Dec 7 1941 Quotes

The show is said to have originated on WCAU, Philadelphia, the sponsor’s home city, in 1927. Its arrival in New York in 1931 kicked off an unusual commercial identity—a children’s song-dance-and-story hour sponsored by one of the strongest symbols of New York city life, the automat (where nickel coffee and a piece of pie was a Broadway tradition). With its first New York broadcast, Horn and Hardart admitted it had nothing to sell to kids but reasoned that a strong appeal to children would reach adults as well. A sample of its fare was the show of Dec. 7, 1941, a few hours before Pearl Harbor. The entire hour was a tribute to ailing George M. Cohan, with the kids singing such favorites as Give My Regards to Broadway, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and Harrigan.

A rumor persists that Kato was Japanese until the events of Dec. 7, 1941, when abruptly he became Filipino. This seems to be false, as Kato was described as a Filipino of Japanese descent at least two years earlier. As for Britt Reid, he was seen in the early days as a playboy, a clever disguise for his true personality. He was the worry of his father’s life. So concerned was old Dan Reid that his son would be a frivolous man that Britt was installed as publisher of the Reid family business, a newspaper called the Daily Sentinel. With the job came a bodyguard and overseer, one Michael Axford, former cop and dumbest of all dumb Irishmen. Axford was plucked whole cloth from another Trendle melodrama, Warner Lester, Manhunter, which Trendle was discontinuing. Later, Axford would become a Sentinel reporter, though he remained throughout the series a voice without a brain. Axford’s goal in life was to “captuure the Haarnet,” but in truth he had trouble catching a streetcar.

Now it was called The Texaco Star Theater; the Mighty Allen Art Players became the Texaco Workshop Players, and the show opened in the traditional Texaco manner, with a siren and a bell. The opening was toned down after Dec. 7, 1941, because of growing public tension and the use of sirens to warn of air raids.

HOWARD K. SMITH, CBS correspondent and later commentator; author of Last Train from Berlin, the story of his experiences covering the German capital in the final days before the United States entered the war. Smith was assistant to Harry W. Flannery until October 1941, when Flannery left Berlin and Smith was left to run the post alone. By December, relations with the Nazi government had deteriorated to the extent that Smith could no longer function. He applied for an exit visa and crossed into Switzerland Dec. 7, 1941—thus the title of his book.