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	  	         === Last Update 1/17/95  ====





	    [removed]   Volume 96 : Issue 182


Articles in this issue of [removed]:

	 Labeling Cassettes
	 the Black Museum
	 I taught I [removed]
	 Danny Kaye and Mr. Potatohead
	 unzipping old time radio files, audio & graphics on Macs
	 Re: Black Museum
	 Re: The Black Mass
	 Welles Special #2
	 WJSV and horror shows
	 Reel-to-reel recorders
	 OTR Commercials
	 Hysterical essay
	 Any thoughts on WLAW radio

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

Date: Tue, 21 May 96 00:33:47 UT
From: "Bruce Rosenberger" <BR3D@[removed]>
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Labeling Cassettes
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

In OTR #175 Randy Minnehan asks:
> Can someone tell me where to get software and actual lables for
>printing my own labels to put in cassette tapes?  Not liner notes, but the
>labels that stick onto the cassettes.  This must be easy, as I see several
>people have it for their own tapes, but I can't find it. Any help? Thanks!

Of all the cassette labels that I've seen over the last few years, the system 
that I decided to emulate was the use of 7/16 X 3-1/2" 'file' labels that I 
saw being used by Andy Blatt of Vintage Broadcasts. The same label can be used 
on the cassette and the spine of the plastic. The 7/16" was even narrow enough 
for the Poly style plastic cases. The problem that I've run into is that since 
I've gotten myself a new ink jet printer I can no longer find the labels in 
the correct [removed] Staples still carries the 'tractor feed' rolls of these 
labels, but sadly none in either laser or ink jet.

[removed] care to give up some trade secrets? Can you help us out?

As for as the label program software I too purchased Labels Unlimeted only to 
later find out that Works [removed], Wordperfect [removed], and Word for Windows all have 
label functions that are as [removed] (but, whatever works for you!)

Bruce M. Rosenberger Hellertown, PA

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

Date: Tue, 21 May 96 01:07:04 UT
From: "Bruce Rosenberger" <BR3D@[removed]>
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: the Black Museum
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

In OTR Randy Minnehan writes:

> I'm sure I'm not the first one to find this flaw in the last digest,
>but just in case, here [removed] Frank Mallory mentioned that the BLACK
>MUSEUM was a BBC show.  Sorry, [removed] it was made right here in the >good 
old US of A.  It was on Mutual and hosted by Orson Welles.  Now, the
>stories were taken from the crime files of Scotland Yard, and maybe some
>of the actors were British, but it was not a BBC production.

In his book, "Citizen Welles," Frank Brady states that Harry Alan Towers was 
responsible for the radio shows, The Adventures of Harry Lime, and The Black 
Museum as well as trying to get Welles to star in a version of Sherlock 
Holmes. Welles agreed only to play Moriarty in the story "The Final Problem."
According to Brady the shows were indeed a British production and heard in the 
UK. He also notes that Towers wrote and produced programs for the BBC during 
WW2, but never says that the productions were for the BBC. (But, then was 
there any other radio in England?) 

Do you think it's possible that these were independent productions syndicated 
to the Mutual Network?

Does anyone out there actually have this Sherlock Holmes episode with Welles?

Bruce M. Rosenberger Hellertown, PA
 

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

Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 21:18:55 -0400
From: Bruce Rudesill <lranger@[removed]>
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: I taught I [removed]
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

I just listened to a Judy Canova show from 1943. In it Mel Blanc appears as a
character named Sylvester. Guess who he sounds like? A certain black cat from
cartoonland. My question is which came first? When did the Sylsvester/Twweety
Bird cartooons start? How come he could use the same voice in both venues? 

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

Date: 20 May 1996 21:02:04 CST
From: [removed]@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Danny Kaye and Mr. Potatohead
Message-Id: <m0uLglX-000YBBC@[removed]>

Hi I have always been a Danny Kaye fan but never knew until a couple
days ago that he had a show of his own. I think it was around 1945. Were
there many produced are there any available and were they any good?
Whew! Now for something completely different and not really related to
OTR. Does anyone know where I could find a coppy of the Mr. Potatohead
jingle? I don't know if it was advertised on radio but I know there was
a tv jingle. Well thanks again for any help. LOung live the OTR Digest
and lets keep it friendly.

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

Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 22:55:25 -0400
From: Platecap@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: unzipping old time radio files, audio & graphics on Macs
Message-ID: <960520225525_539423875@[removed]>

As some of you may know who have visited Lou's OTR web site, electronic OTR
catalogs are as a rule, "zipped" or compressed to save space and download
time.  This format is a standard in the PC  world.  In the Mac world, the
"zip" standard is Alladin Systems' "Stuffit" which is available in both
shareware & commercial versions. AOL & similar software has Stuffit built in,
but it does not handle zip files like you'll find on the OTR web sites. The
Deluxe (commercial) version of Stuffit WILL unzip zipped files.  There are
alternatives however, and they work very easily.  One such alternative is Zip
It which is Mac shareware that handles "unpacking" of IBM PC files easily.
 If you do not have access to a shareware library, feel free to e-mail me for
a copy.  I run an Apple-authorized user group / library in the Detroit area.
I've had many people contact me unable to unzip OTR catalogs. I know some of
us are not technically oriented (or care to be).  
If you have trouble with any of the OTR files that originated with me, feel
free to e-mail me directly for further info or for an uncompressed copy.
Also, Mac users who may have trouble viewing the old time radio stars graphic
images or hearing the sound clips, I'll be glad to help.  All Macs have
built-in audio capability, and extensive graphics handling.  You just need
the right utilities when those formats originate in a different platform or
are something other than a universal standard format.  
Just my 7 [removed]

Bob Burnham;  BRC Productions;  Platecap@[removed]

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

Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 21:09:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Ward <jward@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Black Museum
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>

> 
>    I'm sure I'm not the first one to find this flaw in the last digest,
> but just in case, here [removed] Frank Mallory mentioned that the BLACK
> MUSEUM was a BBC show.  Sorry, [removed] it was made right here in the good
> old US of A.  It was on Mutual and hosted by Orson Welles.  Now, the
> stories were taken from the crime files of Scotland Yard, and maybe some
> of the actors were British, but it was not a BBC production.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------
> |Randy Minnehan - rminneha@[removed]|
> --------------------------------------------------

It's true that The Black Museum was not a BBC production.  The mistake, 
however, is easily made, as many sources count both Harry Lime and The 
Black Museum as BBC productions. 

It is a mistake to say that The Black Museum was recorded by Welles in
the US of A.  The program was recorded at the International Broadcasting
Company, IBC, which was located across the street from the BBC in
Portland Place, London (helping to add to the confusion with the BBC).

After the success of The Lives of Harry Lime, Mutual approached Harry 
Alan Towers, the producer, about a "similar series" of shows.  fifty-two 
episodes were recorded and broadcast on MBS in 1951 and then syndicated 
with Harry Lime.  This information comes from Frank Tavares's work on the 
subject.  I could be wrong, but I don't believe Welles set foot on [removed] 
soil during this period.

Joe Ward

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

Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 01:36:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: MAX SCHMID <mschmid@[removed]>
To: airwavesOTR <[removed]@[removed]>
Subject: Re: The Black Mass
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>

	As mentioned before, there was at least one Britisher who appeared on
The KPFA series The Black Mass.  I believe his name is John Whiting, but I
haven't listened to them in a while.   Erik Bauersfeld, the producer, also
used an affected style also, which may have led to the confusion.  For all 
I know, he's English too; I've only heard him on this show.
	here's a partial list of episodes I got from The Pacifica Archives:
The Flies
Oh Mirror, Mirror
Shidah and Kuziba
Evening Primrose
An Evening's Entertainment
2 By Poe - The Predicament and Tell-Tale Heart
Nightmare
Bartleby The Scrivener (Melville)
A Country Doctor
The Ash Tree
Atrophy
The Judgemewnt
2 By Ambrose Bierce - Oil of Dog  and Esme

I have twice as many more, and I'll try to list them in a few days, with 
authors.  They are mostly adapted from classic literature, although I've 
heard a few originals - perhaps Atrophy falls into that category.  Another
show comes to mind called Candaule's Commissioner, which, although it had
the Black Mass opening, was very different - an anti-Viet Nam propaganda
piece.  I wonder if the title might have been used as a catch-all for 
radio dramas of a certain era at KPFA?
	There are also two formats that I've heard.  I have a few airchecks
that have an eerie, comic Strange Doctor Weird-style opening, then the host 
makes bad jokes based on the episode at hand (Rats in the Walls refers to 
"a family secret he just couldn't ....keep down"), and a similar custom 
outro, but the shows from the Archive are not packaged that way, just 
eerie music into a brief intro and then the story.
	Don't know if they still list these at the PacifIca Archive, or the
price structure.

	PACIFICA PROGRAM SERVICE AND RADIO ARCHIVES
	3729 Cahuenga Blvd. West
	North Hollywood, CA  91604
	(818) 506-1077	

	-Max

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

Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 01:47:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: MAX SCHMID <mschmid@[removed]>
To: airwavesOTR <[removed]@[removed]>
Subject: Welles Special #2
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>

	A last reminder for NYC area listeners (which will probably be lost
in one of those lost issue fax-pas):
A Tribute to Orson Welles 
Wednesday, May 22, 7:30 (ish) PM to 6 AM.
Guests Anthony Tollin, Arthur Anderson, Director Henry Jaglom, Wiliam Alland 
(I hope), possibly others (Jon Wiener of U of California, Irvine, who has 
obtained Welles' FBI file through the Freedom of Information act, as reported
in The Nation last week May 27 issue).
	The radio shows will include THE FREE COMPANY His Honor the Mayor 
(thanks to the Gassman boys), THE SHADOW The White Legion, CAVALCADE OF
AMERICA The Great Man Votes, and Lord knows what else we can fit in between
the dreaded fund-raising.
	In the words of the Great Fields - "Don't miss it if you can!"
-Max

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

Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 04:50:58 -0400
From: ErikS74342@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: WJSV and horror shows
Message-ID: <960521045057_117888242@[removed]>

Just back from vacation -- and after reading the various postings provoked by
my mention of the famous "WJSB" recording, I thought I should say something.
After all, it's rare that a fellow can make make so many mistakes, and still
try to live with himself.

Yes, the call letters of the station that recorded its day-long broadcast
were actually WJSV, and I got the month wrong, too. And in 1939, it still was
Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour, not Ted Mack's. I apologize for dashing
off a note without double-checking the tape-case in my car.

Now that I'm finished playing through the entire day's broadcast, I thought
I'd offer the last  few impressions with which it leaves [removed]

~ That we often assume old-time radio must have been a truly wonderful
experience, day in and day out, in which the Jell-O Program was followed by
Lights Out, Inner Sanctum, Suspense and X Minus One. But really, it was as
much a hit-and-miss proposition as is television today. Maybe we're lucky
that we can choose which broadcasts we hear. But it causes us to look at
old-time radio with the proverbial rose-colored glasses. Every night was most
definitely not Jack Benny night.

An obvious thought, sure. But it's the same sort of revelation that came to
me a few years ago when I spent a week in England. I turned on the TV,
expecting to see Masterpiece Theater and Monty Python -- and instead found
that British TV consists mainly of rude puppet shows and endless snooker
matches. 

~ That there were many big bands we have forgotten today -- and with good
reason.

(All musical performances on CBS on 9/21/39 were competent, but the only
standout performance was that of Louis Prima).

~ And that soap operas, believe it or not, may provide the greatest insight
into the way people viewed their own culture. Sex was not to be mentioned;
women spent the day in the pantry, and the maintenance of "romance" was the
operative factor in relationships. Perhaps this wasn't reality, just as soap
operas today are a poor reflection on life today. Yet these shows provide us
with an idea of the expectations people held at the time.

Of course, these impressions are skewed by the material; maybe the next
broadcast day was entirely different, just as fascinating but thoroughly
memorable. I recall that on that same trip to England, I picked up every
looney-tune tabloid newspaper I could find -- and managed to offend my hosts
by explaining that I wanted to show people back home what England was really
like. I wonder if the fellow at WJSV in 1939 who spent the day putting blank
discs on the turntable would have felt comfortable knowing that he was making
the truest record of what radio was.

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

NEW TOPIC: Horror shows

A number of readers have pointed out that I was in error in observing that
only 18 Quiet Please shows seem to have survived. Let me explain. It had been
years since I had seen a new show listed anywhere -- and since Hickerson's
book listed only the same 18 shows, I assumed that was the end of the story.
The news that some 60 or 70 shows have now surfaced has to be one of the most
exciting pieces of radio arcana I have gleaned since discovering this Digest
a year ago. It is one of the errors I am happiest to admit.

And since you might call this posting a mea culpa of sorts, let me admit a
mistake that I might have made -- and that no one caught. I referred to
Beyond Midnight as a New Zealand show. The news that more Quiet Please shows
might be available sent me scrambling across the Internet -- and in the
sci-fi/horror listing at Jim Widner's WWW page, I found a mention of Beyond
Midnight as a South African show. You know, I'd assumed it was a New Zealand
show because a snatch of one broadcast is heard for a moment in the sweetly
nostalgic New Zealand splatter movie, "Dead/Alive." Learning more about this
program's origins, alas, does not make it any more interesting.

One reader observed that I must have heard an awful batch of Mysterious
Traveler shows to rank it so poorly. To the contrary: I've listened to about
60 of (I think) 69 surviving shows, in the course of putting together a log
and episode guide (to be finished soon). True, some are among the greatest
shows ever produced -- maybe half are classics, a wonderful batting average.
Another third are competent, but derivative, obvious, or lifeless -- and the
rest are real stinkeroos. Those of you with extensive collections -- take a
listen to "The Man From Singapore" and you'll hear a genuine masterpiece of
bad radio: Bad dialogue, bad acting, bad sound effects. Oh yes, it is
delightfully bad.

One last thought: There's one other horror show that deserves listing with
the all-time greats, and if someone else has mentioned it already, forgive
me.

MYSTERY IN THE AIR -- A short summertime series featuring Peter Lorre in some
of the all-time most-horrible mind-blowing radio plays; particularly horrible
is "The Mask of Medusa." The Camel commercials also are a scream: "We asked,
'Doctor, what cigarette do you smoke?'... "

Erik Smith
Kennewick, Wash. 

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

Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 08:08:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: k4lhb@[removed] (Thom Gooding)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Reel-to-reel recorders
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

Cost and availability:  I find good ones (Teac, Ampex, etc.) for next to
nothing.  If you have access to a hamfest (flea market for amateur radio
operators), they often appear there for under $100 and often $25-$30. I've
seen whole recording studios with mixers, pre-amps, etc. available that way.
They may need some clean-up and are not guaranteed, but provide high quality
equipment at dirt cheap prices.

Another source in the same market is G & G Electronics in Gaitherbsurg, MD.
301-258-7373.  Jeff keeps a list of used equipment wanted.  He also stocks
tubes for those of you who may restore vintage radios.  Give him a call.

TG    

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

Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 10:47:44 -0400
From: GOpp@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: OTR Commercials
Message-ID: <960521104743_495513857@[removed]>

Alan Litsey recently posted this message:

>In theatre literature classes I teach, I often play commercials from the 
>soaps of this collection to illustrate some perceptions of gender 
>roles of the period, for example. The programs also reflect this in a big 
>way - especially the soaps, such as Helen Trent.  

I also find those old commercials fascinating.  My favorite example of 
this kind of thing is actually in a prime time Sanka commercial that ran 
on "My Favorite Husband" around 1950: 

           "WOMAN'S VOICE:    Does coffee coffee coffee make you nag nag 
nag?

             ANNOUNCER:    Yes, it's the CAFFEINE in coffee that turns an
                                                   ANGEL into a SHREW!"

Do you think they might have a bit of trouble if they ran this commercial 
today?

- Gregg Oppenheimer

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

Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 10:54:32 -0400
From: Carol1144@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Hysterical essay
Message-ID: <960521105431_200994986@[removed]>

Just a note:
   A posting by Joseph said, "I have WROTE a history of radio theater essay."
Just wanted you to know:
   I kin hardly weight to reed it!

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

Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 12:53:46, -0500
From: bedtime@[removed] ( DAVID ALLAN   BOUCHER)
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Any thoughts on WLAW radio
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

Does anyone know anything about WLAW radio in Massachusetts?

My parents tell me there was once a station in our [removed]

But I haven't seen anything in the books about there ever being a WLAW
in Massachusetts.

(I think there *is* one in Lawrenceville, [removed] my parents swear
that there was one in [removed])

Any thoughts?

Dave in Boston  (E-Mail: Dave@[removed])

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

    


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---- 
End of [removed] Digest V96 Issue #182

