an acquaintance with America’s own system of gangsters, kidknapping and lynching. If the children had the power to know the right from the wrong, this might be all right.
A new type of fairy tale is being evolved in the United States, in which the characters jump in rocket ships from planet to planet, use death rays and other creations of super science, says Clemence Dane, the English writer. Buck Rogers makes it possible to be projected into the twenty-fifth century to the planet Jupiter.
Always “The Lone Ranger” is the hero of mystery adventure. He follows the ranchers, villains, outlaws, spies and
dynamiters across the prairies and into secret caves. Parents approve the program because there is no boy in trouble, left tied up by the cannibals. (The boy projects himself into the role of hero and cannot sleep.) “The Lone Ranger” is on the side of the right and never fails to help the underdog.
Few programs have had the success of “The Lone Ranger.” Nightly he rides the kilocycles hurrying toward virtue and trampling crime and criminals under hoof.
Shirley Temple has admitted that “The Lone Ranger” is her favorite program and Mrs. Roosevelt, wife of the President, wrote in her column: “The other evening I offered to read aloud to Buzz until bedtime, but there is a program on the air called ‘The Lone Ranger,’ which seems to be entirely satisfactory.” But to whom, Mrs. Roosevelt did not say. Remember that adults take to the juvenile stuff. “The Lone Ranger” started as a show for the youngsters, but the grown-ups are probably just as ardent listeners.
The wide appeal of “The Lone Ranger” for children is not a matter of guesswork. Before a program is taken to the studio, Fran Striker, the author tries it out on his two sons, eight and six.
“Superman” comes on the air with a shrill, shrieking edict (the combination of a high wind and a bomb whine recorded during the Spanish war. Voices hail him: “Up in the sky—look! It’s a bird. . . . It’s a plane. . . . It’s SUPERMAN!” Mothers have their eye on him. His occasional rocket and space jaunts are too improbable for the Child Study Association of America. Superman has a sound effect about every four lines.
The new Dick Tracy program went on the air endorsed by the Clergy League of America.
The Minneapolis College Women’s Club, a branch of the American Association of University Women, went so far as to petition “those people responsible for the production of the radio skit called ‘Orphan Annie,’ praying that the sponsor remove objectionable features in the overdrawn dramatic crime episodes, the raucous, unnatural voices of the actors, and the coarse vocabulary, or better still to substitute therefore programs to stimulate the children’s imagination in the right direction.”
An identical petition was drawn up concerning the “Skippy” program. The sponsors turned a deaf ear to these petitions and the programs went gruesomely on....
https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Commentary/The-Rape-of-Radio-West-1941.pdf