Cruise of the Poll Parrot

Kids Serial (1937)

Adventure! Mystery! Treasure! Adventure!

The Cruise of the Poll Parrot tells the story of a Whaling voyage from New Bedford in 1858. The whaling ship Poll Parrot is named for its mascot, a wise parrot called Poll. Poll Parrot is also the name of the sponsor, Poll Parrot Shoes. Poll Parrot was the High Quality Children's line of the International Shoe Company of St Louis.

The serial begins with the young skipper Roy Dalton, played by Marvin Miller, getting his Master's Papers and outfitting the Poll Parrot for an upcoming voyage. His employers instruct him to spare no expense in finding the best crew, which is unusual on board whalers- it is a rough business that the best sailors try-to avoid. The Owner's son is joining this voyage, which adds more mystery to the endeavor. Young Sue Grange and her friend Johnny Robbins stow away aboard the Poll Parrot, and learn a lot and have many adventures.Text on OTRCAT.com ©2001-2011 OTRCAT INC All Rights Reserved-Reproduction is prohibited.

The program was syndicated as an advertisement for the shoe company. It was intended to be sold not so much to local radio stations, but to local shoe stores who would buy advertising time from the stations. Most of these shoe stores were ″Mom and Pop″ operations at the time, so the syndication was available at different levels- the first thirteen episodes could be purchased separately and had a self contained story, as were the second and third 13 parts. Blocks of 13, 26, or all 39 episodes could be purchased.

The series is filled with adventure and mystery. Because the writing was very well researched, a good deal of factual information is packed into the stories, making them educational as well as entertaining.

For more boating tales in Old Time Radio, see also:  Ships, Yachts and Boats, Cruise of the Poll Parrot, Men at Sea, Racing Boats, Submarines, Battle Stations, Titanic, Naval Battles in OTR, Escape: Ocean Tales, and Spooky Tales of the Sea.