Evening star., 1935-03-08

banker, and being rescued on the
split second from all sorts Of danger
Gus situations. But the change had
come so insidiously it almost escaped
notice.
Jack and Betty, of course, owed
their lofty characters and sturdy
young bodies to the fact that they
always ate a certain variety of break
fast food. It happens to be a cold
cereal. In some families, it appears,
there fingers the quaint old supersti-
ton that a warm cereal is best on
cold Winter mornings. One of the
ideals of the hero and heroine. it ap-
pears, has been to combat this linger-
ing superstition Of q crude and be-
nighted age.
Taught to Argue.
IF your father and mother tell you
that you must eat warm breakfast food
to keep your bodies warm just tell
them that they don't shovel hot Goals
on the fire to keep the house warm"
was one choice bit Of advice. In other
words, the avid listeners are encour-
aged to argue with their parents about
what they should eat. Probably the
point itself its well taken. but most
parents prefer the dietary advice Of
their family physicians to that Of the
sanity Jack Armstrong.
More and more lurid. by degrees.
grew the adventures of Jack and
Betty. Still they were no worse than
the average juvenile fiction and the
average parent could not see that they
were doing any particular harm.
They remembered with a bit of
of their own childhoods. The only
difference was that the appeal of ex-
cellent acting took the place of that
of the printed page. Complete identi-
f1cation was easier.
But other serials were coming on
the air. Such, for example, was that
describing the adventures of Buck
Rogers and his girl friend Wilma
Deering In the twenty-f1fth century.
In their day interplanetary flights had
become everyday affairs. There were
vivid descriptions of an imaginary
world of five centuries hence. In
many ways this was educational and
stimulating. The listeners learned a
good dear of physics and astronomy.
AL over the United States little girls
and boys were drawing diagrams of
the solar system. Unfortunately. to
keep up the interest, there had to be
l-,,. fv,N-
duced in the person Of a sinister
KILLER Kane" who used disintegrator
rays on his pursuers as freely as Dill
niger used machine guns. Every epi-
sode closed with Buck and Wilma in
some horribly desperate situation in
midspace, in the wilds of some other
planet. etc. The children were left
to dream about the sad fate of their
heroes.
This was merely the start. If 1t
had gone no further there could be
little valid complaint. After all, most
of us sneaked a dime novel to bed
now and then. The trouble was that
all this served to establish the radio
serial habit 1t became part of the
routine of life, so that a forced change
could be made to appear an injustice.
When parents began to be a little
worried over the exciting predicaments
Of Jack Armstrong or Buck Rogers,
they were in position where shut
ting of these programs would appear
in the light of unmerited punishment.
Then, starting about last Fall, came
the flood-heroes that made Jack
Armstrong look like q babe in arms,
villains that made Killer Kane look
like Sabbath school teacher. Before
the parents realized 1t, the children
had been caught in the coils. They
protested and cried when any objec-
ton was raised. They didn't come
home to supper because they were
listening at q chum's home to some
thing barred in their own home.
The horrible laugh Of The Shadow
resounded across the dinner table.
Right in the middle of the soup
the pistol Of the beautiful actress
SPY cut short the life of brave young
Capt. Jones Of the Intelligence Corps.
Meat and potatoes were interrupted
by the despairing screams Of the widow
as the kidnapers tore her child from
her arms.
Far, Far Into the Night.
And so on until or $50 o'clock.
One after another they came. Objec-
tions to listening to them were met
with tears and even Mysteries.
Parents were forced to buy tooth
pastes and breakfast foods they hated
30 the box-top could be mailed to the
company for al sorts Of paraphernalia
y