Ma Perkins for a Happy Mother's Day
With Mother's Day approaching on Sunday May the 11th, Joy and I thought it was time to add a new series to RUSC featuring probably otr's best known Mother, Ma Perkins. From 1933-1960, listeners tuned in daily to listen to the drama that Ma Perkinsoffered. Ma Perkins was known as America’s mother of the air and this serial drama was the longest running of its kind on the radio.
Ma Perkins was a widow and the owner of a lumber yard. She was the center of the town she lived in , always ready to hand out her wise advice, take care of those in need, and defend those who were in trouble.
The character of Ma Perkins was probably in her 60s, but in 1933 when the show debuted, the actress Virginia Payne who played her was only 23. This fact was kept hidden for much of the show’s run. In fact, she even appeared in wigs and glasses when she was photographed for publicity.
Over the years the show had many melodramatic story lines. From family troubles to episodes where Ma protected a political refugee from Russia, there was no shortage of ups and downs in the plotlines.
There were marriages, divorces, and murders. Ma Perkins, always the salt-of-the earth heroine, even exposed a black market operation to sell babies. And yet with all of this drama, the show centered on life in a small town. Somehow the pace of the show made it believable that Ma Perkins’s small town could have so many strange situations.
One of the reasons the show worked so well was the pacing. There were usually two or three major plot twists or events every year. The rest of the time the episodes focused more on daily life. For example, holiday celebrations and front porch conversations could fill entire episodes.
The cast of the show was fairly stable. The main characters stayed the same for most of the show’s run, but other supporting cast members revolved as necessary with the storylines. Listeners grew to love the stable cast of familiar characters while the supporting characters helped to keep things interesting.
The show was one of the most popular to ever air. It had a very long run – 27 years – and was heard in virtually every state in the United States and even heard in Canada and Europe. The show lasted well into the television era where it was replaced by the many soap operas that began appearing on the small screen.
Virginia Payne never missed an episode of the show in her 27 year run. She died in 1977, 17 years after the show she spent most of her adulthood on ended. In 1988 both she and Ma Perkins were inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.
Happy listening my friends,