Subject: [removed] Digest V2003 #109
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 3/9/2003 4:05 PM
To: <[removed]@[removed];

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2003 : Issue 109
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Today in radio history                [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
  RE: OTR Collector Girard And Met Ope  [ OTRDSIEGEL@[removed] ]
  Rewriting Gershwin                    [ "Tom van der Voort" <evan@[removed] ]
  Re:M*A*S*H OTR References             [ "Shawn A. Wells" <swells@[removed] ]
  Re: Ernie Whitman                     [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
  more "M*A*S*H"                        [ JIMWMQT@[removed] ]
  Western Union Clocks                  [ "Bill Orr" <billorr6@[removed]; ]
  Re: wrong again? (daytime serials)    [ Dixonhayes@[removed] ]
  Western Union Clocks                  [ "Bill Orr" <billorr6@[removed]; ]
  Tantalizing question                  [ "Andrew Godfrey" <niteowl049@[removed] ]
  Re: OTR references on TV              [ Dixonhayes@[removed] ]
  Answer to "A Tantalizing Question"    [ "Irene Heinstein" <IreneTH@[removed] ]
  M*A*S*H OTR references                [ "Philip Adams" <padams33@[removed]; ]
  March 10th Birthdays                  [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
  OTR on MP3                            [ Kurt E Yount <blsmass@[removed]; ]
  Ernest "Bubbles" Whitman              [ Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed]; ]
  Western Union time                    [ "Roby McHone" <otr_alaska@[removed] ]
  Orphan Annie CD Set                   [ "Irene Heinstein" <IreneTH@[removed] ]

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:45:35 -0500
From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
To: otr-net <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Today in radio history

>From Those Were The Days --

3/9

1945 - Those Websters debuted on CBS. Willard Waterman starred as George
Webster.

3/10

1922 - Variety magazine greeted readers with the front-page headline
that read, "Radio Sweeping Country - 1,000,000 Sets in Use."

1955 - The last broadcast of The Silver Eagle was heard.

  Joe

--
Visit my home page:
[removed]~[removed]

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:45:47 -0500
From: OTRDSIEGEL@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  RE: OTR Collector Girard And Met Opera
 Recordings

   Several years ago I traded with a wonderful West Coast collector named
Girard. He has since passed away.
   This fellow had an extensive collection of operas broadcasts from the Met
in NYC.
    I wonder if any of the Digest subscribers who might have known him have
any idea as to what may have become of his opera collection OR if any of the
subscribers have an extensive opera collection.
   Dave s.

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:46:34 -0500
From: "Tom van der Voort" <evan@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Rewriting Gershwin

     Just came across an interesting illustration of the tender
sensibilities of
radio's censors.  The Al Jolson 'Kraft Music Hall' from January 22, 1949,
includes the following lyrics from "It Ain't Neccessarily So", Gershwin's
great
standard from 'Porgy and Bess':
                  "The things that your preacher
                    Is liable to teach yer
                    It ain't necessarily so."

     The original lyrics, as I recall, are:
                 "The things you are liable
                   To read in the Bible
                   It ain't necessarily so."

     Guess the Kraft folks didn't want  to be accused of questioning
biblical truth.  I'm sure this happened from time to time. Any other
examples?
     Tom van der Voort

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:49:15 -0500
From: "Shawn A. Wells" <swells@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re:M*A*S*H OTR References

    Greetings! This maybe somewhat of topic, but I  thought the digesters may
want to know that 20th Century Fox has been releasing  the MASH TV series
onto DVD's. They have been releasing them a sean at a time  and there are up
to season 3. I just reciently bought season three at Best Buy.   As for the
OTR references, there are many, for  instance, one one episode Radar and
Klinger make reference to The Shadow, and  then there are others where Radar
does some impersenations of Jack Benny, etc.  Great Stuff! Shawn  

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:51:15 -0500
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: Ernie Whitman

On 3/9/03 11:08 AM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:

The Reverend [Johnson, of "The Amos 'n' Andy Show" and Ernie "Bubbles"
Whitman of AFRS  Jubilee fame are one and
the same. He was also called "The stomach that walks like a man"

And I might also add that Whitman played many other supporting roles
during A&A's first season as a sitcom -- for example, he can be heard as
the tough policeman whose uniform Andy borrows for the lodge Halloween
party and as the maitre'd at the elegant restaurant where Andy takes
Ethel Waters for a date after finding a $1000 bill in the street. He also
took over the role of Honest Joe the Pawnbroker -- a role which, during
the serial era, Charles Correll had played with a Jewish dialect, a trait
which disappeared when Whitman assumed the part. His most memorable turn
as Reverend Johnson occured in the 1944 Good Friday episode, in which he
visits Sapphire and the Kingfish as they are just about to break it off
for good, and convinces them to reconcile by leading them thru a
reenactment of their wedding vows -- a bit which stands as one of the
most touching scenes in the A&A sitcom run.

Whitman was a long-established stage actor before going into radio -- and
attracted particular notice for his performance as one of the death row
inmates in the 1930 Broadway production "The Last Mile." He appeared in a
few movies in the late thirties and early forties, and after his stint
with A&A, he settled in for a long run as Bill Jackson, boyfriend of
"Beulah." He died in 1954 -- and although he was a very versatile
performer, he'll probably be best remembered as the ever-jiving MC of
"Jubilee."

Elizabeth

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:53:24 -0500
From: JIMWMQT@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  more "M*A*S*H"

Hy Averback actually directed quite a number of the early "M*A*S*H" episodes.

I grew up watching that series, not knowing of Larry Gelbart's background in
OTR.  Now that I'm rewatching them for the first time in a decade on DVD, you
can see (and hear) SO many references to radio, even just little throwaway
likes like Hawkeye, in the middle of some war-inspired insanity, yelling out
"Play [removed] Dennis".

You gotta love stuff like that!

Jim Koski

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:54:39 -0500
From: "Bill Orr" <billorr6@[removed];
To: "OTR List" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Western Union Clocks

Having  been a WU Wire Chief as well as a broadcast engineer, I feel
qualified to shed a little light on the topic of recent days with apologies
to the List Boss for a posting of such "Elizabethan" length.

Each WU office had a "master clock" that was corrected each day at noon, EST
from the [removed] Naval Observatory. These master clocks were works of art and
machines to be admired. They were about four feet tall , had a glass door
and were "state-of-the-art" for those [removed] with Mercury-column
pendulums.  The supervisor and several of us would gather at the clock
several minutes prior to 11:00 AM (in Memphis) as all telegraph activity
ceased until the synchronizing signal came down the line.  That daily ritual
was necessary WU policy and was taken very seriously.

Most of the subscriber's clocks (radio/TV stations, banks, stock offices,
etc) had brown cases and yellow faces and were manufactured by the Self
Winding Clock Company in Brooklyn, NY.  They were of several sizes and
[removed],11,12 or 15-inch dials in round metal or square wood
cases. Some were up to three feet tall in nice wood cabinets with long
pendulums and  a glass door.  As I write this, I have one of the latter
hanging on the wall above my computer and ham gear.  I found it in an
antique shop about five years ago.  They wanted 150 bucks for it and said it
was beyond repair.  I didn't tell them my background, brought it home and
worked on it for about a month.  It hasn't missed a beat since, but back to
the topic.

The subscriber's clocks, regardless of size, all had pendulums and two #6
so-called "telephone batteries" whose sole purpose was to wind the clock
periodically, usually once per hour.  One could hear a buzzing sound as the
winding took place.  The batteries could last over five years.  In practice,
they were changed out more often. As Frank Kelly said in his posting, a
synchronizing signal would be received from the local WU office each hour on
the hour.  That signal came from the master clock previously mentioned in a
complicated way.  Subscriber's clocks were seldom more than a couple seconds
off and usually slow although they could be corrected up to two minutes
either side of the hour. Some had a red light that would glow as the reset
occurred.  Now, to answer Frank's question about joining the net on
[removed] that the synchronizing action took place out of local WU
offices all over the country at precisely the same time.  Neglecting
propagation time of the DC pulses in the wire lines, even the network's
clocks were reset at the same moment as Frank's was. The net result being
that everything at every location happened at once at 8:00:00 using Frank's
example.  BTW, WU had VERY strict rules regarding the mounting, care and
maintenance of the clocks.  They had trained "clock men" to take care of all
of that.

Getting to Bob Scherago's [removed] a given locality on a given circuit,
all clocks were indeed in series.  In telegraphic communication everything
is in series working against a ground in both the originating and
terminating locations.  That is not to say that in a large city such as
Chicago or St. Louis that ALL clocks were in series.  All such cities had
large distribution bays feeding a multitude of individual circuits. BTW,
when he disconnected the wire, alarms sounded in the local WU office.

An interesting side [removed] WU ceased their time services in the 1970's,
they allowed all their customers to keep the clocks if they wished.  Most
all of them ended up in collector's homes or in a radio station's junk
closet, probably with all those forgotten ET's.

Regards,

Bill Orr
Tulsa, OK

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:56:18 -0500
From: Dixonhayes@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: wrong again? (daytime serials)

***Those Were the Days is wrong again.  For March 7 it states:

"1933 - CBS debuted the first daytime serial on this day.  Marie the Little
French Princess had a run of two years."***

It may be wrong as stated, but was "Marie" perhaps the first serial created
*especially* for daytime?  Obviously that wasn't true of "Clara, Lu 'n' Em"
(which ran at night originally).

Dixon

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:55:40 -0500
From: "Bill Orr" <billorr6@[removed];
To: "OTR List" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Western Union Clocks

Having  been a WU Wire Chief as well as a broadcast engineer, I feel
qualified to shed a little light on the topic of recent days with apologies
to the List Boss for a posting of such "Elizabethan" length.

Each WU office had a "master clock" that was corrected each day at noon, EST
from the [removed] Naval Observatory. These master clocks were works of art and
machines to be admired. They were about four feet tall , had a glass door
and were "state-of-the-art" for those [removed] with Mercury-column
pendulums.  The supervisor and several of us would gather at the clock
several minutes prior to 11:00 AM (in Memphis) as all telegraph activity
ceased until the synchronizing signal came down the line.  That daily ritual
was necessary WU policy and was taken very seriously.

Most of the subscriber's clocks (radio/TV stations, banks, stock offices,
etc) had brown cases and yellow faces and were manufactured by the Self
Winding Clock Company in Brooklyn, NY.  They were of several sizes and
[removed],11,12 or 15-inch dials in round metal or square wood
cases. Some were up to three feet tall in nice wood cabinets with long
pendulums and  a glass door.  As I write this, I have one of the latter
hanging on the wall above my computer and ham gear.  I found it in an
antique shop about five years ago.  They wanted 150 bucks for it and said it
was beyond repair.  I didn't tell them my background, brought it home and
worked on it for about a month.  It hasn't missed a beat since, but back to
the topic.

The subscriber's clocks, regardless of size, all had pendulums and two #6
so-called "telephone batteries" whose sole purpose was to wind the clock
periodically, usually once per hour.  One could hear a buzzing sound as the
winding took place.  The batteries could last over five years.  In practice,
they were changed out more often. As Frank Kelly said in his posting, a
synchronizing signal would be received from the local WU office each hour on
the hour.  That signal came from the master clock previously mentioned in a
complicated way.  Subscriber's clocks were seldom more than a couple seconds
off and usually slow although they could be corrected up to two minutes
either side of the hour. Some had a red light that would glow as the reset
occurred.  Now, to answer Frank's question about joining the net on
[removed] that the synchronizing action took place out of local WU
offices all over the country at precisely the same time.  Neglecting
propagation time of the DC pulses in the wire lines, even the network's
clocks were reset at the same moment as Frank's was. The net result being
that everything at every location happened at once at 8:00:00 using Frank's
example.  BTW, WU had VERY strict rules regarding the mounting, care and
maintenance of the clocks.  They had trained "clock men" to take care of all
of that.

Getting to Bob Scherago's [removed] a given locality on a given circuit,
all clocks were indeed in series.  In telegraphic communication everything
is in series working against a ground in both the originating and
terminating locations.  That is not to say that in a large city such as
Chicago or St. Louis that ALL clocks were in series.  All such cities had
large distribution bays feeding a multitude of individual circuits. BTW,
when he disconnected the wire, alarms sounded in the local WU office.

An interesting side [removed] WU ceased their time services in the 1970's,
they allowed all their customers to keep the clocks if they wished.  Most
all of them ended up in collector's homes or in a radio station's junk
closet, probably with all those forgotten ET's.

Regards,

Bill Orr
Tulsa, OK

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:56:03 -0500
From: "Andrew Godfrey" <niteowl049@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Tantalizing question

  My guess would be that the golden voice of radio would be Rudy Vallee.
Andrew Godfrey

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:57:06 -0500
From: Dixonhayes@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: OTR references on TV

Can anyone else think of other unexpected references from television,
movies or wherever that you just wouldn't understand unless you were an OTR
fan?

First and foremost, the "Twilight Zone" episode about the guy with the radio
that plays programs from the past.  At one point he hears Tommy Dorsey's band
supposedly live; in another scene Fred Allen is actually heard taking a trip
down "Allen's Alley."

There was a classic "Bewitched" episode in which some type of spell cast on
Larry Tate made him suddenly start growing younger.  At one point there's a
reference to "Amos 'n' Andy" and "The Lone Ranger."

There were numerous references on "M*A*S*H," including an Arthur Godfrey show
playing over the loudspeaker in the OR.  (Though I think he was actually
doing a Lipton Soup commercial in the bit, which might be wrong since AFRS
wouldn't have aired the commercials.)
Another episode mentioned the AFRS delay on broadcast sporting events, with
Hawkeye and company using that fact to play a trick on Frank.

Anyone remember if any specific OTR titles were mentioned in the "Frasier"
episode, in which
Frasier directs a NTR play in honor of KACL's anniversary?

Finally here's the most unlikely one you'll find anywhere:  "Mystery Science
Theatre 3000."  There have been references to "The Shadow" and "The Lone
Ranger," and in one I still have on tape ("I Accuse My Parents"), several
references to Fibber McGee and Molly and even to their closet.

Dixon

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:58:04 -0500
From: "Irene Heinstein" <IreneTH@[removed];
To: "OTR" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Answer to "A Tantalizing Question"

I couldn't resist Dennis Crow's challenge

Can anyone answer this question:     At Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the
Hollywood Hills, there reposes a simple gravestone. It contains the name of
the deceased and  years  of birth and death.  It also has a four word
inscription:  "Golden Voice of Radio."

However, despite all my Google efforts I failed.    I did find a headstone
that matched but it was not at Forest Lawn, it was at El Carmelo Cemetery in
Pacific Grove, Ca.

The headstone with the epitaph "Golden Voice of Radio" that I found was at
the grave of Reed Pollock, 1910-1974, not a name I recognize.

However, during my unsuccessful search the time was not entirely wasted as I
learned that Mel Blanc's gravestone epitaph was "That's All, Folks." and
Bette Davis's "She Did it the Hard Way" .  The epitaph of a favorite of
mine, Ernie Kovacs started with "Nothing in Moderation".

And I ran across this nice item on George Burns.    After Gracie's death he
arranged that her gold-leaf epitaph be moved above his when he died so that
"She'll have top billing."  In an article written shortly after Burns' death
"Forest Lawn spokesman Dick Fisher said the lettering change would be
completed in a few weeks."

Irene

 .
------------------------------

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 17:00:25 -0500
From: "Philip Adams" <padams33@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  M*A*S*H OTR references

    In regards to a recent posting asking about  references to OTR on the TV
series M*A*S*H I can't add anything significant  however I wouldn't be
surprised if there were more given that Larry Gelbart (one  of the show's
co-creators) worked extensively in OTR as a writer for years and  in fact
according to the book "The Laugh Crafters" wrote the early seasons of  the
show just as he would have written any other OTR show. He felt you should be
able to follow the plotline without having to look at the images. You can
give it a try and listen to them with the  picture blackened to see if he was
successful.

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 17:01:31 -0500
From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  March 10th Birthdays

If you born on March 10th, you share your birthday with:

1888 - Barry Fitzgerald - Dublin, Ireland
1894 - Elizabeth Lennox - Ionia, Michigan
1900 - Peter DeRose - New York City
1903 - Leon Bismark “Bix” Beiderbecke - Davenport, Iowa
1905 - Richard Haydn - London, England
1911 - Warner Anderson - Brooklyn, New York
1918 - Pamela Mason - Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, England
1919 - Marion Hutton - Battle Creek, Michigan
--
Ron Sayles
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Make your day, listen to an Olde Tyme Radio Program

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 17:01:38 -0500
From: Kurt E Yount <blsmass@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  OTR on MP3

I have been many times to the site
[removed]
and bought MP3s from him.  The quality is good, but I was wondering if
anybody else had a large amount of material like this so that I can try
to fill some holes in the collection.  There is something so gratifying
about holding so many programs in your hand on one MP3 CD and I would
like to find out if there are any more sources.  Somebody was talking
here a few months ago when I joined about finding out which programs were
already on MP3.  If anybody has any suggestions, please let me know.
Thanks for your time.  Kurt

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 17:01:58 -0500
From: Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Ernest "Bubbles" Whitman

Joe Salerno mentions:

The Reverend and Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman of AFRS Jubilee fame are one and
the same. He was also called "The stomach that walks like a man

Another Jubilee alum who was a regular on Amos 'n' Andy was comedian Ernie
Green. I know at least one of my Jubilee copies has a couple of routines
with Green and Whitman together. As I recall, Green played the crooked
lawyer, Stonewall.

Jim Widner
jwidner@[removed]

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 17:02:10 -0500
From: "Roby McHone" <otr_alaska@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Western Union time

Frank Kelly <fkelly@[removed]; wrote:

On another (but related) subject, I worked at an
NBC affiliate (WDEL, Wilmington DE) in the late 50s.
I remember we had Western Union clocks that
corrected to the exact time once an hour . . .

Just wondering:  What did Western Union use for their official exact time?
Now we have the world universal time which (I think) is some sort of atomic
clock.
I worked in power plants for almost 33 years and we used to have "Frequency
Time Error" (FTE) on our frequency controllers.  Plug-in electric clocks
will run faster or slower when the AC frequency deviates (even very
slightly) from our standard 60 cycles per second.  Our FTE looked like a one
handed clock, the single hand would always point to 12 o'clock if there were
no frequency changes, but small changes happen all the time so the hand
would move to the minus or plus side throughout the day.  The operator on
graveyard shift, usually about 2 AM, would activate FTE and the turbines
would speed up or slow down (again a very small amount) to correct the
cumulative frequency deviations until the FTE was pointing to 12 o'clock.
The main reason for this nocturnal task was to ensure that everyone's
electric clocks were accurate (at least daily).  Of course, now in our cyber
world computers take care of this automatically and most operators aren't
even aware that it happens.

Roby McHone
Fairbanks, Alaska, where we always have a white St. Patrick's Day

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

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 17:03:35 -0500
From: "Irene Heinstein" <IreneTH@[removed];
To: "OTR" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Orphan Annie CD Set

Harlan Zinck, add my name to the list of folks who are absolutely delighted
with the Radio Orphan Annie CD set.

The organ opening is fabulous.   The theme is a real toe-tapper.  Who says
an organ can't swing?   I'm always sorry when that guy jumps in with the
lyrics to the theme, pushing the organ into the background.   Do you know
who the organist was?

-Irene

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2003 Issue #109
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