Subject: [removed] Digest V2003 #449
From: <[removed]@[removed]>
Date: 12/19/2003 1:07 PM

To: <[removed]@[removed];

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2003 : Issue 449
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Re: Expressions used on [removed] AG  [ "CHET N." <voxpop@[removed]; ]
      Gildersleeve and sexual attitudes     [ "Rich Weil" <richweil@[removed]; ]
      1930s                                 [ "joe@[removed]" <sergei01@earthli ]
      The Night Before Christmas            [ Paula Keiser <pkeiser@[removed]; ]
      Re: Regional [removed]           [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
      OTR World                             [ Don Strong <donsplace@[removed] ]
      3 double well cassette decks          [ "Ed Carr" <edcarr@[removed]; ]
      Re: Postwar Captain Midnight          [ Steve Lewis <lewis@[removed]; ]
      Re: OTR Reality                       [ Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed]; ]
      Re: Language of the OTR era           [ "Mike Mackey" <[removed]@[removed] ]
      OT Living                             [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
      "Decoders" and Captain Midnight and   [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
      1930 census and the radio             [ k g-g <grams46@[removed] ]
      radio land, tv land, and real life    [ "Mark Kinsler" <kinsler33@[removed] ]
      Good old days                         [ Mark Reesor <mrees@[removed]; ]
      Households with radio                 [ "cebe" <cebe@[removed]; ]
      Today in radio history                [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
      I think, therefore I post             [ "Derek Tague" <derek@[removed]; ]
      Number of radio's (was:Re: OTR Reali  [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
      "Hi-yo, Quicksilver!"                 [ Wich2@[removed] ]
      Larry Brown/WPEN                      [ Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed]; ]

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

    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 20:04:35 -0500
    From: "CHET N." <voxpop@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Expressions used on [removed] AGAIN
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    Zounds ,I have read, comes not  from Zeus but rather originally it
    was 'swounds  meaning I swear by his (Christs') wounds.  and gadzooks
    means  God's hooks (referring to the nails on the crucifix.)
    CHET NORRIS

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    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 21:39:16 -0500
    From: "Rich Weil" <richweil@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Gildersleeve and sexual attitudes
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    I'm listening to the episode, "Hattie and Hooker" from 1945 where Gildy's
    sister-in-law Hattie is staying at his house and she and Judge Hooker are
    having a slight romantic involvement, or at least a flirtation. In the episode
    Leroy mentions to Gildy that they may be making love and at one point Gildy,
    who is protective of his sister-in-law, asks Judge Hooker if they have made
    love. By today's standards I take making love to mean sexual intercourse. In
    those relatively prudish times it seems out of line that they would be so
    forward to discuss intercourse so openly, so I was wondering if it meant
    something different back then? Perhaps just smooching?

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    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 21:39:40 -0500
    From: "joe@[removed]" <sergei01@[removed];
    To: "OTR List" <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  1930s

    I suspect that some of those families with a radio in the 1930s had
    purchased them in the late 1920s, as my father's family must have done,
    before the great depression. I don't think his family could have afforded
    one afterwards.

    Joe Salerno
    Video Works! Is it working for you?
    PO Box 273405 - Houston TX 77277-3405 [removed]

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

    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 21:40:00 -0500
    From: Paula Keiser <pkeiser@[removed];
    To: OTR List <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  The Night Before Christmas

    Okay, maybe that line wasn't in the version I was asking about.  The fact
    is, my -ex insists that there was a longer version unlike the very widely
    distributed version found on many Christmas albums.  Or is he imagining
    things?  Is there a longer, more inclusive version that was broadcast on
    OTR, or is he imagining things?

    Paula

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

    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 21:40:29 -0500
    From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Regional [removed]

    On 12/18/03 8:05 PM [removed]@[removed] wrote

>     Sorry  Elizabeth  ...my mother is 58 years old and she never remembers either
>     her dad or her grandfather or anyone talking around the house like you
>     suggest.  It just didn't happen in the manner that you would indicate was the
>     norm .
>     Perhaps we have a regional   difference here ....  I don't know ???

    Well, quite possibly. My grandfather was born, lived, and died in a rough
    New England waterfront town doing the kinds of things that people do in
    rough New England waterfront towns. He was, by turns, a small-time
    vaudeville musician, a semi-pro basketball player, a factory hand, a
    longshoreman, a bootlegger, a WPA road-gang laborer, and the owner of a
    gas station.  None of these professions were in any way conducive to
    genteel behavior or delicate language.

    Of course, the single greatest contributing factor to his colorful speech
    was the fact that he spent his entire life rooting for the Red Sox. I
    defy anyone, no matter how well-bred, to maintain a gentle tongue under
    such circumstances.

    Elizabeth

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

    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 21:40:56 -0500
    From: Don Strong <donsplace@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  OTR World

    Just like to add to the chorus of "it wasn't true in MY family" replies
    to Elizabeth's post about swearing, etc. I myself missed the OTR era by
    a bit less than a decade, but my most of my grandparents lived into the
    1980's, and I can only recall hearing one of them swearing one time
    (after chasing an errant cow and having it stand on his foot). My
    father (born 1927) rarely swore (head for the hills on the rare
    occasions when he did!), and my mother NEVER.

    I did hear a lot of "dagnabits", "heavenly days",  and "doggones",
    [removed]

    "Prevent truth decay - study the Bible daily"
          ---- [removed]

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    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 21:41:15 -0500
    From: "Ed Carr" <edcarr@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  3 double well cassette decks
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    hi
    anyone interested email me edcar@[removed]
    $20 ea and postage
    also 6 glossy  8x10 of radio stars
    howard duff-sam spade
    franklin p adams-info please, sits in front of nbc mike
    wm bendix and john brown-life of riley
    judy canova
    edgar bergan and the dummies with anita gordon
    maurice copeland-the guideing light
    $30 and postage
    ed

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    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 21:45:58 -0500
    From: Steve Lewis <lewis@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Postwar Captain Midnight

> >     I am looking for some mp3's of Captain Midnight from the 1946 thru 1949
> >     era.

>     As far as I know, there aren't any.  There are a few more World War II
>     (1943-45 season) episodes,
>     but the postwar are rare.

    Stephen

    There are only a handful of radio shows I actually remember listening to as
    a kid.   One was probably one of the postwar Capt. Midnights -- I would
    have been 6 or 7 at the time.  (Another, for some reason, was Marilyn
    Monroe's early 1950s appearance on Charlie McCarthy's show.)  The reason
    the Midnight show has stayed in my head for so long is that is was (I
    presume) a week-ending cliffhanger, with several of the gang trapped in a
    tree surrounded by dinosaurs, and scary as all get out.  Possible, or just
    a false memory?

                                             Steve

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

    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 22:41:39 -0500
    From: Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: OTR Reality

    At 08:05 PM 12/18/2003, you wrote:

>     A radio cost a lot of money. By the late 30's they were becoming affordable
>     to many, but not so in the early thirties.

    But don't forget that Powel Crosley Jr. came out with an affordable radio
    in the late twenties that sold for only $20 when other radios were going
    for over $100. His low cost radios, while not always the best, made it
    possible for many to afford a radio when before they couldn't He built his
    empire initially on the sale of radios which allowed him to buy WLW in
    Cincinnati, which became one of the premier stations at the time.

    Jim Widner
    jwidner@[removed]

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

    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 22:43:58 -0500
    From: "Mike Mackey" <[removed]@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Language of the OTR era

    In response to the continuing thread on the language, vulgar and
    otherwise, of the OTR era, I believe that the primary difference in
    use of language between then and now is not that it was, or wasn't,
    used by many, but rather that it was not socially acceptable to
    thrust it upon others, as is so often the case today.   Today many
    feel that all entertainment must be "realistic".  Therefore, language
    must be coarse, vulgar, even obscene and profane. Why?  In the home I
    grew up in, that wasn't the way we spoke. So how realistic is that
    kind of language to me? Vulgar and profane language never found its
    way into our home until it was introduced through the radio and TV.
    So here is the difference:  In the OTR era, people were more
    respected in this regard.  Mild oaths (gosh all fish-hooks, etc) were
    used to avoid offending those who, like my family, would have been
    offended by anything stronger.  What's wrong with that? Since when is
    offending a large percentage of the population, good manners,  good
    entertainment, or good business?

    Yes, during the OTR era, as today, there was unhappiness,
    unemployment, divorce, prejudice, hatred, violence, abject poverty,
    etc.  But it does seem to this baby-boomer, who must view the era
     from a historical view and not from personal memory, that when it
    comes to this issue, at least, there was more respect then for the
    individual, by those within his community, in the movie industry and
     from over the radio.

    Mike

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

    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 22:44:30 -0500
    From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  OT Living

    Bryan H, speaking of my and Dr. Biel's commentary about the days of OTR
    notes,

>     He [his grandfather] was adamant that the issues expressed by Biel and
>     Kallis  were not a part of the daily lives of the people where he was
>     living during those  years.

    A gentle exception.  Dr. Biel wrote of anticommunist activities; I spoke
    of ice boxes and coal furnaces.  I have and will continue to refrain from
    voicing my political opinion in the Digest.  My reflection on the "good
    old days" is that parts of them were fine (what we recall nostalgically),
    other parts were rather sour (segregation and the like) and some was
    really silly.

    Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

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

    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 22:45:10 -0500
    From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  "Decoders" and Captain Midnight and Jet
     Jackson

    A Joseph Ross, [removed], speaking about my comment concerning the lack of
    cipher messages in the Fall complete-in-one-episode programs,

>     Funny, the TV verson consisted of complete-in-one-episode shows, but we
>     still had cipher messages.

    Yes, but a few things:

    * The TV version was a lot more juvenile than the radio version.

    * The radio Code-O-Graphs were essentially annual premiums.  The TV
    version spent 4 years before issuing its first all-plastic "decoder",
    [_not_ called a Code-O-Graph].

    * There were only two of them, and one deviated from the letter-number
    scheme.

    I suspect that some older kids told the younger of the "secret code":
    messages, and Ovaltine finally decided to do something about it.

    Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

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

    Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 23:35:32 -0500
    From: k g-g <grams46@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  1930 census and the radio

    Shenbarger@[removed] wrote:

>     The 1930 census for my father's family shows they had no radio and the number
>     of radios on eight farms was three. That was in a western Illinois farm
>     community.

    from kathy
    my mother and her family lived in the farming community of arlington, texas
    in 1930.   their census records show no radio but my uncle says that they had
    one.  he made a crystal set when he was ten years old in 1928.     apparently
    a crystal set didn't  count as a real radio.

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

    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:19:25 -0500
    From: "Mark Kinsler" <kinsler33@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  radio land, tv land, and real life

    My parents were born in 1915 and 1919.  About the best indication I can give
    as to how life was like for them is to list what they were most afraid of:

    *The Great Depression.  That's #1 on the list of everyone who lived back
    then.  My mother is still sore at Herbert Hoover.  Really.

    While occasional unemployment was to be expected, the sight of the nation
    simply shutting down was utterly terrifying.  I think that's the reason that
    some OTR sounds so determinedly optimistic to the point of being weird.
    There was enough irony in real life back then.

    *Poverty in general.  There was plenty of it before 1929.  My mother's
    father told of growing up in Cleveland's Jewish community around 1905:  His
    father told his mother, "Put some water on to boil.  I'll find us something
    to eat."  And then he went out to hunt for some distressed potatoes at the
    market.  And my father's family was fed on a fairly regular basis by the
    local political organizations in Chicago.  The Chicago political machine was
    corrupt, but it was the most effective service organization available,
    settlement houses and the rest notwithstanding.

    *Illness:  My parents both contracted mild cases of polio as children.  For
    lack of antibiotics, my mother's brother died of a mastoid infection (these
    came from ear infections that spread to the bones of the skull.)

    *Being accused of Communist leanings.  The McCarthy era was very real,
    though we were protected from it as children.  One whisper and your career
    was toast.  This wasn't true just for theatrical writers and artists, but
    for machinists and telephone workers and teachers and secretaries, both in
    and out of government.  I don't think my parents ran into any problems
    (though Jews were always somewhat suspect) but they did have friends who got
    into trouble.

    All of which is to say that the real world of the OTR period was to radio as
    our real world is to television.

    Mark Kinsler
    512 E Mulberry St. Lancaster, Ohio USA 43130 740-687-6368
    [removed]~mkinsler1

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

    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:20:25 -0500
    From: Mark Reesor <mrees@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Good old days

    The good old days discussion reminds me of the old saying - there's
    nothing like the good old [removed] especially if you have a bad old memory!

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

    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:21:36 -0500
    From: "cebe" <cebe@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Households with radio
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    In a message in digest #448 Don Shenbarger  wrote:

>     One Internet source that looks credible says there were 14 million radios in
>     1930, up from 3 million in 1924. There are probably a number of people on this
>     list with good information on the number of radios and percent of households
>     that had them. It would be interesting to know.

    Don,  I think there were far more than 14 million radios in 1930. That figure
    is correct for the number of households that had a radio by that time, but far
    more radios must have been around the place by then.
    Radio ownership was followed by the National Association of Broadcasters and
    their figures for households with radio  are:
    1924    [removed]
    1926    [removed]
    1928    [removed]
    1930   [removed]
    1932   [removed]
    1936   [removed]
    1940   [removed]
    By the end of the war the numbers were up to 33 mil., and 1950 saw the passing
    of the 40 mil. mark.
    It is much more complicated to actually calculate the number of sets produced
    and you would probably need several sources to get near a true number. I don't
    have any such sources available but someone else might feel inclined to
    investige.

    Bertil Nasstrom

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    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:21:44 -0500
    From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
    To: otrd <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Today in radio history

     From The Today in History, NY Times --

    1932 -- the British Broadcasting Corporation began transmitting overseas
    with its Empire Service to Australia.

    Joe

    --
    Visit my homepage:  [removed]~[removed]

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

    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:22:59 -0500
    From: "Derek Tague" <derek@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  I think, therefore I post
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    Dear Gang:

       Russ Butler posted:

> >     ...and I'd like to add:

    To do is to be - Descartes
    To be is to do - Voltaire
    Do be do be [removed] -Sinatra

           The graffito I once read attributed "To do is to be" to Kirkegaard and
    "To be is to do" to Sartre. Are there any philosophy majors with an at-hand
    copy of "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations"  in the house to straighten this out?
            Whenever I need to consult a reference book in the hopes of finding
    the origination of a quote or a phrase, I often consult the aforementioned
    John  Bartlett, or the works of the late British linguist Eric Partridge.
    Since "Bartlett" is a type of pear, could they possibly have a "PARTRIDGE in
    a PEAR tree" thing going?
            James Thurber once wrote about a woman  he met who told him she
    favoured classical poetry to philosophy because she
    preferred "To put the Horace before Descartes."
            Are we off-subject or what?

    "There! I've said it and I'm glaaaad!"

    Best from the ether,

    Derek Tague

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    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:48:33 -0500
    From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
    To: otrd <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Number of radio's (was:Re:  OTR Reality)

    Don Shenbarger wrote --

>     A radio cost a lot of money. By the late 30's they were becoming
>     affordable to many, but not so in the early thirties.

    <snip>

>     Her father talked the dealer into letting him have on trial for two
>     days and the radio was setup in the living room. It never went back to
>     the store. The cost was about $50

       Well, the way I heared it Johnny, radio in the '20s was a "must
    have", sort of like pc's in a later erea.  And sets varied in price,
    from cheap table top models to fancy floor models with all sorts of
    extra's (the signal eye, push buttons for favourite stations, fine wood,
    etc).
       It was quite common for radio dealers to have a in home offer of
    several days, knowing the people would buy the set once they used it.
    Add to that the idea of installment payment (which was really popular in
    the '20s) you could have the radio and pay a little each week at the
    same time, rather than saving for it.  When the Depression hit many
    people held on to the radio while letting other household items go back
    to the dealer.
       Add to that people trading in old radio's one could pick up a used
    radio for relatively little.
       Until after the war most homes still had one radio.  The idea of a
    radio in every room wasn't common in the average home.
       Joe (at least that's the way I remember it being told [removed])

    --
    Visit my homepage:  [removed]~[removed]

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

    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 14:51:51 -0500
    From: Wich2@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  "Hi-yo, Quicksilver!"

    Dear Friends-Following on last week's enjoyable double-dose of Gotham
    Players, (Saint) Max Schmid, "Our Patron of The Still-Living Medium of Audio
    Drama", has graciously granted Quicksilver an opportunity to send our
    Christmas gift out to you all (see below). It's perhaps our most FUN show
    ever (there are not many yocks in the deaths of Ceasar & Lincoln!)Good
    Yontif, & Blessed Holidays, to you & yours,-Craig
    "A New Radio Adaptation ofSir Arthur Conan Doyle's Christmas Sherlock
    HolmesAdventure - THE BLUE CARBUNCLE (Added Attraction! THE PAINFUL
    PREDICAMENT OF SHERLOCK HOLMES)
    This new one-hour radio play will premiere on Sunday, December 28, 2003 at
    [removed], on Max Schmid's The Golden Age of Radio - broadcast in the New York
    area on [removed] FM, and simultaneously Webcast worldwide at [removed].
    Adapted by Producer Craig Wichman, this radio drama was authorized by The
    Estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. One of the author's rare comic tales, and
    the only one set during Yuletide, the mystery involves Holmes and Watson with
    several Dickensian Londoners, a dusty hat, a famous gem, - and a goose! As an
    added treat, Quicksilver will also present the rarely produced short farce by
    famed Holmes portrayer William Gillette, The Painful Predicament of Sherlock
    Holmes. As in Quicksilver's award-winning production of The Speckled Band,
    Mr. Wichman plays the Great Detective, and John Prave, the Good Doctor.
    Featured in the cast are Emma Palzere, Joseph Franchini, Dan Renkin, Clyde
    Baldo, and Bernadette Fiorella. Original music is by Frank Spitznagel; sound
    effects by Sue Zizza (of SueMedia), Mr. Baldo, and the cast.  Recording
    Engineer,  Chip Fabrizi (at [removed] Recording); and Editor, Dominick Barbera
    (at SoundtrackNY.)  The Director is Jay Stern.
    Quicksilver is proud to spend celebrate its birthday with Max Schmid and
    WBAI; it was that host, and that station, that presented our debut
    production, A Christmas Carol, eight years ago during this holiday season.
    (Coincidentally, Quicksilver just Carol-ed again, live over New Jersey's
    WYRS!)

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

    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 14:52:04 -0500
    From: Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Larry Brown/WPEN

    If anyone can help Don, please email him directly:

    "From: Don Thorne <Quicksilver1@[removed];

    I am trying to locate someone named Larry Brown he was a staff announcer on
    WPEN in the days of the 950 Club and Grady and Hurst"

    Jim Widner
    jwidner@[removed]

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2003 Issue #449
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