------------------------------
The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2004 : Issue 104
A Part of the [removed]!
[removed]
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
More Half-Hour Considerations [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
Re: A&A's 1932 Decline [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
Gun smoke: [ "Bob and Carol Taylor" <shadowcole@ ]
Last Place in USA to Get Television [ "George Tirebiter" <tirebiter2@hotm ]
Milton Berle's popularity [ "Alain Altounian" <[removed]@[removed] ]
Not Bad for a Badenov - Paul Frees [ Conrad Binyon <conradab@[removed] ]
1960's+ radio [ "[removed]" <asajb2000@ ]
Great Radio Heroes [ "Jim Harmon" <jimharmonotr@charter. ]
This week in radio history [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
5 Keys musical group/weird combo of [ "Tim Hughes" <rekokut@[removed]; ]
turntables for 17" discs and up [ "Tim Hughes" <rekokut@[removed]; ]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 15:55:18 -0500
From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: More Half-Hour Considerations
Jim Harmon, commenting on my story about a half-hour episode of Captain
Midnight where a fake Chuck Ramsay was unaware that the new Secret
Squadron identifier was a transfer that had been ironed onto Chuck's
handkerchief, notes,
I may have heard the half-hour CM once in awhile. It does sound pretty bad.
In that adventure, it was rather ... mentally disquieting. For Chuck to
retain the membership-ID handkerchief, he claimed to have the beginnings
of a cold, and blew his nose into it. As the membership ID had a
portrait of Captain Midnight on it, it meant that his nasal output
covered the likeness of the Secret Squadron leader. This image bothered
me when I first heard it.
One of these half-hour adventures, "The Flying Ruby," is in general
circulation. Who the guilty party is becomes clear fairly early in the
story, even though it takes a while for the Squadron members to figure it
out. Contrast that with any of the 15-minute shows, and the differences
are glaring. Even the vocabulary is lowered.
My contact at Ovaltine, Lyle Bergmann, indicated that throughout the
15-minute serial run of the show, about 49 percent of the audience was
composed of adults, an extremely large minority.
My favorite after Mix was Sky King. It may have been "juvenile" but it
sure moved, and was exciting.
It was far less juvenile than the half-hour Captain Midnights. The
half-hour Sky King shows, as I reflect upon them, were aimed at about a
middle-school audience. The half-hour Captain Midnights seemed to be
aimed at gradeschoolers.
Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 16:40:14 -0500
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Re: A&A's 1932 Decline
On 3/20/04 3:55 PM [removed]@[removed] wrote:
I found this very surprising, with the legendary stories of EVERYONE
listening to Amos n Andy, stores closing down for it, theatres stopping the
movie, etc. However, it seems like their heyday was over by 1932, although
their ratings are still respectable while not tops. So with all the talk
about communal watching of Milton Berle, it makes me wonder if something
similar was happening with Amos n Andy.
The faddishness which had surrounded A&A during 1930-31 cooled off
considerably during 1932 -- in part because every fad runs its course,
and in part because the storylines themselves were not as compelling
during 1932 as they had been over the previous two years.
1931 had been an extraordinary year for A&A in terms of storyline: the
year started off with the Madam Queen breach-of-promise suit, which ran
for thirteen weeks. Then, in April and May, Ruby Taylor came down with
pneumonia and nearly died. And, after a quiet summer, the fall saw
another intensely-dramatic sequence -- the Jack Dixon Affair, which ran
for thirteen weeks, and included Amos being beaten senseless -- on mike
-- by the villain of the piece, and then charged with first-degree murder
when said villain was found shot to death on the banks of the Harlem
River. (Of course, things worked out all right when the murder charge was
revealed, two days before Christmas, to have been nothing but a very bad
dream.) In terms of whipping their audience to a high pitch of
excitement, Correll and Gosden set a pace for themselves during 1931 that
no other writer/performers would ever equal -- and, indeed, they couldn't
keep up that pace themselves.
1932, by contrast, tended to wander story-wise. The big storyline for the
first quarter of the year was Andy's career as a professional wrestler,
which had its amusing moments, but never approached the intensity of the
events of 1931. Then there was a brief sequence in the spring in which
Amos, Andy, the Kingfish, and Madam Queen opened a weight-loss spa -- and
that storyline simply fizzled out when Correll and Gosden couldn't figure
out where to go with it. This gave way to the story of Lula-May, a baby
found abandoned in the back of the Fresh Air Taxicab, and Amos's search
for her real mother -- a sequence which had potential, but never seemed
to fully achieve it. And then in June, Amos, Andy and Brother Crawford
made a big mistake business-wise by closing down their successful lunch
room and going in partnership with the Kingfish and Pop Johnson to open
the Okey Hotel.
This was the most radical change in the series since the characters moved
from Chicago to New York -- and suggests that Correll and Gosden were
hoping a new setting would inspire new ideas. The hotel idea started off
interesting, but the taxicab company and lunch room had become so
well-established in the continuity that it didn't quite seem like "Amos
'n' Andy" without them. And once they had established the hotel, Correll
and Gosden seemed unsure about where to go from there - the program began
to feel a bit too much like "The Nebbs," a popular comic strip of the era
that had a similar hotel setting.
What all of these 1932 sequences were missing was a strong hook: a
powerful adversarial character or a sense of real danger for the lead
characters. Simply put, there wasn't enough dramatic conflict thru most
of 1932 to create the sort of attention-grabbing suspense that had been
the hallmark of the program during 1931. Correll and Gosden themselves
eventually realized what was wrong -- and by the end of 1932 they
realized what was wrong and began to get the program back on track: much
of November and December of 1932 was taken up by the "Clifton Mills
Affair," in which Mr. Taylor began to think that Amos would never be able
to provide for his daughter -- and asked him to step aside in favor of
his new business partner, an up-and-coming young achiever. Amos learned
that Mills was actually cheating Taylor -- but was afraid that if he
revealed what he knew, Taylor would think he was acting out of spite and
wouldn't believe him. No sooner had this sequence finally been resolved
than the obnoxious Frederick Montgomery Gwindell was put in charge of the
Okey Hotel -- sparking a seven-month-long storyline that would eventually
drive the hotel out of business and land Andy in court again. This
storyline caused a dramatic rebound in the program's rating which
continued thru the end of 1933.
Granted, chances were probably greater that people were able to make their
own radios during the 1920s with wire around the Quaker Oats box and the
aerial hooked to the radiator, while few people were making their own
television sets. Also, I have some beautiful commercial radios made in
the 1924-1927 range, so the proliferation of sets may have been greater
than the proliferation of TVs at Berle's time. But a) how much did
Amos n Andy contribute to the sale of radio sets, and b) how much communal
listening of AnA took place, with the stories of stopping the movie for it,
[removed]
There's always been a lot of talk that people bought radios during 1930
in order to listen to A&A, but I think that a lot of other factors were
equally responsible -- not the least of which was the introduction of
cheap table-model radios available on Easy Credit Terms. This factor made
factory-made radios available to working-class people for the first time,
and made it much easier for those who were inclined to own sets to
purchase them. There is, however, no way to positively document the
various anecdotal claims that A&A increased radio sales.
Communal listening to A&A peaked in the late winter and early spring of
1930, during the "Great Home Bank" storyline. During February 1930, a
theatre owner in Washington DC introduced the idea of broadcasting each
night's episode of A&A over the sound system prior to the start of the
7pm show, and this idea caught on among theatre owners along the East
Coast. However, NBC's legal department put a stop to this practice during
April, contending that it was a violation of Correll and Gosden's
copyrights to charge admission to hear the broadcasts. So even though
this practice has become part of OTR folklore, it actually only existed
during a very narrow window of time.
More casual sorts of communal listening were common in working-class
urban neighborhoods, where radio ownership was rare, with radios in
restaurants, drug stores, poolrooms, barber shops, and other gathering
places attracting groups of people for the nightly episodes. In one of
the most interesting examples of this, a series of outdoor loudspeakers
were installed along Atlantic City's Steel Pier during the summer of 1930
for the specific purpose of making "Amos 'n' Andy" available to
early-evening patrons. During the Jack Dixon storyline in late 1931, it
became common for department stores in the East to patch the broadcast
into their public address systems for the convenience of Christmas
shoppers.
There is also evidence that "Amos 'n' Andy"-themed dinner parties became
a fad during the Breach of Promise storyline in early 1931, with guests
gathering for a meal and conversation, built around listening to the
nightly episode. In some case, party guests might be invited to assume
the roles of the various A&A characters for the evening, or the dinner
menu might be planned to simulate the fare served at A&A's lunchroom.
This type of activity, however, was confined for the most part to the
"fad" period of 1930-31. By the mid-1930s, A&A had assumed a place in the
national mind which one commentator likened to "the old clock on the
stairway -- we might not pay attention to it all the time, but we always
know it's there."
Elizabeth
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 18:33:39 -0500
From: "Bob and Carol Taylor" <shadowcole@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Gun smoke:
I have a good deal of the gun smoke shows and I am wondering, who is John?
I hear him say good morning to Mat and I wonder if he, John that is is
played by the same person. Is he a bum? Is a book available on the history
of the radio show?
Have a good weekend.
Bob Taylor
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 18:35:11 -0500
From: "George Tirebiter" <tirebiter2@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Last Place in USA to Get Television
Hello All,
I have a memory of seeing a report on some news program in the 1970s (or
possbly very late 60s) about some isolated valley community somewhere that
was out of the reach of the signals of all TV stations most of the time, but
that when an airliner flew overhead everyone with a TV set would rush to
turn it on because the plane would reflect the signal from one station and
it would be possible to watch for 2 or 3 minutes. This was presented as a
serious story, not as a joke, but I don't know if it was a hoax or not. Is
this even technically a possibility?
George
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 18:35:30 -0500
From: "Alain Altounian" <[removed]@[removed];
To: "Old. Time. Radio" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Milton Berle's popularity
Caveat: I grew up in the late 60's-70's(Smothers Brothers and Laugh-in were
the household variety shows of choice)..and in Canada, and w/o stats to
back-up my personal [removed] comments;
Uncle Milty was very well known--but didn't seem to be well-liked by anyone.
Jackie Gleason was well known and seemed to have a luv-him or indifferent
perception.
Jack Benny was very well know (like Berle in this pre-niche market, this
meant virtually everyone), and widely liked.
I don't remember Sid Caesar (sp?) even being mentioned.
Alain
PS. Then again, i never knew that "dramatic radio" existed before 1995!
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 18:38:06 -0500
From: Conrad Binyon <conradab@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Not Bad for a Badenov - Paul Frees
--- [removed]@[removed] wrote about:
Ben Ohmart's book on Paul Frees being shipped to those
who've ordered same from Ben. I remember Paul as one
of the actors I'd often see between jobs in the lobby
of CBS Knx Studios on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. It
never occurred to me how lucky those sightings must
have been given how prolific the body of Paul's work.
It was only until later, after my entrance into the
[removed] Air Force and subsequent stationing in the SoCal
area when and to where I'd returned and in a visit
Disneyland I'd hear his voice all over the park. [removed]
as Ben's book title reveals, Paul's is the voice of
the Haunted Mansion, as well as the pirate head over
the water slide down into the Pirates of the
Carribbean, not to mention that of Boris Badenov on
the Bullwinkle [removed] Paul also did a marvelous
Orson Welles impression. You can also see Paul as Dr.
Voorhees in the 1951 film "The Thing from Another
World."
I remember Paul as a guest on Johnny Carson's Tonight
show where it was quite impossible to get across to
the viewers how much they'd already unbeknowst had
heard from him given his many voiceovers and
presentations.
For a poorman's rundown on the body of work Paul Frees
chalked up during his career link onto the following:
[removed]#guest-appearances.
The sound of Paul Frees is everywhere.
CAB
=====
---
conradab@[removed] (Conrad A. Binyon)
Encino, CA
Home of the Stars who loved Ranches and Farms
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 20:04:46 -0500
From: "[removed]" <asajb2000@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: 1960's+ radio
Theater Five was another show that began (and ended) in the 1960's on ABC
and as far as I know was sustained. It aired in the mid 1960's I believe.
Then of course there's Zero Hour later in the 1970's. General Mills Radio
Theater (Was there also a Sears Radio Theater about 1970-1980?)
Andy B
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 20:40:25 -0500
From: "Jim Harmon" <jimharmonotr@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Great Radio Heroes
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain
Charlie, et al
You live long enough you learn something new. I never knew radio fans were
complaining about
"many" errors in "The Great Radio Heroes". I know I got the greatest reviews
a writer could hope for in every publication you could think of. The book
was "beautiful", "wonderful", a "masterpiece", and even "one of the great
books of the Twentieth Century". One college professor wrote me personally
that he was using "Heroes" in his class on broadcasting, and it should be used
in the English literature class to teach students how to write. I thought all
this was going to translate into big money and a wonderful career for me. I
have enjoyed a career connected with classic radio, but it never brought in a
lot of cash. I had to do other things just to support myself like selling
radio tapes, and later video tapes (mostly movie serials), editing magazines
about monster movies, and so on.
As to the mistakes -- I knew there were some -- a number of them about the
behind-the-mike creation of the Lone Ranger. I based my version on an
article in a 1939 Saturday Evening Post, but it was inaccurate. It was not
until the research of Dave Holland and his illustrated book on the Lone Ranger
that I think we got as close to the truth as probably possible. Occasionally
I would get a polite letter pointing out an error, but I did not realize there
were fans out there really beating up on me. Ah, a fool's paradise!
Besides being a Lone Ranger fan, some of you may remember I am a cousin,
once removed, of Brace Beemer. Last year I went back to our home town, Mount
Carmel, Illinois, for a birthday celebration for the late Brace. His
daughter, grandson and great-grandson were also there.
She stood up at a formal dinner and said "I had to be here to hear Jim Harmon
speak, and to thank him for the wonderful job he did in chronicling my
father's career." So she liked the book.
The whole family treated me more like a long lost brother than a distant
cousin, and vowed to meet again -- but who knows when that may happen again.
On the subject of the half-hour kid shows around 1950 -- Steve Kallis has
convinced me Captain Midnight was a disaster; I never exactly cheered for it.
Perhaps I liked the serial version of Tom Mix better, but the half-hours were
very good, and as time went on, the fine writer of all the shows, George
Lowther, introduced a thread of serial plot in the complete stories, combining
some of the best of the old with the new. I think the Sky King half-hours
were vastly BETTER than the l5 minute version. I also thought the half-hour
Superman shows were great, but apparently they did not get great ratings. At
least they did not last long in the half-hour format, although they were later
revived and repeated with Bud Collier being replaced with Michael Fitzmaurice.
The Bobby Benson half-hours were so different from the ancient H-Bar-O series,
they were virtually a new show and a great one for younger kids, even though I
still enjoyed them as a teen.
What wonderful programs, still loved and remembered and collected after
fifty years.
I know it has been said many times but what a contrast to the meaningless junk
that has been offered kids on television for the last thirty years. No wonder
you meet so many stupid young adults today.
-- Jim Harmon
*** This message was altered by the server, and may not appear ***
*** as the sender intended. ***
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 21:15:46 -0500
From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
To: otrd <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: This week in radio history
From Those Were The Days --
3/21
1925 - The voice of Lowell Thomas was first heard on radio. Thomas was
heard talking about "Man's first flight around the world," on KDKA in
Pittsburgh, PA.
3/22
1948 - The Voice of Firestone was the first commercial radio program to
be carried simultaneously on both AM and FM stations.
3/23
1940 - Truth or Consequences was first heard. The Ralph Edwards-produced
program was hosted by Mr. Edwards. The show was originally heard on only
four CBS stations. Later, NBC picked up the show where it eventually
became the most popular of all radio quiz shows.
3/24
1932 - Belle Baker hosted a variety show from a moving train ... a first
for radio broadcasting. The program originated from a Baltimore and Ohio
train that chugged its way around the New York area. The broadcast was
heard on WABC in New York City.
1935 - After a year as a local show from New York City, Major Bowes'
Original Amateur Hour was heard on the entire NBC network. The show
stayed on the air for 17 years. Later, Ted Mack took over for Bowes and
made the move from radio to television.
3/25
1943 - Jimmy Durante and Garry Moore premiered on network radio. The
pair replaced the popular Abbott and Costello following Lou Costello's
heart attack. Durante and Moore stayed on the air for four years.
3/27
1943 - Blue Ribbon Town was first heard on CBS.
Joe
--
Visit my slightly updated (1/1/04) homepage:
[removed]~[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 22:57:59 -0500
From: "Tim Hughes" <rekokut@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: 5 Keys musical group/weird combo of 33 and 78
Hi,
Today I picked to dub a couple of Soundcraft lacquers that were on the verge
of total disintegration- I thought it would be the usual off-air snippits of
songs one encounters on a hodge-podge musiic track transcription, but it
seemed to contain some sessions of the Five Keys, an R and B group.
The strange part was the juxtaposition of recording speeds, 33 and 78. I've
encountered a few 78 tracks on 16" discs before, but never side-by-side.
Only one track was 78 rpm, which was right after a 33 1/3 cut. The 78rpm
was an off-air aircheck of a song of theirs. The rest (33 1/3 appared to to
be studio recordings The disc was unlabeled, but on the sleeve it said
"Keys- Scrap B[ik]e." Appears to say Scrap Bike. Could be babe. first
letter is definately B and last e. Indecipherable 1940s cursive style makes
it hard to read.
Anyway, could anyone enlighten me when the 5 Keys songs "Caledonia",
"Somebody", and "Tell-Tale" are from? There are 3 versions of Caledonia, 2
of Somebody, and one of Tell-Tale. The 78 rpm cut is untitled. Due to the
poor condition of the discs, the sound is only mediocre.
It came as part of a small lot of 16" lacquers, only one of which was
labeled, from a Philadelphia recording studio, which mentioned station
"WIP". It was unrelated to the 5 Keys, recorded in 1948 off a Mutual show,
which had "The Hospital Suite", which was semi-classical music. But
strangely enough, the flip side had some (incomplete) rock and roll
snippits, in 78 rpm! One of which was "Rock around the Clock." Strange!
Tim
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 00:41:43 -0500
From: "Tim Hughes" <rekokut@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: turntables for 17" discs and up
Hi again,
Can anyone recommend turntable setups for larger than 16"? That is, [removed]".
Is Diapason Turntables still in business? I have an Esoteric turntable,
but it only goes up to 16", which plays 98% of transcriptions I've
encountered, but it won't do 17".
I also have a working Technics SP-10 MkII, but I long ago gave up making a
plinth for it.
Any recommendations would be appreciated.
Tim
--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2004 Issue #104
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