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commonplace old street, so dear, so familiar, yet so far away, now glimmers with a beauty of its own.
All of which explains "Memory Lane" and the hold this program has upon the hearts of NBC listeners. Up and down the Pacific Coast, and clear across the continent, as far east as Ohio, thousands of radios are tuned to this program each Tuesday night when it is broadcast from the San Francisco studios of the National Broadcasting Company.
The epic of Goshen Center, midwestern village of the late nineties, grips the imagination of the radio audience with the oldest and simplest of bonds — it's real! The Smithers family, Ma, Pa and Billy, and their friends, are real persons, and the chronicle of their daily lives, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, has the stamp of life upon it.
• "The Smithers ought to seem real — for they ARE real," protests H. C. Connette, NBC continuity writer who created them, and in doing so brought back a whole epoch to life; reincarnated a typical small town of the past, with its inhabitants, customs and authentic atmosphere.
Like many other successful things, "Memory Lane" was not planned in its present form, but "just grew." Several years ago, Connette, a newspaper man, returned from Shanghai, China, where he had been editing newspapers for Americans abroad, and joined the NBC's staff of writers. He was given the job of supplying continuities to introduce old-fashioned songs which were a feature of a program called "Memory Lane."
To vary the monotony of the continuities, Connette put a bit of dialogue into them, and to speak the dialogue, he invented Ma and Pa Smithers and their son Billy. Ma Smithers sang most of the songs, of course — Pa and Billy just asked for them.
• The quaint Hoosier dialect of the new radio family interested radio-listeners. Those who came from the middle-west found it warm, familiar and heart-tugging in its reminiscent flavor of their childhood; some who had never heard it before were captured by its humorous novelty. At any rate, a flood of fan-mail, representing both elements, made it plain that what the audience wanted was more Smithers dialogue and less singing. Little by little the dramalogue grew and the music dwindled, until finally the main interest centered in the Smithers household, its neighbors and friends. "Memory Lane" became a distinctive program with a universal appeal.
It is, perhaps, the only program on the air which its listeners help to write. Every day or so brings a new
What the Well Dressed Couple Will Wear Ma and Pa and Billy Smithers