John Nesbitt's Passing Parade

Template:Short description The Passing Parade, also known as John Nesbitt's Passing Parade, was an American radio series created, written and narrated by John Nesbitt. It was adapted into an Oscar-winning series of MGM short subjects. In both formats, the series usually focused on strange-but-true historical events, both obscure and famous, as well as on historical figures such as Catherine de' Medici and Nostradamus.

Passing Parade on radio

The radio series was developed as an offshoot of Headlines of the Past, an earlier program that John Nesbitt had produced. The show was launched on the NBC network on February 1, 1937, running intermittently until 1951 over three different networks and in syndication. Nesbitt's inspiration was a trunk inherited from his father that contained news clippings of odd stories from around the world. He utilized a research staff of 14 people to verify the details of his stories, but wrote the final scripts himself, often within an hour of airtime. The stories were usually presented without sound effects or music. The show was also heard as a segment on the John Charles Thomas radio program, upon which Nesbitt served as narrator, from 1943 to 1946.

Billboard wrote: "There was a time when no one could be sold the idea that one man, without much musical help, could fill a half hour and hold his audience. Nesbitt has disproved the bromide because he's Nesbitt and spins a yarn that's as tight as an Armistice announcement."

Radio producer/announcer John Doremus later acquired the rights to the series and revived it as a late 1950s-early 1960s syndicated feature, billing his version as "from the files of John Nesbitt." More than 1,500 three-minute episodes were broadcast.

Passing Parade on film

A series of Passing Parade one-reel short subjects were produced for MGM from 1938 to 1949. Most of the films feature the slow movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 as the opening theme music. The films' directors included Fred Zinnemann and Jacques Tourneur.

The films were reedited for television syndication by MGM in the early 1960s. The shorts in their original form were eventually re-aired on Turner Classic Movies. The films episodes may also be found as DVD extras accompanying some MGM films.

Year	Title	Subject matter	Cast	Home video availability
	Passing Parade		Margaret Bert
	The Face Behind the Mask	The Man in the Iron Mask	Leonard Penn, directed by Jacques Tourneur
	The Story of Alfred Nobel	Alfred Nobel	Paul Guilfoyle
	Flag of Mercy	Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross	Sara Haden
	Yankee Doodle Goes to Town
	The Story that Couldn't be Printed	John Peter Zenger	Victor Kilian
	One Against the World		Jonathan Hale
	The Hidden Master	Common luck	Peter Cushing, Emmett Vogan and Louis Jean Heydt
	A Way in the Wilderness	Joseph Goldberger's research on pellagra	Shepperd Strudwick
	Trifles of Importance		Clark Gable, Lana Turner, Robert Taylor, Myrna Loy, Mickey Rooney and Franklin D. Roosevelt
	Utopia of Death
	Dreams
	American Spoken Here	American slang	John Harmon, Barbara Bedford and Ray Teal
	Willie and the Mouse
	This is the Bowery	Manhattan, the Bowery
	Of Pups and Puzzles
	Strange Testament		Edward Ashley and Ava Gardner
	We Do It Because—		Ava Gardner, Dorothy Morris and Mark Daniels	Reunion in France (DVD)
	The Woman in the House		Ann Richards
	The Incredible Stranger		Paul Guilfoyle, Dorothy Vaughan and Walter Baldwin
	The Magic Alphabet	Christiaan Eijkman's discovery of vitamins	Horace McNally	Great Day in the Morning (DVD)
	Famous Boners	Three people who caused or were victims of errors	Edward McWade, Ian Wolfe, Dave O'Brien, Joe Yule, and Margaret Bert
	The Film that Was Lost	Film preservation
	Madero of Mexico	Francisco I. Madero	Paul Guilfoyle and John Picorri
	Who's Superstitious?	Common superstitions	Don Taylor, Ernie Alexander, Fred Toones and Margaret Bert
	That's Why I Left You		Jacqueline White and James Warren
	Forgotten Treasure	Film preservation
	Storm
	To My Unborn Son		Steven Geray
	Return from Nowhere		Don DeFore
	Grandpa Called it Art		Contemporary artists Thomas Hart Benton, John French Sloan, Ivan Le Lorraine Albright, Reginald Marsh
	A Lady Fights Back	SS Normandie		Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (DVD)
	The Seesaw and the Shoes	Rene Laennec's invention of the stethoscope; Charles Goodyear's invention of vulcanized rubber
	The Great American Mug	History of the barber shop		Thrill of a Romance (DVD)
	Stairway to Light	Philippe Pinel	Wolfgang Zilzer and Gene Roth; won an Oscar for Best One-Reel Short Subject	The Picture of Dorian Gray (DVD)
	People on Paper	Comic strips	Harold Knerr (The Katzenjammer Kids), Bud Fisher (Mutt and Jeff), Fred Lasswell (Barney Google and Snuffy Smith), Frank King (Gasoline Alley), Chester Gould (Dick Tracy), Dick Calkins (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century), Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates), Chic Young (Blondie and Dagwood), Raeburn Van Buren (Abbie an' Slats), Ham Fisher (Joe Palooka), Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), Harold Gray (Little Orphan Annie) and Al Capp (Li'l Abner)
	Golden Hunch
	Magic on a Stick	John Walker's invention of the friction match	Paul Langton and Jacqueline White
	Our Old Car		Jacqueline White
	A Really Important Person		Dean Stockwell, Connie Gilchrist, Clancy Cooper and Chick York	Song of the Thin Man (DVD)
	Tennis in Rhythm
	Goodbye, Miss Turlock		Nana Bryant; won an Oscar for Best One-Reel Short Subject	Fiesta (DVD)
	My Old Town
	Souvenirs of Death	The voice of the Mauser pistol		Command Decision (DVD)
	The Fabulous Fraud	Anton Mesmer and hypnotism	John Baragrey, Phyllis Morris, Marcia Mae Jones and Morris Ankrum
	Annie Was a Wonder		Kathleen Freeman, Howard J. Negley, Ruth Lee and Hugo-Sven Borg	The Barkleys of Broadway (DVD)
	Mr. Whitney Had a Notion	Eli Whitney and interchangeable parts	Lloyd Bridges	On the Town (Blu-ray)
	City of Children	Mooseheart, Illinois

External links

• "The Passing Parade (anthology, hosted by John Nesbitt)"
• "John Nesbitt (I) (1910–1960)", IMDb
• "The Passing Parade - Pgm 10", rand's esoteric otr
• "John Nesbitt's Passing Parade", The Classic TV Archive
• John Nesbitt filmography, TCM