Golden Age of Radio welcomes Lucille Ball and “My Favorite Husband” when it meets Thursday, May 1, at 1 p.m. in the Fountain Hills Community Center.

“My Favorite Husband” made its first network broadcast as a one-time special on CBS Radio on July 5, 1948.

CBS’s new series, “Our Miss Brooks,” had been delayed coming to the air, so to fill in the gap that week, CBS aired the audition program (the radio equivalent of a television pilot) for “My Favorite Husband,” according to a press release.

Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series.

Bowman was not available to do the series and when it debuted later that month, it starred Lucille Ball and Richard Denning as the leads.

The couple lived at 321 Bundy Drive in the fictitious city of Sheridan Falls and were billed as “two people who live together and like it.”

Each episode would end with Liz saying, “Thanks, George. You’re my favorite husband.”

Membership in the Community Center is required to attend meetings of the Golden Age of Radio. For more information, contact Bill Whittaker at 480-837-7961 or the Community Center at 480-816-5200.

From the twilight of the Jazz Age to the dawn of the Space Age, The Golden Age of Radio celebrates the reign of the first electronic medium, the then-modern miracle that brought news, entertainment and information into homes throughout a significant period of history.