Radio and Television: People and Advertisers

During radio's golden age, Carroll Carroll was involved with all of JWT's comedy and variety shows. He joined JWT's Broadcasting Department in 1932 and immediately went on the road with the Burns & Allen-Guy Lombardo radio show. He is most identified with "Kraft Music Hall," the top-rated show he created and wrote in 1934 and remained in charge of until 1946. Carroll became a consultant to the Office of War Information in 1942, and was on the Writers' War Board. He also worked on the Chase & Sanborn Hour, Rudy Vallee Hour, and Shell Chateau with such stars as Bing Crosby, Eddie Cantor, Joe Penner, Al Jolson, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.

Former vaudevillian and Broadway and film actor Maury (C. Maurice) Holland joined the JWT New York Office's Radio-Television Department in 1936 to direct radio shows for the agency. Among other programs, Holland directed "Kraft Television Theatre," a live anthology drama series on NBC, from 1948 to the show's cancellation in 1958, but he was also responsible for script review and casting recommendations for a number of other shows (and their commercials), including "Bat Masterson," "The Jackie Gleason Show," "Naked City," and "The Price Is Right." His papers consist of correspondence with script writers (and would-be script writers), network representatives, actors, and the JWT Chicago office, as well as copies of reviewed scripts.

The Clients Series, 1931-1985, includes materials on individual radio and television programs and other productions for such clients as: General Foods, Procter & Gamble, General Electric, American Express, Philip-Morris, S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.

This collection documents the J. Walter Thompson Company's management of many major and minor client accounts, including deliberations about media selection, markets, and target audience for individual advertising campaigns. Notable clients include Chesebrough-Pond's and Radio Corporation of America (RCA).

The "Clients" series in this collection documents television programming and media strategies for major JWT clients from 1951-1970. Correspondence and memoranda in individual television program files reveal the level of agency control over scripts, plots, characterization, and choice of actors, regardless if the show was developed by JWT or already established but taking on a JWT client as sponsor. Client files also document how ad expenditures were distributed among various media and advertising options per medium (e.g., network television versus spot television, print ads in popular magazines versus industry journals), and the basis for these advertising decisions. Clients in this collection include: Ford Motor Company, Kraft Foods, Eastman Kodak, Lever Brothers, Liggett & Myers, Scott Paper Company.

John 'Jack' Devine managed JWT's Radio/Television Department from 1954 to 1960. Notable clients mentioned in this collection include: Eastman Kodak Company ("The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," "Screen Directors Playhouse," and "The Ed Sullivan Show"); Ford Motor Company ("Ford Theatre," "The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show," and "Suspicion"); Kraft Foods Company ("Kraft Television Theatre"); Lever Brothers Company ("The Lux Show Starring Rosemary Clooney" and "Lux Video Theatre").

Jim Brown was an advertising copy writer for the advertising firm Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne. This small collection contains several "total exploitation publicity-promotion plans" produced by the agency's Public Relations Department for television shows sponsored by BBDO clients, including: "Du Pont Presents"; "General Electric Theater"; "Playhouse 90" (for Bristol Myers); "Lassie" and "The Donna Reed Show" (for Campbell's Soup)