The Life of Riley
NBC
NBC · 1944–1951
Broadcasts
250
Cadence
Twice weekly
Rated
PG
Since
1944
The run
- Network
- NBC
- Years active
- 1944–1951
- Surviving broadcasts
- 250
- Genre
- comedy
The Life of Riley ran on network radio from 1944 to 1951, with William Bendix as Brooklyn-born aircraft riveter Chester A. Riley, transplanted to California with wife Peg and the children Babs and Junior. John Brown appeared as the undertaker Digby "Digger" O'Dell. These recordings stream from the Internet Archive.
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
59 dated broadcasts across 83 years on the air, with 77 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 2024, in original transmission order.
- 1. Sign Off · 19 Nov 2024
- 2. Dead Air · 26 Nov 2024
- 3. The Long Silence · 3 Dec 2024
- 01
Dead Air
4 Aug 2026 · 1h 0m
- 02
Sign Off
28 Jul 2026 · 23 min
- 03
The Case of the Missing Hour
21 Jul 2026 · 38 min
- 04
Night Broadcast
14 Jul 2026 · 53 min
- 05
The Last Train Out
7 Jul 2026 · 16 min
- 06
Signal at Midnight
30 Jun 2026 · 31 min
- 07
A Room Above the Street
23 Jun 2026 · 46 min
- 08
The Long Silence
16 Jun 2026 · 1h 1m
Also on NBC
NBC in 1944–1951
Other series the network carried while The Life of Riley was on the air.
Same seasons
comedy on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
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