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"Buck Rogers in the 25th Century"
Radio Serial (1932-47)
 U.S. (CBS)
15 Minutes (Monday-Thursday)
"Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" Radio Serial in streaming RealAudio
Episodes 1-12
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7
8
9
10
11
12
Three years after bringing science
fiction to the world of comic strips, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century introduced space opera to radio
on his own program, which first aired on November 7, 1932. Originating from New York and
broadcast four times weekly (initially at 7:15 P.M. and later moved to an earlier
"children's hour"), the program had a built-in audience of funny-paper readers
who tuned in by the hundreds of thousands.
Plots were roughly similar to those of
the comic strip, with Buck, his liberated co-pilot Wilma Deering and the brilliant Dr.
Huer, daily keeping the world in one piece. The sounds of Buck's arsenal, consisting of
such futuristic devices as death rays, incendiary missiles, gamma bombs and a mechanical
mole capable of burrowing deep into the Earth, were simulated by a variety of electrical
and hand-powered motors. The crackling buzz of Rogers' psychic destruction ray, for
instance, was provided by a Schick razor.
Underscoring the program's phenomenal
popularity was the response to mail-order gifts offered to listeners. An initial offering
of a map of the planets brought 125,000 requests. A subsequent offering of a cardboard
space helmet was made more difficult to get, with the proviso that a metal seal from a can
of Cocomalt, the show's sponsor, had to accompany the request. Depression-era children
nevertheless sent in more than 140,000 strips of tin for the highly desirable premium,
which has since become an extremely rare and valuable collectors' item.
 Credits
Matt Crowley, Curtis Arnall, Carl Frank and John Larkin as Buck Rogers
Adele Ronson as Lieutenant Wilma Deering
Edgar Stehli as Dr. Huer
Ronald Liss as Buddy
Elaine Melchior as Ardala
William Shelley, Dan Ocko and Arthur Vinton as Killer Kane
Fred Uttal, Paul Douglas and Jack Johnstone as the announcers
Directed and Produced by Jack
Johnstone
Written by Jack Johnstone, Joe A. Cross, Albert G. Miller, Philip
Nowlan and Richard Calkins
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