Barbara Jean Wong 100th Birthday Part I: OTR Child Star of the Month - March 2024

Barbara Jean Wong around age 9, from Radio Mirror July 1936. From Media History Digital Library

It was hard to decide on the Old Time Radio (OTR) Child Star of the Month, until I realized a very special star was born 100 years ago this month. 

Born 100 years ago today was Barbara Jean Wong (March 3, 1924- November 13, 1999) talented dancer, actress, singer drum majorette, acrobat, and later a public school teacher. She was known as "The Chinese Shirley Temple" and radio's "Chinese Wonder" as a child. Her specialty was as a voice chameleon who portrayed children of all races on the radio well into her adulthood.

Of all her roles from the Golden Age of Radio the most enduring today was the voice of Judy, one of the Barton Twins, on The Cinnamon Bear (1937), a captivating Christmas serial that is still broadcast on many stations today, and on The Amos 'n' Andy Show as Amos’ daughter Arbadella. She memorably played Arbadella Jones on the Annual Christmas annually from 1940 to 1960. 

Barbara Jean Wong was born in Los Angeles on March 3, 1924, to parents Thomas and Maye Wong. In the early 1930s for station KFAC she was a cast member of the “Whoa Bill” Club and acted in the radio skit “Billy and Betty” with actor Dorian Thompson. From these early broadcasts Wong is believed to have been the first Asian American to act in an American radio comedy or drama. 

She was cast was Asian, White, and Black children, girls and boys on many programs for the next 2 decades On Strange as it Seems, a radio program based on John Hix' comic strip which was similar to Ripley's Believe It of Not, she portrayed Alice (of Wonderland), even once portrayed George Washington as a boy which made national headlines

Radio was the theater of the imagination, and for Barbara Jean Wong there was no color or race, nor age. In the new medium of television, a 30-year-old Wong once commented that she found herself typecast as Asian women. She had appeared in several movies in the 1930s and 1940s always as Asian girls or women. One of her last film roles was in The Man From Button Willow (1965), an animated tale in which she played a little Asian girl, and a possible first introduction to Wong for those unfamiliar with radio's golden age,

Barbara Jean Wong Lee passed away November 13, 1999 at the age of 75. Today via radio and film collections on the internet her talented voice performances can easily be rediscovered. 

To Be Continued........For the month of March, I want to follow up this post with highlight for her childhood performances, and her performances as children. 

Shirley Temple Time - A 1941 Christmas Radio Series

 

Cover to Radio Life, November 30, 1941. From American Radio History.
For the complete magazine as a PDF 

December 5 - 26, 1941 - Shirley Temple Time For Elgin (or Shirley Temple Time) was a four-episode Christmas season radio program that featured the world's most famous child star in her first regular radio series. Two of the four episodes have survived and are widely available as downloads or CDs. Each episode paired Temple with a popular Hollywood leading man. For the definitive guide to this series go to this page from the Digital Deli.

Saluting 100 Years of Children's Radio

Sometime between October 1 and October 5, 1921, a newspaper editor named William F. B. McNeary climbed a 15 ft ladder, entered the rooftop radio studio of station WJZ in Newark, New Jersey and read a bedtime story by writer Josephine Lawrence over the microphone as the "Man In The Moon". This was the beginning of the first radio series constructed specifically for children. Childhood has been tremendously different ever since.

Today 100 years later children have access to more hours of broadcast and streaming media than they could possibly consume in a lifetime. Yet it all started with one program over the radio. In reflection of this milestone, more histories of pioneering radio and television juvenile series will be explored in future blog posts and videos from the Children's Media Archive.

From The Archives: A Quiz Kids Radio Postcard

Above and below is a front and back view of a vintage postcard from the classic radio series "Quiz Kids" (1940-1953). Dated some time in the 1940s, this postcard was a special Christmas gift from my wife.

Christmas Stories by Georgene Faulkner, The Original "Story Lady"

Faulkner, Georgene. 1927. Story Lady's Christmas stories. J.H. Sears & Co.

While visiting a used book store, I found a unique treasure in the free bin. It was a copy of "The Story Lady's Christmas Stories" by Georgene Faulkner. Being an Old-Time Radio (OTR) and classic television buff, I know the term "story lady" was used often for an "auntie" figure like Ireene Wicker, or Alene Dalton the "Story Princess" who told stories on radio or television. However, I had never heard of the author Georgene Faulkner, and was stunned to learn who she was.

Snippet from press article about Georgene Faulkner from Radio Digest, April 26, 1924.
This entire article can be read in context at THIS LINK from the Media History Digital Library. 

Georgene Faulkner (1873 -1958) was THE original "Story Lady". She began telling stories to children on WMAQ Chicago radio in 1922, which may make her the first woman to host a children's radio program. Another media landmark of Ms. Faulkner's was being the first person to record phonograph records for children.

Even before her radio career she dressed as Mrs. Claus for Christmas as early as 1908, started a school for girls, was a kindergarten instructor, children's editor for the Chicago Tribune, and the Ladies Home Journal, and told stories at parties, Chautauqua events, schools and overseas in World War I where she was known as the "Auntie of the AEF".

She published numerous books and short stories, many of which were republished in readers, textbooks, and storybook collections for decades. Here are a couple of scans from her 1927 Christmas Stories book. The illustrations were by Frederic Robinson, more famous for his "Oz" series artwork.

Faulkner, Georgene. 1927. Story Lady's Christmas stories. J.H. Sears & Co.

The Radio Shows of "A Christmas Story"

"Who's the little chatterbox? The one with pretty auburn locks?" Newspaper ad for the "Little Orphan Annie" radio program from the Evening Star [Washington, D. C.] November 11, 1936 

The holiday film classic "A Christmas Story" (1983) turns 35 this weekend. The popular comedy about little Ralphie's dream quest for a Red Ryder Carbine BB air rifle is a great reminder of a childhood when radio was the only electronic broadcast media in the home.

Three "Golden Age" radio programs popular with children are specifically referred to in the film: the western great The Lone Ranger, (the crossword puzzle clue); Red Ryder based on Fred Harmon's popular western comic strip (the theme music can be heard when Ralphie fantasizes about saving the day as the sheriff with his trusty rifle); and most clearly Ralphie's disappointment with the decoder prize from the Little Orphan Annie program.

A portion of "Betty and Buster Binks" an advertising comic page for Ovaltine, sponsor of the "Little Orphan Annie" radio program, from July 30, 1933. In the top left panel the kids talk about listening to "Annie" on the radio.

For years many people have wondered when exactly "A Christmas Story" takes place. Some sources say 1940, but based on old time radio history this is impossible.

In the scene where the father is trying to solve the crossword puzzle he reads aloud a clue about the name of the Lone Ranger's nephew's horse. The Lone Ranger's nephew Dan Reid never appeared on the program until December of 1942. Also the "Little Orphan Annie" radio program went off the air in April of 1942. So these were radio memories that could not have happened at the same Christmas time.

Merita Bakery was a regional sponsor of  "The Lone Ranger" radio series in the American southeast. This ad is from November 11, 1942, in the Wilmington Morning Star. 

Small tidbits like this can actually make "A Christmas Story" more fun and believable because it is the nature of human memory to not remember things perfectly. In a DVD commentary for the film director Bob Clark and author Jean Shepherd acknowledged that a specific date was not intended and it had an "amorphously late-'30s, early-'40s" setting.

Pointing out the accuracy of these dates is (to this author) just is a really fun excuse to talk about the radio shows that were a part of Ralphie's world.

The Christmas Story House. From Wikimedia Commons. 

Dr. Seuss on Radio: The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins

This Friday is National Reading Day, which coincides with Dr. Seuss' birthday. It was over 80 years ago that Theodore Geisel (1904 - 1991) took on the nom de plume "Dr. Seuss" and entered the children's book market. His greatest stories have been adapted into box office hits, TV specials, kiddies records, and even Broadway plays.



One of the earliest media adaptations of Dr. Seuss' works was a radio adaption of "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins" for The American School Of The Air on January 18, 1940. The program was directed by Nila Mack "the fairy godmother or radio" behind the children's classic Let's Pretend (1929 - 1954 CBS).

Actor Howard Lindsay and writer/director Nila Mack. From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 17, 1940 page 19.

While this broadcast does exist, what I have posted on YouTube is an adaptation by Mack that was broadcast August 18, 1940 for the Columbia Workshop. It is unknown if this is the same script that was used for the earlier broadcast. Heard in the cast is child actor Jack Grimes, a regular "Let's Pretender", best remembered today for being the second Jimmy Olsen on radio's Adventures of Superman.

Dr. Seuss was just on of many classic children's books authors to have their works adapted during that great period known as the "Golden Age of Radio". Following National Reading Day I will post more classic adaptations of children's literature. Enjoy!