Subject: [removed] Digest V2004 #361
From: <[removed]@[removed]>
Date: 11/11/2004 10:20 AM

To: <[removed]@[removed];

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2004 : Issue 361
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                 [removed]
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      On-air OTR                            [ "Linda T" <nemesis@[removed]; ]
      Longest-running detective series      [ Anthony Tollin <sanctumotr@earthlin ]
      So is Radio Spirits losing it?        [ <otrbuff@[removed]; ]
      Life Imitates "39 Forever"            [ seandd@[removed] ]
      Another Stop for "Say Goodnight Grac  [ seandd@[removed] ]
      Unique Radio Voices                   [ "jazmaan@[removed]" <dmf273@ya ]

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

    Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 13:16:43 -0500
    From: "Linda T" <nemesis@[removed];
    To: "Old Time Radio" <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  On-air OTR

    My computer crashed recently and took all my e-mail addresses and websites
    somewhere.  Could someone on the list please re-post or send me the address
    for the Los Angeles station that plays OTR online?
    Thanks in advance
    Linda T.

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

    Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 13:18:08 -0500
    From: Anthony Tollin <sanctumotr@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Longest-running detective series

    on 11/10/04 10:49 AM, Kenneth Clarke asks:

>     I read in a recent mailing from Radio Spirits
>     that "Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons" was the longest
>     running detective show on radio (18 years) What confuses
>     me is that, according to John Dunning's "Encyclopedia of
>     Old Time Radio", the radio version of "The Shadow" was
>     on the air consistently for 27 years.  Which one was on
>     the air the longest?

    ***I think it depends on what your definition of "consistently" is ... and
    also "detective show."  Also, July 31, 1930 through December 26, 1954 is 24
    1/2 years, not 27 years.

>     >From July 1930 through March 1935, THE SHADOW aired as a mystery anthology

    series, with the title character hosting and narrating mysteries that
    featured one-shot detectives.  Furthermore, THE SHADOW was usually off the
    network airwaves during summer months until Blue Coal ended its sponsorship
    in 1950, since the heating company had little interest in buying commercial
    time over the hot summer months.  THE SHADOW was also off the air from April
    26, 1933 through October 1, 1934, with the exception of a one-shot audition
    that aired over New York's WMCA in June of 1934 and featured the radio debut
    of the LAmont Cranston character (and also pulp agents Harry Vincent, Cliff
    Marsland and Burbank).

    THE SHADOW did air consistently from October 1, 1934 through December 26,
    1954, with syndicated repeats being heard on a variety of local stations
    during the summer months when the network version was silenced.  The 1934-35
    CBS series starring Frank Readick was immediately followed by the MacGregor
    & Sollie syndicated 15-minute series starring Carl Kroenke, which continued
    to be heard for at least the next eight years and was still being syndicated
    during the years Orson Welles and Bill Johnstone starred in the Mutual
    network series.  Also, the Welles and Johnstone episodes were syndicated to
    local stations by Charlie Michelson (who had also agented the 15-minute
    serial from 1938-43) during the years Bret Morrison was playing The Shadow
    on Mutual.

    Thus, THE SHADOW series featuring the title character as sleuth Lamont
    Cranston aired continously from the first week of April 1934 through the
    final week of December 1954 under a combination of network and syndicated
    airings.  (And we need to note that the 1938 and 1939 Goodrich syndicated
    runs most likely aired on more --though smaller-- stations than the earlier
    CBS, NBC and Mutual seasons.)

    The 20 year-10 month run featuring The Shadow as detective hero is longer
    than MR. KEEN's 17 year-6 month run.  However, we also need to note that THE
    SHADOW's 20-plus year run was made up of lots of syndicated  repeats,
    especially during the summer months when it was perhaps just too sunny for
    The Shadow. MR. KEEN certainly had the longest network run, and the longest
    unbroken run of new productions. --ANTHONY TOLLIN

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

    Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:18:42 -0500
    From: <otrbuff@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  So is Radio Spirits losing it?

    Kenneth Clarke observes and asks:

>     I read in a recent mailing from Radio Spirits
>     that "Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons" was the longest
>     running detective show on radio (18 years) What confuses
>     me is that, according to John Dunning's "Encyclopedia of
>     Old Time Radio", the radio version of "The Shadow" was
>     on the air consistently for 27 years.  Which one was on
>     the air the longest?

    Oh dear, I fear I'm repeating myself.  It's a matter of semantics.  When
    Radio Spirits states that Mr. Keen "was the longest running detective show
    on radio," they are absolutely, positively, 100% correct.  This is a road we
    have been down on this digest as recently as a couple of months ago.  Mr.
    Keen's 1,690 continuous (and sometimes overlapping, meaning dual)
    performances from 1937-1955 easily qualify him as "the longest running
    detective."  For all of you who missed this argument earlier and don't have
    my new volume on the kindly old investigator ("Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost
    Persons:  A Complete History and Episode Log of Radio's Most Durable
    Detective," available from [removed], 800-253-2187), you'll find
    the second, third and fourth most prolific radio detectives after Mr. Keen
    delineated on page 3.  And none in that quartet is named The Shadow.

    Again, think semantics.  The Shadow series never claimed for itself that it
    was a "detective" show.  What author John Dunning correctly allows is that
    The Shadow was "perhaps radio's most famous fictitious crimefighter."  I
    find no argument with that assessment.  There is a difference, however, in
    assuming that he was a detective in the true sense of that word.  He earns
    more than five pages (with photo of Bret Morrison and Gertrude Warner) in my
    book "Radio Crime Fighters:  Over 300 Programs from the Golden Age" (another
    McFarland release) for The Shadow fits that classification exceedingly well.

    And, with a few breaks in the action, The Shadow was on the air from
    1930-1954, qualifying it as one of the longest dramas in primetime.

    Jim Cox

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

    Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:46:44 -0500
    From: seandd@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Life Imitates "39 Forever"

    I was a proud member of the winning team for Jackpardy at Laura Leff's "39
    Forever" Jack Benny convention a couple of years back.

    Apparently, last night Jack Benny figured in a critical question in the
    television version of Jeopardy - as described in the following hometown news
    coverage of one of the contestants.

    Cool!

    Sean Dougherty
    SeanDD@[removed]

    [removed]

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

    Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:51:11 -0500
    From: seandd@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Another Stop for "Say Goodnight Gracie"

    In final evidence that the USA PATRIOT Act didn't go far enough, Jamie Farr
    is taking his one-man show on George Burns to Huntington, WV as described
    below.

    Sean Dougherty
    SeanDD@[removed]

    [removed]

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

    Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 07:27:11 -0500
    From: "jazmaan@[removed]" <dmf273@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Unique Radio Voices

    I've been listening to a few radio routines between Rochester and Butterfly McQueen.  That's got
    to be the greatest pairing of unique comic voices I've ever heard!  It got me to wondering, who
    are some of the other great comic voices of radio with unusual vocal tracts?  Of course there was
    Mel Blanc, the man of a thousand voices, but even if he or she had only one voice, who else stands
    out like Rochester or Butterfly?

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2004 Issue #361
    *********************************************

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