Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1944)

lory gardens, they told us how to i>et rid I of pests in those gardens, they told us ' how to can the vegetables and fruit, and how to save ration points! In other words, radio and its advertisers were way ahead of us. They educated us. We listened, and w'e earned our M.A.'s in war effort. But they kept right on reminding us of how^ much our country needed, and so we continued to sweat and work hard, and to help our neighbors. Can there be any doubt that radio and its advertisers were ahead of us then? That they were leading us on to greater unity? Hemember, about that time, meek little paragraphs began to appear in various national magazines, now and then in radio new^scasts, or in daily newspapers, telling of a new invention someone had dared to dream about, an invention designed to bring comfort and delight after this ghastly and all-engrossing war was o\er! Just aboiu then it dawned on us, personally, that the American people in the midst of a great w^ar were thinking of the future! And so, w^e got to thinking that it was pretty depressing to keep our noses to the grindstone of war— warwar! And now^ that our nation was geared to war and we were giving our best, physically and mentally, still there must be room for dreams and dreamers! So we dreamed that nozv, sometime betw^een worrying and working, between w^ar effort and nervous tension and taxes, perhaps we could dream of the future, too! Whereupon, I sat myself down at the trusty dictaphone and dictated letters to our greatest manufacturers, to our greatest research laboratories and said something like this: "Sure! We know^ you're working 24 hours a day in the war effort and we know you must have plenty of problems, but you must be dreaming, too. You must be thinking up something for the post-war era!" We WTut on to say we were writing a radio script show Future Unlimited!; that we wanted to help the people escape from the monotony of their war-time jobs; help them to dream of the miraculous new gadgets that they might expect after the war is won. And we said, "Could you release auNthing we could use in our radio scripts?" A hundred and ten letters went out in the first mailing and the all-out response flashed back to us, "Yeah! W^e're workin' pretty hard, only 24 hours a day, but one of our chemists did have a little idea for a gadget and it's " Or, "Here's the dope on a little thing w^e had almost ready when the war came. We've laid it aside, but we're going to manufacture it as soon as the peace sirens blow^!" And believe it or not, from those first 110 letters, w'e got enough factual information to write 78 Future Unlimited! scripts, with 8 to 10 items in each script! And so w^e sent out another 150 letters to other great American organizations and back came another deluge of replies full of plans for our post-war world! These contained enough items to carry us through another 78 scripts. We had over 1,000 ideas for happiness! Yes! Already industry and science have cleared the first hurdle by dreaming and inventing miracles of tomorrow. And already they're preparing the people for what's to come! The second step, which is already in progress, is planning for the presentation of these wonders of the future, to the eager consumer! And already a great juggernaut, which, for w'ant of a better name I shall call, "PWP" (Post-War Planning) is stretching his muscles. W^e're getting ready to bridge the gap between war's-end and peace-beginning in one single, powerful stride! Right now, buying and selling lie fallow% but when w^e take that single, powerful stride, the rich soil of American buying will have been tilled by radio and its advertisers! And without faltering, they will bring the message of these promised miracles of science and industry to the people of America. Advertisers, through radio, will create the desire to share in these wonders and goods wall pour-out for peace, at close to the rate at which goods are now^ being poured-out for war! JULY, 1944 233