Let's Pretend

Hard to believe it's been almost 3 years since we have been in touch. I hope you are well. I am pleased to see that you still are in business. The quality of your OTRadio shows is superb. I am going to order a few programs, including Let's Pretend for my wife. She heard it and loves the series.

What a wonderful website. I can spend hours 'looking' through all the titles. I'm enjoying "Let's Pretend" on my iPod .... I grew up (in the 40s) listening to that program every Saturday morning...before I got out of bed! Thanks for a great site.

I was listening the other night to a beloved Saturday morning series called "Let's Pretend". It was directed nearly all of its 20 year run by Nila Mack. It originated in March 34 till October 54. There was a series of children's programs in that time slot until Nila Mack originated Let's Pretend. Their long time sponsor was Cream of Wheat and their cast stayed remarkably the same almost throughout the run, and it was on for the entire run for CBS. Mention the program to any child of the 40s and their eyes will light up.

Think we must have discussed this before, I totally LOVE LOVE LOVE let's pretend. Not so fond of the cream of wheat years, firstly because the 'games' have a rather staged feel, and second because I know it led to cuts in the actual stories. I would just about kill for more stories from before the sponsorship, when Gwen was more-or-less in charge, with 'Mr. Carnova?' on a watching brief haha. Our own Jerry Hendages, (apologies Jerry if spelling is wrong), has supplied me with a few I have not seen elsewhere, but my apetite still remains insatiable haha. One of my favourites is The Elves and the Shoemaker. I love how Nila Mac expanded the story, and what she did with the elves. The Enchanted Frog is a pretty good one too, that's post cream of weat I think. I'm sorry to say I never really took to 'uncle Bill', guess I thought he was a bit... affected, to use a modern word I actually hate haha. Gwen has to be my favourite pretender, but Miriam Wolfe had remarkable voice talent. Betty Jane Tyler is totally cute. Somehow the male pretenders don't stick in my mind so much, except for Arthur Anderson. The amazing thing is that I rarely know until the end who is playing who. They were an amazingly talented group of young people, and the stories are what I call 'straight across', they're not dumbed down or condescending like so much produced for children today, nor do they have any agenda but to entertain. It's a gem that, in my opinion, should be up there with the likes of Fibber MacGee, Gildersleve and Jack Benny, but is sadly not so well known among fans. Of course this is because its target audience was young children, and because far fewer episodes survive. Just yesterday I saw a collection on archive.org, sadly not very well organised, that seems to have some I don't have. This will be more thoroughly investigated later. So remember boys and girls, every Saturday at 11:30, Gwen, Arthur, Jack, Sybil and the whole gang will be waiting...

Didn't they have a Saturday show with the same cast called "No School Today"?

When I was a kid, I had a friend called Tommy O'Grady. He liked Smilin Ed McConnel's program and I liked "Let's Pretend", and they were on at the same time. We would interrupt our play and retire to our prospective houses when they came on and then reappear back outside when they were over.

Aah Smilin' Ed. I quite liked that too, but I think LP was far superior.