Subject: [removed] Digest V2012 #34
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 2/22/2012 10:52 AM
To: [removed]@[removed]
Reply-to:
[removed]@[removed]

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2012 : Issue 34
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                             [removed]
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  #OldRadio IRC Chat this Thursday Nig  [ charlie@[removed] ]
  Racism and OTR                        [ "Matthew Killmeier" <mkillmeier@usm ]
  Atypical stereotypes                  [ Derek Tague <thatderek@[removed]; ]
  Re:Old ancient one and Re: Cringe wo  [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
  This week in radio history 19-25 Feb  [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
  REPS Showcase XX June 2012            [ Frank Rosin <frankr@[removed]; ]
  NETWORK RADIO RATINGS                 [ JayHick@[removed] ]
  Racism and stereotypes in OTR         [ Rick Keating <pkeating89@[removed]; ]

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

Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:12:01 -0500
From: charlie@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  #OldRadio IRC Chat this Thursday Night!

A weekly [removed]

For the best in OTR Chat, join IRC (Internet Relay Chat), StarLink-IRC
Network, the channel name is #OldRadio.  We meet Thursdays at 8 PM Eastern
and go on, and on! The oldest OTR Chat Channel, it has been in existence
over nine years, same time, same channel! Started by Lois Culver, widow
of actor Howard Culver, this is the place to be on Thursday night for
real-time OTR talk!

Our "regulars" include OTR actors, soundmen, collectors, listeners, and
others interested in enjoying OTR from points all over the world. Discussions
range from favorite shows to almost anything else under the sun (sometimes
it's hard for us to stay on-topic)...but even if it isn't always focused,
it's always a good time!

For more info, contact charlie@[removed]. We hope to see you there, this
week and every week!

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

Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:48:53 -0500
From: "Matthew Killmeier" <mkillmeier@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Racism and OTR

I find the discussion of racism and stereotyping in OTR fascinating. The
comments of Ryan O. are especially insightful, and I'd like to augment them
with some examples from The Witch's Tale.

The Witch's Tale, like many of the chillers I'm researching, features plays
in which a character commits a criminal or immoral act and receives their
comeuppance. I think of these as supernatural variants on the "crime does not
pay" formula. However, Cole makes this formula fresh, and historically
interesting, in plays that render such bad characters as overt racists.

The protagonist in "The Spirits of the Lake" expresses hatred toward the
Native American tribe that lives near his and his wife's summerhouse. His
wife on the other hand is sympathetic. The protagonist kills his wife to be
with his young mistress, but gets justice. His wife's revenant drags him to
his death in the very lake that holds spiritual significance to the tribe.

Likewise, the protagonist in "The Devil Mask" views an African tribe as
inferior, superstitious savages, and murders its witch doctor. The doctor's
death is avenged when the mask kills him.

The protagonist in "The Boa Goddess" shows contempt for an indigenous tribe
and steals their religious icon. He exploits a native woman-who he calls a
squaw-to find the icon. The tribe's female deity brutally strangles him in a
masterful scene of poetic, racial justice.

A racist, and chauvinistic, character in "Four Fingers and a Thumb"
repeatedly demonstrates loathsome qualities. He expresses racial hostility
toward a Chinese man and beats his wife. His harrowing demise comes courtesy
of the Chinese man's disembodied hand, which is less monstrous than the man
it kills.

Finally, in the most interesting example, a man who is engaged to an
inter-racial woman (white father and Hawaiian mother), is killed by a shark
monster. While the death is tied to a curse, the man's intent to divorce the
woman because of her race (he refers to her as a "half-breed") gives it
poetic justice. The inter-racial woman in "Kamohoalii" ("The King Shark God")
later elevates the play's racial concerns when she tries to dissuade another
white suitor from loving her. "Can't you realize that I'm a half-caste. My
hair is as yellow as yours, my skin as white-but I'm a bronze savage
underneath. A bronze savage! I've learned you gaze at me like all others of
my father's race have done: as an inferior, a female animal, as if something
they can take and break." In the end she is killed by the shark monster in a
death that she engineers. Along with her lament on how racial animus affects
her, this death lends the play a strong tragic element.

Granted, these plays, and those that Ryan O. cites, are outliers in American
OTR. Indeed, contrary to what many media pundits claim, popular culture is
mainly conservative, primarily for economic reasons. Radio is no exception,
and tended to trail rather than lead social change.

However, these exceptions highlight how the opposition and resistance to
American's longstanding racial and ethnic problems have a longer and more
varied history than what is commonly understood. It's worth reflecting on,
particularly during Black History Month, how the history of racial progress
is a story of people who opposed and resisted the dominant views of race and
ethnicity.

Matthew Killmeier

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

Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:50:25 -0500
From: Derek Tague <thatderek@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Atypical stereotypes
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Stephen Donovan posted

I do have to wonder why I so rarely see a non-white face at the few OTR
conventions I have attended. Could it be that it does not have an appeal
because the non-white characterizations were not so complimentary?

This is difficult for me to
rejoinder without playing the "some of my best friends [removed]" card  but I've
seen non-whites in attendance at OTR conventions in Newark and Cincinnati.
Granted, persons of colour are greatly outnumbered in the hobby but I happen
to know several African-American and Asian-American enthusiasts. Respect for
their privacy prevents me from providing their names.

mr. Donovan goes on to explore with:

Besides Charlie Chan or Mr. Moto, can anyone name a major non-white
character of any series that was not servant, sidekick, stooge, or
villain? I could only think of singers and perhaps a few sports figures. Then
again, I am not as knowledgeable as some of you, either.

How about Straight
Arrow who was Native American? Maybe this is a stretch but what about Phil
Harris who claimed some American Indian heritage? - I say this is a ""stretch"
because aside from an occasional reference to his ethnic background, Phil
Harris wasn't sold to America on the strength of being an Indian.

Yours in the ether,

Derek Tague

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

Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:50:33 -0500
From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
To: otr-digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re:Old ancient one and Re: Cringe worthy

   Roby McHonen wrote --

   > "I have never heard of him either".

   Alas, this is all too common these days.
   But we have to remember to a lot of people "history" began when they
were born and anything before then doesn't make any difference and they
don't care.  ==sigh==
   I work with a fella named Ballou and when I started I jokingly asked
"Any relation to Wally Ballou?"   He had no idea who that was, even
after I explained who Wally Ballou was (along with Bob and Ray) and
mentioned radio he gave me a look as if to ask "you're not all there,
are you?"

   Re: Racism in OTR, I don't see it as racist for the various groups
presented.  We have to remember the times the show was presented and put
ourselves into the 1930s, '40s, whatever and with that mindset.  Just as
we do when watching a movie for those times.  I know I find myself
talking to the screen when someone is looking for a pay phone "Why not
just use your cell?"  :)
   As for shows like Amos and Andy I have told the story before of being
in college years ago and mentioning something that happened in a show
and when told from A&A I would be be chastised for mentioned that racist
show.  Yet one time I mentioned something which everyone thought was
hilarious and then added "that was as from an Amos and Andy show".
   Radio (movies and later tv) were full of people trying to make a fast
buck (Kingfish), some sap that fell for it (Andy), someone who was
honest and tried to keep others that way (Amos), the stereotypical
mother-in-law, they shyster lawyer (Calhoun), etc.  I wager that if the
show were all white people there would be no controversy.
   And no doubt in 50 years when people are far more "enlightened" than
we are today, people will ask how could anyone watch that (TV) show and
not see all sorts of social issues we don't allow today?
   Joe

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

Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:50:52 -0500
From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
To: otr-digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  This week in radio history 19-25 February

 From Those Were The Days

2/19

1922   Ed Wynn became the first big name vaudeville talent to sign on as
a radio talent. Previously, top talent had not considered radio a
respectable medium.

2/22

1954   ABC radio's popular Breakfast Club, program with longtime host,
Don McNeill, was simulcast on TV beginning this day. The telecast of the
show was a bomb, but the radio program went on as one of the longest
running programs on the air.

2/23

1927   [removed] President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill into law that
created the Federal Radio Commission, "to bring order out of this
terrible chaos." The president was speaking, of course, of the nation's
then unregulated radio stations. The commission assigned frequencies,
hours of operation and power allocations for radio broadcasters across
the [removed] The name was changed to the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) on July 1, 1934.

2/24

1942     It was an historic day in radio broadcasting, as the Voice of
America (VOA) signed on for the first time on this day.

Joe

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

Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:51:00 -0500
From: Frank Rosin <frankr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  REPS Showcase XX  June 2012

REPS Showcase committee is working hard on the detail stage of the
20th year of the  Showcase Convention in Seattle.  It is June 22, 23,
24, 2012.

We are waiting for yes or no from a few guests so we will know how
many others to invite. We have confirmations from Gloria McMillan of
Our Miss Brooks, Stuffy Singer from Jack Benny, Tommy Cook from Red
Ryder, Terry Moore from Red Ryder and nominated for an Academy Award
for Come Back Little Sheiba, Beverly Washburn from Jack Benny and
Disney's Old Yellow, Jim French and Larry Albert from Imagination
Theatre, and Bob Hudson from Little Orphan Annie.  Some of the others
are Ron Cocking, Chuck McCann, Esther Geddes McVey, Ben Cooper, Tim
Knofler, Gregg Oppenheimer, Michael Kacey, Frank Ferrante as Groucho,
and Larry and John Gassman doing interviews.

We have some panels and programs set with recreations of a Nightbeat
and a Lux Radio Theatre. Our musical this year has not been
determined yet.

There will be the usual dealer room where we will have another Ice
Cream Social on Friday evening.

We have a brunch on Sunday morning to wrap things up as people begin
to depart for home.

This all takes place in the Coast Bellevue Hotel.  There is a
convention price for the hotel and a travel discount on Alaska
Airlines.  More information on the REPS web site at
[removed] and how to register.

Frank Rosin

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

Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:51:09 -0500
From: JayHick@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  NETWORK RADIO RATINGS
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FROM MCFARLAND (1-800-253-2187; Web ([removed]))

History of Prime Time Programs Through the Ratings of Nielsen, Crossley and
Hooper BY Jim Ramsburg
Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-4558-5
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8608-3
tables, appendices, bibliography, index
378pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2012
Price: $[removed]

About the Book
Network radio from 1932 to 1953 was a high-stakes competition embracing
technology, industry, government and advertising, ruled by dollars and
dictated
by ratings. This comprehensive reference work provides a fascinating
account of broadcasting's most colorful era, when four nationwide networks
dominated American media as no concerted communications force ever had.

Introductory sections chronicle the development of the broadcasting,
advertising and entertainment industries, with an explanation of the ratings
systems and their evolution. Twenty-one substantial sections follow, each
covering a specific year of radio's golden age, with industry statistics,
daily
program ratings and a chart of the year's 50 top programs. A summary lists
the
era's most successful programs within the five major formats. Three
appendices and a full index conclude the work.
About the Author
Jim Ramsburg spent 50 years in radio and advertising, including top-level
positions with prestigious radio stations KLAC in Los Angeles and KSTP in
Minneapolis-St. Paul. In 2006 he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame at
Minnesota's Museum of Broadcasting. He lives in Estero, Florida.

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

Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:51:26 -0500
From: Rick Keating <pkeating89@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Racism and stereotypes in OTR

	I agree with Stephen Jansen that there appears to be much more
stereotyping in OTR than overt racism.
	He's also right about the sexism. Whether it's a character on a
fictional program or a contestant on a game show, a woman was often
introduced by her husband's first name. As in "Mrs. Robert Jones."
	(Hard to believe, but that attitude still exists. In the mid 1990s, I
was doing a story, and one woman I interviewed identified herself by her
husband's first name. I had to ask her for her own name. It was as if she
didn't have her own identity. Just a few weeks ago, someone came in to the
paper to put in an announcement, and the couple in the photo were identified
as (to make up a name) "Mr. and Mrs. Bob Smith.").
	Is stereotyping more insidious, as Stephen asks? I guess it depends
on a number of factors. Take the "Irish cop" stereotype, for example. If, for
the sake of argument, there were 100,000 police officers in the [removed] in 1940,
and 80 percent of them were Irish, then portraying a cop as Irish couldn't be
seen as a negative stereotype.
	It would have been a different matter if only, say, 30 percent of
cops were Irish.
	Just to clarify, I've no idea how many police officers there were in
1940, or what the breakdown was by ethnicity. These are just hypothetical
figures.
	On the other hand, there's how a character talks. Sure, it's part of
the same "shorthand" you need when you only have 22 minutes to tell a story,
but does an Irish character really need to say things like "Faith and
Begorrah" or other such phrases? No. Instances like that are where
stereotyping becomes a bit insidious. Why couldn't the actor just use an
Irish accent? The character's vocabulary could also reflect his or her ethnic
background without resorting to stereotypical phrases. Hypothetical
scenario:. Sgt. Joe Friday interviews a young Irish mother. Her baby's
crying. The woman says "A moment please, sergeant. The wee lass needs her
nap. Let me put her in her crib." "Yes, ma'am." (A beat). "There. Now then,
sergeant, how may I help you?" The woman's Irish accent and phrases like "wee
lass" would have been enough.
	I'm a major fan of the WXYZ shows The Lone Ranger and The Green
Hornet. Both Tonto and Kato speak less than perfect English, yet both are
depicted as very intelligent.
	Over the last several months, I've listened to more than 500 Lone
Ranger episodes. Yes, every Indian, Mexican and member of any other ethnic
group that isn't of European extraction tends to refer to himself or herself
in the third person ("Me Tonto" or "Jose will get you for this" and so
forth), and yes, there are several instances where the narrator refers to
Indians as "savages."
	But-
	There isn't a black and white "cowboys vs. Indians" mentality in The
Lone Ranger (with the cowboys as the good guys). Indians described as
"savages" are the villains of a particular story, but there have been several
episodes where a particular group of Indians are minding their own business
and/or living up to the terms of a treaty, but being wronged by renegade Army
officers, duplicitous ranchers, corrupt government officials or others. These
Indians are not described as "savages."
	It's also interesting how often the bad guys' prejudices are used
against them in episodes of The Lone Ranger. Bad guys often assume Indians
(and/or members of other minority groups) are stupid, so they're not always
concerned if, say, Tonto should happen to overhear something.
	Good guy characters, by contrast, have more positive attitudes. Say
"Smith" is injured or ill and Tonto offers to treat him. "Smith" is hesitant,
but "Jones" says something like "some Indians know a lot about medicine."
	And the Ranger himself is very respectful of other cultures and
belief systems.
	That whole speaking in third person thing? It wasn't just limited to
minority groups in radio. In some Silver Age comics (and even some as
recently as the 1980s) concerning Superman as a toddler (AKA Superbaby), the
toddler Clark Kent and his friends would all talk that way. If the story
concerned an Easter egg hunt, young Clark or Lana Lang or Pete Ross or
whomever might say "me find shiny blue egg."
	No child talks like that. What the hell were those writers thinking?
	Some racism is depicted in, shall we say, a curious way. Take Fu
Manchu. It's been years since I've listened to The Shadow of Fu Manchu or
read any of the books, so I'm not sure how much of what I recall comes from
the radio show and how much from the books, but I remember things like this:
Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie are talking about much more enlightened and
advanced Western society is, while at the same time calling Fu Manchu a
genius whose knowledge of science is unmatched anywhere in the world. These
curious juxtapositions occur often: "Those people" are primitive compared to
"us", but at the same time "their" science is far superior to "ours."
	Oooookay.
	I also find it amusing how Nayland Smith expresses great concern over
the plans for the "yellow race" to conquer the "white race", with no mention
of any other "color." Does that mean he doesn't care about the fate of all
the other races, or just assumes they have or will roll over for Fu Manchu
and his associates?
	I wonder sometimes how much of these somewhat curious remarks were
Sax Rohmer's own attitude seeping through, and how much was Rohmer making a
comment about the stupidity of racism through the words his characters utter.
	With regard to Amos and Andy, I also recommend Elizabeth McLeod's
book. By the way, I first heard Amos and Andy on tape in the early 1980s. But
they didn't sound like stereotypical Black people to me (probably because the
stereotype by then was that such a character would have a "street accent").
Instead, they sounded like stereotypical "country bumpkins" of no particular
ethnicity.
	I believe only the later "sit-com" episodes of Amos and Andy survive.
As McLeod has pointed out, it was the earlier character-oriented stories that
drew in huge audiences. And those characters obviously had a universal appeal.
	I like Fibber McGee And Molly, but I don't care for the character of
Beulah. It strikes me as very insulting that this Black female character was
played by a White man. Leaving aside how Beulah was depicted in her
vocabulary, speech patterns, etc., in an ideal world, a Black woman should
have played the part. But it seems that no woman at all- of all the actresses
in radio, regardless of ethnicity- was suitable for the role. Yeah, right.
	As much as possible, I think radio shows should be presented exactly
as they aired. Warts and all. That includes the cigarette commercials. As
Stephen points out OTR is a record of our cultural history.
	Just as the Warner Brothers cartoons Derek Tague mentions are also
part of our cultural history.

Rick

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2012 Issue #34
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