Radio Drama · Old Time Radio · Comedy · Horror & the supernatural
The Life of Riley
- Heard
- 1943–1951
- Episodes
- 355
(132 Episodes) "The Life of Riley": starring William Bendix as lovable, blundering, Chester A. Riley, was a radio situation comedy broadcast during and after wartime 40s. Because of its overwhelming radio popularity, Riley graduated as easily to a 1949 feature film, as it did to 1950s television. Also, in 1958, it hit the newsstands, when Dell Comics released "The Life of Riley" in comic book form. . Although "The Life of Riley" had originally begun as a proposed Groucho Marx radio series "The Flotsam Family," the sponsor balked at what would have been essentially a straight head-of-household role for the comedian. Groucho went on to host Blue Ribbon Town from 1943 to 1944 and then "You Bet Your Life" from 1947 to 1961. Producer Irving Brecher saw Bendix as taxicab company owner Tim McGuerin in Hal Roach's The McGuerins from Brooklyn (1942). "The Flotsam Family" was re-worked, with Bendix cast as blundering Chester A. Riley, a wing riveter at the fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant in California.
More about it
His frequent exclamation of indignation became one of the most famous catch phrases of the 1940s: "What a revoltin' development this is!" The radio series greatly benefited from the immense popularity of a supporting character, Digby "Digger" O'Dell (John Brown), "the friendly undertaker."
* TELEVISION: A young Jackie Gleason starred as Riley during the 1st television season of "The Life of Riley." Bendix took over the role of Riley in the 2nd - 6th seasons, after completing a…
Episodes, in broadcast order page 1 of 4
Where it comes from 10
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.
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The Life of Riley 132 Eps
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.
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The Life of Riley - 252 episodes of the Old Time Radio comedy
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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The Life Of Riley - 1950 - 1951
Uploader’s mark: Public domain (Creative Commons dedication): Marked Public domain (Creative Commons dedication) by its uploader at the Internet Archive; the record gives no basis for it.
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The Life Of Riley - 1949
Uploader’s mark: Public domain (Creative Commons dedication): Marked Public domain (Creative Commons dedication) by its uploader at the Internet Archive; the record gives no basis for it.
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Life Of Riley 1947 03 06 Riley Enrolls At P. I. T. Version 2
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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Life Of Riley 1945 09 08 Two Weeks Vacation
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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Life Of Riley 47 12 20 Rileys' First Christmas
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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Life Of Riley 48 06 19 Father's Day Bathrobes
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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Life Of Riley 50 06 16 Two TVs For Father's Day
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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1947 03 29 Life Of Riley
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
15 more sets hold only episodes played here from a set above.
From the Old Time Radio collection at the Internet Archive, uploaded by the collector named.
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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.