The Aldrich Family
Encyclopedia
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
(1939-1953), was also presented in films, television and comic books. In the radio series' well-remembered weekly opening exchange, awkward teen Henry's mother called, "Hen-reeeeeeeeeeeee! Hen-ree Al-drich!", and he responded with a breaking adolescent voice, "Com-ing, Mother!"
The creation of playwright Clifford Goldsmith, Henry Aldrich began on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
as a minor character in Goldsmith's play What a Life. Produced and directed by George Abbott
George Abbott
George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:...
, What a Life ran for 538 performances (April 13, 1938 to July 8, 1939). The Broadway cast included Eddie Bracken
Eddie Bracken
Edward Vincent "Eddie" Bracken was an American actor.-Life and career:Bracken was born in Astoria, New York, the son of Catherine and Joseph L. Bracken. Bracken performed in vaudeville at the age of nine and gained fame with the Broadway musical Too Many Girls in a role he reprised for the 1940...
, Betty Field
Betty Field
Betty Field was an American film and stage actress. Through her father, she was a direct descendant of the Pilgrims John Alden and Priscilla Mullins....
and Butterfly McQueen
Butterfly McQueen
Thelma "Butterfly" McQueen was an American actress. Originally a dancer, the 28-year-old McQueen first appeared as Prissy, Scarlett O'Hara's maid in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, then continued as an actress in film in the 1940s, then moving to television acting in the 1950s .-Early life:Born...
. The actor who brought Henry to life on stage was 20-year-old Ezra Stone
Ezra Stone
Ezra Stone was an American actor and director who had a long career on the stage, in films, radio, and television, mostly as a director...
, who was billed near the bottom as the 20th actor in the cast. Stone was also employed as the play's production assistant.
Time magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
found the play "short on plot" but noted:
Radio
When Rudy ValleeRudy Vallée
Rudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...
saw the play, he asked Goldsmith to adapt it into some sketches for his radio program, and this was followed in 1938 by a 39-week run of a sketch comedy series on The Kate Smith Hour
Kate Smith
Kathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith was an American Popular singer, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Smith had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s.Smith was born in Greenville, Virginia...
with Stone continuing in the role of Henry. Kate Smith's director, Bob Welsh, is credited with the creation of the "Hen-reeeeeeeeeeeee! Hen-ree Al-drich!" opening, which eventually became one of the most famous signature sounds in radio.
After finding an audience with Kate Smith's listeners, The Aldrich Family was launched in its own series as a summer replacement program for Jack Benny in NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's Sunday night lineup, July 2, 1939, and it stayed there until October 1, 1939, when it moved to Tuesday nights at 8 p.m., sponsored by General Foods
General Foods
General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the USA by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The name General Foods was adopted in 1929, after several corporate acquisitions...
's popular gelatin dessert Jell-O
Jell-O
Jell-O is a brand name belonging to U.S.-based Kraft Foods for a number of gelatin desserts, including fruit gels, puddings and no-bake cream pies. The brand's popularity has led to it being used as a generic term for gelatin dessert across the U.S. and Canada....
, which also sponsored Jack Benny at the time. The Aldriches ran in that slot from October 10, 1939 until May 28, 1940, moving to Thursdays, from July 4, 1940 until July 20, 1944. After a brief hiatus, the show moved to CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, running on Fridays from September 1, 1944 until August 30, 1946 with sponsors Grape Nuts and Jell-O before moving back to NBC from September 5, 1946 to June 28, 1951 on Thursdays and, then, as a Sustaining program
Sustaining program
Sustaining program is a term used in the United States broadcasting industry for a program which does not have commercial sponsorship or advertising...
in its final run of September 21, 1952 to April 19, 1953 on Sundays.
A top-ten ratings hit within two years of its birth (in 1941, the show carried a 33.4 Crossley rating, landing it solidly alongside Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
and Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
). Earning $3000 a week, Goldsmith was the highest paid writer in radio, and his show became a prototype for the teen-oriented situation comedies that followed on radio and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
.
Stone kept the lead role until 1942, when he entered the Army for World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Norman Tokar
Norman Tokar
Norman Tokar was a prolific director of serial television and feature films, who directed many of the early episodes of Leave it to Beaver, and found his greatest success directing over a dozen films for Walt Disney Productions, spanning the 1950s to the...
succeeded Stone as Henry for two seasons. Best known for his later work directing the television hit Leave It to Beaver
Leave It to Beaver
Leave It to Beaver is an American television situation comedy about an inquisitive but often naïve boy named Theodore "The Beaver" Cleaver and his adventures at home, in school, and around his suburban neighborhood...
— whose approach of telling its stories from the vantage point of a child may have been inspired by the similar implication in many Aldrich episodes — Tokar also helped write many of the Aldrich episodes.
On The Aldrich Family, Tokar was followed by Dickie Jones (1943-44) and Raymond Ives (1944-45), before Stone returned to his signature role. Bobby Ellis became the last Henry Aldrich in 1952.
This content is now available via public domain at www.archives.org at: http://www.archive.org/details/AldrichFamily
Family and friends
Henry's parents, Sam and Alice, were portrayed by House Jameson and Katharine Raht, and his usual girlfriend, Kathleen Anderson, by Mary Shipp. The role of Henry's best friend, Homer BrownHomer Brown
Homer Brown is a character in the radio sitcom The Aldrich Family.- Profile :A good friend of Henry Aldrich, Homer Brown attends Centreville High, the same high school that Henry goes to. Considered somewhat of a dim-wit, Homer is nervous and a food lover...
, was played by Jackie Kelk
Jackie Kelk
Jackie Kelk is an American radio actor and stand-up comedian, born in Brooklyn, NY. He played Jimmy Olsen in the first seven years of the radio show The Adventures of Superman and Homer, best friend of Henry Aldrich on the teenage radio comedy of the same name. He starred as Young Mr...
(as well as Jack Grimes
Jack Grimes (actor)
Jack Grimes was an American voice and radio actor who played Jimmy Olsen in the last three years of The Adventures of Superman radio program, the 1966 Filmation TV series The New Adventures of Superman, and the 1967 anime, Speed Racer.-Biography:Grimes was born in New York City...
, Michael O'Day and John Fiedler
John Fiedler
John Donald Fiedler was an American voice actor and character actor in stage, film, television and radio. He was slight, balding, and bespectacled, with a distinctive, high-pitched voice and a career lasting more than 55 years.He is best remembered for four roles: as the nervous Juror #2 in 12...
). Homer's parents were Arthur Vinton and Agnes Moorehead
Agnes Moorehead
Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...
, among others. Eddie Bracken
Eddie Bracken
Edward Vincent "Eddie" Bracken was an American actor.-Life and career:Bracken was born in Astoria, New York, the son of Catherine and Joseph L. Bracken. Bracken performed in vaudeville at the age of nine and gained fame with the Broadway musical Too Many Girls in a role he reprised for the 1940...
appeared in the earlier shows as friend Dizzy Stevens. The show's announcers included Harry Von Zell
Harry von Zell
Harry von Zell , born in Indianapolis, made his mark as an announcer of radio programs and an actor in films and television shows....
, Dan Seymour
Dan Seymour
Dan Seymour was a character actor who frequently played villains in Warner Bros. films. He appeared in several Humphrey Bogart films, including Casablanca, Key Largo, and To Have and Have Not....
and Dwight Weist.
Henry Aldrich was an endearingly bumbling kid growing awkwardly into adolescence, and The Aldrich Family often revolved around Henry's misadventures with the girls and with his friends.
Films
Eleven Henry Aldrich movies were made by Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
between 1939–1944:
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- What a Life (1939)
- Life with Henry (1941)
- Henry Aldrich for President (1941)
- Henry Aldrich, Editor (1942)
- Henry and Dizzy (1942)
- Henry Aldrich Swings It (1943)
- Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour (1943)
- Henry Aldrich Haunts a House (1943)
- Henry Aldrich, Boy Scout (1944)
- Henry Aldrich Plays Cupid (1944)
- Henry Aldrich's Little Secret (1944)
The first two films, What a Life (1939) and Life with Henry (1941), featured Jackie Cooper
Jackie Cooper
Jackie Cooper was an American actor, television director, producer and executive. He was a child actor who managed to make the transition to an adult career. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award nomination...
in the title role. In the remaining nine films, Jimmy Lydon
Jimmy Lydon
Jimmy Lydon is an American movie actor and television producer, whose career in the entertainment industry began as a teenage actor in the 1930s....
portrayed Henry Aldrich.
Television
On October 2, 1949, the program premiered on NBCNBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
while continuing to air on the radio with a primarily different cast. Over the course of its nearly four-year run on television, Henry was portrayed by five different actors: Robert Casey, Richard Tyler
Richard Tyler
Richard Tyler is a fictional character in the USA Network science fiction television series The 4400.- Character :One of the first 4400s to be shown, Richard is Lily Tyler's husband, and is the father of her second daughter, Isabelle Tyler....
, Henry Girard, Kenneth Nelson
Kenneth Nelson
Kenneth Nelson was an American actor.Born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Nelson appeared in several television series in the late 1940s, Captain Video and His Video Rangers and The Aldrich Family among them...
and Bobby Ellis, the only one to participate in the radio production as well. Other characters — including Mrs. Aldrich, Henry's sister Mary, and his best friend Homer Brown — were portrayed by multiple actors as well, a practice not uncommon in radio but unusual for television, where cast changes are more noticeable.
The program garnered some adverse publicity when film and radio veteran Jean Muir
Jean Muir (actress)
Jean Muir was an American stage and film actress.-Career:Born in Suffern, New York as Jean Muir Fullarton, she first appeared on Broadway in 1930, and was signed by Warner Brothers Studios three years later. She played opposite several famous actors - Warren William, Paul Muni, Richard...
was signed to play Mrs. Aldrich in the second season, which was to begin on August 27, 1950. Shortly before Muir's scheduled premiere, Right-wing groups accused the actress of being a Communist sympathizer (her name appeared in Red Channels
Red Channels
Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television is an anti-Communist tract published in the United States at the height of the Red Scare...
, a pamphlet listing the names of performers allegedly involved in left-wing activities), and General Foods
General Foods
General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the USA by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The name General Foods was adopted in 1929, after several corporate acquisitions...
, the show's sponsor, cancelled the first episode of the new season, replacing her with Nancy Carroll
Nancy Carroll
Nancy Carroll was an American actress.-Career:She was christened Ann Veronica Lahiff in New York City. Of Irish parentage, she and her sister once performed a dancing act in a local contest of amateur talent. This led her to a stage career and then to the screen. She began her acting career in...
a week later, when the series returned on September 3rd. Muir went on to defend herself before a Congressional committee, but her career never recovered from the charges. After General Foods ended their sponsorship in the spring of 1951, Campbell Soup Company
Campbell Soup Company
Campbell Soup Company , also known as Campbell's, is an American producer of canned soups and related products. Campbell's products are sold in 120 countries around the world. It is headquartered in Camden, New Jersey...
became the new sponsor when the series moved from Sundays to Friday nights that fall. The final episode was broadcast on May 29, 1953, slightly more than a month after the radio series came to an end.
The comedy troupe Firesign Theatre parodied the show with the sketch "Don't Crush That Dwarf Hand Me the Pliers
Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers
Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers is The Firesign Theatre's third comedy recording for Columbia Records, released in 1970. In 1983, The New Rolling Stone Record Guide called it "the greatest comedy album ever made"....
".
Listen to
External links
- Jerry Haendiges Vintage Radio Logs: The Aldrich Family
- The Aldrich Family (TV series) at IMDB
- CBC Radio's "Nazi Eyes On Canada" (1942), starring House Jameson and Katharine Raht of "The Aldrich Family"