Cruise of the Poll Parrot
September 25, 1937 – June 18, 1938 · 39 broadcasts
The Cruise of the Poll Parrot was a syndicated children's adventure serial made to sell shoes. Roberts, Johnson & Rand -- the St. Louis maker of Poll Parrot children's shoes, a division of the International Shoe Company -- had it recorded in 1936 at Premier Radio Enterprises and offered it to local shoe stores across the Midwest, who bought the airtime from their own stations. Aired that way, station by station, it played from 1936 into the early 1940s. The story is set in 1858 New Bedford, Massachusetts, then the capital of American whaling. Young Roy Dalton -- newly made a captain, and voiced by a 23-year-old Marvin Miller, later Robby the Robot and TV's 'The Millionaire' -- takes the whaling bark Poll Parrot on her maiden cruise. Two children stow away: Johnny Robbins, a runaway with a secret, and Sue Grange, sister of the ship's owner. Across thirty-nine fifteen-minute chapters they face the scheming Spaniard Altesti, an erupting volcano, a buried-diamond treasure hunt, privateers, and a homeward voyage that carries them past Tristan da Cunha as the Civil War breaks out back home. Built to be both entertaining and educational, the serial worked in real detail about whaling, geology, and life at sea. Announcer Dave Ward narrated, and every chapter opened with Poll Parrot the ship's mascot squawking the sponsor's slogan: 'Poll Parrot Shoes speak for themselves.'
Episode Spine
Grouped by year. Jump to the full list below, or open a season on its own page.
1937
1938
The Cruise of the Poll Parrot was a syndicated children's adventure serial made to sell shoes. Roberts, Johnson & Rand -- the St. Louis maker of Poll Parrot children's shoes, a division of the International Shoe Company -- had it recorded in 1936 at Premier Radio Enterprises and offered it to local shoe stores across the Midwest, who bought the airtime from their own stations. Aired that way, station by station, it played from 1936 into the early 1940s. The story is set in 1858 New Bedford, Massachusetts, then the capital of American whaling. Young Roy Dalton -- newly made a captain, and voiced by a 23-year-old Marvin Miller, later Robby the Robot and TV's 'The Millionaire' -- takes the whaling bark Poll Parrot on her maiden cruise. Two children stow away: Johnny Robbins, a runaway with a secret, and Sue Grange, sister of the ship's owner. Across thirty-nine fifteen-minute chapters they face the scheming Spaniard Altesti, an erupting volcano, a buried-diamond treasure hunt, privateers, and a homeward voyage that carries them past Tristan da Cunha as the Civil War breaks out back home. Built to be both entertaining and educational, the serial worked in real detail about whaling, geology, and life at sea. Announcer Dave Ward narrated, and every chapter opened with Poll Parrot the ship's mascot squawking the sponsor's slogan: 'Poll Parrot Shoes speak for themselves.'