title role. In the remaining nine films, Jimmy Lydon portrayed Henry Aldrich. Olive Blakeney and John Litel played Mr. and Mrs. Aldrich, while Charles Smith and Joan Mortimer played Basil "Dizzy" Stevens and Elise Towers. Television On October 2, 1949, the program premiered on NBC while continuing to air on the radio with a primarily different cast. Over the course of its nearly four-year run on television, Henry was portrayed by five different actors: Robert Casey, Richard Tyler, Henry Girard, Kenneth Nelson, and Bobby Ellis, the only one to participate in the radio production as well. Other characters – including Mrs. Aldrich, Henry's sister Mary, and his best friend Homer Brown – were portrayed by multiple actors as well, a practice not uncommon in radio but unusual for television, where cast changes are more noticeable. The program garnered some adverse publicity when film and radio veteran Jean Muir was signed to play Mrs. Aldrich in the second season, which was to begin on August 27, 1950. Shortly before Muir's scheduled premiere, Right-wing groups accused the actress of being a Communist sympathizer (her name appeared in Red Channels'', a pamphlet listing the names of performers allegedly involved in left-wing activities), and General Foods, the show's sponsor, cancelled the first episode of the new season, replacing her with Nancy Carroll a week later, when the series returned on September 3. Muir went on to defend herself before a Congressional committee, but her career never recovered from the charges. After General Foods ended their sponsorship in the spring of 1951, Campbell Soup Company became the new sponsor when the series moved from Sundays to Friday nights that fall. The final episode was broadcast on May 29, 1953, slightly more than a month after the radio series came to an end. The cast of the television series included Marcia Henderson as Kathleen Anderson. The series finished at #15 in the Nielsen ratings for the 1950–1951 season. The comedy troupe Firesign Theatre parodied the show with the sketch in "Don't Crush That Dwarf Hand Me the Pliers". Listen to Radio Lovers: The Aldrich Family "Aldrich Family on Way Back When" 97 episodes of "The Aldrich Family" from the Internet Archive. Zoot Radio, Free The Aldrich Family radio show downloads References External links Jerry Haendiges Vintage Radio Logs: The Aldrich Family CBC Radio's "Nazi Eyes On Canada" (1942), starring House Jameson and Katharine Raht of "The