------------------------------
The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2002 : Issue 296
A Part of the [removed]!
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
Petrillo in Wall Street Journal [ Kubelski@[removed] ]
"It Could Be You" [ Dennis W Crow <DCrow3@[removed] ]
Harlow Wilcox [ "Ron Vickery" <RVICKERY@anchorwall. ]
OTR baseball owners [ "Brian Johnson" <CHYRONOP@worldnet. ]
B&A/"Keith Fowler" [ chris chandler <chrischandler84@yah ]
Australian OMF [ chris chandler <chrischandler84@yah ]
OTR Tapes, and Adventures In Researc [ "[removed]" <swells@[removed]; ]
Re: A&A and the NAACP continued [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
Re: Austin "Pete" Peterson [ GOpp@[removed] ]
Re: TV Guide [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
Sleeping to OTR the MP3 Route [ "Gerber, Barry" <bg@[removed]; ]
Lone Ranger [ knight555@[removed] ]
Amos n Andy Christmas Show [ Kenneth Clarke <kclarke5@[removed]; ]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 11:30:01 -0400
From: Kubelski@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Petrillo in Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal ran a feature story on the 1942-44 musician's strike
led by infamous musician labor leader James Caesar Petrillo on page D10 of
the July 31 edition. The article is not available online without a
subscription to the newspaper. It covers how the music industry lived for
two years without musicians in a work action eerily prescient of the current
Napster wars.
The work of many radio personalities such as Rudy Vallee, Frank Sinatra and
Perry Como are mentioned.
In addition, the article is great background on why Petrillo is mocked so
often in 1940s radio programs. He shut down live performances by musicians
for two years in a battle for royalty rights with record producers! I had an
inkling of his power/influence but I didn't know that.
The coda to the article is priceless, by the way - and I quote it here as
part of a review on accordance with the fair use exception to the copyright
act.
"Sixty years ago the record companies enjoyed a monopoly of that technology.
Petrillo made them pay for it but it was theirs and their alone. Now their
corporate descendants are facing the loss of that monopoly to any adolescent
with a computer, a burner and a color printer. Meanwhile, record-label
executives and people like Cary Sherman, president of the Record Industry
Association of America, are sounding self-righteously aggrieved - in short,
remarkably like Petrillo back in 1942. Technology, it seems, is finally
making management squirm in a way the old union boss, who died in 1984, would
never have imagined but would have loved to see."
Sean Dougherty
Kubelski@[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 12:39:46 -0400
From: Dennis W Crow <DCrow3@[removed];
To: OTR Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: "It Could Be You"
A radio program which I always thought was done locally entitled "It Could
Be You," apparently was produced in different regions of the country
highlighting the importance of safe driving. Several folks from variouis
states were reminiscing about this program recently, and recall it as being
very direct without apology, similar to COPS which we see on TV.
On "It Could Be You," a police officer would be in hot pursuit of an errant
driver. The microphone would follow the officer to contact with the
driver and to whatever conversation they had. Often you heard an arrest,
with the narrator eventually proclaiming, "It Could Be You." This was
gritty, "reality" programming for the late forties and early fifties on
your local radio station, certainly a precursor to the tons of "reality"
shows we have today.
Does anybody else remember "It Could Be You?"
Dennis Crow
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:03:22 -0400
From: "Ron Vickery" <RVICKERY@[removed];
To: "OTR Digest (E-mail)" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Harlow Wilcox
In [removed] Digest V2002 #293, Conrad Binyon indicated he had
worked with Mr. Wilcox (one of my favorite characters on Fibber McGee &
Molly). I have a couple questions about good ol' "Waxy" for Conrad or
anyone else who knew him. First, how well did you know him? Can you
tell us about what he was like off-mike? I would guess he was a gem to
know. Also, is he still around? I heard a commercial for NSP (Northern
States Power, now Excel Energy) up here in MN a few years ago on WCCO
830 AM, and thought the announcer said his name was Harlow Wilcox. His
voice sounded extremly deep, and if this is the same person, his voice
has deepened greatly and has become more gravelly-sounding since his
FM&M days. Was I hearing things, or is this the same gentleman?
Ron
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:04:05 -0400
From: "Brian Johnson" <CHYRONOP@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: OTR baseball owners
When the usually thorough Elizabeth McL waxed about OTR personalities
involved with baseball ownership she committed an error worthy of a
one-hopper through Bill Buckner's legs:
Bing Crosby was a one-third owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Buccos
were often fodder for conversation on Bing's radio shows and a several
mentions on Crosby recordings ("How About You?" from the Clooney duet album
"Fancy Meeting You Here" comes to [removed])
Kathryn related a story in book, "My Life with Bing," about how they were in
Paris during the 1960 World Series between the Pirates and the Yankees. Bing
was listening to game seven in their hotel room on Armed Forces Radio when
the City of Lights went dark. Hotel management provided oil lamps to the
Crosbys and Bing put his on the mantelpiece next to his radio. When Bill
Mazeroski hit the game (and Series) winning home run Bing got so excited he
knocked the lamp onto the floor. Which answers the musical question, is it
possible for someone in Forbes Field to burn down a Paris hotel?
Brj
(Who knows that no matter how much they whine about Jim Rice's absence, the
Big Red Machine was STILL the best team in 1975 and Sox fans KNOW it, too.)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:05:20 -0400
From: chris chandler <chrischandler84@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: B&A/"Keith Fowler"
i don't know who plays the part of the boyfriend, but
the correct date for this show is 11/18/41.
And one other quick trivial note: the real "Keith
Fowler" was a longtime B&A [removed]
chris
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:56:10 -0400
From: chris chandler <chrischandler84@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Australian OMF
Bill Harker asks:
Does anyone have any information on these three radio
programs that were broadcast in Australia in the
1930s and/or 1940s?
One Man's Family (evidently taking place in San
Francisco but an Aussie production);
The Australian OMF actually took place in and around
Sydney, with the various secondary locales adjusted
accordingly ("Sky Ranch" became the "Sky Farm", etc).
There's one surviving recording of the Aussie
[removed] think a chapter of Book 15 (which would
have been aired in America in 1935)...it's alot of fun
to hear different actors in the roles, and they hit
the mark quite nicely. There's no Aussie date for the
episode, but there's some hint it may have been
produced pre-1941.
There was also a New Zealand production of the series
that ran for at least a year, possibly longer; there's
a recording of a 'cast greeting" to Mr. Morse produced
when Hazel, in the story, was just pregnant with the
twins.
Morse, for what it's worth, made a little cottage
industry out of trying to recycle the One Man's Family
saga. He made at least two efforts in America at
producing the scripts over from the beginning, with
different character names ("American Family Saga" and
"The Younger Generation", and three if you count
"Woman In My House"). He also tried this tactic when
it came time to adapt the series for television, with
middling success. However, the original series was
still going strong, and it had become such a
sprawling, complex enterprise that the various
recycling efforts could never measure up, especially
in such thinly-disguised trappings.
CEM had much more success when he tried this same
approach a few years later with "I Love A Mystery",
which had been off the air altogether for a time, and
which didn't have various children, grandchildren,
subplots, and backstory muddling up the picture. Of
course the effort to revive IT using the old scripts
managed to run three years on the Mutual net, while an
effort to revive the thing again one more time in 1954
apparently came to naught.
(It may also be worth pointing out Morse also used
ILAM as a model when adapting OMF to a 15-minute daily
serial in 1950: for its first year in the new format,
it used the ILAM formula of telling one story at a
time, running three-to-six weeks. For whatever
reason, this approach was abandoned in early 1951, and
the series became a much more traditional muddle of
various subplots. I prefer the former style, but
there's no question the change apparently helped the
old girl survive nearly another decade!)
chris
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 14:07:49 -0400
From: "[removed]" <swells@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: OTR Tapes, and Adventures In Research
Some may think this is strange, but I still use open reel as well as CD's.
As matter of fact, while I am typing this, I am recording some Command
Performance [removed]'s to some new Maxell XL II 35-90's. Granted, I will
eventually re-run the discs and record them digitally and restore them, but
I will always have this completely unaltered direct from disc backup tape.
As for the 'Adventures In Research' program, I know I have 100's of these,
but I believe they are still boxed.
Shawn
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 14:10:53 -0400
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Re: A&A and the NAACP continued
On 7/31/02 11:38 AM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:
That generation of
black radio listeners from the thirties and forties were now not a concern of
the naacp as this was tv, not radio, and a new generation was being
addressed.
That's a central point to the whole issue -- by 1950 there were serious
concerns on the part of the Association that they were going to be facing
the same battles in television that they'd been fighting for the past
fifteen years to get more positive images shown in the movies. This was
something of a personal crusade for Walter White, then the Association's
executive secretary, and he was largely responsible for promoting the
A&A-TV campaign in 1951-52. White had little or no interest in radio --
and indeed, it would have been difficult for the Association to condemn
the radio A&A at this late date without looking hypocritical after
ignoring, tolerating or (in the case of certain local branches) endorsing
the program over the previous twenty years.
One of White's 1951 comments is especially notable -- he pointed out that
it wasn't a question of "not having a sense of humor," nor did he have
any objection to dialect comedy as such. His concern was that the
working-class imagery of "Amos 'n' Andy" was going to be established as
the norm for black depictions on television -- what he felt was important
was for there to be a balance: have programs featuring middle-class or
professional-class blacks as well as those showing the working class. "If
there *was* such a balance," he stated, "the comedy could be taken in
stride." That was, in Walter White's own words, the whole point of the
protest.
To their credit, Correll and Gosden had always insisted on portraying a
balance *within* their own programs, especially during the serial era,
but also, to a lesser extent, during the sitcom period -- and even after
CBS took over full creative control, this policy was continued for the TV
series. But that's not what the Association was looking for -- they were
opposed to the idea of *any one program* being offered as the "Negro
Show" in an otherwise all-white world.
When A&A started on radio in 1928 (or 1926, if you count Sam and Henry,)
most whites thought of blacks as entirely a rural Southern group -- and
Correll and Gosden's program was the first major force in popular culture
to acknowledge the existance of cohesive African-American communities,
with elaborate social-class structures, in the industrial North. Gosden
patterned the basic structure of the community depicted in A&A after
Jackson Ward in Richmond, the commercial and cultural capital of the
black Southeast during the early years of the 20th Century -- and he knew
that community firsthand, having grown up literally straddling the border
between Richmond's white and black sections. (Gosden's first job, in
fact, was at a drugstore in the heart of Jackson Ward.) There were
real-life Kingfishes in this neighborhood -- but there were also
real-life Mr. Taylors, and the A&A serial was unique for its time in that
the full range of the social-class spectrum played a role in the drama.
The focus was on the working-class -- not just because that's what most
black Americans were in 1928, it's what most Americans *period* were in
1928 -- but there was also an explicit acknowledgement that black
Americans could and did achieve more where there were opportunities to do
so.
What *should* have happened in radio and television was that other
programs should have picked up on the breakthru established by Correll
and Gosden in the late twenties -- and followed their example in the
depiction of a wider range of black characters dealing with everyday
problems. But because of a combination of cultural inertia and sponsor
and network timidity, that didn't happen -- instead you got Molasses and
January, Honeyboy and Sassafrass, Slo and Ezy, Rastus, Rochester, Silly
Watson, Washington Lincoln Jefferson Lee, Calliope, Gardenia, Aunt
Jemima, Beulah, and Birdie. Small wonder that by 1950 the NAACP felt that
it was high time a point was made, with the emergence of television
offering them an opportunity to do so, and the A&A TV series offering a
conspicuous target.
The real tragedy of the A&A story is that no one program, no matter how
well-intentioned its creators, can ever carry or should be *expected* to
carry the burden of representing an entire race -- and to pigeonhole the
1951 protest as "a protest against Amos 'n' Andy" lets the rest of the
broadcasting industry off the hook way too easily. The widespread
acceptance of Amos and his family as positive-role-model characters by
whites and blacks alike in the 1930s should have given broadcasters
courage to experiment with taking such characterizations to the next
level. But they didn't -- until the Government literally pressured them
into doing so for the sake of wartime unity. Perhaps those who *deserve*
to be condemned in discussions of racial images in broadcasting are the
hundreds of radio and TV scriptwriters, producers, directors, network
executives and sponsors who could have walked thru the door Correll and
Gosden opened and taken their innovations even further -- but found
excuses not to.
Elizabeth
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 14:12:24 -0400
From: GOpp@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Austin "Pete" Peterson
Sue Chadwick just sent me a copy of Austin ("Pete") Peterson's
fascinating book, "Television is a Young Man's Game. I'm 94. Why Didn't
Somebody Tell Me? - 67 Years in the Radio and Television Jungles and No
Tarzan in Sight".
Pete was the sound effects man at KFRC Radio in San Francisco when my dad
(Jess Oppenheimer) got his start there in the mid thirties. Pat Weaver
was running the place at the time -- as part of the Don Lee-Columbia
Network. Pete and Dad both came to Hollywood in 1936, and ended up
writing Fred Astaire's radio show together.
Anyway, I was laughing so hard at some of Pete's KFRC stories that I had
to share a bit with the Digest:
"Jess loved to play around with my sound effects records. One day, after
a rehearsal for a dramatic program, I left the needle on a canary bird
chirping. While I was out on a break, Jess came into the booth and
changed the sound track from the canary bird to a shotgun blast. At dress
rehearsal, the leading lady opened the door to the garden and was met by
a shotgun blast. The producer almost had a stroke."
"I became a ham at working my sound effects in front of an audience. I
would always add six or seven effects to every act just to hear the
laughs. One night I got the scare of my life. My sound effects gun was a
.38 caliber pistol. It made so much noise it would have knocked us off
the air if I had fired it in the studio. I had to open the front door and
fire it off into the empty lobby."
"One night I had a lot of efffects winding up with the gunshot. The cue
came up and I flung open the door and there, standing in front of me, was
a little old white haired lady with a smile on her face and a ticket in
her hand. She had come late and was waiting for someone to open the door
so she could come in. I heard the cue. The show must go on! I grabbed her
head, pulled it against my chest and fired my gun over her shoulder and
then quickly shut the door.
When the sketch was over, I cautiously opened the door, expecting to pick
the poor soul up off the floor. But no! She was still standing there with
a smile on her face and the ticket still in her hand. It turned out she
was stone deaf and thought I was a very affectionate ticket taker.
###
Pete's book is available for purchase or online browsing at
[removed]
- Gregg Oppenheimer
[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 14:16:02 -0400
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Re: TV Guide
On 7/31/02 11:38 AM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:
TV Guide
has damaged its credibility (however marginal it was to begin with) and
authority through these dubious listings.
TV Guide's credibility disappeared the day the Annenberg family sold it
to dross-merchant Rupert Murdoch, and if possible it's gotten even worse
in the years since. It's genuinely sad to remember a day when TVG was one
of America's great magazines -- publishing serious and insightful
journalism week after week. Even their celebrity fluff pieces were done
with dignity and class. But no longer. (In a way it paralells what
happened when Radio Guide became "Movie Radio Guide," shortly after Moe
Annenberg went to prison for tax [removed])
I'd suggest that anyone who wants to get a solid grounding in what
serious media journalism should be like should get hold of as many 1960s
and 1970s issues of TVG as possible and read the articles and criticism
closely and carefully. I guarantee you'll learn more from that exercise
than you ever will in any Media Studies class. About all you'll learn
from today's TVG, on the other hand, is that "Hip Edgy Irreverence" is a
euphemism for "We don't have the slightest idea what we're talking about,
but we know you chumps will buy four copies of the same issue just for
the cover."
End of rant.
Elizabeth
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 14:22:21 -0400
From: "Gerber, Barry" <bg@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Sleeping to OTR the MP3 Route
Mike Thompson writes:
I wonder if anybody on this list listens to OTR the way I do. Most nights,
I find to OTR going to sleep at night. I pop a >cassette in my Walkman and
go to sleep. I find it helps get my mind off the troubles of the day.
I also fall asleep to OTR. I've perfected doing it using MP3 files. I set
my Sony DCJ500 CD-MP3 Walkman to play one file (one show) and then shut
itself off. That way if I fall asleep, I don't have to worry about the
player going on all night playing all 138 shows on an MP3 CD. If I awaken
during the night, I can restart the file I was listening to just by pressing
the Play button and then hold down the Play button to fast forward (with
sound preview) to where I left of when I fell asleep. Very quick and
efficient. Another neat thing is that the player only rotates the CD when
it needs to pickup some more of the MP3 file. That is a real battery saver
(if you don't use an AC adapter) and eliminates the distracting mechanical
noises you get with tape players. The DCJ500 is perfect for OTR because it
plays MP3 files recorded at very low frequencies, which is how most OTR MP3
files are recorded. The sound is great. You don't need CD-quality sound
for OTR. The DCJ500 can be hooked up to a stereo or powered speakers for
non-earphone listening. The DCJ500 sells for $100. Just for the record, I
don't use the headphones that come with the player. Instead, I use the
little single earphone that they sell at Radio Shack. The ones that have
been around since the first transistor radios. They're unobtrusive and let
you sleep in almost any position.
Barry
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 14:49:03 -0400
From: knight555@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Lone Ranger
This might be a little off otr subject, but we just got digital cable and
found that the Lone Ranger old tv show from the 50's (actually it had a
1949 copyright) is showing on Encore Westerns at 7pm EST. We just saw
"Lone Ranger gets Silver" so I don't know if they just started the run or
if they're recycling the series. Thought some Lone Ranger fans might be
interested , since we didn't see a tv schedule listed anywhere for it. MJ
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 15:48:12 -0400
From: Kenneth Clarke <kclarke5@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Amos n Andy Christmas Show
I remember hearing the 30 minute Amos n Andy Christmas
show on Christmas Eve, 2001. I was returning home from our
family Christmas at my Grandmother's home in Ft. Worth. I'd
never heard it before, and listened to it with a completely open mind.
I can honestly say it had one of the best stories I've ever
heard.
It had a very simple, heartfelt message and it's those types of messages
which fit the Christmas season! When Amos explains Christmas to his
daughter Arbodella, it was done honestly. I appreciate that.
If there are listeners out there who disagree with me and all
the
others who happen to like this episode, so be it. As far as I'm
concerned,
however, we need some positive messages these days to combat the
negative messages, some of them rather subliminal (but just as impactful)
which bombard our everyday lives. If it's necessary to get such
a relief from OTR, then why not?
One of my main reasons for listening to OTR is as a respite
from
the increasing difficulties of everyday life for 30 to 60 minutes.
Kenneth Clarke
--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2002 Issue #296
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