Tom Carroll remembers his early days in radio:
My first radio work was as a child actor right at the end of the Golden Age of Radio.
During my early radio career in Hawaii, I was a frequent reporter/interviewer heard overseas through the AFRS and on NBC's award-winning weekend radio service, "Monitor".
In 1961, I wrote, produced and voiced "Let Freedom Ring", a 5 minute July 4th salute to America sponsored by the Hawaiian Broadcasters Association and heard exactly at 7 a.m. on every radio station in Hawaii.
After nearly a 6-year stint as a daily talk show host, I left radio in 1990 to resume my career in TV and the movies. However, I continued for several years nationwide as the host of "This is the Way It Was!" and "Hollywood Remembered", two daily 90-second radio features.
And his discovery of early Old Time Radio:
In early 1960, I went to work for KGU, Honolulu, which was then the NBC affiliate and flagship station for the All Islands Radio Network. As their Production Manager, I discovered hundreds of old 16-inch radio transcriptions of old NBC radio shows. They had been stored over the years collecting dust and were scheduled to be tossed into the dumpster by then General Manager Bill Paine.
After some heated negotiations with Paine and then Program Director Ted Scott, the discs were saved and I was permitted to 'package' those dramas and comedies into a 30-minute nightly 7 p.m. slot replacing the C.P. McGregor "Freebie Weepers", which the staff fondly labeled, "Hardon Theater".
I also hosted the wrap-arounds and promptly named the series, "KGU's Theater of the Mind". The show quickly gained some popularity and several months later, management expanded the nightly series into a full hour.
No one can say with absolute certainty if I alone created the "Old Time Radio" nostalgia craze. Nevertheless, I have yet to find any evidence whatsoever of anyone packaging those old radio shows prior to their airing in 1961 on KGU.
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