On this day in 1933, listeners turned up the radio to
hear the announcer introduce “Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy!” The show was one of the
longest-running adventure programs
on radio, continuing until 1951. Armstrong was Hudson High School’s football hero and the
hero who saved the day from dastardly villains. Somehow, these adventures would take Jack
and his cousins, Betty and Bill Fairfield, to exotic locales where they would make use of
industrialist Uncle Jim’s yacht and a hydroplane they referred to as the Silver
Albatross.
The first actor to play Armstrong was Jim Ameche, the brother of actor Don Ameche. The
series, created by Robert Hardy Andrews, portrayed Jack Armstrong as loyal, brave, honest,
and yes, all-American; obvious in this excerpt from one of the scripts. Jack
Armstrong: “When I think of this country of ours, with millions of homes stretching sea
to sea, and with everybody working and pulling together to have a nation where people can
be free, and do big things ... why, it makes me realize what a terribly important job we’ve
got ahead!”
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