Terry and the Pirates (radio serial)

Terry and the Pirates was a radio serial adapted from the comic strip of the same name

Terry and the Pirates (comic strip)

Terry and the Pirates was an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist Milton Caniff. Captain Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, had admired Caniff’s work on the children's adventure strip Dickie Dare and hired him to create the new adventure strip,...

created in 1934 by Milton Caniff

Milton Caniff

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.-Biography:...

. With storylines of action, high adventure and foreign intrigue, the popular radio series entralled listeners from 1937 through 1948. With scripts by Albert Barker, George Lowther

George Lowther (writer)

George F. Lowther was a writer, producer, director in the earliest days of radio and television. During the 1940s, he was a scriptwriter for the Superman radio programs on the Mutual Radio Network and the author of The Adventures of Superman .Born in New York City, Lowther broke into radio at 13...

and others, the program's directors included Cyril Armbrister, Wylie Adams and Marty Andrews.

The central character, Terry Lee, was portrayed at various times by Jackie Kelk

Jackie Kelk

Jackie Kelk is an American radio actor and stand-up comedian, born in Brooklyn, NY. He played Jimmy Olsen in the first seven years of the radio show The Adventures of Superman and Homer, best friend of Henry Aldrich on the teenage radio comedy of the same name. He starred as Young Mr...

, Cliff Carpenter, Owen Jordan and Bill Fein. Terry's buddy Pat Ryan was played by Bud Collyer

Bud Collyer

Bud Collyer was an American radio actor/announcer who became one of the nation's first major television game show stars...

, Warner Anderson, Bob Griffin and Larry Alexander. Others in Terry's Far East entourage were Flip Corkin (Ted de Corsia

Ted de Corsia

Ted de Corsia was a radio and movie actor.He is probably best remembered for his role as a gangster turned state's evidence in The Enforcer...

), Elita (Gerta Rozan), Burma (Frances Chaney), Hotshot Charlie (Cameron Andrews) and Connie the coolie (Cliff Norton

Cliff Norton

Clifford Charles "Cliff" Norton was an American character actor and radio announcer who had appeared in various movies and television series over a career that spanned over 40 years. He was probably best known as the announcer for Dave Garroway's radio program...

, John Gibson, Peter Donald

Peter Donald

Peter Donald was a British-born actor who worked in American radio and television.-Radio:He was famed as the character of Ajax Cassidy on Fred Allen's radio show, the Irishman who continually complained that he was "not long for this world."In addition to his long run on "Allen's Alley," Donald...

). Throughout the Orient, they encountered plenty of evildoers, including the Dragon Lady

Dragon Lady

Dragon Lady is a phrase referring to a seductive, treacherous, domineering, and/or tyrannical woman, especially an Asian one. Women famously referred to as "Dragon Lady" include:*Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, First Lady of South Vietnam...

(Agnes Moorehead

Agnes Moorehead

Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...

, Adelaide Klein, Marion Sweet, Mina Reaume), in such adventurous episodes as "Pirate Gold Detector Ring," "Deadly Current," "The Mechanical Eye" and "The Dragon Lady Strikes Back."

WWII

When the late afternoon series began, it was heard at 5:15pm, three times a week, sponsored by Dari-Rich, airing on NBC's Red network from November 1, 1937 to June 1, 1938. It switched to NBC Blue on September 26, 1938, continuing until March 22, 1939. Absent from the airwaves for over two years, it returned shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack, heard in the midwest on the Chicago Tribunes WGN. That series, sponsored by Libby's, aired five days a week from October 16, 1941 to May 29, 1942.

With increasing popularity during the WWII years, the show next took off at a fast pace on ABC Blue, airing daily for 15 minutes on weekday afternoons beginning February 1, 1943. The Quaker Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice

Puffed rice

Puffed rice is a type of puffed grain made from rice; usually made by heating rice kernels under high pressure in the presence of steam, though the method of manufacture varies widely.-Origin:Pori has been mentioned in various Tamil...

"shot from guns" commercials often had a patriotic pitch. Douglas Browning was the announcer during the mid-1940s. After 1945, with no wartime villains for Terry and his pals to fight, ratings began to drop in the post-WWII period until the final episode on June 30, 1948.

WWII

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