"Happy Station" was intended as a respite from the news of crisis and conflict that dominated short wave radio, saying: "We believe in amusing, our listeners abroad. They are fed up with the nationalist propaganda ladled out over the air from the dictatorship countries", and "you will hear no war news from us." In 1940, during the phoney war period of World War II, "The New York Times" wrote of Startz and "Happy Station" that "While England shouts across the channel such blasts as 'Never again shall one nations plunge the whole world into war! The guilt is German's alone,' and the Reich Radio from Lord Haw Haw's wave again sinks the British navy, 'Eddie' may be playing 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles' or remarking on the fresh supply of tulips now poking through the sod."