------------------------------
The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2005 : Issue 23
A Part of the [removed]!
[removed]
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
same old question [ Pete <pappleyard_ca@[removed]; ]
Re: Mae West/indecency [ Illoman <illoman@[removed]; ]
Mae West on radio [ Anthony Tollin <sanctumotr@earthlin ]
Greetings [ Illoman <illoman@[removed]; ]
TV's earliest days [ <otrbuff@[removed]; ]
DR. IQ [ C-NO <voxpop@[removed]; ]
MP3 Sources [ Al Girard <24agirard24@[removed] ]
1-22 births/deaths [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
Mary Livingston [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
Re: taking reserach with a grain of [ "Rodney W Bowcock" <[removed]@ ]
Re: what characters looked like [ Mike Thompson <mthomp86@[removed]; ]
Re: "I'm My Own Grandpa" [ jameshburns@[removed] (Jim Burns) ]
John Basilone [ JayHick@[removed] ]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 13:02:28 -0500
From: Pete <pappleyard_ca@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: same old question
My father-in-law George has asked this question many
many times and has never come across a show yet but
once a year he asks me to ask the folks that get The
OTR Digest again so here is the question " Does
anyone have a copy of a Canadian show that was
broadcast during the war year, the show was named " L
for Lanky "
The old guy figures perhaps some day someone will see
the question and perhaps he can buy a copy of it from
him or her.
Take care
Pete pappleyard_ca@[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:01:46 -0500
From: Illoman <illoman@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Mae West/indecency
On Friday, January 21, 2005, at 01:12 PM,
[removed]@[removed] wrote:
While researching radio in the year 1938, I discovered that Mae West
was banned from radio by the then-FCC for "indecency." That brought to
mind Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" last year at the Super Bowl.
Was West's "indecency" common knowledge at the time? Does anyone have
the show on which she did that awful thing? I guess I'm saying I'm curious
if this was a cause celebre or no big deal at the time.
I believe you are referring to the "Adam and Eve" sketch, written by
Arch Oboler and performed on the Chase and Sanborn Hour show from
12/12/37. Much has been written about this, but really from a 20th
century timeframe I can't see what all the hubbub was about. Perhaps
it's because the show was broadcast on a Sunday. Mae "sexed" up
Oboler's script by the way she performed it. She did it differently in
rehearsals.
And yes, I have a copy of it.
Mike
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:00:38 -0500
From: Anthony Tollin <sanctumotr@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Mae West on radio
on 1/21/05 12:11 PM, Paul Adomites asked:
<While researching radio in the year 1938, I discovered that Mae West was
banned from radio by the then-FCC for "indecency." <SNIP> Does anyone have
the show on which she did that awful thing?>
***The infamous "Garden of Eden" sketch is commonly available, and is
included in Radio Spirits' GREATEST OTR SHOWS OF THE 20th CENTURY SELECTED
BY WALTER CRONKITE and TOO HOT FOR RADIO collections. The Biblical parody,
airing on a Sunday, outraged a substantial number of listeners. As I wrote
in my historical booklet for the former booklet"
"Arch Oboler's "Garden of Eden" script and Mae West's sultry delivery led to
thousands of listener complaints, demands for government censorship of radio
and a decade-long banning of even the mention of Mae West's name over NBC's
airwaves. . . . The following week, NBC announcer Ronald Drake voiced the
first ever on-air apology for a network broadcast. "We got into all sorts of
trouble" Edgar Bergen later recalled. "The network apologized, Chase and
Sanborn apologized and I went and hid for a week. The net result was our
ratings went up two points so we weren't really too sorry." --Anthony Tollin
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:02:04 -0500
From: Illoman <illoman@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Greetings
I just joined this list, and have enjoyed reading it. I have enjoyed
listening to OTR since I was young, my first exposure to ti being a
cassette of Light's Out with Boris Karloff which I mailed away for, and
one of my teachers playing a flexidisc of The Shadow in grade school.
As far as Karloff goes, I am looking for an episode of Light's Out
entitled Valse Triste with Karloff. This show was broadcast on 3/30/38,
and remade in 1942 with a different cast. I have searched for a
recording of the original broadcast with Karloff, and have come up
empty. I have found twelve sites that have the 42 show listed as the 38
show. Does anyone have a copy of the show with Boris?
Thanks,
Mike
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:03:04 -0500
From: <otrbuff@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: TV's earliest days
Bill Jaker writes:
Many believed at the time that CBS was doing so well
with radio that it actually opposed the introduction of [removed];
This squares with my research into the fascinatingly captivating compulsions
of David Sarnoff and William S. Paley.
For years Paley, the young CBS owner-mogul, was wary of the new medium of
television and vigorously obstructed its development. "He was like a
horse-and-buggy driver who couldn't fathom the Model T," contended a
biographer. "Television appeared as a relentless expense that would end by
draining attention and resources from radio, his first love." Had it not
been for the fact that Paley turned to Adolph Zukor, head of
Paramount-Famous-Lasky Corporation, for financial rescue during Columbia's
fledgling era-Zukor was intensely interested in the potential of TV and how
it might affect filmdom-coupled with Paley's own competitive nature, CBS
might not have pursued TV at all.
But Paley knew that his most formidable rival, David Sarnoff, the recently
named president of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and parent of the
National Broadcasting Company and its dual radio networks (NBC Red and
Blue), had taken an aggressive stance in television's development. As early
as 1923 Sarnoff predicted that television would be "the ultimate and
greatest step in mass communications." At his insistence, in 1928-less
than two years after NBC Radio went on the air-RCA acquired a federal
sanction to let it launch a first New York City-based experimental TV
outlet. That station, with call letters W2XBS, went on the air in July
1930. It would take CBS a full year beyond to do the same.
A Sarnoff biographer reasoned, "David Sarnoff nurtured the development [of
television] from unpromising beginnings to operational maturity, despite
obstruction by segments of his own industry and small support from any
source." In 1941 Lee DeForest, who had been instrumental in sending sound
across the ether as early as 1906, praised Sarnoff's resolve, claiming that
without his "far-sighted vision, financial courage, faith, and persistence,
[removed] still be a vague dream." Three years hence the Television
Broadcasters Association cited Sarnoff as the "Father of American
Television." A return on a $50 million investment-one of the few occasions
that a single enterprise had put that much cash into one venture-didn't
start to happen before 1949, more than two decades after Sarnoff instigated
his mission.
And what of Paley? "Television wasn't on Bill's plate," allowed CBS
executive Frank Stanton, who ran much of CBS's internal affairs after 1946
and supervised TV operations in the early period. Paley's biographer
confided, "His concern about the high cost of shifting from audio to video
gave CBS a curiously schizophrenic character in the late forties and early
fifties. Mighty radio and infant television inhabited different worlds at
the company. In those days CBS advertising salesmen carried calling cards
engraved 'Sales-CBS Radio' with 'Television' typed underneath as an
afterthought." Without doubt, Paley and Sarnoff had both returned from
World War II to pursue opposing obsessions-Paley, to master his chain's fate
by controlling radio programming; Sarnoff, after years of imagination and
experimentation, to turn TV into reality.
Jim Cox
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:04:03 -0500
From: C-NO <voxpop@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: DR. IQ
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain
hi all
i remember dr. iq saying something like "10 silver dollars to that lady
in the balcony" but if the person didn't answer correctly he then said
something about MARS BARS ..does anyone remember exactly what he said re
mars bars?
thanx, chet norris
*** This message was altered by the server, and may not appear ***
*** as the sender intended. ***
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:05:24 -0500
From: Al Girard <24agirard24@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: MP3 Sources
The problem is, the few times I've tried this, the CDs have had a
fair number of MP3s that are either poor quality, have significant
errors in them, are unusably corrupt, or are incorrectly labeled, or
there will be several copies of the same show with different file names.
Ah yes -- the sellers of OTR CDs on eBay! They download everything they
can get their hands on and offer CDs for sale on Ebay, but the old rule
"Caveat Emptor" prevails. These "dealers" are not OTR fans but instead
are just trying to make a buck.
Al Girard
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:07:47 -0500
From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio List <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: 1-22 births/deaths
January 22nd births
01-22-1875 - D. W. Griffith - La Grange, KY - d. 7-23-1948
movie producer-director: "Brooklyn Mark Strand Stage and Studio
Program"
01-22-1878 - Constance Collier - Windsor, Berkshire, England - d.
4-25-1955
actress: Jessie Atwood "Kate Hopkins, Angel of Mercy"
01-22-1893 - Conrad Veidt - Potsdam, Germany - d. 4-3-1943
actor: "Free World Theatre"
01-22-1894 - Rosa Ponselle - Meriden, CT - d. 5-25-1981
opera soprano: "Atwater Kent Hour"; "Metropolitan Opera"
01-22-1895 - Ethel (Everett) Remey - d. 2-1979
actress: Victoria Lorring "Young Widder Brown"; Kathleen Norris "By
Kathleen Norris"
01-22-1899 - Anne Elstner - Lake Charles, LA - d. 1-29-1981
actress: Stella Dallas "Stella Dallas"; Mary Weston "Wilderness Road"
01-22-1909 - Ann Sothern - Valley City, ND - d. 3-15-2001
actress: Maisie Revere "Maisie"
01-22-1920 - William Warfield - West Helena, AR - d. 8-25-2002
bass-baritone singer: "Edgar Bergen Show"; "Beyond Victory"; "Music
for America"
01-22-1924 - J. J. Johnson - d. 2-4-2001
jazz trombonist: "Arthur Godfrey Show"; "One Night Stand"
01-22-1932 - Piper Laurie - Detroit, MI
actress: "Lux Radio Theatre"; "NBC Radio Theatre"; "Screen Guild
Theatre"
01-22-1934 - Bill Bixby - San Francisco, CA - d. 11-21-1993
actor: "We Hold These Truths"
January 22nd deaths
01-29-1913 - Daniel Taradash - Louisville, KY - d. 1-22-2003
film writer: "Lux Radio Theatre"; "Cavalcade of America"
02-10-1892 - Alan Hale, Sr. - Washington, [removed] - d. 1-22-1950
actor:"Lux Radio Theatre"
04-12-1919 - Ann Miller - Chireno, TX - d. 1-22-2004
dancer, actress: "Forecast"; "Hollywood Hotel"
05-23-1890 - Herbert Marshall - London, England - d. 1-22-1966
actor: Ken Thurston "Man Called X"
06-23-1895 - Pick Malone - nr. Dallas, TX - d. 1-22-1962
comedian:"Show Boat"; "Chesterfield Supper Club"
07-21-1901 - Allyn Joslyn - Milford, PA - d. 1-22-1981
actor: "Island Boat Club"; "Page of Romance"; "Show Boat"
10-22-1891 - Parker Fennelly - Northeast Harbor, ME - d. 1-22-1988
actor: Titus Moody, "Fred Allen Show"; Dan Tucker, "Lawyer Dan Tucker"
12-07-1920 - Frances Gifford - Long Beach, CA - d. 1-22-1994
actress: "Lux Radio Theatre"
--
Ron Sayles
Radio: Theatre of the mind
Television: Theatre of the mindless
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:08:07 -0500
From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio List <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Mary Livingston
I have listened to hundreds of "Jack Benny Programs." While listening
I get the distinct impression that the only reason someone like Mary
Livingston is there is because she is the bosses wife. How someone
with as little talent has she had could be a member of what is the
finest ensemble in all of radio is beyond my comprehension. I feel
that she adds little to the program, quite the opposite, she detracts
from the program. Do others feel this way or is it just me?
Ron Sayles
Radio: Theatre of the mind
Television: Theatre of the mindless
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:41:34 -0500
From: "Rodney W Bowcock" <[removed]@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: taking reserach with a grain of salt
Tom van der Voort:
My point is not to tear down Martin's efforts but to indicate that OTR
scholarship is an evolving field, and we should be very cautious about
criticizing the hard work of others.
So, because occasional mistakes have made it past the proofreading process
in the works of Martin, does that mean that he should keep quiet about
pointing out the mistakes of others? Mistakes crop up in nearly EVERY book
ever written on OTR, including those by Dunning, Grams, Cox and everyone
else (especially my pet peeve in OTR [removed] Nachman's 'Raised
On Radio' in which he seems to make up the story of the actors that he
writes about as he goes along instead of actually writing the facts).
Failing to point out those 'facts' simply ensures that the mistakes will
become part of OTR lore and will be passed on and on and on. Something
that is possible to happen anyway.
Personally, I'd advise any OTR fan or budding researcher to take ANY
information found on a website with a grain of salt. Mistakes can at times
make it past printed works, but steps are taken to insure that this doesn't
happen. Many websites have no proofreading process (need one be reminded
of the IMDB entry on Elliot Lewis?) and anything that the author wants to
say can find it's way on there no matter how accurate or otherwise.
Goldin's website is one of the best research stops on the web for classic
radio info (I use it frequently), but that doesn't make it perfect, and
that doesn't mean that it's still not best to doublecheck what you find
there with a printed reference work, as one could recommend with ANY
source.
Rodney Bowcock
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 15:49:27 -0500
From: Mike Thompson <mthomp86@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: what characters looked like
Dixon wrote:
and Amos 'n' Andy
didn't look *anything* like I pictured them, when I
saw pictures of how they
were apparently supposed to look.
Don't worry, I doubt you were alone. <g> Or did people
at the time know Amos and Andy were played by two
white guys? I wasn't alive at the time, so I honestly
don't know.
As for me, the OTR shows I listen to most frequently
are My Favorite Husband and Burns and Allen. Being a
big Lucy fan, I was familiar with what the main cast
of the show (Lucy, Richard Denning, Gale Gordon and
Bea Benaderet) looked like before I started listening
to the series. I've always pictured the maid as
looking like the maid from the episode of I Love Lucy
where Ricky and Lucy hire a maid to help out around
the apartment.
As for B&A, I of course knew what George and Gracie
looked like, so I would just picture them during the
show. When I saw video of Bill Goodwin, it turned out
he looked exactly the way he sounded on B&A. The one
character I can't picture is Tootsie Sagwell. She was,
ahem, not very becoming, but just how unattractive she
was seemed to change all the time.
Mike
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 17:57:56 -0500
From: jameshburns@[removed] (Jim Burns)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: "I'm My Own Grandpa"
That's neat! I was only familiar with Floyd Vivino's version, from the
'70s and '80s, on THE UNCLE FLOYD SHOW.
(To keep this on topic (!), for about a million years, Vivino has also
had an Italian music radio show, where he plays many records from the
OTR era, somewhere in the New York/Tri-State Area.)
By the way, the Jack Nicholson item is no rumor. Nicholson was raised by
his Grandmother, whom he thought was his mom. The gal who he was told
was his older sister, was his actual mother. He found out the truth, in
a phone call on a set, when shooting a movie.
Bobby Darrin had the same situation, growing up.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 17:58:07 -0500
From: JayHick@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: John Basilone
Can anyone help? Send responses to Seth. Jay
My name is Seth Paridon. I am a researcher working on a project about the
famous WWII Marine named John Basilone. I am searching for any and all radio
interviews with Mr. Basilone. In particular I am searching for an interview
done with him by Ed Sullivan, later of TV fame, with John somewhere between
September 1943- December 1943.
I know those dates are sketchy but that's all I have to go by. At this time
Ed Sullivan was still with CBS radio. I spoke with Ms. Janet McKee from the
Library of Congress and she is the one who gave me your contact information.
Any help that you could give me in directing me to where this interview may be
found would be of great assistance and would be appreciated deeply. If needed
you may call me at my office at (504) 304-2423.
Thanks again!
Seth Paridon email: <sparidon@[removed];
--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2005 Issue #23
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