Subject: [removed] Digest V2006 #230
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 8/24/2006 10:18 AM
To: [removed]@[removed]

------------------------------


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2006 : Issue 230
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                             [removed]
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Golden Age of Radio                   [ "Scherago" <rscherago@[removed]; ]
  Margot Lane's Loose Lips              [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr" <skallisjr@j ]
  Margot Lane                           [ "Holm, Chris " <[removed]@[removed] ]
  Margot screaming?                     [ jack and cathy french <otrpiano@ver ]
  archives                              [ "Walden Hughes" <walden1@yesterdayu ]
  Phil Harris, Alice Faye Show          [ mgreenb300@[removed] ]
  [removed]                               [ Wich2@[removed] ]
  FOTR table                            [ Ben Ohmart <benohmart@[removed]; ]
  Say goodnight, Gracie                 [ "Paula Keiser" <pkeiser@[removed] ]
  Derek in Daily News                   [ Sean Dougherty <seandd@[removed] ]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:10:00 -0400
From: "Scherago" <rscherago@[removed];
To: "Old Time Radio" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Golden Age of Radio

The latest "Golden Age of Radio" programs with Dick Bertel
and Ed Corcoran can be heard at [removed].

Each week we feature three complete shows in MP3 format
for your listening pleasure or for downloading; two "Golden
Age of Radios" and one "One Night Stand." We present new
shows every week or so. The current three programs will be
available on line at least until the morning of 8/29/06.

NOTE: For the next few weeks we will feature only
"The Golden Age of Radio" programs.

In a few weeks we will continue our series "A One Night
Stand with the Big Bands" in the order in which they were
originally broadcast.

Program 70 - January, 1976 - William N. Robson

William N. Robson was one of the premier directors in
radio; first among the shows he's most identified with is
"Suspense." "Suspense" advertised itself as "radio's
outstanding theater of thrills" and was heard in one form
or another from 1942 through 1962. There were
approximately 945 episodes broadcast during its long run.

Program 71 - February, 1976 - Robert Metz

Robert Metz is the author of "CBS - Reflections In a
Bloodshot Eye", the story of William S. Paley and the
creation of the Columbia Broadcasting System. Robert
Metz "... takes the reader on an intimate tour -  personal
and historical  of one of the most glamorous and
influential corporations on [removed]" It's a very interesting
book of facts and stories.

Program 72 - March, 1976 - Leon Janney

Leon Janney (born Laon Ramon in Ogden, UT) was directed
to a performing career virtually out of the womb -- his mother
had entertained notions of an acting career, only to be forced
by social convention to abandon them. Instead, her son
became her surrogate, making his first theatrical appearance
at the age of two, reciting Winken, Blynken, and Nod before
an audience at the Pantages Theatre in Ogden, UT, in 1919.

Caught at an "awkward age" in his mid-teens, Janney turned
to radio and became a star in the series The Parker Family,
playing all-American boy Richard Parker. He preferred
theater work to almost anything else, however, and juggled
the two fields for years, also becoming a master dialectician
on the radio. Janney received a draft deferment at the outset
of the Second World War and kept working. However, he
became fascinated with languages and entered a Russian
program at Cornell University which he mastered in record
time. That newly acquired skill made him newly attractive
to the army, which drafted him and put him into service as
a translator. He returned to civilian life after the war and
resumed his career out of New York -- this precluded his
doing much film work, but gave him an early leg up in the
new field of television, as well as keeping him busy in
radio for years to come.

In the 1970's WTIC decided that there was a market in
the evening for long-form shows that could be packaged
and sold to sponsors. Two of those shows were "The
Golden Age of Radio" and "A One Night Stand with the
Big Bands."

Dick Bertel had interviewed radio collector-historian
Ed Corcoran several times on his radio and TV shows,
and thought a regular monthly show featuring interviews
with actors, writers, producers, engineers and musicians
from radio's early days might be interesting. "The Golden
Age of Radio" was first broadcast in April, 1970; Ed was
Dick's co-host. It lasted seven years. "The Golden Age
of Radio" can also be heard Saturday nights on Walden
Hughes's program on Radio Yesteryear.

Arnold Dean began his love affair with the big band
era in his pre-teen years and his decision to study
the clarinet was inspired by the style of Artie Shaw.
When he joined WTIC in 1965 he hosted a daily program
of big band music. In 1971, encouraged by the success
of his daily program and "The Golden Age of Radio"
series, he began monthly shows featuring interviews
with the band leaders, sidemen, agents, jazz reporters,
etc. who made major contributions to one of the great
eras of music history.

Bob Scherago
Webmaster

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:04:37 -0400
From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr" <skallisjr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Margot Lane's Loose Lips

"mj" (knight555@[removed] ) asks how The Shadow could keep his secret
identity with Margot Lane, when

he told her to "wait outside til your called" and she came
banging on doors while he was inside as the Shadow
with the bad guys, and she's shouting
"LAMONT ARE YOU OK?"

Well, The Shadow had the power to cloud men's minds so they could not see
him.  I assume that his hypnotic power would also take care of any other
clues to his identity, such as that of a screeching girlfriend.

Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:05:30 -0400
From: "Holm, Chris " <[removed]@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Margot Lane

In #229 mj writes:

My husband cant help laughing every time
we listen t a show and she starts her
screeching because somebody is crossing
the street

I believe that Jack French writes about this some in Private Eyelashes,
so maybe we can talk him into chiming in.

In the meantime, in my experience the Margot Lane character evolved
somewhat over the lifetime of the series.  In some shows she is a
capable and dependable partner that Lamont relies on to back him up.  In
other parts of the series, she's the shrill, helpless boat-anchor that
Lamont has to drag around and rescue at least once a show.

I think the helpless female in distress bit is often a crutch used by
lazy writers who need to fill out a show, move the plot along, or make
The Shadow seem heroic by comparison.  Much like the Dr Watson character
in the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is nearly always incompetent -
not because the real Dr Watson was like that, but because if you make
Watson look stupider, it's an easy way to make Holmes look more
brilliant in a 22 minute script.

Of all the "sidekick" characters, the one who escapes this helpless
hanger-on treatment the best is Gunsmoke's Chester.  While it's true
that he's not the gunman the Dillion is (who is?), and he sometimes
screws up and lets prisoners escape, he's also reliable and good at his
job.  He's often the first one to spot danger: smoke, dust on the
horizon.  He's absolutely faithful, and is the one person Dillion trusts
completely.  He chased off a rattlesnake by spitting in its eye, and in
one episode he stopped a fleeing suspect by dropping a chamber pot on
his head from a second story window.  He's dependable and always ready
to grab a shotgun and back Dillion against a lynch mob.

The Gunsmoke writers seemed to respect the Chester character, and never
got lazy writing him.

-chris holm

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:06:15 -0400
From: jack and cathy french <otrpiano@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Margot screaming?

On Wednesday, August 23, 2006, at 01:53 PM, MJ  <knight555@[removed];
wrote:

my husband and i cant help wondering, was there ever a time that
lamont got tired of margot screeching at the top of her lungs every
[removed]  My husband cant help laughing every
time we listen t a show and she starts her screeching because
somebody is crossing the [removed] "lamont LOOK
OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  talk about back seat [removed]

Obviously, if you are listening to THE SHADOW only to laugh at Margot's
screaming, you're probably going to hear that sound on some programs.
But, alas, you do the lady a grievous wrong.

As documented in my book, 'PRIVATE EYELASHES: Radio's Lady Detectives,"
Margot was only occasionally a victim to be rescued by the Shadow. For
most of the years of the series, she was intelligent, valiant,
steadfast, and self-confident. In my book, I quote Shadow expert
Anthony Tollin who points out that Margot's embodied spunk, valor and
independence. Sez Tollin: "(She) was far more a full [removed]
the script supervision of Edith [removed] former
[removed](whose) female characters were not dainty things
requiring constant rescuing."

I also quote the East Coast expert on this series, Karl Schadow, who
highlights several episodes in which Margot made courageous and vital
contributions to the solution of mysterious crimes in the 40s and 50s
era, including "The Leopard Strikes", "Death in a Minor Key" , "The
Chill of Death", and "The Crystal Globe."

Jack French
Editor: RADIO RECALL

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:06:34 -0400
From: "Walden Hughes" <walden1@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  archives

Hi Everybody,

I would be interested in reading post about what kinds of OTR materials that
are in different archives around the USA that is not available to us
collectors yet.  I would imagine   that Martin, Jim, and others could make a
list of their favorite shows that they know exist but is not yet available
to the public.  Maybe as a group we could work on pulling the right contacts
and get them release.  I personally been able to get stuff out of the
library Congress NBC collection years ago.  It take some work but it can be
done.  Take care,

Walden Hughes

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:06:50 -0400
From: mgreenb300@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Phil Harris, Alice Faye Show

One of the funniest otr shows is the Phil Harris, Alice Faye program. Every
show I've listened to includes Alice at the beginning and the end along with
a song before she leaves the middle portion of the program. Was this
intentional as part of her contract or did the writers feel Phil and Eliot
Reid could handle the broad comedy? Just wondering . . .

Mort Greenberg

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:56:42 -0400
From: Wich2@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  [removed]
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From: Ronald Sayles _bogusotr@[removed]_ (mailto:bogusotr@[removed])

06-03-1914  - Elzie Segar - d. 8-23-1997<

...if only!

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Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:56:48 -0400
From: Ben Ohmart <benohmart@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  FOTR table

Hi, all. I can't make it to FOTR this time, having
just moved to GA, but would still like to have a table
of books there. I wondered if any dealers would like
to handle them for me if I paid for the table and gave
them a % of sales. Please email at books@[removed]
if so.

New books that will be there this year: Joan Davis,
Bill Idelson's Gibby, Brian Gari's Late Nite Comic,
Robie Lester's autobiography (with 70+ minute cd),
Alan Young's autobiography, and the ever-popular Vic &
Sade by Bill Idelson.

Ben Ohmart
[removed]

Old radio. Old movies. New books.
[removed]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 01:04:48 -0400
From: "Paula Keiser" <pkeiser@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Say goodnight, Gracie

According to one of George Burns' books, that was never said.  His comment
was, "It's a great line, but we never thought of it, so we didn't use it."

Paula
Morrisville, PA

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 08:10:33 -0400
From: Sean Dougherty <seandd@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Derek in Daily News
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Our man Derek Tague stands up for 1970s radio in today's New York Daily News.

Sean Dougherty
SeanDD@[removed]

[removed]

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--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2006 Issue #230
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