Subject: [removed] Digest V2004 #42
From: <[removed]@[removed]>
Date: 1/29/2004 3:52 PM
To: <[removed]@[removed];

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2004 : Issue 42
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Jack Parr and War of the Worlds       [ "George Tirebiter" <tirebiter2@hotm ]
  CD and DVD Care                       [ Shenbarger@[removed] ]
  Sherm Feller                          [ "RBB" <oldradio@[removed]; ]
  Okeh Laughing record                  [ "Bill Scherer" <bspro@[removed]; ]
  Broadway open house                   [ Robert Sheldon <rsheldon@sbcglobal. ]
  Marijuana, mice and cockroaches; fra  [ John Mayer <mayer@[removed]; ]
  Re: The Big Story                     [ Gerry Wright <gdwright@[removed] ]
  Re: orators                           [ Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed]; ]
  KUP                                   [ Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed]; ]
  EDDIE PEABODY/FRANK PARKER            [ Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed]; ]
  Laughing records                      [ Sam Levene <sam6@[removed]; ]
  Re: Jack Paar on radio                [ <orders@[removed]; ]
  The Incredible Shrinking Picture      [ BH <radiobill@[removed]; ]
  The House that Jack Built             [ "A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@attorneyro ]
  Jack Bennny Contest 2004: Phil and M  [ <orders@[removed]; ]
  goodman ace's reference to marijuana  [ "W. Gary W." <wgaryw@[removed]; ]
  Laughing record                       [ "Ted Kneebone" <tkneebone1@[removed] ]
  The Goldbergs storyline               [ "steven kostelecky" <skostelecky@ho ]
  1-30 births/deaths                    [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]

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

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:16:46 -0500
From: "George Tirebiter" <tirebiter2@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Jack Parr and War of the Worlds

Hello All,

Years ago I remember reading the following about Jack Paar (don't recall if
it was written by Jack himself or someone else writing about him).

In the fall of 1938 Jack was an announcer at a small CBS affiliate.  The
station also carried Father Coughlin's program.  By 1938, of course,
Coughlin was in full anti-Semitic mode.  Jack was on duty on Sunday
afternoons and evenings, making the top and bottom of the hour station IDs
and any other local announcements.  He also had to man the telephone between
announcing chores.  He had come to hate working on Sundays because during
and immediately after Coughlin's diatribes Jack had to fend off calls from
outraged listeners complaining that the station carried Coughlin.  On
Sunday, October 30, 1938 Jack handled the usual number of angry callers and
was looking forward to a quiet evening of announcing duties when the Mercury
Theatre of the Air came on at 8 [removed]  Jack had to handle a lot more upset
callers from WOTW than he ever had to deal with from Coughlin.

George

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

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:48:29 -0500
From: Shenbarger@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  CD and DVD Care
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

A comprehensive 50-page guide to CD and DVD disc care is available from
National Institute of Standards and Technology. It's dated October, 2003 and
seems
to cover all the issues including disc construction types, life, storage and
labeling.

[removed]

The report is available for free in a PDF format or you can buy a printed
copy. Click on NIST for the PDF download or CLIR to buy the report. The
report is
written for librarians and archivists and is geared toward maximum safety.

Don Shenbarger

  *** This message was altered by the server, and may not appear ***
  ***                  as the sender intended.                   ***

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

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 19:47:33 -0500
From: "RBB" <oldradio@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Sherm Feller

B. Ray Druian posted about the late-Irv Kupcinet's "At Random" in [removed]

And, perhaps later on it was called "Kup's Show" on TV, named after his
"Kup's Column" in the Sun Times.  Good show!

Well, keeping the track on radio, in the very early 1950's (even late-40's),
Sherm Feller did the first, late night talk (at different times) on two
Boston stations, WVDA and WCOP.  He just ad libbed about everything, chatted
with some studio guests, took phone calls (which we couldn't hear), was very
funny and entertaining, even a tad bit sarcastic.  Sherm was laid back,
calm, and clean talking - the city loved him on the radio.

He wrote music (Stan Kenton recorded his "Francesca"), married vocalist,
Judy Valentine and ended his career as the deep bass voice of the Boston Red
Sox at Fenway Park  ("now, boys and girls, ladies and [removed]
[removed] [removed] number [removed]") while comfortably sprawled all over
the upper deck seats in the stadium sunshine, wearing cowboy boots,
sunglasses, a ten gallon hat and just enjoying what he was doing!  Yessir,
Sherm was quite a guy!

Russ Butler  oldradio@[removed]

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

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 19:47:43 -0500
From: "Bill Scherer" <bspro@[removed];
To: ""old-time radio digest">" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Okeh Laughing record

If someone is looking for this,
I could take a look here in the "dungeon" which is my name for my basement
studio.
I think I have both the original on a Dr. Demento set and the Spike Jones
version as well.
Bill

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

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 19:48:40 -0500
From: Robert Sheldon <rsheldon@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Broadway open house

Jerry Lester and his Broadway Open House was the precurser.  The name
may have been different but it was the same format with Milton DeLugg,
Dagmar and the gang.

I was about to write a similar note about Jerry Lester, Dagmar, Milton
DeLugg and all of a sudden slam,. bang, out of an orange colored sky I
was delighted to find at least one other reader remembers the old show,
which as far as I know was the grand daddy of them all.  Somebody also
mentioned the fill-in duties of Ernie Kovacs for Steve Allen a few
years later.  I always thought an hour with Kovacs was worth two of
Steve Allen or any of the other followers in the late night talk/comedy
shows, with the  exception of Jack Paar, who was in an entirely
different class all to himself.

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

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 20:16:23 -0500
From: John Mayer <mayer@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Marijuana, mice and cockroaches; frauds

Craig <Wich2@[removed]; mentioned:

Long ago, I was pretty amazed when I dug out the imbedded "marijauna
que fumar" lyric in the 50's "Speedy Gonzales" [removed]

This is, of course, part of the traditional lyrics of the song so
many of us used to sing in grammar school, La Cucaracha. They go
something like: "The cockroach, the cockroach, she is very sad [don't
recall the Spanish there, but then:] porque no tiene, proque la
[removed] marijuana que fumar." Of course marijuana wasn't illegal
until the end of prohibition, at which time Hoover needed some busy
work for his boys. Pot was often mentioned in popular entertainment
prior to that time; I recall seeing Cab Calloway sing "That Old
Reefer Man" in a feature that also included Rosemary as a child star
[and that's about all I remember about it].

"Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed]; reflected:
One might ask what difference it might make.  In one sense, it doesn't.
If someone buys a brass Tom Mix compass-magnifier as an item from a Dick
Tracy Crimestoppers Detective Kit, and believes it to be so until the end
of that person's life, the collector is happy with the false knowledge.
But the person would have been treated fraudulently.  And there's
something troubling about that.

That's sort of the same way I feel about those "mediums" who claim to
speak with your loved ones in your behalf. One might say if they
bring some peace to the bereaved, what harm do they do? But they
usually charge well for their services, and they sully the
relationship their clients or audience members had with their loved
ones. As Stephen says, it's very troubling.

Which brings up, come to think of it, a thread I'd not responded to
just before I got bounced off the list due to some server issue: the
fact that the American public is actually, in my view, becoming MORE
superstitious as we move into the 21st Century. Somewhere I have the
letter I was writing back then but never [removed]

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

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 22:43:12 -0500
From: Gerry Wright <gdwright@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: The Big Story

Howard Blue asked:

I'm trying to locate an episode of "The Big Story" which dealt with a
black man who was
wrongfully imprisoned. The show was broadcast sometime between May and
August of 1949, probably in June.

>From J. David Goldin's database of shows the following episode was
broadcast June 20, 1949. Tom Mercer of the Cincinnati Inquirer solves
the murder of a man everyone hated. Jackson Beck.

This eliminates at least one show from June, 1949. Goldin's index does
not list any other shows from your time period.

There were plans for the sponsor to do a television version
of the Big Story. Did those plans ever materialize?

The Big Story was on NBC television from Sept. 16 1949 to June 28, 1957,
with one year of syndicated shows after NBC canceled the series. The
shows schedule was:

Sept 1949 - Mar 1951, NBC Friday 9:30-10:00
Mar 1951 - July 1956, NBC 9:00-9:30
Sept 1956-June 1957, NBC Friday 9:30-10:00

Narrators:
Bob Sloane (1949-1954)
Norman Rose (1954-1955)
Ben Brauer (1955-1957)
Burgess Meredith (1957-1958, syndicated series)

Source: The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows
1946-Present, 6th edition. By Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh.

Gerry Wright
ZoneZebra Productions
San Francisco

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

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 22:42:45 -0500
From: Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: orators

At 06:32 PM 1/28/2004, Roby McHone wrote:

them.  FDR in his firm grandfatherly way gave hope to and kept the American
people together through the depression and later through the war.  All three
men used this newly popular technology, radio, masterfully.

And it didn't hurt to have the networks generally on your side
either!  While studies have shown that for the most part the print media
was much more critical of FDR, radio networks tended to have more of a love
affair with him (though possibly out of regulation fear) and the President
took definite advantage of it. FDR knew a good thing when he saw it. While
his eloquence could be spotty, his knowledge of radio as a propaganda force
was not.  He understood that radio was a direct channel into the
comfortable living rooms of the American people. In one of his more
eloquent "chats" on the banking crisis he emphasized that he was speaking
directly to the American people.

Churchill on the other hand was less of a "radio" person preferring to talk
directly to the people live. Knowing that it was not always possible he did
take some advantage of speaking via radio though often recorded and
sometimes not even himself, but rather an actor. Many of his famous
orations were in front of groups be it Parliament or at a dinner, etc.

More like FDR, Hitler, mostly at Goebbels' instigation, better knew the
power of the radio. He rarely did radio speeches, but rather his speeches
were often  recorded for later broadcast. I would suspect that while Hitler
was a true orator and knew the power of the spoken word, it was Goebbels
who tapped into the medium of radio.

Jim Widner
jwidner@[removed]

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

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 22:59:40 -0500
From: Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  KUP

At Random was a marvelous show, and it stayed on [sometimes 'til 3+ in
the morning] until everybody had said everything there was to say.

[removed]

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

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 23:00:10 -0500
From: Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  EDDIE PEABODY/FRANK PARKER

Once MC'd a show that featured Eddie Peabody.  Peabody was so paranoid
about the "Eddie Playbody will now pee for you" intro, he
ordered [he was a Navy Commander] me to introduce him EXACTLY this way:
"Ladies and gentlemen, the world's greatest banjo player, Eddie Peabody."
  He was very short, but very authoritative for a little guy.  Sat on a
small stool on top of a grand piano--you could see the legs giving as he
bounced on the stool, while pounding the heck out of that banjo.

Frank Parker, mentioned the other day, was also on that show.  So used to
the ribbing he always took from Arthur Godfrey, he didn't care how I
introduced him.

[removed]

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

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 23:00:36 -0500
From: Sam Levene <sam6@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Laughing records

Interesting about the Okeh Laughing Record which I didn't know about.  But
further to  Spike Jones, he made two records involving laughter. The first
was, as Russ Butler points out,  Holiday for Strings.  On this one the band
plays the melody for a couple of choruses in its own distinctive fashion,
then an apparent chicken clucks the melody, then somone laughs his way
through the melody, then several others do the same until the end when
there's a burst of general laughter. But it's all done to the music. This
was recorded in October 1945 for RCA Victor.  I presume this was something
of a hit for Spike. Then the following year, November 1946, presumably as a
sequel, he recorded The Jones Laughing Record, consisting mostly of loud
laughter interspersed here and there with sneezing and feeble, stumbling
attempts to play The Flight of the Bumble Bee, similar to the early Okeh
recording described by others.  It's still funny, as is Holiday for Strings,
and should be available, as I said, in a Jones collection. Those recording
dates are courtesy Jordan R. Young's book on Spike Jones.
Note to youthful lurkers: we are speaking here of Spike Jones, the novelty
bandleader, not Spike Jonze the filmmaker, clearly an imposter whose real
name is Adam Spiegel.

Sam Levene

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

Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 07:56:39 -0500
From: <orders@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: Jack Paar on radio

"Irene Heinstein" <IreneTH@[removed]; said

Subject:  Jack Paar on radio

I have 6 episodes of the 'Jack Paar Show' which was broadcast from [removed] in
the summer of 1947 from June 27 to Sept 28 as a summer replacement for Jack
Benny.

Here is a free website where you can listen to those Jack Paar episodes.  I
was going to talk a couple of weeks ago about how well "The Jack Paar" show
has held up.  If you listen to it.  It sounds remakably similar to Connan
O'Brian, or Davis Letterman.  Here was an obviosly very smart very funny guy
doing a fun monologue, joking about how cheep his show was, and doing great
little skits, and having fun with his guests.  A great show all around.
Really worth a listen.

[removed]

Zongo out

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

Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 07:57:01 -0500
From: BH <radiobill@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  The Incredible Shrinking Picture

Stephen A Kallis, Jr. commented:

Actually, once a fully tube based TV set was turned off, there were two
mechanisms: one was the stream of electrons (the "beam") continued to be
emitted.  The second was that the rest of the video circuits were losing
their charges and were deflecting and modulating the beam as it continued
to emit electrons.

Another factor that comes into play is the very high voltage that is
applied to the inside of the picture tube to give the electrons enough
force to excite the phosphor coating on the face of the tube. This high
voltage is applied to a coating on the inside of the tube and can hold a
charge for some time after the set is turned off. I have been bitten a
few times because of forgetting to pull the HV lead and ground the
connection on the tube to discharge it. As long as the picture tube
filament is warm enough to emit electrons this charge will continue to
pull the electrons to the face of the tube. Even after the filament
cools the spot can still glow for some time.

Bill H.

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

Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 07:57:26 -0500
From: "A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  The House that Jack Built

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 23:37:39 -0500
From: JackBenny@[removed]

The only house that Jack actually BUILT was 1002 North Roxbury in
Beverly Hills.  

I strongly suspect that Jack didn't actually build that house anyway, but hired builders.  
While Jimmy Carter has been known to take up a hammer at some Habitat for Humanity 
houses, I don't think Jack ever did.

-- A. Joseph Ross, [removed] [removed] 15 Court Square, Suite 210 lawyer@[removed] Boston, MA 02108-2503 [removed] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 07:57:45 -0500 From: <orders@[removed]; To: <[removed]@[removed]; Subject: Jack Bennny Contest 2004: Phil and Mary Duets! I am holding a contest to see who can give me the dates of the most Phil Harris and Mary Livingstone duets. If you are the lucky winner I will send you a free copy of a CD I'm compiling of all the duets between the two of them. I think their songs together are wonderful and would love to have them all in a collection. SO far I know they perform duets on: October 29, 1939. Phil and Mary sing, "Make With The Kisses." November 3, 1940. Mary and Phil sing, "You Catch On Quick." 12/28/41 Jack talks about his Christmas party any help would be appreciated! Zongo out ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:50:18 -0500 From: "W. Gary W." <wgaryw@[removed]; To: [removed]@[removed] Subject: goodman ace's reference to marijuana since this thread about the goodman ace referencing marijuana seems to have more legs than i would have ever expected, i thought i'd chime in. . . first off, i can say definitively that this was not a flub or an ad lib. i base this on the fact that ace published a collection of "mr ace and JANE" scripts in book form in 1970, titled "ladies and gentlemen, easy aces". i don't have the book handy at the moment, but i'm certain that one of the scripts he chose to include contained this line verbatim. besides, easy aces and its follow up "mr ace and JANE" were not the kind of shows where the performers ad libbed. comparing the published scripts to the recordings i have of the same shows, there are no discernible differences at all. possibly this is due to the fact that the performers on both shows were not comedians, but actors, or possibly, goodman ace wasn't very keen on improvisations on his carefully constructed dialogue. (i have read many quotes by him where he refers to the the precise phrasing of a joke as being vital to its success.) now, my take on this line is, i think, quite different from any interpretation i've read so far in this thread. my feeling is that when ace refers to jane as living somewhere in the vicinity of lake marijuana, he's playing with the slang term for marijuana, "dope", and the joke is basically an insult to jane's intelligence. at least, that's how i took it. and i know that the slang term "dope" was already in common use back in the 1940s. like other peopl on this thread, i'm a bit surprised that this reference was allowed past the censors, but it's definitely in the published script and it certainly doesn't sound like an ad lib in the actual recording (i can't remember which show it was offhand). bear in mind that the series "mr ace and JANE" aired in 1948, so perhaps censorship was not as fierce by this stage in radio history. (i bet elizabeth would have something valuable to add. . . hint, hint. . . :) ) always great to see people talking about easy aces. . . regards, w. gary w. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:57:41 -0500 From: "Ted Kneebone" <tkneebone1@[removed]; To: "Old Time Radio Digest" <[removed]@[removed]; Subject: Laughing record Elizabeth and others have pinned down various laughing records. The 78 rpm acoustic disc was one of the cuts on an LP "Comedy's greatest hits" on Happy Face HF 1801. Some of them are from radio, including a BBC recording of Laurel and Hardy -- on the radio! Ted Kneebone/1528 S. Grant [removed], SD 57401/605-226-3344 OTR: [removed] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:24:38 -0500 From: "steven kostelecky" <skostelecky@[removed]; To: [removed]@[removed] Subject: The Goldbergs storyline I just finished a bunch of Goldbergs and was wondering if there is a continuity somewhere to find out what happened to the family. I got hooked on the show and there are, of course, plenty of loose ends. I should know better than to get hooked on a soap that lasted so long and of which there are really only a couple hundred shows existing. Oh well, I guess I shouldn't jump the horse before I get to the bridge. Thanks ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 15:56:56 -0500 From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; To: Olde Tyme Radio List <[removed]@[removed]; Subject: 1-30 births/deaths January 30th births 01-30-1862 - Walter Damrosch - Breslau, Germany - d. 12-23-1950 conductor, commentator: "Baulkite Hour"; "Music Appreciation Hour" 01-30-1882 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt - Hyde Park, NY - d. 4-12-1945 [removed] president: "Fireside Chats" 01-30-1914 - David Wayne - Traverse City, MI - d. 2-9-1995 actor: "Lux Radio Theatre" ;" Eternal Light"; "Stars in the Air" 01-30-1914 - Hugh Marlowe - Philadelphia, PA - d. 5-2-1982 actor: Ellery Queen "Advs. of Ellery Queen"; Jim Curtis "Brenda Curtis" 01-30-1914 - John Ireland - Vancouver, Canada - d. 3-21-1992 actor: "MGM Theatre of the Air"; "[removed] Steel Hour" 01-30-1925 - Dorothy Malone, Chicago, IL actress: "Lux Radio Theatre" 01-30-1931 - Conrad Binyon - Hollywood, CA actor: Chester A. Riley, Jr. "Life of Riley"; Henry Herbert Murray "One Man's Family" 01-30-1934 - Tammy Grimes - Lynn, MA hostess, actress: "CBS Mystery Theatre"; "Cavalcade of America" January 30th deaths 01-05-1911 - Jean-Pierre Aumont - Paris, France - d. 1-30-2001 actor: "Hallmark Playhouse"; "Philip Morris Playhouse" 06-27-1907 - John McIntire - Spokane, WA - d. 1-30-1991 actor: Benjamin Ordway "Crime Doctor"; Lt. Dundy "Advs. of Sam Spade" 07-09-1894 - Dorothy Thompson - Lancaster, NY - d. 1-30-1961 commentator: "Commentary" 08-08-1887 - Malcom Keen - Bristol, England - d. 1-30-1970 actor: "Cavalcade of America" 08-14-1909 - Ed Herlihy - Dorchester, MA - d. 1-30-1999 announcer: "Advs. of the Thin Man"; "Just Plain Bill"; "Vic and Sade" 08-15-1919 - Huntz Hall - NYC - d. 1-30-1999 comedian: (The Dead End Kids) "Texaco Star Playhouse" 11-24-1910 - Pegeen Fitzgerald - Norcatur, KS - d. 1-30-1989 host: "Fitzgeralds" Ron Sayles Milwaukee, Wisconsin -------------------------------- End of [removed] Digest V2004 Issue #42 ******************************************** Copyright [removed] Communications, York, PA; All Rights Reserved, including republication in any form. 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