Originally broadcast on ABC, 18 October 1949. Restored from the Old Time Radio archives.
The run
- Network
- AFRS
- Years active
- 1942–1949
- Surviving broadcasts
- 230
- Genre
- variety
Command Performance was produced by the Armed Forces Radio Service from 1942 and broadcast by shortwave to American forces overseas. Servicemen and women wrote in with requests and the biggest names in Hollywood and swing performed them, unsponsored and uncensored by commercial interests. Recordings survive from the AFRS transcription discs and are in the public domain.
1949 · 51948 · 71947 · 231946 · 181945 · 37
Restoration quality — measured from the surviving files
Clean transfer · 230 of 230
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
Every broadcast below carries its own provenance sheet — transfer quality, file source and rights.Archive record: CommandPerformance
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
76 dated broadcasts across 8 years on the air. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
JFMAMJJASOND
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
Clean transferListenableRough but complete No surviving recording
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 1945, in original transmission order.
- 1. Jeannie Crain, William Bendix, Gene Krupa Trio · 8 Feb 1945
- 2. Dick Tracy in B Flat · 15 Feb 1945
- 3. Danny Thomas, Dick Haymes, Ginny Simms · 22 Feb 1945
Alexis Smith, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis
18 Oct 1949 · 30 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
Evelyn Knight, Dick Powell
21 Jun 1949 · 30 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
Margaret Whiting, W Niles, J Smith, S Allen
14 Jun 1949 · 58 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
Lina Romay, Ed Gardner
29 Mar 1949 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
Gertrude Nielsen, Danny Kaye
22 Feb 1949 · 31 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
Christmas 1948 - Hy Averback, Announcer
25 Dec 1948 · 1h 2m
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
Vincent Price, Kay Starr, Joan Davis
30 Nov 1948 · 44 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
Special - Dear John Club Of The Air
20 Oct 1948 · 44 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
Same night on the air
18 Oct 1949
Everything else the archive still holds from the night of 18 Oct 1949.
Originally broadcast on Syndicated, 18 October 1949. Restored from the Old Time Radio archives.
Also on AFRS
AFRS in 1942–1949
Other series the network carried while Command Performance was on the air.
Same seasons
variety on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
Friends in front of a microphone
Jack Benny and Fibber McGee sold intimacy: recurring characters, in-jokes, a house style. The modern hang-out show is the same trick without the script.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of Command Performance
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
More to explore
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