Inspirational drama anthology · Mutual
Family Theater
February 13, 1947 – September 11, 1957 · 542 broadcasts
A star-studded inspirational anthology unlike anything else on the air, Family Theater ran on the Mutual network from 1947 to 1957, hosted by Father Patrick Peyton and built around his famous motto, "The family that prays together stays together." Peyton, a Congregation of Holy Cross priest, had begun a local rosary broadcast in Albany in 1943; from it grew a nationwide crusade that made him one of the true pioneers of mass-media evangelism. The show's defining feature was unprecedented: carried as sustaining public-service time with no commercial sponsor, it ran a full decade on donated talent -- and the talent was Hollywood's biggest. James Stewart, Bing Crosby, Gregory Peck, Irene Dunne, Loretta Young, Jimmy Durante, Lucille Ball, Raymond Burr and scores more appeared for free, week after week, for the cause rather than a paycheck. The nonsectarian stories ranged from original moral dramas to lavish adaptations of Moby-Dick, A Tale of Two Cities, Don Quixote and the classics, with music by Meredith Willson, later of The Music Man. Heard across the United States and around the world, Family Theater remains a remarkable record of Hollywood's star power lent to a purpose rather than a product.
Collection status:
525 of 542 held (97% complete)
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Episode Spine
Grouped by year. Jump to the full list below, or open a season on its own page.
- 1947 (46 episodes)
- 1948 (52 episodes)
- 1949 (52 episodes)
- 1950 (51 episodes)
- 1951 (50 episodes)
- 1952 (50 episodes)
- 1953 (52 episodes)
- 1954 (51 episodes)
- 1955 (52 episodes)
- 1956 (48 episodes)
- 1957 (38 episodes)
1947
The series premiere: consumed by shame over his own selfish pride, Jim Mathews flees the wife and family who long ago forgave him.
Newly blinded, Will Caulder lets his pride keep him from the Coldwater sweetheart still waiting for his return.
An ordinary couple killed in a boating accident reach the gates of a garden paradise and must make their case to be let in.
A struggling New York writer and the devoted wife who keeps faith in him, from an original script by Walter Newman.
In the everyday life of the Jones family, young Bill's single dollar becomes a hard lesson about hunger.
After 27 years as a prison chaplain, Father Darcy settles into a quiet country parish -- until news comes of a breakout back at the penitentiary.
Told through his keychain, a ruined stockbroker discovers that a life is enriched by people, not possessions.
For Easter, Ethel Barrymore gives voice to the New Testament account of Christ's death and resurrection.
David and Diane Bruce venture far beyond the last outposts of civilization, waging a doctors' war on Malta fever and the plagues of the African bush.
A grape grower gambles everything on his fields and loses, learning that some harvests matter more -- a story narrated by God himself.
The long-delayed romance of a small-town hot-dog vendor and his fiancee, played out against the century's great events.
A guardian angel is charged with stopping a dying man from settling an old score by murder.
A two-career marriage nears collapse until husband and sister-in-law scheme to bring the working wife back home.
Pressured to sell out on a waterways bill, an honest small-town politician finds his nerve after a vision of Abraham Lincoln.
A kindly building janitor tries to teach a troubled young tenant the meaning of honoring one's father and mother.
A widower's remarriage is nearly wrecked by his grown daughter's determination to drive out her new stepmother.
On a disc jockey's final night at the mic, the records he spins trace the whole arc of his marriage -- in the vein of Penny Serenade.
A new pastor turns two feuding merchants into unlikely allies for his struggling church and his flock.
A gifted student caught cheating and his hard-pressed father both find rescue in prayer and forgiveness.
The grief that follows the loss of a child gives rise to Eugene Field's beloved poem, in a warm period piece.
Rebuffed by rancher Larry Bledsoe, an oil baron digs up a forgotten statute to force him off his land.
On a cold October night, a young woman's love for an ailing writer plays out in rain-soaked melodrama.
The life and faith of poet and patriot Joyce Kilmer.
A tough cop with no patience for lawbreakers must face the theft committed by his own grieving son.
A crippled composer, his little daughter, and a celebrated pianist, in a finely drawn melodrama.
A reporter goes blind and refuses the operation that might one day spare his daughter the same darkness.
A man takes public credit as a radio writer while his son-in-law does the actual writing, with predictable trouble.
A schoolboy's beloved tin whistle brings lasting ruin to the teacher who confiscates it.
A boy tries to do the right thing by a rough friend jailed for robbery.
A visiting foreign diplomat, played by Otto Kruger, discovers through an ordinary American household that no one is truly a stranger; Bob Hope hosts.
With six hours to live on death row, a condemned man tells how he met a godless orator and his 'stopwatch finale.'
A wife's pursuit of the stage drives a wedge into her young marriage.
After firing a faithful old employee, a hard-driving tycoon is taught the worth of the people who work for him.
Down-and-out poet Francis Thompson finds faith, and eventual fame, through the kindness of a fellow outcast.
A cocky gridiron hero paralyzed in a car wreck rediscovers what teamwork means through a five-year-old girl's faith.
In 1769, a fledgling California mission will pull through only with the help of one down-to-earth man.
Given a year to live, a rich Englishman and the servant girl he loves take on a daunting errand: giving away a fortune of twenty thousand pounds.
Fibber McGee and Molly turn matchmaker after Doc Gamble's secretary splits with her fellow.
A young hobo riding a freight train east falls in with a mysterious companion called Hawk.
The arrival of a poised career woman at her husband's office unsettles a proud homemaker.
Certain his boy is embarrassed by his modest success, a small-town druggist visits the exclusive school he scrimped to afford.
Returning one Thanksgiving to her Austrian husband's home city, an American wife finds it reduced to rubble.
A boarding-school girl defies her actor parents, longing for the stage instead of the violin.
At Christmastime, the toy floor of a bustling department store becomes the setting for romance and a reunion.
A star basketball player benched over a school essay gets help from his resourceful brother.
A poor circus juggler honors the Christ child the only way he knows how, in a medieval French Christmas fable.
1948
The trials of the Gordon family across the Depression years from 1933 to 1948, hosted by J. Edgar Hoover.
On New Year's night, Father Time hands a carefree boy called '1948' one tall order: track down the world's happiest person.
Killed when his experimental plane goes down, a test pilot is granted one final visit to the family he left, guided by his guardian angel.
Handed a baby to mind, a tough Broadway chorus girl feels her hard edges start to melt.
To cool his sons' thirst for revenge, a father recounts the tale of a man wrongly imprisoned who set out to punish the judge who condemned him.
On the show's first anniversary, a grape grower learns from a failed harvest that prayer and patience yield richer returns.
In frontier Kentucky, a settler marries and raises two children, in a tale that ends about the way you would guess.
A cash-strapped family is tempted to stretch the truth for a $10,000 payout after their son is injured.
A big top, an orphanage, and a hermit all figure in the grand adventure of a little girl named Penny.
J. Carrol Naish plays a French baker during the Second World War.
A washed-up movie actor cast as Lazarus finds his own fall and revival mirrored in the role.
A working man engaged to a wealthy decorator finds the gulf between them exposed on a visit to his family.
Ethel Barrymore narrates a dramatization of the condemnation and crucifixion of Christ.
The grief behind Eugene Field's beloved poem, in a warm period piece.
A street kid is drawn toward stolen cars by his hardened big brother's creed: if you steal, steal big.
A childless couple finally turn to prayer, in an amusing fantasy about where babies come from.
One month into their romance, Eddie wants to wed his Bronx girl and whisk her off to San Francisco.
Lavished with every advantage, the son of a mayoral hopeful turns out miserable.
A gently comic Mother's Day tale of a mischievous boy and the spanking his mother knows she must deliver.
The life and faith of poet-patriot Joyce Kilmer.
Before a judge, a hobo unfolds a tale of trust betrayed and a forgotten hero, with more than a whiff of Les Miserables.
From Indiana lawyer to Civil War general, John A. Logan helped give the nation Memorial Day.
For a sandhog settling into a new town, hostile neighbors prove nearly as dangerous as the tunnels he digs.
The tale behind Alice in Wonderland, and the shy Oxford mathematician who dreamed it up.
A southern mother tells her child the tale of Joan of Arc.
A self-important lawyer must defend and justify his life before a final, heavenly court.
To curb youth crime -- and needle the mayor -- a small-town editor launches a Boy Scout troop.
How a Scottish love affair gave rise to an enduring song.
A cold-hearted man of means, struck down by leprosy, is humbled by the compassion of someone he had spurned.
Posing as a tramp, a millionaire hunts for one person who genuinely keeps the Golden Rule, ready to share his fortune with them.
A veteran studying medicine on the G.I. Bill juggles his lessons, his marriage, and a new baby.
A reporter trails a mysterious man who quietly makes birthdays brighter for poor children.
A schoolboy's beloved tin whistle brings lasting trouble to his teacher.
A boy borrows from the bank to buy a prized pig, then faces temptation when a uranium-stock windfall beckons.
August 26, 1948
Half-Time Strategy
A retelling for all ages of how a shy Oxford don dreamed up Alice in Wonderland.
Sure that nobody at home wants his company anymore, Ozzie lays down the law, in a typical outing for the Nelson clan.
A man recalls the anniversary when his mother got her own checking account -- a day he never forgot.
Inheriting the bat of the game's greatest slugger, a benchwarmer suddenly powers his club to the World Series.
A mischievous grandfather of seventy-eight is more playmate than elder to the young grandson growing up beside him.
A picture of American home life and juvenile delinquency, as David Lee works to clear a jailed young friend.
June Haver stars as a scatterbrained receptionist juggling the demands of her four different bosses.
Orphaned mid-journey on an 1844 Oregon wagon train, a boy shoulders the family and presses on west -- a true story.
For twenty-one years Johnny has lived in his brother's shadow; when the chance for revenge finally comes, so does the truth. Introduced by Kate Smith.
A man longs to adopt an abandoned orphan boy, over the firm objections of his wife.
A Carnegie Hall piano tuner brags to his nine-year-old pal Mary Ann, and loses his job for it.
A widow raising two children at last squares off with the town's resident busybody.
After stealing his roommate's date and marrying her, a scholarship man finds life turns hard once graduation arrives.
A fired ad man reinvents himself as 'The Masked Tenor,' winning back a partnership and his marriage plans.
A fatherless boy asks Santa for a daddy for Christmas, and his mother ends up wed to the store Santa. Hosted by Shirley Temple.
On a London Christmas Eve, a blind British girl is visited by a mysterious stranger -- and wonders if he is Jesus.
Baritone John Charles Thomas and storyteller John Nesbit present the traditional tale of the poor juggler's gift to the Mother of Christ.
1949
A British war orphan brought to America eases into a new life with the help of a new young friend.
When aging minstrel legend Sugarfoot Calhoun suffers a heart attack before his TV debut, his reluctant son must carry on the tradition.
A young war bride receives the dreaded telegram, then, ten days later, news from the doctor that changes everything.
Why did the great Broadway producer David Belasco collect model elephants? A 'true' story sets out to explain.
When the classmate who won the school-play lead is hurt in a bicycle crash, whispers turn on the girl who was passed over.
Over their mother's dread, five brothers march off to war, and none come home, in a tale with a twist.
The second-anniversary program: a grape grower learns from a failed harvest that prayer and patience yield richer returns.
February 23, 1949
Many Happy Returns
A woman disfigured since childhood finds work, and understanding, with a blind attorney who values her for herself.
Blind ambition costs a Hollywood screenwriter his marriage and nearly a young colleague's life.
A little leprechaun too stubborn to listen finally masters his craft -- and the secret his kind must guard.
During the North African landings, a New Yorker and an Iowa GI forge an odd bond, and learn why the soldier won't eat meat.
A newcomer channels a gang of restless boys into a baseball team, while the coach hides a past of his own.
Three lives intertwine over one memorable night with a building's night elevator operator. Hosted by Claudette Colbert.
April 13, 1949
The Passion and Death of Christ
Ethel Barrymore narrates the greatest love story ever told, the account of the crucifixion, for Easter.
Their nine-year-old son gone, a father pushes to adopt while his shattered wife refuses to let go.
A visiting nurse refuses to give up on a sick, secretive man holed up with a gun in a rundown hotel.
Two former lovers meet by chance on a train and relive the romance they once shared. Hosted by Pat O'Brien.
A test pilot killed in a fiery crash is allowed back among his loved ones for a final farewell, guided by his guardian angel; James Farley hosts.
Having wed a professor for his fortune, a woman must reckon with his small boy and embittered sister, and finds life brightens once he is gone.
An old-fashioned farmer, Noah Stevens, clings to his plow and his ways against his family's modern notions.
Trapped in a cabin cellar with a broken leg, a ruthless businessman learns how much we all depend on one another. Starring Jeanne Cagney.
Homeless London poet Francis Thompson finds faith, and greatness, through an outcast's kindness. Hosted by Jack Benny.
A win-at-any-price coach makes a devil's bargain, then sees the ethic he lived by leading him astray.
A widow in a Gold Rush mining town keeps her late husband's memory alive in a most unusual way, after Bret Harte.
In 1870s Paris, a borrowed necklace goes missing and must be replaced whatever the cost, from Maupassant.
Death hands a fateful gift to three greedy rogues, from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
A tight condensation of Ahab's obsessive hunt for the white whale, from Melville. Introduced by Celeste Holm.
An impoverished suitor's fortunes turn on a geological curiosity, in Frank R. Stockton's whimsical romance.
To trap Robin Hood, the Sheriff of Nottingham puts Maid Marian's life on the line.
A bishop buys a hardened convict's soul with his own silver, in the famous scene from Les Miserables.
A woodcutter and his wife draw a jugful from the fabled fountain of youth, until it shatters, with results they never foresaw.
Killed in France in 1918 at just thirty-two, New Jersey poet Joyce Kilmer left behind verse still cherished.
A proud king is humbled to the rank of court jester by a power far greater than his own, from Longfellow. Featuring Raymond Burr.
The eventful first run of railroad No. 17 and a peace-loving major forced to face a crew of gamblers.
In the year 778, a soldier of France stands against the treacherous Saracen, in the ancient Song of Roland.
A brave Frenchwoman turns on a Prussian occupation officer, from a classic Maupassant character study.
A tribute to Los Angeles at 168, retracing how the City of the Angels was founded.
Torn from her betrothed, Longfellow's Acadian heroine spends her life wandering America in search of him.
Poe's tale, among the earliest detective stories, hinges on cracking a hidden cipher.
A tale of selfishness and sacrifice, narrated by Loretta Young, from Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince.
Scott's Ivanhoe brings medieval England alive with jousts, knights, and chivalry, starring Macdonald Carey and Hans Conried.
A newcomer dreams he owns all of New York, and finds that all it took was a new pair of shoes.
In an old Irish legend, St. Kevin's gift for renewing worn-out things begins with a single cherished goose.
In a Paradise Park fantasy, a girl aching for a baby brother comes face to face with Booker T. Washington.
One of the Victorian age's great romances, the courtship of poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning.
A Pilgrim-days romance honoring the first Thanksgiving, from Longfellow, with Raymond Burr as Miles Standish.
Washington Irving's tale of the Catskills sleeper who dozed his way clean through twenty years.
The last knight in the world rides out to do good and finds a windmill barring his way, from Cervantes. Introduced by Roddy McDowall.
At Christmas, a fourth magus sets out carrying three gifts for the newborn King.
A four-year-old's humble gift becomes the one most favored by God, narrated by Loretta Young, from Charles Tazewell.
A lonely old cobbler who has given up on life is transformed by a visit and a lesson in love, from Tolstoy.
1950
When 'Peep' O'Day inherits forty thousand dollars, his ex-convict nephew schemes to have him declared incompetent and seize it, in an Old Judge Priest tale.
A dissolute lawyer redeems a wasted life at the guillotine as a far, far better thing, from Dickens. With Hans Conried.
Sir William, a diffident slayer of Rhinosodragons, goes in search of the courage he lacks.
Stevenson's portrait of poet-rogue Francois Villon on one bitter, perilous winter night.
York and Lancaster clash in the Wars of the Roses, from Stevenson's The Black Arrow.
Craving security, a man -- a part tailor-made for Jack Webb -- throws in with a crooked politician.
Parley Baer plays Judge Priest again in another of Irvin S. Cobb's homespun tales.
A Revolutionary War spy peddles his way behind enemy lines, honoring Washington's birthday, from Cooper.
Hard times and a hard choice divide two old friends in a Norwegian village, from Nobel laureate Bjornstjerne Bjornson.
Mark Twain's classic of a royal boy and a pauper who swap lives, learning that looks deceive and mercy befits a crown.
A romance set in a cursed German village that materializes just one day each century, a Brigadoon cousin.
Von Kleist's tale of an odd courtship gift from a long-nosed suitor.
March 29, 1950
The Fabulous P.t. Barnum
April 5, 1950
The Royal Road
A timid knight believes himself invincible so long as he remembers his magic word, from Heywood Broun. Hosted by Jane Wyatt.
A warm-hearted Irish taxi driver shows a spoiled young radio star what teamwork really means.
In the age of William the Conqueror, Lord Norfolk loses his heart to Lady Margaret of Hereford.
The life of the great French actress Sarah Bernhardt, from early triumph to final curtain, narrated by Don Ameche.
To settle a wager, a poor music teacher shuts himself away in solitary confinement for fifteen years, the week the show took a Peabody.
Bret Harte's mismatched exiles are stranded by a blizzard, with no rescue in sight.
When Billy Bones is handed the black spot, young Jim Hawkins sails into Stevenson's great pirate yarn.
Vacationing in Ruritania, an Englishman is talked into posing as the kingdom's drugged king before the coronation.
A man renounces his American citizenship in a fit of temper and lives to regret every word, from Edward Everett Hale.
The great-souled swordsman with the long nose and a hidden love, from Rostand. Featuring Hans Conried.
The legend of Gold Rush outlaw Joaquin Murrieta, whose exploits still cloak old California in mystery. Starring Ricardo Montalban.
A dragon is no obstacle to Sir Lancelot when Lady Elaine's love is the prize.
A baron's arranged wedding is thrown into confusion by a bridegroom who may be a ghost, from Washington Irving. Hosted by Joan Leslie.
The life of author Robert Louis Stevenson, told by those closest to him.
A romance of the old frontier, where romance itself was the scarcest prize of all.
Shakespeare's tragedy of the dictator's murder, boiled down, with Wendell Corey and Gene Raymond.
A young tulip grower helps the people of 1673 Holland resist tyranny, from Dumas. Starring Rod Cameron.
From Scott's ballad, a bold young Scotsman battles to carry off the bride he loves.
A store window-dresser's odd inheritance, five circus lions, prompts him to trade his day job for the big cage.
Once more in pursuit of Jules Verne's mysterious Captain Nemo beneath the waves.
A no-account ballplayer comes into the bat of a Babe Ruth-caliber legend and rides it to the World Series.
A middle-aged widower flees the matchmaking women in his life, only to wind up proposing marriage.
Lawman Jim Cutter hunts the notorious outlaw El Coyote across old California.
A grape grower learns from a failed first harvest that prayer and patience yield richer returns.
How Florence Nightingale, the lady with the lamp, turned nursing into a true profession; Claudette Colbert hosts.
The life of Stephen Foster, America's most beloved songwriter. Hosted by Gale Storm.
Feeling herself a failed writer, Louisa May Alcott finds love in Paris and the spark for Little Women.
Mr. Lattimer basks in praise as a radio scribe, though his son-in-law does the writing -- the pair voiced as Fibber McGee and Molly.
A governess loves the master of Thornfield but must flee when his secret comes to light, from Charlotte Bronte.
A test pilot lost in a crash returns in spirit to his family one last evening, after which Ann Blyth sings Ave Maria.
A contest for the silver skates unfolds beside a Dutch boy whose father lost his memory in a fall.
In 1733, printer John Peter Zenger takes on New York's tyrannical governor and wins the opening battle for a free press.
Remembered as the finest clown of his age, Dan Rice worked the Civil War years as a circus performer and minstrel showman.
A proud king is humbled to the rank of court jester by a power greater than his own, from Longfellow, with Raymond Burr.
Charles Tazewell's Christmas fantasy of a mute child living when Jesus was born, narrated by Roddy McDowall.
Having eaten a priest's chicken, Joppe works off his guilt peeling potatoes, then juggles his plates for the Virgin at Christmas.
A humble gift to the Bethlehem child from the smallest angel in heaven, narrated by Loretta Young, from Charles Tazewell.
1951
January 3, 1951
The Other Wise Man
In 1856 Washington Territory, settler Bill Wyatt takes a stand when a misguided governor tries to force the local Indians onto barren land.
The King Midas legend retooled for Jack Benny as a monarch who cannot stop counting his gold. Hosted by Lucille Ball.
As Helen comes of age with a drinking mother, a kindly janitor's steady presence tests what honoring a parent really means.
The wooden puppet who longs to be a real boy and can't stop telling tall tales, with Mel Blanc as Pinocchio.
Back from a sanitarium after a breakdown, a man discovers there is little home left waiting.
For its fourth birthday, the series paints America in words and music through its homes and its countryside.
Homeless London poet Francis Thompson finds faith, and greatness, after hitting bottom.
In Elizabethan-era Ireland, a savior rises to lift the darkness, in a tale of adventure.
For Easter, Grandpa tells his granddaughter the tale of a little tree that came to know the meaning of the season. Starring Gene Lockhart.
When the pound seizes her beloved dog, a little girl who cannot pay the fee appeals to the mayor for a pardon. Hosted by Charles Coburn.
March 21, 1951
The Passion and Death of Christ
An Easter dramatization of Christ's betrayal and crucifixion.
When a PT boat is crippled off the China coast, its unlikely passenger -- an Army chaplain -- proves his mettle.
A pitcher losing his stuff is taught a new twist by his young daughter -- the prayer ball. Hosted by Gene Kelly.
After six straight rainy Sundays, Peter Bright lifts a gloomy town's spirits by single-handedly inventing a brand-new holiday.
A near-fatal wreck and two mysterious strangers, an old man and one called Peter, draw a broken couple back together.
A brief trip back from America casts the emigrant's old Irish village, and a girl he once left, in fresh light.
A wealthy Englishman with a year to live sets out, with a working-class woman's help, to give his whole fortune away.
An Irish policeman cannot work out why a dogless man renews his dog license year after year.
A newborn's arrival softens and transforms a rough mining camp for the better.
A King Midas riff tailored to Jack Benny's famously gold-loving character.
A false typhoid accusation costs a naturalized Italian-American his job at the meat counter.
An orphan reluctant to leave the only friend she has mirrors the anxieties of the couple about to adopt her. Hosted by Ricardo Montalban.
In his final hours on death row, a condemned man tells how a proudly godless man once wrecked his happy home.
The life and faith of poet Joyce Kilmer, who lived happily on eight dollars a week and a love of verse.
In wartime London, a woman entertaining her fiance's brother is drawn into an inevitable and tragic love affair.
A handful of lost GIs blunder into freeing a small French village from the Germans, a Fourth of July romp.
The son of show-business troupers is set on performing, against the wishes of a mother who knows the fickle business too well.
An old man keeps a house exactly as it was, still waiting for the wife who died forty years ago.
Jimmy Durante leads three penniless drifters across the country in a Pierce Arrow, buying gasoline three gallons at a stop.
As the troopship Dorchester went under, four chaplains gave their life vests to others -- a true story.
A newly elected mayor is caught in a town-splitting controversy over whether to remodel or replace the old courthouse.
A tale of love and hope rooted in the Johnny Appleseed legend.
An Iowa girl who wrote home boasting of Hollywood stardom dreads the visit of the hometown boyfriend she deceived.
A little girl relates a knight-and-princess romance to her separated mother, with the happy ending you would hope for.
In wartime France, a young country girl and a billeted American soldier fall in love amid a broken window and an apple orchard.
A reporter out to expose a famous author of children's fantasies ends up falling in love with him instead.
A professor wagers a skeptical student that a lie told convincingly enough will always be swallowed, then proves it.
A raw country pitcher is targeted by big-city gamblers as his manager tries to lift a last-place club.
Hopelessly lost, a machine-gun crew ends up liberating a fog-bound French village from the Nazis.
The historic voyage of Christopher Columbus, told from the Spanish court of 1491.
A peach farmer prays desperately for rain while others in the valley are hoping for the opposite.
A scarred man weds a woman with a limp; once surgery frees her, he slips away so she might find a handsomer match.
Sterling Holloway narrates the wanderings of a brand-new dollar bill bent on bringing people joy; Susan Hayward hosts.
A made-up tale spun around Notre Dame's Fighting Irish and their coach Knute Rockne.
A stray dog with the uncanny power to see through walls turns up in the lives of a boy and his grandfather.
A grape grower learns from a failed harvest that prayer and patience yield richer returns.
Princess Diane pines for a prince who takes no notice of her, until the king hatches a plan, narrated by William Bendix.
Charles Tazewell's Christmas fantasy of a mute child alive when Jesus was born, narrated by Roddy McDowall.
A blind girl of ten comes to live with three astronomers in their observatory, in a Christmas story hosted by Pat O'Brien.
1952
January 2, 1952
The Littlest Angel
A marriage in deep trouble, told by the wife whose husband flees their home after a storm turns their life upside down.
Storyteller John Nesbit revives the medieval French tale of a poor juggler's gift to the Mother of Christ.
Donald O'Connor stars as a bank clerk whose homemade voice-run calculator, Imzac, can even call the stock market -- a very early computer yarn.
A Roman actor commissioned by the emperor to lampoon the Christians in a comedy instead finds a triumph greater than any applause.
A famous ballerina's daughter steps into her mother's starring role, and seemingly into the choreographer's heart as well.
The fifth-anniversary show: Loretta Young leads a sweeping portrait of Americans meeting the future.
In a rare on-air pairing of the Cagneys, a devoted nurse gives her life to her work, leaving her doctor brother to grieve.
After a bitter quarrel and a near-fatal accident, a feuding couple meet a strange old man who insists they are both already dead.
A retired Florida farmer is nursed through a wholly invented ailment, the dreaded 'Nihilitis,' by a scheming neighbor.
Near St. Patrick's Day, a young Irishman falls in with an oversized leprechaun and follows him into American adventures.
Rather than burden his niece's family, a seventy-five-year-old retired captain enters a home and rediscovers a love from forty years past.
The largely true story of the U.S. Army's attempt to raise a Camel Corps -- its rise and its fall.
For Easter, Grandpa tells his granddaughter the tale of a little tree that came to know the meaning of the season.
April 9, 1952
The Passion and Death of Our Lord
April 16, 1952
The Hound of Heaven
An Arkansas rube proves a big-league pitching sensation, in the award-winning series.
Earth's last Martian, dying, sets down at a tiny California airstrip with one plea -- that mankind restore God to its conference tables.
In Hoboken, an immigrant barber sets his dream of crafting violins aside for the sake of his family.
Fed up with Hollywood, a movie cowboy decamps to France, where an actress and some orphans help him ride herd along the Champs Elysees.
Honeymooning in the Quebec backwoods, a new bride gets the war telegram she feared, then, ten days on, word from the doctor that changes everything.
A high-school science teacher insists on minding the new baby alone for an evening, with unexpected results.
A widow with money troubles poses for a handsome artist, until her two children 'improve' on his portrait.
Guilt over failing to stop a bank robbery that killed his friend locks a man in silent paralysis, until a burglar breaks through.
Home from a navy hitch, a young letter carrier discovers his sweetheart has taken up with a Marine.
A child-psychology author meets a five-year-old terror, and learns that what the boy really needs is love.
Fourth-of-July vignettes hosted by jet ace Colonel Francis Gabreski.
A girl who attends school only once a month passes every test, runs thriving businesses, and even nabs a bank robber.
August 5, 1952
Rhapsody in Bop
A Korean War drama insisting that each 'light casualty' in the day's dispatches was someone's kin or friend.
A light comedy about a rookie stewardess whose imagination runs wild when a suspected spy boards her first flight.
After the party's mayoral candidate suddenly dies, a reformer thrust forward as his replacement must choose between integrity and office.
A condemned man on death row recounts, in his last hours, how a proudly godless man once ruined his happy home.
A private eye hired to guard an actress's diamond tiara may in fact be in league with the jewel thieves.
A Roman dramatist studying the new Christian sect during the reign of Diocletian is brought to a life-altering decision.
With war declared, a woman is drawn to her soldier fiance's brother, in a tender, sorrowful story.
A widower rebuffed by his old flame turns to a newspaper classified ad and finds unexpected satisfaction.
A plain young woman and a blind soldier fall in love, until an operation restores his sight and nearly ends the romance.
A boy lies trapped at a cliff's base as the incoming tide climbs toward him.
A soldier abroad reflects on the right to vote, in vignettes about the harm done when democracy is taken for granted.
A western comedy where Matilda, the one and only 'watch snake,' undoes a suitor's plot to rob a rich young woman.
Mom's baking-contest prize is a two-week getaway, solo, leaving her family to cope.
A stranded actress takes a governess job for a single night, in a story of mistaken impressions.
A down-and-out drunk is given a fresh start by a strange little girl named Della -- another word for goodness itself.
Charles Tazewell's Christmas fantasy of a child who could not speak, alive when Jesus was born, narrated by Roddy McDowall.
A Nazareth innkeeper endangered by his Rome-hating nephew is repaid in kind by the carpenter's family sheltering in his stable. Hosted by Irene Dunne.
A dramatization of the birth of Jesus, created alongside the Catholic Daughters of America.
Ann Blyth plays Mary as the newborn Jesus is brought to the Temple, forty days on, in keeping with the Law of Moses.
1953
The twelve-year-old Jesus journeys with his family to Jerusalem for the Passover feast.
An airline stewardess crosses paths with a passenger toting sixty thousand dollars in stolen cash he is eager to return.
A retiring bank guard sets off to hunt Caribbean treasure, only to discover a richer one through his friends' troubles.
A boy named Spunky and his very unusual dog Pete, who happens to talk, voiced by Mel Blanc.
A tender holiday homecoming turns on a secret only the town's old-timers keep -- that the Atwells took Lettie in from an orphanage years ago.
A nuclear scientist blessed with a perfect memory loses it to amnesia on a train after glimpsing a woman he takes for Debra Paget.
On the program's fifth birthday, a montage of American ideals features Loretta Young in her sixteenth appearance.
As their children are steadily indoctrinated under Communist rule, a Polish family concludes that fleeing to Sweden is their only way out.
A grape grower wagers everything on his crop and loses, for God, who narrates, now and then answers no.
A red-haired troublemaker vexes the ruler of a tiny Himalayan kingdom, from Kipling.
To his father's exasperation, a boy would sooner write and act in plays than take the field.
Two former sweethearts, thrown together on a commuter train, feel a pre-war romance come flooding back.
For Easter, Macdonald Carey delivers a single-voice narration of Christ's betrayal and crucifixion.
A boy sets out to pair up his widowed father with the schoolteacher.
A woman blinded in a traffic accident turns bitter, until she falls in love during her hospital stay.
Diving again after Verne's enigmatic Captain Nemo.
The heir to a factory struggles to fill his father's shoes, numbers most of all; Mitzi Gaynor introduces.
For Mother's Day, three vignettes trace Mary's apparitions -- Guadalupe (1531), Paris (1830), Lourdes (1858), and Fatima (1913) -- with Ann Blyth in the lead.
For a win-obsessed college basketball coach, the reckoning comes when his own daughter is caught cheating.
Fresh from Korea, a sergeant and his wife tangle with a couple of gangsters, the county sheriff, and the town's justice of the peace.
Newcomers cross the town's most powerful woman, a capable lady who must learn that friendship starts with asking for help.
To win over his girl's father, an ex-GI takes to the perilous work of diving for abalone.
An aging catcher must groom the very rookie who ends up marrying his daughter; Frank Fay hosts.
A great flood tests Uncle Joe and young Slim on the veteran engineer's final run before retirement.
For eight years a family has known their son's English bride only in photographs, and she still refuses to accept him dead.
By candlelight in a cramped Philadelphia room on July 1, 1776, John Adams urges on five exhausted men drafting the Declaration.
A dilapidated traveling hair-tonic wagon chugs into a peaceful settlement one strange spring day.
In 1672, with Holland and France at war, a Dutch skipper still carries two rescued Frenchmen home, amid romance, a duel, and high adventure.
A plan to shut down a college's athletic program backfires into a whirl of physical activity -- and romance.
A beauty-contest winner lends her woman's intuition to a Chicago private eye stalking a waterfront crook.
A newsman's fix for his town's crooked politics is so plain that his own editor spikes the piece.
A convict who fancies himself always up-to-the-minute pulls off a nearly flawless jailbreak; Ed Sullivan hosts.
An unmarried woman inherits her Uncle Jim's fortune under peculiar provisions designed to get her wed.
Passed over for promotion, a wisecracking teacher uses his humor to rescue his class when the school boiler explodes.
A secretive circle of producers hands a washed-up director one last chance to mount a play.
Newly arrived from Ireland, a young woman runs a boarding house and takes up with a penniless painter.
An American exile and a world-weary socialite join a French team probing a cave system, in a story with an odd twist.
When a timid old man cannot meet a blackmailer's price, one of his beloved park birds turns up dead.
Science fiction with a soul: humanity's first moon rocket blasts off in July 1962 and finds a being from another world waiting.
A wartime drama of the Marianas 'Turkey Shoot,' and the hard choices an admiral must make.
The tall-tale hero Dan McBirdy takes credit for naming Plymouth Rock, leading the Boston Tea Party, and much more.
A party plunges into the Peruvian jungle hunting a lost Inca tribe.
A Mexican wedding is nearly ruined when the bride's father mixes up the envelopes meant to pay for the flowers.
A move from the stockroom to the sales floor works a remarkable change in an ailing clerk named Timothy Murch.
Comedy erupts when little green Martians set their saucer down on a backwoods hillbilly clan.
Engine trouble strands a planeload from Korea -- a congressman, a freed POW, a war widow -- on a very strange island.
November 25, 1953
The Thanksgiving Hour
To get his wife out of an Iron Curtain state, an American reporter is told to hand her Uncle Alex to the secret police; Bing Crosby hosts.
An old-timer fires up a restless boy with the tale of cowboy High Chin Bob, who has thirty days to earn his marriage money as a killer cat prowls.
An American couple gives their adopted Korean orphan her first real Christmas, and puzzles over her wish to Santa for a can of salmon; Ann Blyth hosts.
A Nativity play told through Ruth, the innkeeper's deaf daughter, whose faith restores her hearing.
Called overseas to treat a king's ailing son, an American physician lands in a thicket of murder and intrigue; Eddie Cantor hosts.
1954
Med student Roscoe Dodds trades the lecture hall for a touring band, chasing both the trumpet and romance; Jo Stafford hosts.
A cab driver who befriends a second-rate prizefighter arranges a private, fixed fight.
A meteorologist runs afoul of a heavenly clerical error, in a supernatural comedy; Lucille Ball hosts.
A tough drill sergeant who wants only to bring his boys home safe drives his platoon into shape, seen from both sides; Jimmy Durante hosts.
To settle a fifteen-year-old grudge against a single operator, a ruthless tycoon buys the whole telephone company, with surprising outcomes.
A tracer of missing heirs and a disputed inheritance test the price of a family's principles.
The seventh-anniversary show: an American corporal, a POW in Korea, defects behind the Iron Curtain and spends a decade reckoning with the choice.
A weary company president dozes at his desk and dreams of a youthful rivalry, as reality and glory blur and characters trade identities.
During the Second World War, a French chateau becomes the stage for a retelling of Stevenson's tale of Maletroit's door.
Worth ninety-three million dollars, George Gage craves only to give it all away, and finds his happiness in the giving.
With a little girl's strange power over the dice, a gambler rolls twenty-six straight winners for eighteen thousand.
Cops and robbers, a kidnapping, jailbreakers, and a bank job in the works all converge on one nervous night.
In 1796, Dr. Edward Jenner battles the smallpox that stalks Europe, developing the first vaccine.
For Easter, Grandpa tells his granddaughter the tale of a little tree that came to know the meaning of the season. With Edmund Gwenn.
Jeff Chandler plays a newsman reporting the road to Calvary live, in the 'You Are There' style.
An ambitious reporter sees only a career break in a cave-in that has pinned a nurse and three miners below ground.
Captain Scott's doomed 1912 expedition races Amundsen to the South Pole.
Having filched another's slogan-contest prize -- a Bermuda getaway -- a woman meets romance and trouble on the island.
A chance reunion with a German he once faced in combat leaves an ex-GI a single lingering question that could lay his war to rest.
One timid fellow's discovery of an age-old formula upends his whole world.
A father whose son is lost in the wilderness discovers that the prayers once left unanswered were, in fact, a blessing.
With old man Justin dead, the reading of his will turns on one question: who gets his fabulous emerald, valued at four hundred fifty thousand dollars?
Snowbound together in a country cabin, four strangers face a most unusual sort of invasion -- an odd tale for June.
A diver going for a four-hundred-foot record instead stumbles on a sunken city and the truth about Atlantis.
In 1975, scientists guiding an atom smasher by computer hit a snag when the machine insists that two and two make five.
Out in the western desert, one family stops to aid a sick Indian mother and child while others, afraid, drive on.
A young reporter assigned to a Skid Row story is aided by a mysterious figure as he works to expose the racket preying on the derelicts.
A crisp new dollar bill, out to spread happiness wherever it travels, narrated by Sterling Holloway.
A young woman meets her fiance's parents, who greet the coming marriage with little warmth.
How a millionaire came to be a celebrated songwriter.
A dim but beautiful new bride sets out to better herself, and ends up writing her husband's theater review.
A convict awaiting execution recounts meeting a godless orator whose defiant speeches came to a 'stopwatch finale.'
Three witnesses give three versions of a small grocery-store stickup, in a Rashomon-like tale with an odd finish.
Defending a banker charged with embezzlement, the lawyer -- engaged to the man's daughter -- turns up proof of his guilt.
An old-West story: Tennessee's partner goes bad, is caught, and faces the gallows, then the two meet again.
Home from Korea with battle fatigue, Ben is branded a coward by his fiancee's brother.
Broke but in love, a man pilfers four hundred dollars from his workplace to afford a wedding, and learns honesty costs the honest nothing.
Earth's first extraterrestrial callers meet a picked international delegation on a small Pacific island.
An old flame from fifteen years back nearly reignites, in a story built around the song 'Imagination.'
Homeless London poet Francis Thompson finds faith and greatness, in the program's announced four-hundredth broadcast.
Stranded at the foot of a sea cliff, a young boy watches the tide rise.
A time-travel tale in which an American prizefighter finds himself in ancient Rome, falling for a Roman woman named Flavia.
After his test plane goes down in flames, a pilot is granted a last visit to the family he loved, led by his guardian angel.
A French textile-mill owner in Indochina faces the Communist takeover of the country.
Backstage as a hit radio show jumps to television, shedding part of its cast, complete with a dead-on spoof of Mr. District Attorney.
A shipwreck strands a rich woman and a grumpy sailor together on an empty island.
An old shoemaker learns wisdom and grace in a Tolstoy parable about love and the presence of God.
In a medieval French fable, a humble juggler offers the Virgin the only gift he possesses.
December 29, 1954
The Little Prince
An American physician's mission abroad to heal a royal heir pulls him into murder and palace intrigue.
1955
The town sheriff writes up a lovely visitor from another world, for jaywalking.
An old woman who beds down on the streetcars recalls a past far more elegant than her present.
When an old buddy blows into town, a Hollywood writer lends a hand, and second-guesses the decision.
A soldier must find his way in life after losing his sight.
The eighth-anniversary program: the young and very poor Abraham Lincoln at work as a frontier surveyor.
An unmarried woman inherits her Uncle Jim's fortune under peculiar provisions designed to get her wed.
A late-shift phone operator and an airline clerk haunted by her past find their nights unexpectedly entwined.
A. J. Torkelson, once a drifter riding the rails, is now a rich man in air freight.
A proposed highway through town -- and the votes traded over it -- throws a courtship into turmoil.
A dog-biscuit-munching girl prodigy sailing on an ocean liner tangles with a trio of smugglers.
Drowning in debt, a hard worker finds fifty-two hundred dollars land in his account, and wrestles with the urge to keep it.
For Easter, Grandpa tells his granddaughter the tale of a little tree that came to know the meaning of the season.
April 6, 1955
The Passion and Death of Christ
A warning against marrying a writer of fiction, as an airplane romance takes flight.
A Pittsburgh girl turns up in Hollywood, ready to lie her way to stardom.
A grim, affecting drama of the day the atomic war began.
Her memory erased, a hospitalized woman leans on her doctor to piece together who she once was.
A gas-station owner is fleeced by a pair of thoroughly professional deadbeats.
A teenager phones in a bomb threat against his own school, in a troubling tale.
A Yankee and a rebel officer carry their mutual hatred for decades past the war's end, until it comes to a duel.
1956
December 19, 1956
Lullaby of Christmas
December 26, 1956
The Juggler of Our Lady
1957
August 28, 1957
Sylvia
The Story
A star-studded inspirational anthology unlike anything else on the air, Family Theater ran on the Mutual network from 1947 to 1957, hosted by Father Patrick Peyton and built around his famous motto, "The family that prays together stays together." Peyton, a Congregation of Holy Cross priest, had begun a local rosary broadcast in Albany in 1943; from it grew a nationwide crusade that made him one of the true pioneers of mass-media evangelism. The show's defining feature was unprecedented: carried as sustaining public-service time with no commercial sponsor, it ran a full decade on donated talent -- and the talent was Hollywood's biggest. James Stewart, Bing Crosby, Gregory Peck, Irene Dunne, Loretta Young, Jimmy Durante, Lucille Ball, Raymond Burr and scores more appeared for free, week after week, for the cause rather than a paycheck. The nonsectarian stories ranged from original moral dramas to lavish adaptations of Moby-Dick, A Tale of Two Cities, Don Quixote and the classics, with music by Meredith Willson, later of The Music Man. Heard across the United States and around the world, Family Theater remains a remarkable record of Hollywood's star power lent to a purpose rather than a product.
Full story — coming soon while it's being curated.
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