Subject: [removed] Digest V2008 #136
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 5/29/2008 8:10 AM
To: [removed]@[removed]
Reply-to:
[removed]@[removed]

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2008 : Issue 136
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                             [removed]
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Earth Station 1                       [ <radioaz@[removed]; ]
  Suspense character name               [ <radioaz@[removed]; ]
  Wallace Wimple and the family of Bil  [ <otrbuff@[removed]; ]
  Raymond Chandler Radio                [ Martin Fass <watchstop@frontiernet. ]
  Erwin of the Artic                    [ "B. J. Watkins" <kinseyfan@hotmail. ]
  5-29 births/deaths                    [ Ronald Sayles <bogusotr@[removed] ]
  James Bond                            [ "Leslie Feagan" <lfeagan@[removed] ]

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

Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 10:03:52 -0400
From: <radioaz@[removed];
To: "OTR Digest" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Earth Station 1

Several weeks ago someone posted information about this company because they
had available the TV movie about War of the Worlds, as well as several OTR
discs.

I find it interesting that nowhere on their website do they have a way to
contact them with questions and problems.  I ordered a couple of items from
them and when they arrived one of the discs was damaged.  But I have no idea
how to reach them to resolve this.  Am I missing on their website (
[removed];Store_Code=E )?
Does anyone know how to actually reach these people?

Thanks.

Ted

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

Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 10:03:22 -0400
From: <radioaz@[removed];
To: "OTR Digest" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Suspense character name

Sometimes words do not come out clearly in recordings of radio shows.  Case
in point:  I am listening to the Suspense episode from May 24, 1954 called
"Weekedn Special:  Death."  Agnes Moorehead starred.  At the beginning there
are two characters.  One is Lee Stanley, an attorney.  The other is a
police Lieutenant.  But I can't make out his name.  Anyone know?  It may be
that his first name is Franz, but not sure.

Thanks for any help.

Ted

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

Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 12:01:46 -0400
From: <otrbuff@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Wallace Wimple and the family of Bill Thompson
 characters

Alan Bell writes:

One of the answers given for the quiz states that Mel
Blanc supplied the voice for Wallace Wimple on FM&M.
Say [removed] Does that mean he did the voice at some
time, even though he wasn't the usual voice actor
(whose name escapes me at the moment)?

Adapting from my recently released "The Great Radio Sitcoms"
([removed])....

Possibly the most versatile dialectician on the show was the first
supporting cast member to be permanently added to the Fibber McGee & Molly
roster, voice actor William H. (Bill) Thompson, Jr.  Over a transitory span
he acquired a working knowledge of 19 foreign languages while specializing
in animal sounds as well, his obituary in The New York Times acknowledged.
Born to a couple of vaudevillians on July 8, 1913 at Terre Haute, Indiana,
he exhibited a talent for mimicry early:  at age two he made his first
professional appearance on stage and at five he performed regularly with his
parents.

In high school in Chicago he wrote and directed plays and organized theater
clubs.  He submitted a sketch for an NBC competition that drew 5,000
entrants during the Chicago Century of Progress World's Fair Exhibition in
1933.  After performing it like a veteran with its 10 dialects, within a
week-at 20-he was on the ether in a National Farm and Home Hour skit.  Soon
Thompson was singing with a choral group on The Sinclair Wiener Minstrels on
NBC Blue.  By 1934 he was a regular on Don McNeill's daily feature The
Breakfast Club on the same web.  On some occasions with McNeill, Thompson
initiated a meek, mush-mouthed figure which had a strong bearing on "Mr.
Wimple" a few years later.  It was the start of something grand.  By 1936 he
performed on McNeill's Saturday NBC program Jamboree.  In the meantime the
versatile artist provided the voice of Snifter, the Talking Dog on Morey
Amsterdam's fleeting Night Club program in 1937 while impersonating a parrot
on The Story of Mary Marlin, a daytime serial.

On January 27, 1936, in his first appearance on Fibber McGee & Molly,
Thompson introduced a character with a heavy Greek accent that he had been
impersonating on a local program, The Hoffinghams, over WENR.  When he
applied the dialect on FM&M the audience reacted in "hysterics," according
to a reporter.  Thompson returned the following week as an Irish policeman,
hinting at the diversity of his voice abilities.  He was quickly hired as an
ongoing member of the cast and soon trotted out characters like the Greek
Nick DePopolous, a W. C. Fields-sounding Horatio K. Boomer, Scotsman Angus
MacPerson MacKenzie MacTavish, Russian Nikolas Andreviev Alexandrovitch
Ivanoffsky Smikelovna and more.  In Thompson's vast repertoire, however,
there were two that stood head-and-shoulders above all the others, both of
which persisted to the end of the half-hour run:  Mr. Old-Timer, who was
sometimes referred to as The Old-Timer; and a rejuvenated Wallace Wimple.

Mr. Old-Timer, whose real name was Rupert Blasingame, usually saluted the
McGees with "Hey there, Johnny!" and "Hello there, daughter!"  The feisty
codger frequently worked his mama and papa and his gal, Bessie, into his
rapid-fire spiel.  McGee would make an observation, usually a flat
statement, in which he expressed an opinion or put a spin on a given issue
only to have the Old-Timer chortle:  "Well, that's purty good, Johnny.  But
that ain't the way I heeee-rrrrd it!  The way I heeee-rrrrd it, one feller
sez ta t'other feller, sez . Saaayyy, he sez ." and then trail off,
completing his thought.  His expression "Well, that's purty good, Johnny"
and the phrase that followed became one of many slogans to reach beyond the
confines of the show.  It even surfaced in the Warner Brothers cartoon
Tortoise Wins by a Hare.  Bugs Bunny disguised himself as a bearded old man
and reprised portions of the hallmark expression while trying to trick the
turtle into revealing how he beat the rabbit.  Furthermore, Thompson's
Old-Timer has been favorably compared to Parker Fennelly's Titus Moody, a
resident of Fred Allen's infamous "Alley."

The other celebrated Thompson characterization, Wallace Wimple, was brought
out of mothballs to make his first appearance on FM&M on April 15, 1941.  It
was probably the most memorable of all the voices beyond those of the dual
stars.  A mild-mannered Wimple addressed the McGees with a down-in-the-mouth
"Hello, folks!"  The terribly hen-pecked spouse poked fun at his "big old
fat wife, Sweetie Face" with given name Cornelia.  He lived in fear of this
woman, yet chortled mercilessly over what he'd like to do to her to
retaliate for her brow-beating him.  None of it did he ever do, of course,
except in his dreams.

His hobby was bird-watching and he often carried his "Bird Book"
(emphasizing the B's as he said it) to identify the varieties he witnessed.
In dialogue with others-when he liked something he heard-he responded
gleefully, "Oh, that's just peachy," as the studio audience erupted into
rowdy, foot-stomping convulsion.

Animation film director Tex Avery created a canine figure named Droopy Dog
around the Wallace Wimple inflection which appeared regularly on cinematic
cartoon screens.  Thompson supplied the voice-overs.  It all came to a
screeching halt, however, including his appearances on FM&M, when he was
summoned to war by Uncle Sam.  He served in the Navy from 1943-46, then
resumed his radio work while expanding his voice-over career in movies and
television.  Thompson subsequently turned up on The Edgar Bergen and Charlie
McCarthy Show as a guest lecturer and appeared several times on The CBS
Radio Workshop.  In the movies he impersonated the Dodo and the White Rabbit
in Alice in Wonderland and the pirate Mr. Smee in Peter Pan, reprising those
roles in radio adaptations on Lux Radio Theater.

In 1956 in Lady and the Tramp he delivered five dialects in a single film:
Jock the Scottish terrier, Bull the Cockney bulldog, Dachsie the German
dachshund, Joe the Italian chef and an Irish policeman in the park.  He was
Ranger J. Audubon Woodlore in multiple Donald Duck and Humphrey the Bear
shorts and Professor Owl in a couple of musical shorts, including the
Academy Award winning Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom.  He recreated both roles
in Walt Disney's varied TV series and in 1967 was the first thespian to
voice the comic book namesake character in the movie short Scrooge McDuck
and Money.  There were many similar ventures.

In 1957 Thompson became an executive in community relations for the Union
Oil Corporation in Los Angeles.  He continued doing limited work in
animation, playing King Hubert in 1959's Sleeping Beauty and Touche Turtle
on TV's Touche Turtle and Dum Dum.  His last role, Uncle Waldo in 1970's The
Aristocrats, was released shortly before he succumbed to a heart attack on
July 15, 1971.  Thompson was 58, hardly old enough to qualify as Horatio K.
Boomer, Mr. Old-Timer, Wallace Wimple and additional voices that made him a
joy to hear.

Jim Cox

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

Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 15:06:18 -0400
From: Martin Fass <watchstop@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Raymond Chandler Radio
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

This message is sent with the hope that someone has an audio cassette
of the pilot program produced by Fletcher Markle at KUSC in the
seventies or eighties for a series of Raymond Chandler dramas.  The
one hour pilot was "Red Wind" with Richard Widmark.  Thank you to
anyone who might have that tape available.

Martin Fass

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

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

Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 21:05:11 -0400
From: "B. J. Watkins" <kinseyfan@[removed];
To: oldtimeradio Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Erwin of the Artic

Hi,

Does anyone have any information on a 15-minute show called Erwin of the
Artic (Arctic)? There's one show from the series posted at [removed]   Was
it an audition show? When was it recorded or broadcast? Audio Classics lists
two shows, programs 1 and 2.  Was there a real person named Dave Erwin, who
at age 22 crossed 3,600 miles across the frozen waste with just his dog sled?

Thanks,
Barbara

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

Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 22:17:14 -0400
From: Ronald Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio Digest Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  5-29 births/deaths

May 29th births

05-29-1874 - G. K. Chesterton - London, England - d. 6-14-1936
creator: "Advs. of Father Brown"
05-29-1883 - Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe - Canada - d. 6-2-1943
doctor who attended Dionne quintuplets birth: "Edgar Bergen/Charlie
McCarthy Show"
05-29-1892 - Mario Chamlee - Los Angeles, CA - d. 11-13-1966
singer: Tony "Tony and Gus"; "Arco Birthday Party"; "Swift Garden Party"
05-29-1894 - Beatrice Lillie - Toronto, Canada - d. 1-20-1989
commedienne: "Beatrice Lillie Show"
05-29-1897 - Erich Wolfgang Korngold - Brno, Czechoslovakia - d.
11-29-1957
"composer: "Contemporary Composers Concerts"; "Railroad Hour"
05-29-1897 - F. Hugh Herbert - Vienna, Austria - d. 5-17-1958
writer: "Meet Corliss Archer"; "Lux Radio Theatre"
05-29-1899 - Don Brodie - Cincinnati, OH - d. 1-8-2001
grouch: "The Grouch Club"
05-29-1902 - Dr. Harry Hagen - New Haven, CT - d. unknown
emcee: "True or False"; "Bob Emery's Show"
05-29-1903 - Bob Hope - Eltham, England - d. 7-27-2003
actor, comedian: Taxpayer "Quick and the Dead"; "Bob Hope Show"
05-29-1904 - Saxie Dowell - Raleigh, NC - d. 7-22-1974
saxophonist, vocalist: (Hal Kemp Orchestra) "Music from Hollywood"
05-29-1909 - Bruce Seton - Simla, India - d. 9-27-1969
actor: Flint "Flint of the Flying Squad"
05-29-1909 - Dick Stabile - Newark, NJ - d. 9-25-1980
bandleader: "Martin and Lewis Show"
05-29-1909 - Mary Jane Higby - St. Louis, MO - d. 2-1-1986
actor: Joan Davis "When a Girl Marries"; Nora Drake "This is Nora Drake"
05-29-1909 - Oliver Wakefield - Mahlabitini, South Africa - d. 6-30-1956
comedian: "The Chesterfield Program"; "Fox Fur Trappers"
05-29-1911 - Vivi Janiss - Nebraska - d. 9-7-1988
actor: (Married to John Larch) Kit Calvert "Aunt Mary"
05-29-1913 - Iris Adrian - Los Angeles, CA - d. 9-17-1994
actor: Abbott and Costello Show"
05-29-1914 - Grace McCarthy - Chapman, KS
singer: (Doring Sisters) "Contented Hour"
05-29-1914 - Stacy Keach, Sr. - Milwaukee, WI - d. 2-13-2003
producer-director: "Tales of the Texas Rangers"
05-29-1916 - Forrest Perrin - d. 5-27-2005
host: "Piano Playhouse"
05-29-1917 - John F. Kennedy - Brookline, MA - d. 11-22-1963
[removed] president: "Kennedy-Nixon Debates"; "American Forum of the Air"
05-29-1918 - Herb Shriner - Toledo, OH - d. 2-24-1970
comedian: "Camel Comedy Caravan"; "Herb Shriner Time"
05-29-1918 - Isabel Dean - Aldridge, England - d. 7-27-1997
actor: "The Long Shadow"; "No Name"; "Paul Temple and the Spencer
Affair"
05-29-1918 - Kay Lorraine - St. Louis, MO
singer: "Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street"
05-29-1919 - Carol Batdorf - d. 2-7-1995
woman's program on KVOS Bellingham, Washington
05-29-1923 - Winifred Wolfe - San Francisco, CA - d. 10-27-1981
writer: "Cloak and Dagger"
05-29-1924 - Bob Corley - Macon, GA - d. 11-18-1971
actor: Beulah "Beulah"
05-29-1932 - Marilyn Borden - Hartford, CT
singer: (Borden Twins) "The Kiddies Hour"
05-29-1932 - Rosalyn Borden - Hartford, CT - d. 1-23-2003
singer: (Borden Twins) "The Kiddies Hour"
05-29-1936 - Arlene McQuade - NYC
actor: Rosalie Goldberg "The Goldbergs"
05-29-1937 - Misora Hibari - Yokohama, Japan - d. 6-24-1989
enka singer: "Kohaku Utagassen"

May 29th deaths

02-15-1882 - John Barrymore - Philadelphia, PA - d. 5-29-1942
actor: (The Great Profile) "Streamlined Shakespeare"; "Rudy Vallee Show"
03-02-1902 - Moe Berg - NYC - d. 5-29-1972
major league baseball player, world war 2 spy: "Information, Please"
03-05-1892 - Paul Wing - Sandwich, MA - d. 5-29-1957
actor/emcee: "The Story Man"; "Uncle Toddy"; "Youth vs. Age"
03-12-1912 - Henry Gibson - NYC - d. 5-29-2003
writer: "Junior Miss"
03-18-1911 - Rex Koury - London, England - d. 5-29-2006
orgainst, composere: "Gunsmoke"; "Abbott and Costello's Kid Show"
03-21-1912 - Henry Gibson - NYC - d. 5-29-2003
director, writer: "Burns and Allen"; "Junior Miss"
04-09-1892 - Mary Pickford - Toronto, Canada - d. 5-29-1979
actor: "Mary Pickford Dramas"; "Parties at Pickfair"
05-10-1911 - Lee Sullivan - NYC - d. 5-29-1981
singer: "Vest Pocket Varieties"; "Serenade to America"
06-19-1865 - May Whitty - Liverpool, England - d. 5-29-1948
actor: "Lux Radio Theatre"
06-30-1891 - Man Mountain Dean - NYC - d. 5-29-1953
professional wrestler: "Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show"
07-31-1913 - Brook Byron - Weakly County, TN - d. 5-29-2006
actor: "Top Secret"; "Suspense"
08-15-1907 - Margaret Brayton - d. 5-29-1992
actor: "Burns and Allen"; "Lux Radio Theatre"
08-18-1914 - Perry Ward - Tulsa, OK - d. 5-29-1989
announcer, emcee: "Duffy's Tavern"; "Scramby Amby"
08-30-1901 - John Gunther - Chicago, IL - d. 5-29-1970
writer: "Information, Please";"America's Town Meeting of the Air";
"Royal Gelatin Hour"
10-04-1897 - Frederick Chase Taylor - Buffalo, NY - d. 5-29-1950
comedian: Lemuel Q. Stoopnagel "Duffy's Tavern, Quixie Doodles,
Stoopnagel and Budd"
10-10-1926 - Oscar Brown, Jr. - Chicago, IL - d. 5-29-2005
singer: "Destination Freedom"
10-29-1891 - Fanny Brice - NYC - d. 5-29-1951
comedienne: Baby Snooks Higgins, "Baby Snooks"
11-10-1919 - George Fenneman - Peking, China - d. 5-29-1997
announcer, actor: "You Bet Your Life"; "Dragnet"; Buzz "I Fly Anything"
11-18-1836 - William S. Gilbert - London, England - d. 5-29-1911
composer: (Gilbert and Sullivan) "The Railroad Hour"

Ron Sayles
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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

Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 10:10:08 -0400
From: "Leslie Feagan" <lfeagan@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  James Bond

Bond has had many famous incarnations on the big screen, but, prior to
these, he was first played on the radio by British actor and game show host
Bob Holness.

Does anyone know if this is available for download on the internet or for
purchase elsewhere?
Love,
Leslie Feagan

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2008 Issue #136
*********************************************

Copyright [removed] Communications, York, PA; All Rights Reserved,
  including republication in any form.

If you enjoy this list, please consider financially supporting it:
   [removed]

For Help: [removed]@[removed]

To Unsubscribe: [removed]@[removed]

To Subscribe: [removed]@[removed]
  or see [removed]

For Help with the Archive Server, send the command ARCHIVE HELP
  in the SUBJECT of a message to [removed]@[removed]

To contact the listmaster, mail to listmaster@[removed]

To Send Mail to the list, simply send to [removed]@[removed]