John Nesbitt's Passing Parade

The Passing Parade, a.k.a. John Nesbitt's Passing Parade, was an American radio series created, written, and narrated by John Nesbitt which was adapted into an Oscar-winning series of MGM short subjects. In both media, the series usually focused on strange but true historical events, both little known and famous, as well as figures such as Catherine de' Medici and Nostradamus.

Passing Parade on radio

The radio series, developed as an outgrowth of an earlier Nesbitt-produced program (Headlines of the Past), was launched on the NBC network on February 1, 1937, running off and on until 1951 over three different networks and in syndication. Nesbitt's inspiration was a trunk left to him by his father which contained news clippings of odd stories from around the world. Nesbitt, who usually presented his stories without sound effects or music, utilized a research staff of 14 people in verifying the details of his tales, but wrote the final scripts himself, often within an hour of airtime.

Joseph M. Koehler described the unusual nature of the program in a review in the July 31, 1943, issue of Billboard: "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."

The Passing Parade was heard as a segment on The John Charles Thomas Show (1943-1946).

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." Over 1500 three-minute episodes were broadcast.

Parade on film

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

The films were re-edited for television syndication by MGM in the early 1960s. The shorts in their original form were eventually re-aired (and as of 2022 are still being aired) on Turner Classic Movies. These episodes can also be found as DVD extras accompanying some MGM films.

Year	Title	Subject matter	Cast	Home video availability
1938	Passing Parade		with Margaret Bert
1938	The Face Behind the Mask	The Man in the Iron Mask	with Leonard Penn, directed by Jacques Tourneur
1939	The Story of Alfred Nobel	Alfred Nobel	with Paul Guilfoyle
1939	Angel of Mercy	Story of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross	with Sara Haden
1939	Yankee Doodle Goes to Town
1939	The Story that Couldn't be Printed	John Peter Zenger	with Victor Kilian
1939	One Against the World		with Jonathan Hale
1940	The Hidden Master	Common luck in person's life	with Peter Cushing, Emmett Vogan, and Louis Jean Heydt
1940	A Way in the Wilderness	Joseph Goldberger's research on pellagra	with Shepperd Strudwick
1940	Trifles of Importance		with Clark Gable, Lana Turner, Robert Taylor, Myrna Loy, Mickey Rooney, and Franklin D. Roosevelt
1940	Utopia of Death
1940	Dreams
1940	American Spoken Here	A glimpse of american slang	with John Harmon, Barbara Bedford, and Ray Teal
1941	Willie and the Mouse
1941	This is the Bowery	Manhattan, Bowery
1941	Of Pups and Puzzles
1941	Strange Testament		with Edward Ashley and Ava Gardner
1942	We Do It Because—		with Ava Gardner, Dorothy Morris, and Mark Daniels	Reunion in France (DVD)
1942	The Woman in the House		with Ann Richards
1942	The Incredible Stranger		with Paul Guilfoyle, Dorothy Vaughan, and Walter Baldwin
1942	The Magic Alphabet	Christiaan Eijkman's discovery of vitamins	with Horace McNally	Great Day in the Morning (DVD)
1942	The Film that Was Lost	Film preservation
1943	Madero of Mexico	Francisco I. Madero	with Paul Guilfoyle and John Picorri
1943	Who's Superstitious?	Common superstitions	with Don Taylor, Ernie Alexander, Fred Toones, and Margaret Bert
1943	That's Why I Left You		with Jacqueline White and James Warren
1943	Forgotten Treasure	Film preservation
1943	Storm
1943	To My Unborn Son		with Steven Geray
1944	Return from Nowhere		with Don DeFore
1944	A Lady Fights Back	SS Normandie		30 Seconds Over Tokyo (DVD)
1945	The Seesaw and the Shoes	Rene Laennec's invention of the stethoscope; Charles Goodyear's invention of vulcanized rubber
1945	The Great American Mug	History of the barber shop		Thrill of a Romance (DVD)
1945	Stairway to Light	Philippe Pinel	with Wolfgang Zilzer and Gene Roth; won an Oscar for Best One-Reel Short Subject	The Picture of Dorian Gray (DVD)
1945	People on Paper	The beginning of the comic strips, also known as funny papers.	with 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)
1946	Golden Hunch
1946	Magic on a Stick	John Walker's invention of the friction match	with Paul Langton and Jacqueline White
1946	Our Old Car		with Jacqueline White
1947	A Really Important Person		with Dean Stockwell, Connie Gilchrist, Clancy Cooper, and Chick York	Song of the Thin Man (DVD)
1947	Tennis in Rhythm
1948	Goodbye, Miss Turlock		with Nana Bryant; won an Oscar for Best One-Reel Short Subject	Fiesta (DVD)
1948	My Old Town
1948	Souvenirs of Death	The voice of the Mauser pistol		Command Decision (DVD)
1948	The Fabulous Fraud	Anton Mesmer and hypnotism	with John Baragrey, Phyllis Morris, Marcia Mae Jones, and Morris Ankrum
1949	Annie Was a Wonder		with Kathleen Freeman, Howard J. Negley, Ruth Lee, and Hugo-Sven Borg	The Barkleys of Broadway (DVD)
1949	Mr. Whitney Had a Notion	Eli Whitney and interchangeable parts	with Lloyd Bridges	On the Town (Blu-ray)
1949	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