Radio: Defender

For the past year the most ingenious defender of the U. S. on the air has been an inventive wizard named Peter Quill. Against the machinations of foreign agents he has thrown the resources of a laboratory that would startle even Jules Verne. He has discovered a substance called therminite which burns at 6,000 degrees, melts all metals, renders water explosive by breaking it down into hydrogen and oxygen. He has invented a delayed-action “explosive” which explodes so gradually that it can be used on sinking submarines to expel water and chlorine. He has devised a magnetic screen so powerful that when it is struck by bombs it shatters them to fragments. Last week he was back on the air for Chicago’s WGN and other Mutual stations after a summer pause, still busy saving the U. S. from doom.

Peter Quill is the joint creation of Bill Lee, late managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, and radio Writer-Producer-Director Blair Walliser. Originally Quill was known as The Crimson Wizard, and in the beginning neither Lee nor Walliser was certain whether their man was a menace or a hero. Last fall it was decided he ought to be a stanch American, and ever since then Walliser has held him on the patriotic line.

Walliser’s show is distinguished from rivals by the fact that his inventions are all based, however remotely, on real discoveries. Walliser is now considering a sleep ray for Peter Quill, which will paralyze an enemy’s hypothalamus, send him off into a gentle doze.

Small, slight, 32-year-old Walliser is a Phi Beta Kappa from Northwestern University, despite the fact that he was nearly thrown out three times before he graduated. As an editorial writer on the Daily Northwestern, he wrote a bitter editorial criticizing the library, was forthwith fired from the paper. Next he tried his hand at the Purple Parrot, Northwestern’s comic sheet, turned out a parody American Mercury, with a story about prostitutes, that resulted in the Parrot’s suppression. As his farewell to collegiate belles-lettres, Walliser took over the high-brow Scrawl, had that suppressed when he tried to build up circulation with an article attacking marriage.

Walliser has written, directed and produced scripts for the past eleven years—more than 3,000 scripts, 12,000 shows. Nearly all have followed the soap-opera pattern. Just Plain Bill, Backstage Wife, The Romance of Helen Trent are among those he has directed. For three years he provided ideas for The Gumps for Sidney Smith, quit soon after Smith died. He now writes his stuff so fast he can’t remember any of his sequences. After listening to three-quarters of a Peter Quill episode of last year, he admitted he had no idea how it would turn out.