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

      Please Read Information Boilerplate at the End of This Digest
                          Last Updated 10-28-96

[removed] Digest				Volume 96 : Issue 506

Table Of Contents: 

	 Bob Considine,"One Giant Step"& The Mutual Broadcasting System
	 Mutual, NBC Radio more
	 WENN Xmas Show / Radio vs. TV
	 Rathbone's Scrooge
	 Can anyone help?
	 Mutual
	 Looking for an old program
	 Mutual, NBC and variety
	 Update: List Admin's House Fire
	 Mutual Network

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 10:30:22 -0500 (EST)
From: JSEXTON@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Bob Considine,"One Giant Step"& The Mutual Broadcasting System
Message-id: <01IDM8WDCGAQ8WW764@[removed]>
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII

    One of my favorite news commentators was the late Bob [removed] was
a friendly,informative man who in later years was on the MBS radio network.
    An enthusiast of the space program,He produced a record called "One
Giant Step" that told the story of the space program through the Apollo
Moon landing [removed] record perished many years ago,and I wonder if anyone has a copy of this beautiful recording?? If not,can anyone provide me with
an address of the Mutual Broadcasting System?? Thanks,John (JSEXTON@[removed])

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 12:38:20 -0700
From: joseph <joseph@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Mutual, NBC Radio more
Message-Id: <l03010d00aeedc7f1a5e1@[[removed]]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Mutual was eaten by the radio group Westwood One. Until a year or so ago
the Jim Bohannon show was a Mutualshow then it became a Westwood One show.
Jim said this was so there would be one corporate identity.

NBC radio is not owned by NBC. The network was sold to somebody else with
the right to use the name under license. At leat that's the way I heard it.

Rereading Eric Barnouw History of US Broadcasting: A Tower in Babel, The
Golden Web, The Image Empire (Tube of Plenty). Excellent works and great
reads. For broadcasting historians a good follow up to the above is Three
Blind Mice or Where the Networks Went wrong.

Joseph M

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 15:58:39 -0500
From: RadioJoe5@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: WENN Xmas Show / Radio vs. TV
Message-ID: <961230155833_1390795394@[removed]>

I was surprised.  On the whole I'm disappointed with WENN - the idea that
three actors did everything on the air and the bright, hyperstylized building
and such.

But I found the Christmas show rather fun.  The two Betty Buckley songs were
great and in the mood - Peter Noone singing 1950s be-bop in a 1940s setting
was entertaining (if historically inaccurate) and the saving the station from
doom was fun.

I just wish they would run the credits a little more slowly, or do a vignette
of the actor with the name.  Several of the performers are quite good and I'd
like to see what else they had done.

Does anyone else find similarities between "WENN" and Jane Wagner's "Of Mikes
and Men"?  

The the "Radio vs. TV" thing - I agree that (in this country) both media were
designed as advertising media and were supposed to create the largest market
possible.  That always means the lowest common denominator (works for movies
and novels, too).  

But real artists show up in any medium simple because that medium is
available.  Norman Corwin, Paul Rhymer, Stan Freberg and my other favorites
would have found other outlets, but they happened to have access to a new and
undefined medium.  I'm surprised to find that there are artists in genre's I
do not like (like rap) where I find solid and inventive creative talents
(like Queen Lateefa and Coolio).

Radio was less intrusive than television - I could have the radio on while I
wrote, cleaned, or did other chores.  I still do.

Finally, I was surprsied this Sunday to hear a four hour adaptation of
"Blacklisted" - the story of Gordon Kahn (sp?), as performed by a very good
cast (Ron Liebman, Stockard Channing, Ed Asner, etc.).  The story was told
from the son's viewpoint - exile in Mexico and hard times back in the states.
 It is making the rounds on PBS and I recommend catching it.  

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 96 14:21:11 -0700
From: nflagg <nflagg@[removed]>
To: <[removed]@[removed]>
Subject: Rathbone's Scrooge
Message-Id: <[removed]@endeavor>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

 . . . And to this day when I think of the name Ebenezer
Scrooge, I hear the rough, gruff voice of Basil Rathbone in that role.  Is
anyone else familiar with it?
   Yes, Mr. Levine, I too am familiar with this version and feel it 
superior to the radio version that everyone knows about. Unfortunatly, 
somewhere over the years, I lost my copy and should you ever feel the 
urge to share, I'd be willing to pay the cost of a dup copy or possibly 
trade?? It does bring back fond memories of Christmas past.

On another subject:
RE: MR. PFEIFFER'S PLIGHT
If you're holding back on helping, thinking it might be some kind of 
scam, you can call the local paper; The News Leader (417 836 1100) ask 
for the editorial desk, and verify that said tragedy did actually occur.

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 17:27:42 -0500
From: Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Can anyone help?
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I recently received this request for information. I am not familiar with
this actress (Dorothy Page), so if anyone can help, please contact the
requestor directly at:

garczar@[removed] (Lee Clay Jordan III)

>
>I have a really strange request for you, but I hope that you will be able
to help me.
>I recently was going through my grandmothers scrapbook, who died in 1961
and who I 
>never met due to family politics. She was a film star in the 1930's,
although a rather
>obscure one, named Dorothy Page. I found a picture of a marquee for a
radio show with her
>and Bing Crosby named as the stars. My mother told me that she starred in
a radio show with
>Bing Crosby sometime in the 30'ss or 40's. The name again, was Dorothy
Page. Have you
>heard of her? How can I get information about this show? She was supposed
to have a good
>singing voice, so I assume it probably had a musical theme. Help!
>

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 21:03:07 -0500
From: vintage@[removed] (Andy Blatt)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Mutual
Message-Id: <v01540b01aeedcd1b8b79@[[removed]]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Dick Lupoff inquires about Mutual.  I'm not sure why their id's are not
heard on-air; the network still exists.  They and NBC (Radio) were absorbed
by Westwood One, which in turn was absorbed by Infinity Broadcasting, which
in turn merged into the new (all-broadcast only) Westinghouse.
Westinghouse sold off its profitable, unglamorous industrial subsidiaries
in favor of buying CBS and then Infinity.  CBS cost $5 billion and Infinity
cost $[removed] billion, so there's still lots of money in radio, even if GE sold
off the Radio Division when they
bought RCA/NBC.  Sometime around the year 2000, the lease on the "NBC" name
expires for Mutual/Westwood/Infinity/Westinghouse's use for the radio news
division that used to be associated with NBC-TV.  At that time, NBC radio
(the actual entity celebrating its 70th year) will officially disappear.
GE decided to stay with TV, although when CBS and ABC changed hands, their
radio divisions
remained intact.

Andy Blatt

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 20:20:05 -0600
From: A Nelms <mnelms@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Looking for an old program
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hello,
       I'm looking for a program called "Christmas at [or on] the
Ponderosa."  I think it was part of a radio series, but I have heard
only the program about an old-fashioned community Christmas with sleigh
ride, etc.
       If you can give me any information about where to find it, I
would appreciate it.

				Joanna
				mnelms@[removed]

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 20:33:13 -0600
From: Cockrum <bcockrum@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Mutual, NBC and variety
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I'm with Dick Lupoff, being away from the business and otherwise
occupied and not being a regular reader of "Broadcasting" magazine as I
once was, I lost track of Mutual. I seem to remember it being taken over
by Westwood One but still going by the name Mutual, carrying Larry King
and Notre Dame football and hourly news ... but I don't hear Mutual
around these parts anymore, although I may not know where to listen.
Same for NBC Radio, does it still exist after being absorbed by
Westwood?

While I'm asking, what killed the CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the early
1980s? I have assumed that it was brought about by satellite
distribution of the network ... that many stations, as the one where I
worked in the mid-70s, carried the program because what the heck, it was
coming down the line, we don't run any local spots at night anyhow, so
why not carry something that is different from the rest. But with
satellite distribution came a choice of several CBS Radio channels and
more offerings from other distributors without the hassle of getting a
special telephone line as in years past.   

I think Robert I. Scherago brought a balance to the thread about radio
variety vs. television variety. We have been comparing in our minds a
dozen or more great shows drawn from drama, westerns, comedy, and music
against the terrible comedies and cop shows of TV today. The otr drama
often was based on different movies each week or other anthologies of
contemporary or classic drama, which added to the varietal mix. You also
had admittedly silly shows like Judy Canova, but because it was mixed
with her singing (and she really was pretty good ... today she would be
called a cross-over artist with all those violins -- not fiddles --
doing a country song) the show was more than comedy, more than music.
Where on TV can we find the equivalent of a Railroad Hour ... not even
on PBS. But we did on old time TV as some of those shows shifted over
from radio for a time in the '50s. Network TV once had the variety of
otr, but especially not since the explosion of cable and satellite and
all their specialized offerings. The variety is there when you look at
the whole range of who is offering what. 

Quality is something else again. I don't know if otr was ever subject to
the same programming excesses as television ... remember the late '50s
when TV had upwards of 30 prime time Westerns. You know there will be a
lot of runts in a litter like that! 

I don't mean to insult anyone's taste, if you still like them, that's
fine, but after collecting two or three of My Friend, Irma or My Little
Margie, which I listened to as a kid and laughed a lot, I realize now
how inane they were. (Likewise TV's 3rd [removed] is it but an aliens
-come-to-Earth version of Beverly Hillbillies?) I'm proud to say that I
also lay there in front of that magnificent Silvertone console and
listened to Jack Benny, Fibber McGee, Phil Harris and Alice Faye, and
Our Miss Brooks--which stand the test of time and of good comedy,
equivalent to TV's Frasier and Cheers--great ensembles, clever word
play--without all the sexual inuendo (and more blatant sexual references
... not that there weren't allusions to sex on otr, but they were
generally way over the heads of us young listeners and not offensive to
adults, either. Those were the days when the expression "they made love"
meant nothing more than kissing -- although little kids still covered
their eyes and gagged at the sight during the Saturday afternoon
double-feature).

Bob Cockrum
bcockrum@[removed]

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

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 20:47:41 -0600 (CST)
From: wdp (William Pfeiffer)
To: otr@[removed] (Old Time Radio)
Subject: Update: List Admin's House Fire
Message-Id: <m0veuEv-000k4VC@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length:       1883

Greetins OTR friends:

Wow.

What an amazing outpouring of love and support from the OTR community.

Through the aid of those on this list and on AIRWAVES, I am now able
to put a sizable enough down payment on a new home to secure finacing.

Now my only concern is to pay someone to haul away the old home
debris.  This can be a little tricky cause you have to have someone
insured or 'ooops' he gets hit in the ehad and suddenly owns my meeger
homestead.  I am confident, though, that Ill find a way.  

Mom is still in ICU at St John's Hospital's burn unit (in Springfield
Mo).  Her facial burns are healing and she is off the respirator.  
She is recovering rapidly, but has a problem with her swollow reflex
which forces her to be fed via  t G-Tube into her stomach.

She is expected to recover, in time.

For a scanned image of the two newspaper accounts of our tragety, see
the following URLS.  
  
1) [removed]~[removed] and
2) [removed]~[removed] 

Sorry they are in image format, I had no OCR software available and I
was darned fortunate to even get my mitts on a scanner.  

Sorry no photos of the scene, the scanner made them muddy and way too
dark.  

So, in a nutshell, we are recovering, slowly.  Ill still miss so much
that was lost.  My 2000 albuns dating back to the late twenties, all
my comuter files, photos, images, etc etc etc.  I also had about 600
cassettes and videos of some 'performances' I gave in the late
eighties.

At least as important as any money you have offered, is the true
empathy and care which has been so evident in your letters.  This has
warmed my heart and helped keep my spirits up when things look so
black.

Once I get the land cleared, I can begin the long, slow process of
building a life again.

Thanks for all you have done and continue to do.  You guys are teh
greatest.

William Pfeiffer
OTR Digest

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

Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 00:42:59 -0500 (EST)
From: "'A. Joseph Ross'" <lawyer@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Mutual Network
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

> Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 21:03:46 -0500
> From: Bigkids@[removed]
> To: [removed]@[removed]
> Subject: Network, "Up in Central Park"
> Message-ID: <961229210345_371740836@[removed]>
> 
> And, as for mentioning that the Mutual network was created in 1934 -- does
> anyone happen to know if Mutual still exists? At one time it was a major
> force in broadcasting (or such is my recollection), but MBS never made the
> transition from radio to TV, and consequently lost out when the big money and
> big audiences shifted over.

Last time I heard the Mutual name on radio was about ten years ago, when
it ran Larry King's after-midnight talk show.  I'm not sure whether the
network has a separate existence today, but I believe it was purchased by
Westwood One at some point.

==============================================================================
  A. Joseph Ross, [removed]                                          617/367-0468
  15 Court Square                                       lawyer@[removed]
  Boston, MA 02108-2573                        [removed]~lawyer/
==============================================================================



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--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V96 Issue #506
*******************************************

