Subject: [removed] Digest V2013 #32
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 3/13/2013 10:48 AM
To: [removed]@[removed]
Reply-to:
[removed]@[removed]

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                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2013 : Issue 32
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                             [removed]
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Clock 165                             [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
  EDDIE MERMAN                          [ wcw57@[removed] ]
  Unit 99                               [ Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed] ]
  Marty Halperin?                       [ Larry Gassman <Lgsinger@[removed] ]
  Lightning Jim                         [ Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed] ]
  why Mary went off mike                [ Michael Berger <[removed]@yaho ]
  Re: Superheterodyne Radios            [ Don Shenbarger <donslistmail@sbcglo ]
  Headphones                            [ "Ian Grieve" <austotr@[removed] ]

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Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:52:51 -0500
From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio Digest Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Clock 165

Has anyone ever heard of a program called "Clock 165." I was recently
aired on public radio in Madison, Wisconsin.

Ron Sayles

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

Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:52:56 -0500
From: wcw57@[removed]
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  EDDIE MERMAN
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

This is a request for [removed] [removed] information regarding a
performer named Eddie (Edward?) Merman.  He was a half-a**ed relative who
performed in vaudeville (I am sure) and, perhaps, radio as a singer---maybe an
Irish Tenor.  I am trying to track down any info regarding his history and can
only pass along that he lived his last years in Suffolk County, Long Island,
NY.  That is the best I can do and I hope that I am not out of line using this
wonderful forum for an information request.

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

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Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:59:23 -0500
From: Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Unit 99

Folks;

   Anyone have any information handy on the series Unit 99? Was listening to
some episodes rebroadcast by the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service,
and wondered if anyone here had more info on original network, producer, that
sort of thing.

        Charlie

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

Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 21:45:38 -0500
From: Larry Gassman <Lgsinger@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Marty Halperin?

I am in contact with PPB on a regular baisis and haven't heard of his passing.
I will make some inquiries.
Larry

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

Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 21:47:35 -0500
From: Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Lightning Jim

Folks;

   My daughter Katie and I, as our very first Old-Time Radio collaboration
(predating SummersTime) researched Lightning Jim for an upcoming book (more
about that much later). In a nutshell, Lightning Jim was originally
performed, recorded, and broadcast locally on WGN in Chicago with its
premiere on Tuesday, October 18, 1938. It is the story of the always right
and just [removed] Marshall "Lightning" Jim Whipple and his comic-relief sidekick
Deputy Whitey Larsen battling the outlaws and hostile Indian tribes of the
old west. It was scheduled as a twice-weekly half-hour, every Tuesday and
Thursday evening at 7:30 [removed] Central Time. Various newspaper advertisements
of the period show the program was sponsored locally by the Beatrice Creamery
Company, manufacturers of Meadow Gold Dairy Products (the show was referenced
in the ads as the, "Meadow Gold Round-Up!").

   The WGN run of Lightning Jim continued until the beginning of November,
1939 when the program left the airwaves. It appears transcriptions of the
program were then broadcast on the Blue network, at least to the Pacific
coast, beginning in 1942. The program was eventually purchased by the
Fredrick W. Ziv Co., who advertised 104 episodes available for syndication, a
reasonable number since the original broadcasts lasted a bit over a year. It
is from Ziv transcription discs the forty-two episodes we have in general
circulation are apparently from; each episode has a long musical bed at the
beginning, middle, and end to accommodate local commercial inserts at the
purchasing station. There are conventional numbers contemporarily used for
the episodes, but they seem to have very little to do with the original WOR
production order.

   Former matinee idol Francis X. Bushman portrayed Whipple, with Chicago
radio character actor Henry Hoople as Larsen. (Every time Kate hears an
episode of this show, she wonders aloud why the [removed] Marshall's deputy was
Swedish.)

   Naming the central character of this particular radio play was
surprisingly simple. In a January 1939 article in the Chicago Tribune, radio
writer Larry Wolters discusses the problems radio producers were having then
with lawsuits brought by people with the same name as characters in radio
plays. He notes the producer of Lightning Jim solved the problem neatly and
admirably - by simply giving the character Jim Whipple his own name! It would
be almost impossible for anyone else to claim this character was meant to
defame them!

   One of the series' writers, Sol Saks, went on to write for radio's Duffy's
Tavern, and in the 1960's created the beloved television series Bewitched
starring Elizabeth Montgomery, according to a 2011 Chicago obituary.

	           Charlie

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

Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 11:46:18 -0500
From: Michael Berger <[removed]@[removed];
To: otr <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  why Mary went off mike

Listening to another Mary Livingstone fluff on a Benny show last night,
something occurred to me that may have been covered here before, but still, I
wonder:

Every fluff drew a big laugh so her mistakes were actually positives in light
of audience reaction. But with every fluff came a comic rebuff from Jack. I
wonder if, despite the outward laughs, Mary developed an inward phobia of
sorts, and finally decided the only way to handle it was to have her lines
recorded in advance and dubbed into the show.

BTW, in reference to an earlier discussion here about whether OTR performers
routinely dropped script pages on the floor after they were spoken, Mary,
after a fluff, was asked by Jack in one show to repeat the line. "I can't,"
she replied, "I threw the page away."

Michael Berger

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

Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 11:46:43 -0500
From: Don Shenbarger <donslistmail@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: Superheterodyne Radios

On 3/12/2013 A Joseph Ross wrote:

1923   A great improvement in radio receivers was advertised.

I wonder whether the "foolproof" design was superhetrodyne circuits, a
circuit design used to this day.

There were many prototype, experimental, and handmade superheterodyne
receivers built in the early 20's. RCA intended to provide commercial
superheterodyne radios for the Christmas season in 1923, but failed to
achieve this. They probably did advertise the radio sets in 1923 but the
first models were delivered in February, 1924 and the official rollout
in April, 1924.

In April, 1923 the Neutrodyne receiver was introduced and adopted by
several independent radio manufacturers. This design was a significant
improvement to traditional tuned radio frequency (TRF) radios. The
design was popular, cheaper to build than superheterodyne designs, and
somewhat easier for owners to tune. Also, it was available for the
important 1923 Christmas season and gave independents a jump start over
RCA who had nothing to offer that year at all. Ten million Neutrodyne
sets were sold by 1927.

By the 1930s improvements in vacuum tube design, especially the
introduction of the tetrode and pentode, provided circuit stabilization
within the tubes that the Neutrodyne design provided with circuit
components and made the superheterodyne design more practical and cost
effective. The entire body of TRF radios disappeared from the stores
afterword.

Don Shenbarger

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

Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 11:46:49 -0500
From: "Ian Grieve" <austotr@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Headphones

In issue #31 A. Joseph Ross mentioned radio prior to speakers and the use of
Headphones.

I was amazed to find a very early photo of a dance hall and what looked like
hundreds of headphones hanging from the ceiling.  The caption told how they
were used to listen to the radio during dancing intermissions.  I guess that
was when it sunk in to me that radios didn't come with speakers in the
beginning.

Ian Grieve

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2013 Issue #32
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