Eddie Cantor
Originally broadcast on Syndicated, 6 January 1943. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
The run
- Network
- AFRS
- Years active
- 1942–1950
- Surviving broadcasts
- 291
- 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.
1947 · 21946 · 11945 · 21944 · 21943 · 31942 · 2
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
12 dated broadcasts across 9 years on the air, with 3 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
JFMAMJJASOND
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
Clean transferListenableRough but complete No surviving recording
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 1942, in original transmission order.
- 1. Eddie Cantor · 1 Mar 1942
- 2. Cary Grant, Shirley Temple · 28 Jul 1942
- 3. Robert Taylor, King Sisters, Joan Davis, Nelson Eddy, Lum and Abner · 6 Jan 1943
- 01
Eddie Cantor
1 Mar 1942 · 30 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
- 02
Cary Grant, Shirley Temple
28 Jul 1942 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
- 03
Robert Taylor, King Sisters, Joan Davis, Nelson Eddy, Lum and Abner
6 Jan 1943 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
- 04
Bob Crosby, Jimmy Wakely, Count Basie
12 Jun 1943 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
- 05
Bob Hope, Betty Hutton, Judy Garland, Jimmy Durante, Lana Turner
13 Nov 1943 · 30 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
- 06
Jerry Colonna, Jo Stafford
8 Apr 1944 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
- 07
Bob Hope, Johnny Mercer, June Allyson
13 Sep 1944 · 28 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
- 08
Dick Tracy in B Flat
15 Feb 1945 · 57 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'CommandPerformance' (public domain).
Same night on the air
6 Jan 1943
Everything else the archive still holds from the night of 6 Jan 1943.
Mayor of the Town
Originally broadcast on Syndicated, 6 January 1943. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Also on AFRS
AFRS in 1942–1950
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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