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

[removed] Digest				Volume 96 : Issue 338

Table Of Contents: 

	 "Big Broadcast" movies
	 Big Broadcast
	 Old Time Radio Chat
	 Clayton Moore book, split networks
	 SHADOW MOVIES ON CABLE TONIGHT! / Black Radio Actors
	 Re: halloween scares
	 Halloween shows / Baseball
	 Halloween show correction
	 Baseball shows: First Inning
	 Electrical Transcriptions/"America Before Television" tapes
	 I Confess, and No more traders needed

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

Date: Tue, 17 Sep 96 15:02 CDT
From: John Henley <jhenley@[removed]>
To: otr@[removed], DAVE@[removed]
Subject: "Big Broadcast" movies
Message-Id: <m0v36LY-000k6bC@[removed]>

David Allan Boucher asked:
>What was the premise of these "Big Broadcast" movies?  Can anyone
>explain the significance of them?  

Er, [removed]  Their significance was to make money for
Paramount Pictures.
But, to be a bit more [removed]"The Big Broadcast" was a 1932 film
starring Bing Crosby and Burns & Allen.  Its sketchy plot was an excuse to
feature segments starring popular radio & recording favorites of the day -
in this case, Kate Smith, Cab Calloway, The Boswell Sisters, and Bing
himself among others.  The idea was to get ticket-buyers into the theater
to actually SEE the performers that beforehand they'd only heard.  As still
would happen today, it spawned a series of such films, all more or less the
same structure and same raison d'etre - to give you an opportunity to see
your radio favorites on the screen.
Another thing about these films is that they resurrected the "revue" format
which early talkies had used and then abandoned.  The talent in the earlier
revues was there to demonstrate that they could talk for films.  The later,
BB-style revues showed off radio talent, radio in the interim having spread
across the country.
There were "The Big Broadcast of 1936" (starring Jack Benny as a press
agent & including a turn by Gosden and Correll as Amos'n'Andy), "1937," and
"1938" (the last one, featuring mostly minor-league talent, but introducing
the song "Thanks for the Memories" sung by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross).
There were other radio-revue films, my favorite of which is "International
House" (1933), with Calloway, Stoopnagle and Budd, Rudy Vallee and Baby
Rose Marie.  Also, Bing is in top form in the first "BB" and is accompanied
by the jazz-guitar pioneer Eddie Lang, who died the following year.
John Henley
jhenley@[removed]
ph  (512) 495-4112
fax (512) 495-4296

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

Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 13:21:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: roy547@[removed] (Roy Trumbull)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Big Broadcast
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length:        828

Before there was network television, local stations would show
a lot of old movies. What you see on AMC are the best. We saw
everything. One comic described TV movies as being like furniture;
they were either old English or early American.
So movies that are just mentioned today were on the air in 1952.
Thqt was when I saw my first Big Broadcast movie. The idea behind
them was that Hollywood was cashing in on radio's popularity by
making movies with as many radio stars in them as possible. If
there was a plot, I have no memory of it. They were all in what we
today refer to as the "wait for the cassette" category. I do recall
[removed] Fields had a few funny scenes in the 1938 version.
My wife thinks I'm too critical of the movies. There are less than
10 movies I would care to see again. The BB of 1938 is not one of them.

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

Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 18:24:17 -0300
From: "Stephen Moore" <moores@[removed]>
To: <[removed]@[removed]>
Subject: Old Time Radio Chat
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

Since there has been some interest shown in real time chatting about OTR, I
will try this Thursday at 20:00 EST.  Lets just call the channel OTR, and
see who shows up.

I will look forward to meeting some of you and for some interesting chat
about, of course, OTR!

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

Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 19:21:41 -0400
From: SanctumOTR@[removed]
To: OTR@[removed]
Subject: Clayton Moore book, split networks
Message-ID: <960917192140_104313326@[removed]>

Clayton Moore's book, "I was that Masked Man" is now in print from Taylor
Publishing and retails at $[removed]   I have it in my hand and can report that
it's a wonderful and informative book with lots of anecdotes and photos
dealing with Moore's film ("King of the Republic serials")and TV career.
  I'll have it for sale at my FOTR dealers table in October.   I'm also
selling it mail order but don't feel right about giving out ordering
information in this forum until I'm informed as to the correctness of doing
so.   By the way, John Hart (the other television Lone Ranger) will be
attending this year's FOTR convention at Newark Airport's Holiday Inn North,
along with Lone Ranger radio veterans Dick Beals (aka Dan Reid), Elaine Hyman
and announcer Fred Foy )"Return with us [removed]").
     Transcriptions were allowed from the beginning years of the Mutual and
Yankee Networks, but were prohibited on NBC's Red and Blue Networks and CBS
until after WWII.   
      Repeats were generally only done for the West Coast time zone, similar
to today's situation with TV shows being broadcast concurrently in the East
and Central time zones ([removed] 8pm Eastern, 7pm Central) and repeated so the
shows can be viewed in prime time on the West Coast.   Amos 'n' Andy was
reportedly the first show to have a repeat broadcast, though I don't know if
this was true.
     The Shadow had a split network setup for years.   As I wrote in "The
Shadow - The Making of a Legend" for GAA's new "The Shadow Chronicles" 5
CD/cassette collection:  "The master control room at Mutual had to work at
split-second efficiency during the Shadow broadcasts, inserting four
different announcers and four separate sets of live commercials into the
broadcasts and routing them to the correct regions of the country.   The
Shadow cast performed onstage at Broadway's Longacre Theatre while
announcer/narrator Andre Baruch worked in a separate studio with Paul Huber
(the voice of "John Barclay") adding in the Blue Coal commercials for east
coast audiences.  In another studio, Ford Bond waited with two actors to do
the dramatized commercials for Balm Barr, while Dick Willard performed the
Carey Salt commercials live in a fourth studio.  The Mutual control room had
to route the Blue Coal messages to the midwest and the Balm Barr commercials
to the southern region.  The broadcast was piped via telephone lines to
Hollywood where announcer Pierre Andre inserted the special commercial
announcements heard over the Don Lee division of Mutual."   The collection
 includes 8 Shadow programs and an hour-long documentary that includes clips
and interviews with Welles, Johnstone, Archer, Morrison, Stevenson, Slon,
Warner, Osgood, Walter Gibson, John Nanovic, Barney Beck, Ted Mallie, Ken
Roberts, etc.  

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

Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 20:26:06 -0400
From: SanctumOTR@[removed]
To: OTR@[removed]
Subject: SHADOW MOVIES ON CABLE TONIGHT! / Black Radio Actors
Message-ID: <960917202605_311037729@[removed]>

The good news is ... Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is airing four vintage
Shadow films tonight (Wednesday, September 18);   The bad news is I don't get
TCM, nor does anyone I know.   CAN ANYONE OUT THERE HELP ME OBTAIN COPIES OF
THESE HIGH QUALITY PRINTS TONIGHT -- They begin airing at 11:45 pm ESTwith
Kane Richmond starring in Monogram's 3 1946 B-pictures, "Behind the Mask,"
"The Shadow Returns," and "The Missing Lady," followed by Rod La Rocque
portraying "Lamont Granston" in the shoddy 1937 "The Shadow Strikes."   A
reviewer of the day gave the latter a terse, four word review:  "The Shadow
Strikes Out."
     Alfred Bester cast the wonderful black radio actor Jauno Hernandez as
Charlie Chan back in the 1940s but was overruled by network execs who
insisted that "You can't have a negro actor portray a chinaman;  you have to
have a white actor play a chinaman."  I guess they never heard of "Amos 'n'
Andy.
     I ANYONE CAN HELP ME GET TAPES OF THE FOUR SHADOW FILMS TONIGHT, PLEASE
CONTACT ME AT SanctumOTR@[removed]

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

Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 21:43:17 -0400
From: Joelsiegel@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: halloween scares
Message-ID: <960917214315_480934509@[removed]>

"The House on Cypress Canyon" on Suspense truly scared me. 
War of the Worlds is interesting history but it's not at all scarey.
And try I Love A [removed] Richards Curse is awfully suspenseful.

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

Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 22:45:08 -0400
From: DavidLHsl@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Halloween shows / Baseball
Message-ID: <960917224508_480978814@[removed]>

  Bill Scherer requested shows for Halloween.  I posted a response to a
similar topic last year, so I'll simply copy and paste the text here:
-----
  Randy asked for scary, but obscure, OTR shows.  I don't think the shows I'm
listing fall under the "obscure" category, but I'll simply list my favorite
spooky shows.  Dates of the episodes are given if I have them.
  I know this is familiar to most everyone here on the digest, but no
discussion of scary OTR should ever exclude the Suspense episode "The House
in Cypress Canyon."  "Ghost Hunt" with Ralph Edwards (6/23/49) is also great,
scary fun.
  One of the most unexpected scary episodes can be found in Nick Carter:
Master Detective.  The title of the episode is "Death After Dark."  Up until
the completely implausible conclusion, this one had me glued to my speakers
(and I was driving at the time).  In this show, Nick investigates some
bizarre killings where the victims have vampire-like marks on their necks.
  The Shadow contains some great, spooky shows.  Two that immediately pop to
mind are "The Unburied Dead" (4/14/46) and the spookiest of them all: "The
Gibbering Thing."
  Lights Out didn't turn out to be all scary shows as I first thought, since
most of the shows are actually dramas.  But the already mentioned "Come to
the Bank" is wonderfully eerie.  "The Sea" is also a wonderful ghost story.
I wouldn't describe it as scary, but it's very spooky in an understated way.
Everyone mentions "Revolt of the Worms," but frankly I found it to be more
silly than scary (but it is great fun to listen to).
  If Inner Sanctum would take its ghosts seriously, it would be a scary show.
However, most of the time I listen intently to the show, only to find out
that there's some sort of "logical" explaination.  Thhhpt!  I want real
ghosts!!!  There are, fortunately, exceptions.  "The Black Seagull" (3/7/43),
featuring Peter Lorre, is wonderfully spooky in the same way as "The Sea"
mentioned above.  "The Lonely Sleep" (9/25/45) probably doesn't qualify as
scary, but it is morbid in a way that Alfred Hitchcock would love.  It's been
a while since I've heard "Chinese Tile" (8/10/52), so I don't exactly
remember much about it.  But I do recall thinking at the time I listened to
it that it was spooky as well.
  "Dracula," as presented by Orson Welles on Mercury Radio Theater, is a
great, scary episode.
  The Mysterious Traveler episode "Only the Good Die Young" isn't scary, but
it's extremely unsettling.
  If you're easily scared by stories about dolls, try X Minus One's "Perigi's
Wonderful Dolls" (6/5/55).  And although "The Parade" (5/1/55) is played
pretty much presented as a satire during the first 20 minutes or so, the
final moments of the show really leave a chilling impact.
  Finally, my favorite Halloween episode isn't a scary show, but a comedy.
You've probably heard it: the Thanksgiving episode of Baby Snooks (11/21/40).
It isn't difficult to figure out how Baby Snooks got to be such a mischievous
troublemaker when you consider her dad's antics in this episode.
-----
  As for shows with a baseball theme, give yourself 10 demerits if you didn't
think of Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First?" episode.

David Hassell

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

Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 22:53:29 -0400
From: DavidLHsl@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Halloween show correction
Message-ID: <960917225328_524814462@[removed]>

  I just read the message I just posted, and I need to make an important
correction.
  Original excerpt:
  <<Finally, my favorite Halloween episode isn't a scary show, but a comedy.
You've probably heard it: the Thanksgiving episode of Baby Snooks
(11/21/40).>>
  Wrong holiday.  Try the Halloween episode (11/1/46) instead.  Of course, if
you frighten easily by turkeys, then maybe you could make the Thanksgiving
episode scary.

David Hassell

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

Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 01:32:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: MAX SCHMID <mschmid@[removed]>
To: airwavesOTR <[removed]@[removed]>
Subject: Baseball shows: First Inning
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Here we go - the first pitch:
On many an episode of Vic & Sade, Rush (and later Russell) could often be 
found returning from Tattman's vacant lot from a ball game, that is, when 
they weren't down at the YMCA watching the fat men play handball. Of 
course you never hear them actually play ball, but it is recounted back at
home.  "Strike one!"

Second pitch: 
I have a few Jean Shepherd episodes from 1969 on the subject of baseball and 
the Mets winning the pennant.  Shep was a great baseball fan.  Not OTR.
"Strike two!"

Third pitch:
High Adventure [removed] "Wild Pitch" (no, that's the name of the story).

Fourth pitch:
Leo Durocher made more than one appearance on the Fred Allen Show doing 
The Brooklyn Pinafore.  Fred was a master of recycling material from 
year to year and even guest to guest.  In one episode that's available 
they are busted for ticket scalping and appear before Judge Pinhead McKeester.
"Pinhead McKeester, you, a JUDGE!?!"
(with heavy Brooklyn accent): "Yeah, ain't it a laugh?"

"It's high, it's far, it'S GONE!!!"   
    

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

Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 00:23:18 -0700
From: "Eugene F. Kasper" <efk0490@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Electrical Transcriptions/"America Before Television" tapes
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

In line with the recent posts regarding the use of transcriptions to
rebroadcast programs at "more convenient times", the "America Before
Television" collection of the Sept 1939 broadcast day at WJSV Washington
had all non-live commercials prefaced with "The following announcement
is electrically transcribed."  In addition, if music was played from
records, the announcer would make it clear the music was recorded.

Question is whether this was some sort of legal requirement at the time,
common practice in the broadcasting industry then, or only practice at
that station.  Any ideas?

In addition, the newsreader at the end of the broadcast day on that
collection identifies himself as "George Putnam."  Is this the same
George Putnam who became a rather successful and controversial
conservative television newsman in Los Angeles in the late '50s and
'60s?

A final question before this group regarding "America Before
Television"...any thoughts whether the 6:00 am to 6:30 am program block
was deleted for the collection or whether there was no programming at
that time despite later indications that broadcasting started at 6:00 am
and not at 6:30 with the Arthur Godfrey [removed], was the repitition
of the Elmer Davis newscast at 7:55 pm and 8:55 pm (direct replay from
the same [removed] flubs are the same in both) intentional with
the distributors of the tape or was it a WJSV [removed] a couple
of issues and inconsistencies in an otherwise fine collection.

Regards

Gene K

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

Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 07:40:27 -0500 (CDT)
From: Dewana Burnham <dburnham@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: I Confess, and No more traders needed
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Hi Folks,

First of all, I want to thank everyone for replying to my requestion for 
OTR traders.  I never dreamed that I would get such a response, but I 
have all I can handle for the present.  Also, for those that I have 
promised to send my collection to, I am still working on it.  It may be a 
few days because I am training for a new job, but I will eventually get 
it to you.  

Also, I want to know if anyone knows about a program called I Confess.  
I'm not sure when it was on, but it was about people who would confess to 
committing a crime.  I did have one episode where a young teenage girl 
runs away with her boy friend and ends up in trouble when her boy friend 
tries to robb a store to get money to buy drugs and gets killed by the 
police.  Does anyone have this episode?  And how many other episodes are 
available.  

For the person who asked if "Pride of the Yankees" was on Luxe Radio 
Theater, I believe it was.  I don't collect Luxe, but I was looking 
through an OTR catalog and saw it.  

Troy Burnham




--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V96 Issue #338
*******************************************

