Howie Wing
A Writer Who Actually Flew
The aviation serials that worked in old-time radio tended to come from writers who knew something real about the sky, and Howie Wing is a clear example. Wilfred G. Moore — who signed his work as Bill Moore — had flown with the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and spent years afterward as a barnstorming pilot. Before landing at a Kansas City radio station to write scripts, he had worked the sports desk at the Kansas City Star, submitting occasional scripts to the paper's station WDAF on the side. He brought all of that experience to Howie Wing, and Radio Guide noticed, describing the show as "an authentic saga of aviation."
Moore had already co-created The Air Adventures of Jimmie Allen with fellow Kansas City writer Bob Burtt, a successful aviation serial that ran from 1933 to 1937. Howie Wing was his solo follow-up. To keep the authenticity sharp, Moore took the cast and sound-effects crew up in actual aircraft so they could feel and hear what they were being asked to recreate at the microphone. That kind of production care was unusual and left a mark on how the show sounded.
How the Show Was Built
Howie Wing was on the air before most listeners knew it existed. The World Broadcasting System began syndicating a transcribed version on January 31, 1938, distributed to Canadian stations and produced in Chicago. The Don Lee Network picked it up in the western United States on February 12, 1938. The CBS network premiere on October 3, 1938 — the version most associated with the show — came more than eight months after the serial was already in circulation. The CBS run broadcast weekdays at 6:15 in 15-minute episodes and closed on June 30, 1939.
Kellogg Cereals sponsored the CBS version, and the audience was overwhelmingly children — research put it at roughly 70 percent. Scripts were written accordingly, keeping storylines clear and avoiding situations that might confuse younger listeners. The CBS production came out of New York; the Chicago transcribed version had its own separate cast, including Bill Bouchey and Hugh Studebaker, distinct from the New York lineup.
The Cast and Characters
William Janney played Howie Wing, a 21-year-old "junior pilot." Born Russell Dixon Janney in New York City on February 15, 1908, he was the son of author and theatrical producer Russell Janney and had attended the School for Professional Children, debuting on Broadway in Merton of the Movies in 1922 and appearing in 39 films between 1929 and 1937. After Howie Wing, he played Gary Haven on the Mutual soap opera We Are Always Young in 1941, then left show business in 1949, graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1952, and became a 12th-grade English teacher.
Neil O'Malley played Captain Harvey, a World War I ace who became Howie's mentor and later made him co-pilot of his South American airline. Mary Parker played Donna Cavendish, Howie's girlfriend. John Griggs played Zero Smith — one of the best rough-weather pilots in the serial, but disagreeable and devious, and suspected of working for the enemy. The central villain was Burton York, played by Raymond Bramley: an insurance agent by cover, a saboteur in practice, whose schemes to discredit Captain Harvey and wreck the clipper drove much of the plot. Al Binnie handled sound effects throughout the run.
Kellogg's and the Plane Named Howie Wing
Kellogg's ran an unusually elaborate promotional campaign around the serial. Pilot wings and buttons could be had for a cereal box top — standard premium fare. But the company went further with a round-the-world air-race stunt: two suitcases were placed aboard westbound and eastbound airliners leaving Battle Creek, each making its way around the globe through roughly 75 stops. The westbound suitcase completed its circuit in 25 days; the eastbound took 29. Carriers involved included Eastern, American, Pan American, Air France, KLM, Imperial Airways, United, Transcontinental Western, and Chicago & Southern.
In 1939, American Airlines named a flagship aircraft "Howie Wing" — reported at the time as the first instance in air transportation history of a plane being named after a radio program. The trade publication Broadcasting called it "a tribute of the airline to the work of Kellogg Co."
How It Ended
The end came abruptly, for reasons that had nothing to do with ratings. When Skelly Oil commissioned the Chicago ad agency Blackett, Sample and Hummert to create Captain Midnight, the Hummerts assigned Moore and his old collaborator Bob Burtt to the project. That left Moore without time to continue Howie Wing, and the CBS run closed in June 1939. Moore died suddenly of a heart attack not long afterward; his obituary ran alongside a 1939 magazine piece about him, with photographs of Moore, one of his sons, and members of the Howie Wing cast.
Across both runs, the show reached at least 395 episodes — a final script number confirmed by researchers who turned up the last script on a DVD. About seven episodes are known to survive, with episode numbers in the high 70s and 80s, plus one in the 480s, suggesting they span both the Chicago syndicated and New York CBS productions. A 2007 article in Radio Recall, the journal of the Metropolitan Washington Old-Time Radio Club, reflected the continued interest researchers have taken in piecing together what remains.