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Podcast: Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting
Episode: BW - EP148—004: February 1944 With Bob Hope—The Bob Hope Show With Guest Ginger Rogers 2/8/1944
Description: On Tuesday February 8th, 1944 at 10 PM eastern time over WEAF, and at 7PM pacific time over KFI, Bob Hope’s Pepsodent Program signed on live, coast-to-coast from Oceanside, California.
The guest was Ginger Rogers, the program features a salute to her new film, Lady In The Dark.
It was radio’s top show, pulling a rating that month of 36.2. Nearly twenty-eight million people heard this show, which is even more impressive when you consider how many were overseas fighting World War II.
Hope’s top sidekick was Jerry Colonna, perhaps the wildest comic presence on 1940s radio. Colonna had once been a...