And it was this original series which captured the attention of a nation only beginning to come to grips with the media revolution wrought by radio broadcasting in the 1920s. Modern observes likewise are hampered in coming to terms with the program by the lack of substantive insight into the ideas behind the series from its creators themselves. Freeman Gosden, the program's creative mastermind, granted almost no serious interviews over the final two decades of his life, and those published in earlier years were generally of a press-agent nature. With Gosden and Correll no longer able to speak for themselves, one must bypass volumes of second-hand analysis and go back to their original works if one hopes to understand what they were trying to say to their audience. It is also an attempt to restore to Correll and Gosden the credit they deserve for the vital role they played in the artistic and business development of American broadcasting.
Smug condemnation tells none of it.