20 Great Years of Radio, Part 4: 1941

1. The Jack Benny Program (NBC): Another great year for Benny with the great episode Jack Is Late with No Script, wherein Jack has to go on the air with an unfinished script. There was also Murder at the Racquet Club and Jack's great battle of wits against the Quiz Kids! Beyond that there were very funny satires of the films City for Conquest and Tobacco Road. Still A-1!
2. Information Please (NBC): This year saw Boris Karloff make his debut as a guest panelist and he was simply delightful, especially as he demonstrated his speciality at nursery rhymes! This year also saw Groucho Marx's appearance, which was a ton of fun.
3. The Shadow (Mutual): Another good year for the Shadow with good programs like The Shadow Challenged, The Man Who Lived Thrice and The Chess Club Murders.
4. The Columbia Workshop (CBS): Another good year for the Workshop with unusual dramas like the all-black cast in Jason Was a Man or the submarine story The Log of the R-77.
5. Lux Radio Theater (CBS): Another good year of Lux with great adaptations of The Shop Around the Corner, Lost Horizon and Rebecca.
6. Screen Guild Theater (CBS): Quality programs on the Guild this year included Orson Welles performing The Happy Prince and an adaptation of His Girl Friday.
7. Forecast (CBS): This was the end of Forecast but they released some more interesting pilots such as Marlene Dietrich's Arabian Nights and the debut of the music program Jubilee.
8. Dark Fantasy (NBC): This is an oddball show even by the standards of horror radio! Many of the episodes don't quite work but they can be rather fascinating simply because of the weird story structures. The highlights this year were the Christmas episode The House of Bread, the micro-world adventure Men Call Me Mad and The Demon Tree.
9. Inner Sanctum Mysteries (Blue): This would become the longest-running radio horror show but it started rather modestly with The Amazing Death of Mrs. Putnam, which was little more than a standard mystery drama. In the years to come, its tone would shift and soon become standardized.
10. We Hold These Truths (Mutual): This was Norman Corwin's salute to the US Constitution, as told by Lionel Barrymore and Orson Welles. Even as a non-American I admire the quality of the performances.