W2XBS Schedule, Week of April 14th, 1940

Here’s the schedule for NBC’s experimental station W2XBS in New York City for the week beginning Sunday, April 14th, 1940. Of interest to me is “Stars of the Future,” an hour-long program “by juvenile performers,” with youngsters on the piano and the xylophone, tap dancing and acting.

Plus, I’d love to know what a “futurachord” is. I checked the daily listings for Friday, April 19th and they also clearly state “Camille Rajane, futurachord.”

Sunday, April 14th, 1940
3:30-4:45PM – Film, “Dark Hour”; Ray Walker and Irene Ware.
8:30-9:30PM – Comedy, “Her Master’s Voice,” by Claire Kummer, with Hume Cronyn, Jean Adair, Rosalind Ivan and Peggy French.

Wednesday, April 17th, 1940
3:30-4:30PM – Films, “Hits, Runs and Errors,” “Boston Common and Proper,” “Let’s See America,” “Science in Business,” California Holiday.”
6:45-7:00PM – News, Lowell Thomas.
8:30-9:30PM – Variety, “The Old Bookshop,” with Arthur Allen and Parker Fennelly as the Simpson boys; Joan Hardy in a French lesson; a piano lesson by Russell, and “The Night of April 14,” a documentary drama.

Thursday, April 18th, 1940
3:00-5:00PM – Baseball: Jersey City Giants vs. Montreal Royals, at Jersey City.
6:45-7:00PM – News, Lowell Thomas.
8:30-9:30PM – “Stars of the Future,” a program by juvenile performers, including Gary Graffman, pianist; Beverly Sills, actress; the Mitchell Brothers, tap dancers; Baby Barbara Del Rose, xylophonist, The Koutzen Trio.

Friday, April 19th, 1940
3:00-5:00PM – Baseball: Brooklyn Dodgers vs. New York Giants, at Ebbets Field.
6:45-7:00PM – News, Lowell Thomas.
8:30-8:45PM – Television reporter.
8:45-9:00PM – Ana Maria, dancer; Camille Rajane, futurachord; Sylvia Reed, accordion.
9:00-11:00PM – Wrestling, at the Jamaica Arena.

Saturday, April 20th, 1940
2:00-4:30PM – Track Meet: Princeton-Columbia-Navy, Baker Field.
8:30-9:35PM – Film, “I Met a Murderer”; James Mason, Pamela Kellino.

Sources:
“Telecasts This Week.” New York Times. 14 Apr. 1940: 134.


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3 Replies to “W2XBS Schedule, Week of April 14th, 1940”

  1. As previously mentioned, NBC [W2XBS] had access to hundreds of “obscure” B-movies from previous years, especially from the defunct Chesterfield studio {“The Dark Hour” (1936), a murder mystery starring Ray Walker, Berton Churchill and Irene Ware}, foreign films {including future international movie star James Mason’s little curio, “I Met A Murderer”, filmed in 1937 and released in Britain the year before, co-starring his future wife Pamela (brother of the film’s director, Roy Kellino)}, and various short travelogues, industrial and commercial films of recent vintage [“Hits, Runs and Errors”, “Let’s See America”, “California Holiday”, and so on] to fill their “experimental schedules” during the 1939-’41 period, as the major Hollywood studios flatly refused to allow their “current” films to be seen on TV, even in its embryonic stage (they already perceived the medium to be a potential “enemy” to their theater business, and would continue to do so until the mid-’50s, when most of them finally allowed some of their pre-1949 film libraries made available to local stations, as well as producing TV series for syndication and network use).

    Parker Fennelly, featured in “The Old Bookshop”, was a character actor on stage and radio who specialized in “New England types”- and became famous as “Titus Moody” {“Howdy, Bub!”} in the “Allen’s Alley” segments of Fred Allen’s radio show, later in the ’40s. During the ’60s and ’70s, Fennelly was also the voice behind Pepperidge Farm’s commercials {“..because Pepperidge Farm remembers”}.

  2. The Giants-Dodgers game of April 19 was the home opener for Brooklyn against their hated cross-town rival. The Dodgers ended up pounding the Giants, 12-0 with Hugh Casey the starter getting the win.

  3. Note that one of the “Stars Of the Future” that appeared on April 18th was young Beverly Sills (formerly “Bubbles Silverman” on radio), who wasn’t an “actress” as much as she was a SINGER….who later became a famous opera star, appearing at the “Met” and opera houses all over the world. This was probably her earliest appearance on TV.

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