The quintessential teenager of the 1940s, Henry Alrich was born on the Broadway stage in 1937. He reached his widest audience through radio, a string of "B" movies, and a television series. Henry Aldrich, who was likable, clean-cut, and monumentally prone to mishap, influenced a whole generation of teen characters on the radio, in movies, and even in comic books.

While college youths had become popular culture stereotypes in the 1920s, high school kids didn't really get that much notice until a decade later. Swing music and the jitterbug craze helped put them on the map. Writer Clifford Goldsmith introduced Henry Aldrich in his play What A Life! According to radio historian John Dunning, Goldsmith "was virtually penniless and making his living on the high school lecture circuit when he wrote the play." In 1938, the then immensely popular crooner Rudy Vallee invited Goldsmith to write some skits...