Subject: [removed] Digest V2002 #505
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 12/27/2002 9:57 PM
To: <[removed]@[removed];

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2002 : Issue 505
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Olan Soule and the Secret Squadron    [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
  Re: A&A Recordings                    [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
  Billie the Brownie                    [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
  Mary Foster                           [ otrbuff@[removed] ]
  NBC: the Red and Blue                 [ Mark J Cuccia <mcuccia@[removed]; ]
  otr variety shows                     [ Maxjo@[removed] ]

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

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 10:08:02 -0500
From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Olan Soule and the Secret Squadron

Olan Soule was an actor who had a unique role in Ovaltine's Captain
Midnight.  In the early days of the Ovaltine sponsorship of the OTR
serial, the story called for a person who acted as liaison between the
paramilitary Secret Squadron and the conventional Intelligence
operations,  This person was L. William Kelly, known as SS-11 (or on the
show, "Kelly, SS-11") -- the lowest-numbered Secret Squadron agent after
Captain Midnight until Chuck Ramsay and Joyce Ryan were granted agent
status.

The role was played by Olan Soule.  It was a frequently recurring role,
but like the appearance of Ivan Shark in the stories, it was recurring
rather than continuous.  Often, though, Kelly was working in the field
with Captain Midnight and his core group.

The television show of the early 1950s was drastically different from the
radio version, though there were faint echoes.  There was a Secret
Squadron, but rather than being a government-sponsored paramilitary
group, the Squadron became a private organization headed by the TV
Captain Midnight.  The only character who was a regular from Captain
Midnight radio cast was Ichabod Mudd, and his role changed drastically.
In the OTR version, he had a droll side, but was loyal, brave, and
extremely inventive.  By contrast, the Ichabod Mudd of television was
pure comic relief, and a bit cowardly.

To fill the role of the inventor, a character was added to the television
show: Tut, "the Science Wizard."  Tut developed gadgets (some
technologically laughable -- but after all, it was a kid's show, right?)
that often were used in the story.  Tut was a regular, and even appeared
in commercials.

Tut was played by Olan Soule.  So, of the actors involved, the one with
his feet firmly planted in both OTR and TV Captain Midnight programs was
him.

An interesting footnote to the Ovaltine years.

Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

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

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 10:14:56 -0500
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: A&A Recordings

On 12/27/02 9:01 AM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:

I know from reading Elizabeth's postings how immensively popular the show
was and it strikes me as odd that a show that popular was never recorded.
Does anyone know the reason for this?

The first 438 episodes, of course, *were* recorded -- from 3/19/28 thru
8/18/29, A&A was the very first radio program to be distributed by
recorded syndication. These discs were required to be destroyed after
broadcast, however, and only about seventy episodes from this run are
currently known to exist. The discs were originally recorded at Orlando
Marsh's "Marsh Laboratories," the first studio in Chicago to deal with
electrical recording, and were pressed for distribution as 12" shellac
78rpm discs (although existing examples seem to play back more accurately
at +/- 80 rpm). In April 1929, the recording contract went to
Brunswick-Balke-Collender, and the audio quality of the discs improved
substantially. Brunswick handled the recordings thru the end of the
syndicated run.

The syndicated A&A episodes were positively *not* airchecks of the live
WMAQ broadcasts -- the original scripts bear various handwritten
notations confirming that the recordings were made well in advance of the
live broadcasts -- the "chainless chain" was set up so that stations
carrying the recordings aired the same episode that Correll and Gosden
broadcast live from WMAQ (until April 1929 when WMAQ itself began using
the recordings.)

This all ended, of course, once A&A went to NBC in August 1929. Much
emphasis was given to the fact that recordings were no longer being used
-- for several years, Bill Hay opened each episode by announcing "Amos
'n' Andy in Person," and this phrase endured in the episode closings for
fifteen years.  While recordings were used by many sponsors and many
series for "extension spotting" during the 1930s, A&A is one of the few
serials which did not use this method -- and I suspect there may have
been a clause in the Pepsodent contract requiring that all broadcasts be
live.

However, Campbell's Soup, which sponsored the program from 1938 to 1943
did not insist on such a clause. Recordings of each nightly episode from
January 1940 into at least the middle of 1942 *were* made, for extension
spotting in Canada. A couple of these episodes are known to exist, but no
substantial run of episodes has yet been found. (Notice I say *yet.*)

The idea of making aircheck recordings was in its infancy when A&A moved
to the network in 1929 -- but the technology did exist. A number of
private studios doing airchecks on uncoated aluminum discs were operating
in Chicago by the end of 1930, so if Correll and Gosden had wanted
recordings for purposes of post-broadcast evaluation, it would certainly
have been feasible to have them made. And, given Gosden's well-known
attitude of strict perfectionism, I find it peculiar that they were not.
This is one of the questions I wish someone had asked Correll or Gosden
when they were alive -- one of the great difficulties in researching the
early years of A&A is that none of the people who *did* interview them
asked the right questions!

I do have reason, however, to believe that at least *some* recordings
*were* made. Photos taken in Correll and Gosden's Beverly Hills office
circa 1940 reveal the presence of a transcription turntable and a disc
recording lathe. I've found that the primary use of this equipment was
for the performers to practice and refine new voice characterizations --
having played over 160 characters over the course of the serial,
developing new characters obviously required serious effort. But it is
possible that this equipment was also used to review recordings of
previous episodes.

There are stories claiming that Correll and Gosden in fact held a large
backlog of episode recordings from the 1930s -- dating back as early as
1930-31 -- but none have ever been verified, and certainly no examples
have turned up.  A few years ago, Freeman Gosden's oldest son told me
point blank that episodes from the 1930s were "rare as hen's teeth," and
he was overjoyed to hear the few examples I was able to share with him.
Rich Correll subsequently confirmed this statement for me -- although his
father amassed a voluminous collection of recordings from the sitcom
period, there were only a few serial-era recordings in the collection. If
any backlog of recordings ever *did* exist, I fear it might have been
lost or disposed of when the performers left Chicago in 1937.

Why NBC itself didn't make recordings is a question a lot of people have
asked. NBC's Electrical Transcription Division (later the Radio-Recording
Division) did not exist until 1935, and most of what was recorded during
the early years of this operation was programming originating in New
York. NBC-Chicago had recording equipment by 1936 -- but aside from a
couple of special episodes, no attempt was made to preserve audio of A&A.
Most of what NBC recorded during the 1930s was public affairs/actuality
and cultural programming -- serials were considered about the most
disposable form of programming, and it obviously never occured to anyone
that historians sixty years later would rather hear "Amos 'n' Andy" than
a speech by Alf Landon. (Those in charge of such matters at NBC seem to
have displayed the same sort of arrogant cultural snobbishness that has
long characterized the archivists at the BBC.)

I've spent years tracking down any surviving audio fragments from 1930s
A&A episodes -- some of them less than ten seconds long. But in terms of
complete episodes from the network era, less than 10 are known to exist.
So, all we really have left of A&A in their prime are the scripts -- and
Ed Bolton's re-stagings. And, as I've often said, the existing sitcom
episodes really tell you nothing about why the program was as popular as
it was in its prime -- the sitcom was an entirely different series.

A&A fans will be interested to know that I'm in the process of
transcribing a major storyline from the fall and winter of 1935-36 into
HTML form for posting on my website -- about a hundred consecutive
episodes which haven't been available in any form since their original
broadcast. Watch this space for further announcements.

Elizabeth

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

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 10:15:21 -0500
From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Billie the Brownie

Michael Browning queried:

When I was a child, there was a program that was on the
radio every year at Christmas time and that program was
Billie the Brownine. Is there any other
people out there that remembers this program and I would like to know if
there is any place that you can get it.

Just last Tuesday a friend of mine, Ralph Luedtke by name and myself did a two
hour retrospective on Billie the Brownie over radio station WTKM in Hartford,
Wisconsin. If you remember Billie you must be from the Milwaukee area.  Billie
the Brownie was a Milwaukee phenomenon. A parade was associated with it and it
was sponsored by Schuster's Department Stores.

Ron Sayles
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Make your day just a little better, listen to Olde Tyme Radio!

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

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 10:43:17 -0500
From: otrbuff@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Mary Foster

Joe Salerno inquires about Mary Foster, the Editor's Daughter.

The serial drama debuted in syndication Feb. 14, 1938.  It would last
through June 30, 1950, initially in regional format but during part of
its run (1941-47) aired over an MBS hookup.  The network run was
sponsored by the Kroger Baking Co., a division of Kroger supermarkets.
The drama's theme exemplified the values of small town living.  Joan
Banks was the heroine through 1947.  Banks was featured in supporting
roles on Portia Faces Life, Young Doctor Malone and other radio serials.
Other regulars in the cast included Parker Fennelly and Effie Palmer.  At
the close of each episode Fennelly, as editor, shared some personal
bromides such as:  "Folks in a small town live a much more relaxed life."
 Nothing particularly startling there.  A brief news segment was added to
each chapter starting in 1942.  There are 1,042 extant copies of this
show in circulation.

Jim Cox

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

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 11:17:05 -0500
From: Mark J Cuccia <mcuccia@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  NBC: the Red and Blue

I've seen AT&T maps of the US showing their radio (and television) network
distribution facilities, from different years. These were usually
published in BROADCASTING magazine or various "radio/TV annuals/almanacs".

Throughout most of the 1930's, it seemed that NBC had separate distinct
facilities for distribution of both the "Red" and "Blue" networks only in
the northeast and urbanized midwest (including Omaha and Kansas City).

But the rest of the country, such as the southeast, south-central states,
rural upper midwest (rural Minnesota, rural Nebraska, the Dakotas), the
mountain states, etc., it seemed that there were single-line "legs" of the
[removed] [removed], there was only one NBC affiliate in all markets, all fed
along a single telco line in that region of the US, where all of those
stations would be carrying the same NBC program, whether "Red" or "Blue".
And it was up to NBC and the sponsor as to whether that part of the
country would be "Red" or would be "Blue" at whatever specific day/time.

But during the second half of the 1930's, it seemed that RCA/NBC was
trying to expand separate simultaneous networks of the "Red" and "Blue".

Here in New Orleans, WSMB-1350 (though probably not at 1350-Kc in the
1930s -- I'd have to check old newspaper microfilms to see what the exact
dial-spot was before the major "change") ... was *the* local NBC affiliate
throughout most of the 1930's. CBS started off here in New Orleans in the
late 1920's on WDSU-1280 (again, probably not at 1280-Kc at the time).

It could be said that WSMB was "both" NBC-Red and NBC-Blue, but they
didn't have a "choice" as to whether they would carry certain "Red" or
"Blue" programs. And since there was only ONE telco line for NBC coming
into New Orleans, they couldn't even "monitor" the "other" NBC in another
studio either.

By the mid-to-late 1930's, WWL-870 (I think it was actually 850-Kc at the
time) became CBS. NBC/RCA and AT&T also developed distinct feeds out of
Cincinnati all the way down to New Orleans for the "Red" and "Blue"
[removed] WDSU picks up NBC-Blue, leaving WSMB with NBC-Red.

(WNOE-1060, again, probably not 1060 in the 1930's, picked up Mutual for
the late 1930's and throughout the 1940's).

After NBC-Blue became "The Blue Network", and then eventually became ABC,
I think it still took several years -- into the LATE 1940's or even early
1950's, before ABC in some of the major markets, completely vacated
NBC/RCA buildings. There was a website devoted to NBC and Radio in San
Francisco, and it mentioned that ABC still occupied the RCA/NBC building
there, with ABC O&O KGO, and that the control/operations booth in the
building could still feed programming out to TWO different radio networks
into the early 1950's, when ABC eventally vacated the building. But when
the Blue Network / ABC became a separate corporate entity, the control for
the "chimes" machine had to be "fixed" so that the NBC Chimes wouldn't
play on the Blue/ABC network.

BTW, here in New Orleans, there was an interesting "flip-flop" in the
early 1950's:

I mentioned that starting in the late 1930's (or so), WSMB-1350 (the
original "NBC" station) became NBC-Red, because WDSU-1280 was now the
dedicated NBC-Blue station.

When the Blue network was renamed ABC, WDSU continued as ABC, and WSMB was
the NBC (formerly NBC-Red) affiliate.

WSMB was owned by the local Saenger Theater (giving the 'S' in the
call-sign) and the local Maison Blanche Department Store (giving the 'MB'
in the call-sign). The Saenger Theater was owned by Paramount Pictures.
In the late 1940's/early 1950's, the feds were involved in breaking up the
control of the Hollywood motion picture companies -- the "big-five"
studios (MGM/Loews, Paramount, Warner Bros, 20th Century-Fox, RKO Radio
Pictures) also owned distribution and exhibition (theaters). It took
several years to completely happen, but the theater-chain organizations of
the "big-five" were sold or spun-off. MGM spun-off its Loews Theaters;
RKO Theaters was now separate from RKO Pictures; 20th Century-Fox spun-off
its theater chain into National Fox Theaters; Warner Bros spun-off its
theaters into Stanley Warner Theaters (which later merged with
RKO Theaters to become RKO-Stanley Warner), and Paramount's theaters
became a separate United Paramount Theaters.

Around 1953 or so, the United Paramount Theaters (which owned about 50% of
WSMB here in New Orleans), and the American Broadcasting Company
merged. WSMB had been an affiliate of the NBC Radio Network!

So, WSMB and WDSU "flipped-flopped" their affiliations, with WSMB now
becoming an ABC Radio Network affiliate, and WDSU became the NBC Radio
Network affiliate. That is what I remember growing up in the 1960s and
early 1970s, although I remember WSMB mainly as being part of the
"American Entertainment Radio Network" with ABC's four-way package
arrangement effective January 1968. (Ironic, that ABC was made a separate
entity out of NBC, yet it was the first radio network in more recent times
to offer multiple program pacakages and multiple affiliates per market!)

WDSU also started up the first TV station in New Orleans, Channel 6, and
in the early years, I assume that it carried programming from all four
TV networks: NBC-TV, ABC-TV, CBS-TV and DuMount. Even when WJMR (by the
1950's it was the Mutual affiliate) started Channel 61 (later 20) TV in
New Orleans, BOTH stations "shared" affiliations with NBC-TV, CBS-TV,
ABC-TV, and until it folded in the mid-1950's also DuMont. When WWL
started Channel 4 in late 1957, it picked up CBS-TV, WDSU-6 now specified
itself as NBC-TV (to "align" with WDSU-1280 being NBC-Radio), and WJMR-TV
(probably now on [removed]) becomes specifically ABC (it later became WVUE-12,
and in 1970 became WVUE-8).

In 1973, [removed] the owner of WDSU, sold the radio side (1280-[removed])
to Insilco of Oklahoma, and the television side ([removed]) to Cosomos of South
Carolina. TV kept the call-signs WDSU and is still NBC-TV. Radio changed
to WGSO-1280 and [removed] (both are now part of "Clear Channel", but 1280
is NOT 50,000 Watts!; the call-signs of AM have changed several times
since the 1980s, sometimes called WQUE-AM, now WODT-1280; and the 'WGSO'
calls have been used by a DIFFERENT station since 1993). But when
WDSU-1280 first sold and became WGSO-1280 in May 1973, it retained its NBC
Radio affiliation for a few months, and then flipped affiliations with
WNPS-1450 which was ABC's "American Information Network". So, 1280 was
once AGAIN associated with ABC! And BOTH WSMB-1350 was ABC (Entertainment)
while (WGSO) 1280 was ABC-Information. The 1280 dialspot has sometimes
been ABC-Information off-and-on since the 1980's with its frequent change
of call-signs though.

I was about 12 at the time that WDSU-1280 became WGSO-1280 and then
subsequently picked up ABC-Information, in 1973. At the time, when they
were mentioning that they would soon be carrying ABC "Information" News,
I was unaware of the different network program packages of ABC. I knew
that WSMB-1350 was carrying ABC "Entertainment" network news, and I
thought that WSMB was going to become NBC if WGSO was dropping NBC to
carry ABC (Information). (I sure was HOPING that I could still hear
MONITOR every weekend, even though maybe on WSMB if not on WGSO-1280).
But I realized what ABC was doing the day that WGSO started carrying
ABC-Information, and I was *STILL* hearing news/sports of
ABC-Entertainment (including Paul Harvey) on WSMB-1350! And since
WNOE-1060 (ABC-Contemporary) only carried the network's commercials and
not news/sports from ABC, WGSO also picked up Howard Cossell Speaking of
Sports from American Contemporary. And I also happen to hear "And that's
the news from the American FM Radio Network, a service of ABC News", from
the speaker of a car radio one [removed] so I finally realized that ABC had
*FOUR* radio network program "packages/formats".

However, I didn't at the time know about WNPS-1450 having previously been
ABC/Information and now was carrying NBC (starting in late 1973).
So, unfortunately, I missed out on hearing the final year-or-so
(from late 1973 through [removed]) of the MONITOR Beacon! :(

Mark J. Cuccia
mcuccia@[removed]
New Orleans LA

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

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 11:17:22 -0500
From: Maxjo@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  otr variety shows
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

i read about the interest or lack of interest in otr musical variety
[removed]'m also into musical variety shows & big band remote [removed]
been a musician practically all my adult life i just got in on the last years
of the live music [removed] radio station had a staff band & hotels ,clubs
,resorts all featured live [removed] started at the age of 16 in [removed] the
mid '60s it was over in my part of the world.             we were able to
listen to remote broadcasts from other parts of the country while traveling
between gigs by car or bus late at [removed] miss those days & it seems few
recordings exist of those days.

max salathiel
del city,oklahoma

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End of [removed] Digest V2002 Issue #505
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