Our Miss Brooks

About Our Miss Brooks

328 complete radio episodes (155 hours) from 1948 to 1956, across 2 series:

• OTRR Our Miss Brooks Singles: 327 episodes, 1948–1956
• Our Miss Brooks: 1 episode

Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.

Our Miss Brooks on the radio

CBS Radio, 1948-1957. With Eve Arden, Gale Gordon, Jeff Chandler, Richard Crenna, Gloria McMillan, Robert Rockwell.

• Our Miss Brooks premiered on CBS radio on July 19, 1948, with Eve Arden as Connie Brooks, a sharp-tongued English teacher at Madison High School.
• Arden was not the first choice. CBS programming executive Harry Ackerman wanted Shirley Booth, but decided Booth dwelt too much on the hardships of underpaid teaching to have fun with the part.
• Booth's audition, recorded April 9, 1948, survives. It had a completely different supporting cast and was written by Don Ettlinger, Norman Tokar and Edward Jurist.
• Lucille Ball was reportedly the next candidate, but she was tied up with My Favorite Husband and never auditioned.
• OTRR historian Ryan Ellett notes that Joan Blondell was also briefly considered before the part went to Arden.
• It was CBS chairman William Paley, a friend of Arden's, who persuaded her to audition.
• For Arden's version the script was reworked: Osgood Conklin, first written as a school board president, became Madison High's incoming principal.
• Arden's audition was recorded June 23, 1948, with Will Wright as Mr. Conklin. The first broadcast four weeks later used the same script.
• In that first story, Conklin arrives as Madison's new principal right after a traffic accident involving Miss Brooks.
• Joe Forte played Conklin in the earliest broadcasts. Gale Gordon took over with the third episode on August 2, 1948, and kept the role for good.
• The show started as an unsponsored summer series on Monday nights, partly filling in for Lux Radio Theater. It left the air in late August 1948 when Lux returned.
• Colgate picked up the show for Sunday nights, starting September 19, 1948, with a weekend at the Conklins' Crystal Lake cabin.

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