Radio Drama · Old Time Radio · Drama

Just Plain Bill

Networks
CBS (as its archives name them)
Heard
1945
Episodes
3

(03 Episodes) "Just Plain Bill" Old Time Radio's 23-year long run of 15-30 minute situation comedy, "Just Plain Bill," premiered at 6:45 p.m. Eastern Time, Sept. 19, 1932,on CBS Radio and stayed in this time-slot until June 16, 1933. June 19, 1933-1935, CBS moved the program to 7:15 p.m. and in 1935 these nighttime Eps were discontinued.

More about it

** Daytime version was added CBS Oct. 16, 1933 /CBS 11:45am 1935 thru June 12, 1936 /NBC 10:30am Sept. 14, 1936 thru March 15, 1940 /NBC Blue Net 3:45pm March 25, 1940 thru July 31, 1942 /NBC 5:30pm Sept. 14, 1942 thru June 29, 1951 /NBC 5:00pm July 2, 1951 thru March 25, 1954 /NBC 5:00 pm Sept. 26, 1954 thru July 1, 1955, /NBC 3:45 p.m. July 4, 1955 thru Sept. 30, 1955

Soap Opera creator King & Queen team, Frank & Anne Hummert, were inspired to write a soap opera surrounding the life of a small-town barber. Several titles were considered for their new 'Soap', including: "Haircutter of Hartville," "Barber of Hartville," also "Bill the Barber." The final choice was very much more simple & plain: "Just Plain Bill" was the final title choice.

Bill Davidson, a good-natured, soft-spoken, homespun country philosopher, sensitive to needs of friends & relatives, offered level-headed advice to help them straighten out their tangled lives. Bill's listeners identified with him, because he was just like them, as noted in program opening line. Bill had a wise mind, huge heart and his arms were always open for arising problems within his circle of…

Episodes, in broadcast order

  1. VJ-Day

    · 15 min

  2. JPB Evelyn's Last Will & Testament (aka Just Plain Bill) (aka Huckleberry Hill)

    No date given · 26 min

  3. JPB Poison Fruit (aka JPB 1946)

    No date given · 15 min

Where it comes from 1

The archive items its episodes are played from, best first, with each one’s rights as its archive states them. An episode two sets both hold is played from the first.

  1. Just Plain Bill 03 Eps

    Old Time Radio · 3 episodes here · archive.org

    Uploader’s mark: Public Domain Mark 1.0: Marked Public Domain Mark 1.0 by its uploader at the Internet Archive; the record gives no basis for it.

From the Old Time Radio collection at the Internet Archive, uploaded by the collector named.

More Drama

Radio drama, old-time radio and historic broadcasts from the Internet Archive (its Old Time Radio collection with the Old Time Radio Researchers' sets, WWII Era Audio Recordings, the Pacifica Radio Archives, the Radio Haiti Archive, German radio plays and listeners' uploads), Wikimedia Commons (with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision's broadcasts) and the Library of Congress. Every episode plays from its archive, which this site does not copy; rights are as each archive states them. Nothing here is called public domain on this site's say-so. In the United States, sound recordings first fixed before 15 February 1972 have federal protection under the Music Modernization Act of 2018, for most until 2067 at the latest, so most American radio of the 1930s to the 1950s is not in the public domain there. Each set shows the licence, mark or statement its archive gives, and says whose it is. Horror, crime, war and westerns are for teenage and adult profiles, racist caricature for adults only, and children’s profiles hear what was made for children. More about these archives.