Vic and Sade

Vic and Sade

Vic and Sade rehearsal; from left: Art Van Harvey, Bernardine Flynn, Paul Rhymer and Bill Idelson
Genre	Situation comedy: Daily (1932), Weekly (1946)
Running time	15 minutes (1932-44, 1945) 30 minutes (1946)
Country	United States
Language(s)	English
Home station	NBC, CBS, Blue, Mutual
TV adaptations	1949 (NBC, as part of Colgate Theatre), 1957 (WNBQ, Chicago)
Starring	Art Van Harvey Bernardine Flynn Bill Idelson Clarence Hartzell
Created by	Paul Rhymer
Written by	Paul Rhymer
Recording studio	Chicago
Air dates	June 29, 1932 to October 26, 1946
Audio format	Mono
Opening theme	Chanson Bohémienne
Sponsored by	Procter & Gamble (15-minute shows) Fitch Shampoo (30-minute shows)

Vic and Sade was an American radio program created and written by Paul Rhymer. It was regularly broadcast on radio from 1932 to 1944, then intermittently until 1946, and was briefly adapted to television in 1949 and again in 1957.

During its 14-year run on radio, Vic and Sade became one of the most popular series of its kind, earning critical and popular success: according to Time, Vic and Sade had 7,000,000 devoted listeners in 1943. For the majority of its span on the air, Vic and Sade was heard in 15-minute episodes without a continuing storyline. The central characters, known as "radio's home folks", were accountant Victor Rodney Gook (Art Van Harvey), his wife Sade (Bernardine Flynn) and their adopted son Rush (Bill Idelson). The three lived on Virginia Avenue in "the small house halfway up in the next block."

Vic and Sade was first heard over NBC's Blue network in 1932 and originated in Chicago. At the height of its popularity, it was broadcast over all three major networks and as many as six times a day.

Vic and Sade was written by the prodigious Paul Rhymer for the entire length of its long run. The principal characters were a married couple living in "the small house halfway up in the next block." After the first weeks in production an extra character, an adopted son, was added to the show, and it was in this format, with only three characters, that the program thrived for the next eight years and won many awards for the writer, actors and sponsor.

In 1940, the actor who played Vic, Art Van Harvey, became ill, and Sade's Uncle Fletcher (Clarence Hartzell) was added to the cast to fill the place of the missing male lead. When Van Harvey recovered his health, Uncle Fletcher was kept on as a fourth character. During World War II, the actor who played Rush, Bill Idelson, was called into military service, and he left the show. The spring months of 1943 were a tumultuous period, but eventually a second son figure, Russell Miller (David Whitehouse), was brought in, and the program continued as it always had. The show faltered somewhat with Whitehouse, who sounded as if he was reading his lines aloud in school. Idelson later returned as Rush.