Behind the Mike — 1940

The first broadcast packs in six stories in twenty-five minutes: radio's most loyal fan, an NBC page boy who was also a corporate executive, profiles of Ward Wilson and song plugger George Marlowe, the Correspondence Corner, and how a Renfrew of the Mounted broadcast helped a boy out of a recurring coma.

How one of NBC's daytime serials talked a listener out of breaking up her home, and what a Pot O' Gold winner did with his $1,900. Guests include The O'Neills author Jane West, a past Pot O' Gold recipient, and Capt. Tim Healy of NBC's Stamp Club.

Radio's professional cry baby, Janice Gilbert, and blues singer Mary Small -- two very different uses of a young voice at the microphone.

Dialect actor Charlie Cantor demonstrates his trade, with pro football star Ken Strong, restaurateur Leo Linderman of Lindy's, and Eddie Davis, a onetime cab driver turned radio gag writer.

NBC sportscaster Bill Stern interviews Navy football coach Maj. Emery E. Larson and lays out the preparation a football broadcast takes. Joseph Marais sings South African songs, and a dramatisation retells the case of a yachtsman taken ill off the Galapagos, whose rescue the Navy mounted after a radio call reached it.

A look back at two vanished programs, the RKO Hour and the tea show Chase and Sanborn first sponsored, with vocalist Tom Kennedy, Georgie Price, Len Doyle and Haven MacQuarrie among those McNamee introduces.

A salute to Col. Charles T. Davis, who started the old Collier's Hour and was the earliest to turn motion pictures into radio drama.

Announcer Jimmy Wallington and character actor Gilbert Mack let listeners in on how a character actor does his stuff, with 1927 audition winner turned opera singer Agnes Davis, announcer Don Cordray and radio editor C.J. Ingram.

A salute to radio's twentieth anniversary that also carries an excerpt from the program pre-empted a fortnight earlier. NBC page boy Addy Amor, who had written three hit tunes, hears Mary Small sing his latest; also on are Real Folks stars George Frame Brown and Elsie Mae Gordon, and Dave Elman of Hobby Lobby.

Pat Kelly, chief of NBC's announcers, explains what the job demands -- and the show launches a new department, the Sound Effect of the Week. Dinah Shore sings; bandleader Harry Horlick appears, as do the comics Pick and Pat.

Fred Bate, NBC's man in Britain, tells McNamee what work and preparation lie behind each overseas newscast from London. Lee Bristol gives the advertiser's view of radio, and the program collects some famous on-air fluffs.

Four actresses audition on the air for two leads in Moliere's Imaginary Invalid, the winners to appear on Great Plays the following Sunday. Ernie Watson explains what the studio orchestra is for, with Lanny Ross, Henry Burbig and radio editor Nick Kenny.

A salute to Eno Crime Clues, with Jack MacBride, Prentiss Winchell, Gertrude Warner and Jayne Cozzens.

Profiles of the Mills Brothers and of 'Cheerio', with Ben Grauer deputising for Graham McNamee -- the first of the two broadcasts the log credits to him.

A salute to Roxy's Gang, with Ben Grauer again deputising as master of ceremonies.