Radio: Sensible Men

The New York Times’s radio critic Jack Gould was appalled by Flash Gordon, an interstellar TV serial based on a comic strip. He damned it as “a macabre and sordid half-hour” which had no other purpose than “a stimulation of horror, fright and ghoulish suspense.” Appealing to executives of the Du Mont network as “men of sensibility and judgment,” Gould asked that something be done about the show (Sat. 6:30 p.m. E.S.T.), which “so easily can have an unhappy aftermath in the impressionable minds of youngsters.”

Du Mont nervously replaced Flash* with a western movie, was promptly deluged by hundreds of phone calls from viewers who wanted to know what had happened to their hero. When last seen, Flash was being nibbled by a claw-armed space monster shaped like a sea horse. But by week’s end, Crusader Gould had won a clear decision over the clamorous fans: Du Mont announced that another adventure serial, Don Winslow, would appear in the time slot previously held by Flash Gordon.

* A 15-installment 1938 movie serial starring Buster Crabbe.