The Big Story (working set 2022)
The Big Story Project
These are recordings of the radio series The Big Story . It is a working set for which upgrades and missing episodes are being sought. Less than one-fifth of the episodes have survived. It was a highly successful radio program that made the tranisition to television and become a highly-rated series. The radio and television series runs overlapped for many years. Many of the radio scripts were later adapted to the television series. An effort is being made to identify the original news events that were adapted to the series -- often with major modifications for legal and time constraints. There are only two episodes for which the original news stories have not been identified.... yet. If you have upgrades or missing episodes, please leave information in the comments section and contact information or leave a message on the old time radio forum at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio?tab=forum FLACs of upgrade files over recent years will be posted when the work is completed; some of them can be found in the Joe Hehn Memorial Collection here at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/thebigstory_202011 Those Hehn files are here on this page as MP3s, for now, and included some "new" episodes. For some additional information about the background of the series go to https://archive.org/details/4thEstateAudition
This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.
Chapters
Reviews
Feature Assignment
Bob Stepno
Wow! Thanks for this "working set," and for all the work on the series! I'm finally listening to that audition recording for "Feature Assignment" with the PDF of the Big Story script in another window. Fascinating, including the governor of Illinois' testimonial dinner at the end of one versus the reporter's terse telegram at the end of the other, both giving a second reporter and the city editor some of the credit. The person who "spotted the want ad in the first case" also shares the honors in Feature Asmt, but not in Big Story. Just cut for radio time? Have to go back to the script and see if there's any difference in how the want ad was handled. Add "Call Northside 777," its radio adaptations, and the original newspaper stories and someone should be able to get a "mass comm research" PhD dissertation out of the comparison/analysis in the "twice told tales" department! So much of Northside hinges on Stewart's acting and the technology of the day -- photo enlargements and wirephoto as deus ex machina -- hooks that wouldn't be as useful on radio.
THANKS FOR YOUR NOTE!
Greybelt
Big Story did not really have official titles after its first season -- and they may have abandoned them earlier than that. Newspaper publicity seemed to drop the titles early on and the big focus became the reporter in their press releases. What collectors used as titles after that was usually a key phrase from the introduction. The most important thing is to get the show date and the reporter name and affiliation right. Most all of the Big Story scripts are available as part of the American Tobacco Litigation. The scripts have specific numbers assigned to them. There were two script numbers that were not used in 1948 because the program was pre-empted for the presidential nomination conventions. The numbers on these recordings are the script numbers so they can be referred to in the same manner the producers would. In terms of numbers of broadcasts, by the end of the series the script numbers were off by those two weeks. They did it back then for a reason, but there's no documentation why. They never skipped numbers after that. Joseph Kordick was Marmaduke's Sun-Times photographer assigned to the original story. There are some pictures of them online. Googling "marmaduke kordick" will bring up some of them. Because there are limitations on file name length, the show titles and reporter name and affiliation are often shortened. You might enjoy this presentation about the series https://youtu.be/QqxaNuC3nWk YES, PLEASE I would very much like to get "The Big Story 54-02-24 (339) The Man Who Lost Nine Years Of His Life" -- you can post it on a cloud service like WeTransfer or here at Internet Archive. Leave a note here or send a note to suspenseotr(at)gmail.com. It's very much appreciated. This is a somewhat neglected series and it needs more attention.
John Ellert of Evansville Press
Ellert.J
Thank you so much for this incredible resource! One of The Big Story episodes was about my great-grandfather, John Ellert, of the Evansville Indiana Press. It aired on November 24, 1948, and its "title" varies in places, including "It Was a Little Too Lake," "One Good Break...Too Late to Stop a Murder," and "The Hard Luck Guy Who Wanted a Break and Got It." I'm immensely grateful to have found the script of the radio episode, and my family also has a photocopy of the original magazine article. We also know that a TV episode was made from his story, which aired on TV on October 14, 1949. I imagine that the radio recording and the TV recording have both been lost to the ages, but if anyone happens to stumble upon either (even if they're in terrible condition), I would be IMMENSELY grateful for any leads! all my best.
Correction?
Newspix
Your copy of The Big Story 54-02-10 (339) A Search that Saved a Life [VMarmaduke JKordick, ChiSunTimes] AFRS#213. Jerry Haendiges Vintage Radio Logs has 54-02-10 (337) as "A SEARCH THAT SAVED A LIFE" (Virginia Marmaduke And Joseph Kordi - Chicago Sun Times. I do have a crappy copy of The Big Story 54-02-24 (339) The Man Who Lost Nine Years Of His Life - Ken McCormick, Detroit Free Press if needed.