Subject: [removed] Digest V2001 #307
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 9/19/2001 12:08 AM
To: <[removed]@[removed];

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2001 : Issue 307
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Elephant Boy on Smilin' Ed's [Buster  [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
  OTR Memorabilia                       [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
  OTR epitaph                           [ "Ivan G Shreve Jr" <igsjr@[removed]; ]
  Re: Weber City                        [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
  Re: Coverage: Then and Now            [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
  Pledge of Alleigence - Red Skelton    [ WRVO Radio <wrvo@[removed]; ]
  The Aldrich Family                    [ Jerry Bechtel <[removed]@[removed] ]
  OTR blacklisting, Red Scare infor et  [ khovard@[removed] ]
  OTR blacklisting, Red Scare: Correct  [ khovard@[removed] ]
  station WEAF                          [ khovard@[removed] ]
  [removed]                            [ "Harold Zeigler" <hzeigler@charter- ]
  Hudnut                                [ Osborneam@[removed] ]
  When the Lights Go On Again All Over  [ Osborneam@[removed] ]
  Kate Smith                            [ "B. J. Watkins" <kinseyfan@hotmail. ]
  abysmal news coverage                 [ chris chandler <chrischandler84@yah ]
  Missing a cassette                    [ Richard Carpenter <sinatra@ragingbu ]

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

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:37:07 -0400
From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Elephant Boy on Smilin' Ed's [Buster Brown]
 Gang?

The question as to whether there were stories about an elephant boy on
the Buster Brown Saturday Morning show is yes, though I'm unsure about
the name (there was a movie, Elephant Boy, starring Sabu, which had been
released in the late 1930s or possibly in the 1940s, so there may be some
name confusion). This was one of a few sets of short dramatizations that
were part of the show (another was of some nomadic desert tribe and a
third about a boy who had a genie).  All of the stories were templated
(and rather simplistic) and thus created few lasting memories.

Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

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

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:37:30 -0400
From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  OTR Memorabilia

Previously, I'd noted my favorite radio memorabilium (a pair of original
Code-O-Graphs ensconced in a badge case).  However, outside my Captain
Midnight stuff, I have several radio premiums that bring back fine
memories.

Two Sky King items: a Magni-Glo Writing Ring, with four features neatly
packaged in a small crownpiece, and a Spy-Detecto Writer, a pocket unit
with enough features to catch the admiration of a former [removed]
intelligence operative I've been in communication with (cipher disk,
magnifier, printing mechanism, and ruler, all in a pocket-sized package).

Also, a Kix Atom Bomb Ring (aka The Lone Ranger Atom Bomb Ring), which
actually showed nuclear reactions.  Sadly, the radioisotope used has
become inert, so the light show in my unit is gone.

Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

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

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:37:50 -0400
From: "Ivan G Shreve Jr" <igsjr@[removed];
To: "Old Time Radio Digest" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  OTR epitaph

Will Nicoll wrote:

Now, I know from reading the digest there are a lot of clever
[removed] would be interesting hearing their plans for an OTR epitaph.

My epitaph?  "We're a little late, [removed] good night!"

Ivan

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

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:40:07 -0400
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: Weber City

Owens Pomeroy [removed]

A color Map of "Weber City" (Pepsodent Premium my Dad sent for in 1936)

There's actually an interesting story behind this premium -- it was a
ploy by Gosden and Correll to prove to the Lord and Thomas agency that
their program was still a powerful draw.

In the spring of 1934, they were moving into the last year of the
$200,000-a-year contract they had signed in the summer of 1930, and
Pepsodent was grumbling a bit about renewal. That original deal had been
signed during the full flush of the national A&A craze, and since that
time, the program's popularity had settled down considerably from its
"fad" level. Pepsodent wasn't sure it wanted to renew on the same terms
as the 1930 contract, and sent Lord and Thomas agency president Albert
Lasker to Correll and Gosden to tell them so, and try and convince them
to take a pay cut. The performers instead asked for a raise -- and the
situation remained unresolved when Correll and Gosden took an eight-week
vacation that summer (the only vacation they would ever take during the
fifteen-year run of the serial).

When they returned in September, the performers approached Lasker with a
plan -- they would prove to him just how popular their program still was,
by making a serious shakeup in its plotline. Roland Weber, the self-made
millionaire philanthropist and mentor to Amos who had figured strongly in
the storyline since the previous winter, would be killed in a random
pedestrian accident -- and his will would leave a 500-acre plot of land
in upstate New York to Amos and Andy for the construction of a "model
town" housing development to be called "Weber City." Amos and Andy and
their closest friends would leave Harlem and move upstate to begin work
on the project -- and after several weeks had gone by in order to
establish the plot, Andy would announce that he had drawn an
intentionally-funny map of Weber City, and that he was using the map to
settle a lot of gripes that he had with various people involved with the
project. (There are many obscure references in the map that only become
understandable when you read thru the scripts for the storyline. In
reality, the map was probably drawn by Fred C. Graham, a popular magazine
cartoonist of the day.) This map was then offered as a premium for
listeners, who would enter a "Why I Like Pepsodent Tooth Powder" contest.
Correll and Gosden told Lasker to be ready for a huge listener response.

At the start of the promotion in November 1934, Lord and Thomas had
assigned eight typists to handle A&A-related mail. By the end of the
first week, more than 200 were needed, and by the end of the promotion,
over a million maps had been sent out. Correll and Gosden made their
point, and were renewed by Pepsodent for $300,000 a year.

The map wasn't the only publicity stunt related to the Weber City
storyline -- early in the sequence, Correll and Gosden were visiting
Washington DC, and took the opportunity to burst in on a meeting of the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation to demand an RFC loan for Weber City.
As the astonished bureaucrats watched, RFC chairman Jesse H. Jones -- a
personal friend of Gosden and Correll -- wrote out a check for $2, and
sent the triumphant performers on their way. That framed check hung on
their office wall for years thereafter.

Elizabeth

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

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:33:17 -0400
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: Coverage: Then and Now

On 9/18/01 2:10 AM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:

was astounded at how different it was from the plethora of
non-stop news coverage of last week's events. The NY Philharmonic was
interrupted with the newscaster telling the general skeleton of the
information that he had just received about the Pearl Harbor bombing, and
then went back to playing music of the Philharmonic again. That would be a
novel concept in today's media, actually going back to the regular
programming until something new developed.

Unfortunately, this particular clip is a proven forgery -- taking the
pastiche clip of John Daly "interrupting this program" from the
Murrow-Friendly "I Can Hear It Now" album and thrusting it rather
clumsily into a fragment of the Philharmonic broadcast. CBS in fact
*didn't* interrupt any programming for the first announcement of the
attack -- it was announced by them as the first story of their
regularly-scheduled 2:30 pm (EST) newscast. The Philharmonic broadcast
did come on next, at 3 pm, and included a roundup-type summary of
developing news at the intermission.

In fact, though, neither CBS or NBC went to "continuous coverage" during
Pearl Harbor -- although there were long stretches of semi-continuous
coverage. Regular programming did continue thru the evening. There may be
several reasons for this -- foremost of which were contractural
committments. Sponsors owned the time slots they bought for their
programs, and the networks required special permission from those
sponsors in order to dump sponsored broadcasts for special news reports,
and any portion of a program that was interrupted required compensation
for the time lost. It may be that, as the attack came on a Sunday
afternoon when advertising agency offices were normally closed, there was
simply no chance to obtain the permission of sponsors to dump their
programs en masse and clear the schedule for continuous news. This is
just an off-the-top of the head theory on my part, and if anyone has
researched exactly what happened in the network business offices that
afternoon, it would be interesting to hear the story.

The situation with D-Day was different -- protocols for the invasion were
laid out clearly well in advance for clearing air time, and thus there
was a great deal of continuous coverage. NBC, to its credit, ran
continuous coverage for over 24 hours after the invasion began -- while
CBS, rather embarassingly, returned to its regular schedule at 10 am on
June 6th -- as though anyone could possibly have cared what happened to
"Valiant Lady" at that particular point in history. NBC's continuous
coverage of D-Day was not at all unlike the continuous coverage we've
seen lately -- long, long stretches of time-filling commentary taking up
the slack between items of hard news, interviews, schmaltzy essays, and
patriotic music fill.  One may prefer H. V. Kaltenborn's extemporaneous
analysis to that of Tom Brokaw -- but they were basically doing the same
thing.

All that said, though, I don't really think there's any valid basis to
compare what we've seen over the past week with *anything* broadcast
during the OTR era. OTR-era news divisions dealt admirably with the
progress of a world war, working in close cooperation with military
authorities -- but they never had to deal with a sudden and devastating
simultaneous attack on the middle of New York City and the heart of the
military from an unknown enemy. Radio City wasn't being evacuated of all
non-essential personell while Kaltenborn was on the air on D-Day morning,
nor did Richard Harkness suddenly hear an enormous explosion while he was
on the air from the Pentagon. How would OTR-era stateside news personell
have responded to such an attack? We'll never know. They never had to
face one.

Elizabeth

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

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:41:03 -0400
From: WRVO Radio <wrvo@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Pledge of Alleigence - Red Skelton

Folks:

I have a local librarian looking for a copy of a Red Skelton recording or
broadcast she heard over the weekend.  Since WRVO airs 30 hours of OTR, she
thought we aired but we did not.

Its Red performing the Pledge of Allegiance.

If anyone can point me to the broadcast information, I can check our
collection or even better if its up on the web somewhere I can send the
Librarian directly to it.


Thanks

John Krauss
Host WRVO Playhouse - Syracuse NY

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

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:41:23 -0400
From: Jerry Bechtel <[removed]@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  The Aldrich Family

When you are a 6 year old kid listening to the radio in the early '40's,
you believe almost anything. The plots of The Aldrich Family may seem
unbelieveable now, when you listen to them, but much of the show was
just as we were back then. Henry and Homer simply reflected how we lived
back in those days. I know it's pretty unbelieveable! Henry's dates with
the girls, been there done that, his problems with Homer, been there
done that, his misunderstandings  with the neighbors, been there done
that, but of course, all in the "40's. It's really not all that
unbelieveable.

Jerry Bechtel

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

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:41:56 -0400
From: khovard@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  OTR blacklisting, Red Scare infor etc.

Bryan Powell asked how he might   learn more about the effects of
anti-Communist activities, blacklisting, self-censorship, etc. on the
Hollywood film community during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s,
He also wanted to know how the Cold War climate in general, affected OTR
programming.

My book, Words at War: World War II Era Radio Drama and the Postwar
Broadcasting Industry Blacklist  is scheduled for publication in 2002 by
Scarecrow [removed] Besides describing the history of wartime radio drama,
I tell how during the war from time to time the Red Baiters tried to
silence progressive radio writers. After the war, they were successful in
doing so. With the  cooperation of a variety of organizations the
blacklist  drove  many writers and some actors out of  broadcasting -
some  permanently and others temporarily.

A second book, already published, is  Paul Buhle's "A Very Dangerous
Man," the biography of film director (and  for a while radio writer)
Abraham Polonsky. (I don't have the book in front of me - he had a
co-author) It gives a very clear full and clear picture of the times. The
University of California  Press published it and it is not a light read.
But it's a fascinating one. So is Buhle's book

Howard Blue

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

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:42:28 -0400
From: khovard@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  OTR blacklisting, Red Scare: Correction.

Whoops. I erred  in the message that I  just sent. The correct title of
Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner's new book is "A Very Dangerous Citizen" - not
"A Very Dangerous Man"

Howard

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

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:42:28 -0400
From: khovard@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  station WEAF

>From where  does (did?) Radio Station WEAF broadcast?

Howard

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

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:32:43 -0400
From: "Harold Zeigler" <hzeigler@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  [removed]

	Hi Anybody,
     I just saw a item obout a book "Behind Your Radio Dial" put out by
[removed] I believe would be the same title of a film short made for movie
theaters in 1948.
     I have a copy of "Behind Your Radio Dial" on video I bought at one of
the radio conventions in the past few years which was narriated by Ben
Grauer.
				Till Next Time,Harold

	[removed]
	GOD BLESS AMERICA.

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

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 01:53:41 -0400
From: Osborneam@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Hudnut

I just noticed that Dunning states that Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy's
show was sponsored by Hudnut between 1952-1953.

Can anyone tell me what Hudnut was?

Arlene Osborne

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

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 01:53:50 -0400
From: Osborneam@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  When the Lights Go On Again All Over the World

Can anyone tell me who sings "When the Lights Go On Again All Over
the World" that is being played on YUSA?  (It has been following Kate
Smith's magnificent rendition of "God Bless America")

Arlene Osborne

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

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:03:13 -0400
From: "B. J. Watkins" <kinseyfan@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Kate Smith

In Digest 305, Michael Biel wrote about Kate Smith:

But then she started her dramatic repeat of that last line: "God Bless
America . . ."
<snip>
About ten years later I know I saw it again and I am sure I was
videotaping it.  Does anybody recognize what it might have been so I
might try to dig it up.

I enjoyed reading your description of Kate Smith singing "God Bless
America". From the facts you gave, I got out my copy of Richard K. Hayes'
book on Kate Smith to see if I could identify it. I believe it might be the
"Stars and Stripes Show" taped on June 17 and televised June 30, 1976.
According to Hayes, it was a two-hour, star-studded bicentennial special.
She sing "God Bless America" and was her final television performance. If
you have the book, it's on page 231.

At least it's a starting point in your search for the tape.

Barbara

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

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:01:48 -0400
From: chris chandler <chrischandler84@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  abysmal news coverage

Ryan Hall writes:

I have to agree that the news coverage of the tragedy
last week was >abyssmal.

Then to [removed]

went and listened to a broadcast of
a >radio show that was playing the New York
Philharmonic when the news of
Pearl >Harbor was breaking
on that). I was astounded at how different it was
from the plethora of
non-stop news coverage of last week's events.

There've been a couple posts on this subject over the
past couple days, each implying that the 1941-style
Pearl Harbor coverage is superior to what we've seen
over the past week.

First, as many others will likely point out, Mr.
Hall's cherished NY Philharmonic broadcast is a phony:
 a not-very-cleverly doctored mish-mash of two
separate recordings, one of which is also a fraud, and
which bares no resemblance to the way the Pearl Harbor
story actually broke.

Other posters, notably Mr. A. Kallis, Jr. and Mr.
Harris are correct, and on a point I'm not sure lots
of people today would really guess:  strange as it may
seem today, indeed there was NOT blanket or
"continuous" coverage of the attack on Hawaii.

NBC's longest pre-midnight news broadcast on December
7th, 1941 ran less than an hour!  Almost every program
WAS interrupted for bulletins, and the overnight hours
did feature a higher news content.  But the Red
network didn't even broadcast the famous "live bombing
of Manila" as it happened the next afternoon (2:20PM);
the soaps continued as normal until the Red finally
deigned to play a (*gasp*) recording of the broadcast
late that afternoon, with the not-very-convincing
explanation that it was meant for defense workers who
may have 'missed' the earlier live broadcast.  Nice
try. :-)

In fact, that night, even the news that 50
unidentified planes were headed for San Francisco
wasn't enough to get the Red to interrupt "Voice of
Firestone"!

Truly, a FAR cry from what we've seen this week.

I've always wondered WHY this was the case in 1941,
and never come up with a very satisfactory
explanation.  The technical difficulties of getting
the story out of Hawaii?  Not likely; both NBC and
CBS, as late as 11PM that Sunday night, were calling
in remotes from Honolulu.  And certainly there was
plenty of information to justify a longer-form
broadcast.

Was it that the very *concept* of continuous coverage
was unknown?  Not really.  The nets, down to and
including Mutual, had broadcast several free-flowing,
relatively unstructured, long-form broadcasts upon the
outbreak of war in Europe in September, 1939.
Although they were mostly in the middle of the night,
NBC ran several long-form crisis broadcasts as Hitler
crossed into country after country through 1940 and
1941.

In that case, of course, the networks (particularly
CBS) were indulging in their Anglo-centric, almost
snobbishly elitist fascination with all things
European.  Perhaps the outbreak of Pacific war didn't
hold the same fascination.   Or perhaps executives,
like many Americans, didn't quite grasp the magnitude
of the crisis.  My grandmother always told me she'd
never *heard* of Pearl Harbor til that day.  And
contestants on the 12/8/41 "Dr. IQ" quiz program,
asked questions about the unfolding emergency, missed
almost ALL of them--the quizmaster himself
misprouncing "Oahu" and other topical names.  Was
nobody paying attention? :-)

In any event, on the question of whether the Pearl
Harbor-type coverage was 'better' than what we've seen
in [removed] one question:  was it really necessary
for NBC Red to finish broadcasting the 'Mary Marlin'
soap opera before reporting first word that 1,500
people were dead in Hawaii?  The answer was just as
resounding a "NO" 60 years ago as today. Surely a
critic like Mr. Hall would be complaining just as
loudly today had the NBC of 2001 continued
broadcasting "Days of Our Lives" while the nation was
literally under attack.  What would he have had the
networks do?

As a broadcaster who works in a largish American city
which, like most others, found itself in the middle of
a genuine national emergency last Tuesday, I feel a
few of our critics might reconsider.  I can promise
you that there was not a person near a mirophone or
camera that day who had EVER felt a heavier weight
upon his shoulders.  Of course there were mistakes.
But I doubt we'll ever see a finer performance from
the nation's broadcasters:  the networks stayed almost
completely devoid of hype, sensationalism,
self-promotion, or preening.  The national anchors
fulfilled a vital national function during a period of
terrifying uncertainty.  And the reporters on the
ground in New York and Washington, some of whom came
close to losing their lives, almost unanimously did
some of the best work of their careers.  Compare that
to a national crisis that unfolded in 1941 with
relatively scant on-air effort to inform, calm, or
prepare a frightened nation, and I think you have to
say THIS--not Pearl Harbor--was broadcasting's finest
hour.

Chris

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

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:03:29 -0400
From: Richard Carpenter <sinatra@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Missing a cassette

   While traveling, I lost Tape 12 from the "CBS 60 Greatest Old Time Radio
Shows" collection. Could some nice person who has the collection make me a
copy of that tape? I'd be happy to swap an MP3 or copy a cassette of my own
for them or whatever. Thanks.

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2001 Issue #307
*********************************************

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