Subject: [removed] Digest V2003 #16
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 1/12/2003 11:05 PM
To: <[removed]@[removed];

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2003 : Issue 16
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Twilight of Some Radio Premiums       [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
  Re: Jolson                            [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
  Re: Mentioning Distaff SFX "artists"  [ Conrad Binyon <conradab@[removed] ]
  Censorship and preservation at the n  [ "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed]; ]
  Ratings for non-commercial stations   [ "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed]; ]
  correction on crosbys stats           [ Jer51473@[removed] ]
  Sound Effects and Women               [ "Irene Heinstein" <IreneTH@[removed] ]
  Re: BOB HOPE shows                    [ SanctumOTR@[removed] ]
  Where is OTR on the Net?              [ bruce humphries <cherubim1234@yahoo ]
  Re: censorship?                       [ Dixonhayes@[removed] ]
  Christmas Jingles                     [ Lennell Herbert-Marshall <HerMars@e ]
  Amtrak Sale                           [ Lennell Herbert-Marshall <HerMars@e ]
  Re: Stereo Radio                      [ Fred Berney <berney@[removed]; ]

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

Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 12:35:34 -0500
From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Twilight of Some Radio Premiums

The other day, I got into an e-mail discussion with a fellow on the Lone
Ranger Atom Bomb Ring radio premium.  When it was first offered, the
recipient would get to see a dazzling light show (in a minor key) with
literally hundreds of sparkles showing in minutes.  It was interesting,
and to a ten-year-old, almost magical.  However, some 56 years later,
looking into the lens of an Atom Bomb Ring, the chances approach unity
that not a single spark would be seen.

The reason is that the premium incorporated a radioisotope with a
relatively short half-life.  (The only other premium incorporation
radioisotopes that comes to mind is the Tom Mix Tiger Eye Ring.  That one
has a longer half-life, so the ring's "stone" still glows, though more
faintly.)  Without dwelling on that one premium, it's interesting to
contemplate that some premiums deteriorate more than others.

Corrosion and unreasonable wear and tear aside, many radio premiums today
"deliver" as well today as they did when sweaty little fingers eagerly
tore open the brown-paper envelopes freshly delivered from the shows'
sponsors.  Many of the Secret Compartment rings will still conceal
sensitive, if tiny, messages, should anyone need to hide any.  The
cryptological devices -- Radio Orphan Annie Decoder Pins and Captain
Midnight Code-O-Graphs -- will decipher messages the same today.  (When I
first heard recordings of existing Captain Midnight shows for the first
time, reflex kicked in and I scrambled to get paper and writing implement
without realizing I could simply have stopped the tape.  Deciphering just
needed to determine which Code-O-Graph to use.)  The tiny compasses in
items like the Tom Mix compass-magnifiers and the Frank Buck Explorer Sun
Watch still indicate North.

But some items show their age in whole or part.  Some of the luminous
plastic elements have lost a portion of their luminosity.  The ink in the
ballpoint pen in the Sky King Magni-Glo Writing Ring has dried out.  The
tiny flints necessary for the Lone Ranger Six-Gun Ring are no longer
available.

The Captain Midnight Initial Printing Ring and the Sky King Spy-Detecto
Writer inkpads can be re-inked, but they are relative exceptions.  If a
premium has a vulnerable aspect, it will age, alas.

Sometimes we can get closer to those thrilling days of yesterday than
others.

Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

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

Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:18:17 -0500
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: Jolson

On 1/12/03 12:53 PM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:

When Bob Hope was asked that question he said that Al Jolson was the
greatest entertainer he ever knew.   I think that Jolson's blackface
routines have made him hard to "admire" and to be remembered in a way he
probably should be admired and remembered (as an entertainer at least, if
not as a private person).

Jolson is one of those performers who, by all indications, had to be seen
in person before a live audience to be truly appreciated. His recordings,
radio programs, and movies only captured fragments of the whole -- his
proper place was on the stage, and there's really no way to properly
appreciate him outside that context. But in his day, and in his place, he
was the Real Deal.

One of the single most dynamic performances I've ever heard in any medium
is Jolson's performance of "Brother Can You Spare A Dime," offered as
part of a 1939 NBC program of artists urging continuation of the WPA
Federal Theatre Project, then in danger of losing its government funding.
Jolson performs this Depression anthem like an operatic aria -- and he
literally explodes out of the loudspeaker. Radio was too small a medium
for him -- if he could be this dynamic behind a microphone, I can't
imagine the overwhelming experience of seeing him in person.

Perhaps the closest comparison might be seeing Elvis in person in his
prime -- and, indeed, Elvis often cited Jolson as one of his
inspirations. Watching Jolson's leering expressions and hip-wriggling,
finger-snapping movements in the "Toot Toot Tootsie" number in "The Jazz
Singer"(1927) one is struck by just how Elvis-like he really was. (And
for that matter, I'd submit that Elvis himself was Jolson's legitimate
heir as the ultimate expression of the blackface tradition in popular
entertainment -- he just did it without the cork.)

Elizabeth

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

Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:19:33 -0500
From: Conrad Binyon <conradab@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: Mentioning Distaff SFX "artists".
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In the mid 40's, I believe, a yound lady joined the sound effects staff of
CBS KNX in Los Angeles and did yeoperson duty on episodes of "Mayor of the
Town."  I think her name was Mary Ann or some such.  Perhaps Bill Murtough
with his sharp as a tack memory can confirm the lady's name.
CAB

---
conradab@[removed] (Conrad A. Binyon)
   From the Home of the Stars who loved Ranches and Farms
     Encino, California.

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Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:22:22 -0500
From: "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Censorship and preservation at the nets

From: "Andrew Godfrey" <niteowl049@[removed];

Was there any censorship in OTR days?

Boy was there ever!  It usually was called "The Office of Standards and
Practices"

I have listened to some Bob Hope shows that came close to crossing
the line where they might have been censored if there were censors.

The scripts were probably raunchier before the S&P people got to them.  And
you can clearly hear that some of the routines done for Armed Forces Radio
would never have been allowed on NBC, CBS, etc.

It is sad that there are so few Bob Hope shows available to listen to.
 Was this a NBC policy that caused so few shows to be saved? On the
other hand Jack Benny has over 800 shows that were saved ...
Another example would be Ozzie and Harriet which was on several
years but only has about 58 shows available for [removed];

I believe it has been mentioned here that just about every Bob Hope program
exists.  He has just kept tighter control over his own copies, and I
suppose the people who raided the NBC NY vaults back in the 50s and 60s
copying programs were less interested in Hope than Benny.  I also believe
that most of the Ozzie and Harriet's exist, but a large percentage of the
ones in circulation were ferretted out of the Northwestern University
collection.  For some reason there was a group of over 23 of them there,
while Bob Hope was represented only by the Berlin Airlift show of 12/28/49,
the 1st and 3rd daytime 15 minute program of 11/10 and 12/52, and a VFW
special of 4/4/49.  No Jack Benny at all.  Perhaps there were Hope and
Benny discs that disappeared from WMAQ before the collection was donated in
1964, but we were never given any finding aids for the collection that
would have indicated what had originally existed.

As for NBC's policy on recording and archiving, actually they were not
supposed to do it.  The advertisers which owned the programs never gave the
network the rights to record and/or keep the recordings, but they ended up
with several hundred thousand recordings anyway.  Performers and
advertisers could request that recordings be made, and it is known that
Hope, Benny, and Ozzie all maintained their own personal archives, as did
many other performers.  Ozzie referrs to some of his recordings in his
autobiography, Benny donated his to UCLA (and got badly hit by the IRS for
his troubles), and Hope Enterprises has recently allowed Radio Spirits to
make available two collections of his radio programs. I've discussed in the
past that the NBC New York collection is heavier on New York originated
programs than those from LA, so that is a reason why there happens to be a
more complete collection of early Fred Allen programs in it than for Jack
Benny.  It is also notable that New York usually recorded only the East
Coast feed, so the discs from California are more likely to be the source
of West Coast feeds.  Rarely do you see indications in dealer's catalogs
noting which feed the recording is from.

I am curious to know if anyone knows specific instances of where shows
were discarded after a certain length of time or recorded over.  Andrew
Godfrey

Ruth Terry Preston, who was the head of NBC's Central Files in NY from the
mid-30s to the early 70s, told me in 1971 that about 50% or more of the NBC
discs were discarded about 4 or 5 years earlier.  Many were from the
post-war period when they delayed 100% of the network feeds for the areas
that did not switch to Daylight Saving Time.  But I also came across a pack
of file cards in a semi-hidden drawer that were for programs that had been
recently discarded.  These included the soundtracks of thousands of TV game
shows which had been recorded for immediate reference if a dispute came up
while a program was being aired.  Walter Toscanini or Don Gillis told the
story on-air once about when they found--and rescued--a large skid of discs
in a hallway near a freight elevator and discovered many hundreds of
Toscanini rehearsal discs about to be discarded.  Ms. Preston also told me
that 90% of their TV kinescope film recordings had also been discarded.
Buffalo Bob Smith once told me that he had gotten messages that his
programs were being discarded but that he could come and take as many as he
wanted.  He sadly admitted he took less than 20, most of them of special
events.  Milton Berle was said to have been furious about ten years ago
that his programs had been discarded, but he called off his lawsuit when he
discoverd that, as Ms. Preston had told me, NBC had saved the negative of
each of his programs.  It is likely that a lot of the discarded kines were
duplicate prints--they often needed at least 13 prints of each program to
distribute to non-interconnected stations in the early 50s.  There are
about 50,000 kines in the NBC collection at LC.  About 175,000 discs from
NBC are at LC.

Michael Biel  mbiel@[removed]

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

Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:22:42 -0500
From: "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Ratings for non-commercial stations

In discussing the changes on TNN and the Opry, Janet mentioned "when
ratings tables are published the one network you never see ratings for is
PBS."  She further thought that the reason might be because "it would be
difficult to create a ratings table consistent with the standardized
programming shown on other networks."

That's not the reason.  Rating services are generally designed for the use
of advertisers to enable them to choose where to place their ads.  Thus
non-commercial stations of all types are usually excluded unless the
non-comm pays for and subscribes to the rating service.   The figures are
there in the raw data that the rating service collects, but they don't
bother publishing it unless a paying customer wants it.

Michael Biel  mbiel@[removed]

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

Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:50:53 -0500
From: Jer51473@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  correction on crosbys stats
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 As pointed out by another poster, i was wrong about the number of oscars
bing was awarded, it was only one, but he was nominated 3 times as the poster
pointed out also. I was also wrong about the # times he was the #1 box office
winner as he won it 5 consecutive years 1944-48 not 6 as i posted. The 5 in a
row though was a record that still stands. From 1934-54 he was in the top 5
12 times and in the top 10 15 times which is probably the highest overall
ranking of all time or if its not, its got to be close. Sorry for the errors,
just trying to get things closer to what they are. Bob hope picked jolson,
who is a good choice, but could that have involved a little jealousy of his
old pal bing since they were maybe rivals in the same era for such a label
and jolson was mostly from another era? Anyway, all 3 could be labeled as
such and if you throw in elvis and sinatra you cant be far from identifying
the true greatest. Again, opinions are just that, opinions.

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Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:51:05 -0500
From: "Irene Heinstein" <IreneTH@[removed];
To: "OTR" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Sound Effects and Women

I know this is technically not sound effects but the only person who could
whistle the "Whistler" theme was a woman who did so for the entire run as I
recall.

When I was a kid in the late 40s we used to make galloping horse sound
effects by slapping our hands down to our knee.  It still works.  :))

~Irene

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

Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 16:01:27 -0500
From: SanctumOTR@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: BOB HOPE shows

In a message dated 1/12/03 11:49:11 AM, "Andrew Godfrey" <niteowl049@[removed]
writes:

It is sad that there are so few Bob Hope shows available to listen to.
Was this a NBC policy that caused so few shows to be saved? On the other
hand Jack Benny has over 800 shows that were saved and he and Bob Hope both
were on radio about the same number of years.

***Like Jack Benny, Bob Hope saved transcriptions of almost all of his radio
shows, and many are finally being released through Radio Spirits.  Within the
last few months, RSI has released two BOB HOPE collections on CD and
cassette: a 40-show collection (with a historical booklet by yours truly and
a foreword by Hope) and a 24-show collection that at the moment is
exclusively available at Sam's Club discount warehouses for $[removed]  All the
shows in the two collections are directly off of Bob Hope's personal
collection of electrical transcriptions and in great sound.  The Sam's Club
collection features his first Pepsodent show and his last radio show, and
contains totally different programs than the 40-show set.

Your mention of MP3s points to one of the reasons shows often don't get
released.  It costs a lot of time, effort and money to get these shows
transferred and released.  Entertainers (and their heirs) often aren't
willing to go to the trouble and cost of having this done unless there is a
financial incentive, like royalty payments.  I remember hearing the offspring
of a famous OTR comedy team discussing this over breakfast at an OTR
convention some years back.  They had a number of unreleased ETs, but feared
that others and not the family who owned the transcriptions would profit if
they allowed copies to be made.

Hopefully, there will be many more collections of previously uncirculated BOB
HOPE SHOWS ... if collectors and fans actually purchase the collections
rather than wait until someone provides them with cheap, unauthorized MP3
dupes.

BTW, I'm REALLY happy with both of RSI's BOB HOPE collections, having
listened to them again during a recent drive to California and back.  Great
sound and really enjoyable shows.  DISCLAIMER: While I work for RSI, I have
no financial participation in the sale of these collections, other than the
flat rate I received to write the booklet.  This recommendation is based on
my personal enjoyment of these shows, and graditude that they're finally
available to be enjoyed by others. --Anthony Tollin

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

Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 17:29:22 -0500
From: bruce humphries <cherubim1234@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Where is OTR on the Net?

Hello All,

What a wonderful site. I've been reading for the last
few weeks and it's a great place for research.

I love writing radio plays and am searching for great
internet sites where I can find OTR downloads. Not so
much for collecting but to just hear them.

Thanks for any help.

You may e-mail me privately to save the list some
extra space.

Thanks to OTR list again.

bruce
db humphries

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

Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 21:11:51 -0500
From: Dixonhayes@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: censorship?
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In a message dated 1/12/03 11:49:11 AM Central Standard Time,
[removed]@[removed] writes:

Was there any censorship in OTR days? I have listened to some Bob Hope
shows that came close to crossing the line where they might have been
censored if there were censors.

I've heard stories about the silliest things being censored during OTR.  Fred
Allen had legendary disputes with his censors.  On one occasion NBC even cut
the audio for one of his live shows while he told a joke at the network's
expense.  (His show had been mistimed for several weeks, with the show often
ending in mid-sketch.  Allen was explaining it by saying a vice president was
in charge, taking a minute here and five there until he had two weeks, then
took a vacation on Fred's time.) I forget which show this was, but it was in
the mid-to-late 1940s half hour era, and the gap can still be heard on
surviving transcriptions of the show.  Allen once said "NBC denies the
existence of Hell and CBS, but not necessarily in that order."  That was a
reference to his censorship battles.

A straight line was once censored from a Jack Benny show.  Jack was
apparently in his bathroom shaving when someone (I think Don Wilson) came in
to talk to him.  Jack simply told him to sit down.  The censors objected,
saying it implied the presence of a toilet.  One of the writers supposedly
suggested changing the line to "Put down the lid and sit down," but the
network executive apparently missed the sarcasm and screeched, "That's
dirty!"

On the other hand, one of Jack Benny's biographies has a story about a joke
in a show that went past the [removed] the writers took it out anyway.
Jack was in a medical plaza of some type and read off names of various
specialists.  Something like "Let's see [removed] Footman, foot [removed]
Swallow, throat [removed] Palm, hand [removed] a [removed]
Ballzer???!!!"  Apparently the censor thought the double entendre was
strictly a reference to one of the show's writers, who was indeed named
Ballzer.

BTW this is my first post in the digest.  I recently re-discovered OTR.  I
had collected tapes as a teen, but got out of it for a few years for
financial reasons.  The Mercury Theatre "War of the Worlds" broadcast was the
siren that seduced me; "The CBS Radio Mystery Theatre" was the one radio show
from my era that won me over (well, that and the "Sears Radio Theatre").

Dixon

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Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 23:31:37 -0500
From: Lennell Herbert-Marshall <HerMars@[removed];
To: Old Time Radio Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Christmas Jingles

I was just finishing up listening to OTR Christmas shows and was writing
down the words for some of the Autolite jingles.  On their December 23,
1948 version of "Holiday Story" with Herbert Marshall, they do their
version of Jingle Bells.  It goes something like:

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle through the snow
Your Cars all have its full of ????? with autolite you know.

I've listened to this recording a dozen times and still cannot discern
what the missing words are.  I think its something like pav or path,
neither of which make any sense to me.  Can someone help me out here?

By the way, this show is nearly word for word the same as "Back for
Christmas" with Peter Lorre.

Thanks for any help.

Lennell H-M

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

Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 23:32:09 -0500
From: Lennell Herbert-Marshall <HerMars@[removed];
To: Old Time Radio Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Amtrak Sale

For those who take an Amtrak train to the Cincinnati convention, thought
you would like to know that Amtrak is having a fare sale that covers
that time period.

They have a 2 for 1 sale (one person travels free when two travel
together) or for those traveling alone, there is a 25% off sale.  You
need to purchase your ticket no later than February 15th for travel no
later than August 28th.

This promotion saved me $150 off the sleeper car rate for the
Alexandria, VA to Cincinnati run.  The sale fare is less than the AAA
discount or the Senior discount.

Lennell H-M

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

Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 01:04:21 -0500
From: Fred Berney <berney@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: Stereo Radio

Another show that was broadcast in stereo was the Perry Como show. I
happened to tape it in stereo. So, if anyone wants to hear the quality, at
least that tape exists.

Fred
[removed]

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2003 Issue #16
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