Subject: [removed] Digest V2002 #393
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 10/7/2002 8:34 PM

To: <[removed]@[removed];

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2002 : Issue 393
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Re: Thanx -- and another [removed]   [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
      Harry Bartell and Doc Savage          [ "alanladdsr" <alanladdsr@[removed] ]
      Turntable Belts !!!                   [ Rfmalone@[removed] ]
      Last Godfrey Radio Show(s)            [ leemunsick@[removed] ]
      NPR re: audio tape, Crosby, radio     [ marklambert@[removed] ]
      squealing reel tape                   [ EdHowell@[removed] ]
      Wonder Bread                          [ "CHARLES MONROE-KANE" <monroe-kane@ ]
      Re: London After Midnight             [ "Jan Willis" <jlwillis@[removed]; ]
      Re: Replacement Turntable Belts       [ Shenbarger@[removed] ]
      Important Godfrey Anniversary         [ leemunsick@[removed] ]

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

    Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 16:03:29 +0000
    From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Thanx -- and another [removed]

    Phil Chavin wrote:

     > I'm now able to answer her question:  Yes.  After some digging, I've
     >learned that the Special Collections Dept. at the University Library (M/C
     >234) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (phone [removed]) has a
     >Preston Bradley Papers collection

    Thanks much for running this down -- hopefully they'll have what I'm
    looking for.

    And speaking of radio clergymen, does anyone know of a collection housing
    the papers of Jacob Tarshish? He was a liberal/Reform rabbi based in
    Ohio, who broadcast regularly over WLW and later Mutual for much of the
    1930s, usually under the title "The Lamplighter." Often the texts of his
    broadcasts were published in booklet form and sent out to listeners
    making requests, and were compiled into a series of popular inspirational
    books.

    I'm specifically looking for a printed transcript of Tarshish's 1/13/35
    broadcast, which was devoted to a summary of the moral lessons taught in
    "Amos 'n' Andy." Anyone out there happen to have a copy of this pamphlet?
    I'm not sure if it ever showed up in one of his hardcover collections,
    but it was definitely issued in booklet form.

    Elizabeth

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

    Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 16:04:36 +0000
    From: "alanladdsr" <alanladdsr@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Harry Bartell and Doc Savage

    I was listening to a show from a series called "Doorway to Life" and heard
    Harry Bartell in the role of an "unfeeling husband." It was a sustaining CBS
    series from 1947-48. Does he have any remembering from that series?

    Does anyone know if the l930's series' of  Doc Savage has any existing
    programs around. I know of the later serial but was wondering about any of
    the original programs possibly available. Excuse the syntax but I hope you
    know what I'm asking about!

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

    Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 16:03:42 +0000
    From: Rfmalone@[removed]
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Turntable  Belts !!!

    Try this website. They sell all kinds of parts for turntables. Needles, Belts
    etc.
           [removed]

                                               Richard!

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

    Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 16:04:15 +0000
    From: leemunsick@[removed]
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Last Godfrey Radio Show(s)

    To respond to "Gunner" and his search for tapes of the final Arthur Godfrey
    network programs:

    Counting down to the final Arthur Godfrey CBS network program in 1972, Mr.
    Godfrey for several weeks recalled the history of his programs and
    activities, from the past to the present, a particular year in each day's
    show.  When he finally got to April 27th, he made his farewell.  These
    tapes are readily available from numerous sources.  I'd copy mine for our
    poster, except that they're still packed away from my move fro NJ to
    VA.  Just keep searching, Gunner, you will find them, and they are worth
    having, as they reminisce about a lot of things.

    I would take issue in part with his following comment: "by the time the
    program went off the air it was a very low keyed half hour in length, with
    no studio audience or big national sponsors, a far cry from its
    heyday".   Art Singer in his book about Arthur Godfrey ends his chapter on
    that last program with, "Studio 22 was never used for radio again".

    Gunner's comment is correct except in one detail, regarding the note about
    the sponsor.  How would one have "no national sponsors" on a national radio
    network entertainment program, in this case the very last one to leave the air?

    There's something amiss here, unless Gunner considers Lipton to be a tiny
    local organization.  On that last show, Mr. Godfrey slid into the sponsor's
    commercial thusly:  "Our sponsor?  Remember the old Biblical saying, 'the
    first shall be last'?   Lipton Tea!  They've been with us right to the very
    end."
    Not absolutely, totally [removed] was a hiatus, and Mr. Godfrey even
    experimented with representing another brand.  I remember thinking, "Oh no,
    sir, you can't do this!"  I'm sure millions of his listeners felt the
    same.  He didn't count on the enormously loyalty which he himself had built
    with his listeners for Lipton and his other sponsors.  The transition did
    not work.  Ultimately, Lipton came back.

    But except for that gap, Lipton and Chesterfield cigarettes were
    practically synonymous with Arthur Godfrey, who of course had scores of
    other sponsors as well, all with strong listener identification and brand
    loyalty.

     From the early days with "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts" in the 1940s,
    Lipton was there with its tea.  Godfrey's espousal of Lipton in particular,
    and tea in general, caused not only the sales of the Commodore's brand to
    grow, but Americans' use of tea in general.  Then as Lipton grew, Mr.
    Godfrey introduced their other, new products, like their famous powdered soups.

    Mr. Godfrey was known for kidding the sponsors' advertising copy.  In this
    case, he typically joked about the copy and the product, wisely knowing
    that many consumers would look at this little package of dry powder and say
    that it would never produce anything edible, let alone good soup!  He was a
    marketer and salesman <par excellence>, and he knew his audience through
    and through.  It should be recalled that the only other quick-made soups
    readily available to buyers at the time, were the enormously popular
    Campbell's canned, condensed soups to which one only need add milk or
    water. They were the enemy, and that public knowledge had to be overcome.

    Mr. Godfrey played the devil's advocate.  Skeptically, he poured out some
    of the powdered Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup in a bowl, poked his finger
    around in it, and said he couldn't find the chicken.  Laughter.  He
    wondered, "Where's the chicken?" (a precursor of the "Where's The Beef?"
    campaign of years later?).  More laughter, with his audience right in the
    palm of his hand, wondering how he would get out of this!  He remarked to
    his amused listeners and watchers that perhaps the chicken had walked
    through the powder!  After the laughter relaxed the audience and then
    calmed down, he had a cup of the hot soup available, noisily tasted some to
    be sure the radio audience caught on as the viewers would, and remarked,
    "But it sure tastes good!"

    This approach made his listeners flood the stores and empty the shelves of
    the powdered soup.  He did this with many of his sponsors' products during
    his 50-year broadcasting career.  In ensuing years, Thomas J. Lipton became
    a gigantic international conglomerate, to a not insignificant extent
    because of Arthur Godfrey's promotion.  Unilever was formed with the merger
    of Lipton and Best Foods, and is a huge firm with many, many products,
    often with very familiar brand names beside Lipton:  Country Crock,
    Hellmann's, Knorr's, Lawry's, Ragu, Skippy, to name just a few.

    Mr. Godfrey's approach seemed so casual, and he encouraged people to
    identify with him as "This li'l ol' country boy".  But he was no hick, no
    jerk.  I watched him on his morning simulcast one day as he said he wanted
    to introduce a new cereal for the Kellogg folk, another loyal sponsor for
    whose products he frequently served as the initial introducer, as he did
    with other firms and their products.

    The camera and viewers saw Mr. G seated behind his little desk.  Mentioning
    that he had a new product for his audience, he bent down behind the desk
    and picked up the box of Kellogg's new cereal.  Reaching in front of him,
    he placed the carton on the little wall of the desk.  Oops!  He missed the
    wall, and the box dropped on our side of the desk, out of sight.  Mr.
    Godfrey struggled to get up amid the audience titters, and while mugging
    his chagrin to the studio (and TV) audience, carefully walked around the
    end of the desk to the front, picked up the cereal, carefully and with more
    chagrin showed it again to the TV camera, returned to his seat, and put the
    box back up where it belonged, in clear view of the audience.

    All very understandable, to inadvertently drop the box that way, and have
    to go get it.  Don't believe it.  The entire thing was carefully thought
    out and executed, to focus the attention of his audience solidly on the new
    product.  Not to mention the idea that perhaps a lot of his housewife
    listeners would gossip to each other over the next day or so, "Did you see
    Arthur Godfrey drop the box of Kellogg's cereal on TV this morning?"  No,
    Arthur Godfrey may have had the image of the freckle faced Peck's Bad Boy,
    but he was nobody's fool.  Master-mind marketer, is what he was, a genius.

    I was told by Frank Stanton of CBS, and it has been reliably reported
    elsewhere, that right up to that last show, there was still a list of major
    companies eager for the chance to sponsor Arthur Godfrey, to have him be
    the spokesman for their products or services.

    The difficulty had little to do with Arthur Godfrey, except that his
    programs had escaped it far longer than any others.  His was the last; the
    penultimate was Don McNeill's Breakfast Club on ABC, which succumbed four
    years earlier.

    The problem was the changing nature of the broadcasting business itself,
    not in this case one of a lack of sponsors, or of listeners.  It was the
    fatal inability of the national networks--in this case CBS--to guarantee to
    sponsors that local affiliates would carry their sponsored programs.  Those
    stations preferred instead to highlight a DJ with a stack of records,
    station IDs, timechecks, commercials, station IDs, record, commercials,
    station [removed] you get the idea <ad infinitum>.

    CBS at least had remained loyal to Mr. Godfrey.  Although their format had
    changed almost entirely to All-News on the o & o's, they broke into that
    format every weekday to carry Arthur Godfrey until that final day, many
    years after the demise of the rest of the networks' schedules of
    entertainment, soap operas and the like.

    Good luck finding the programs, [removed] think you'll enjoy them.  The
    pace of the Arthur Godfrey programs is undoubtedly too slow for the
    youngsters of today, saturated as they are with fast-moving TV programs
    filled with noise and color (especially in the louder commercials), and
    feverish burn-out.

    Yet for those of us older folk willing to sit and listen, they have a
    timelessness which is informative, charming, poignant, and still enjoyable,
    educational and entertaining.  Other than with NPR on the radio, and TV
    channels such as A&E, History, Discovery, National Geographic, Biography,
    CNN and FoxNews, where do you get this in the "mainstream" of broadcasting
    today?  And where will the "mainstream" networks be in five or ten years
    from now?  And what kind of crud will they be airing?

    Be the Good Lord willin', we'll still have some sources of intelligent
    programming available for years to come.  And the tape recordings of those
    precious, previous years, whether on reel to reel, cassette, VCR, CD, MP3,
    or whatever comes next.

    Thanks for listening!

    Lee Munsick

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

    Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 22:11:28 +0000
    From: marklambert@[removed]
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  NPR re: audio tape, Crosby, radio

    On Friday, Oct. 4, I heard an interesting story on NPR's
    "All Things Considered."  The report was about how a US
    soldier returning from WW II brought back German technology
    for recording on magnetic tape, took it to Bing Crosby, who
    then used the machine (and the tape) to record his radio show
    in advance.  The report also told how Crosby invested in
    duplicating the technology.  The story also discussed how
    the use of magnetic-tape recording (as opposed to wax disc
    recordings) led to "laugh tracks," as well as the encouragement
    of radio performers to take risks (knowing that risque comments
    could be edited out before broadcast).  If you'd like to hear
    the story, I think you can listen to archived NPR programs
    on the NPR website:
    [removed]

    --Mark
    Mark Lambert
    [removed]
    invested in duplicating the technology here

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

    Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 22:11:43 +0000
    From: EdHowell@[removed]
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  squealing reel tape

    I used to have tapes that squealed on old Brush reel-to-reel machines and not
    having anything else handy and haviing a show that must go on, I sprinkled a
    little talcum powder on the tape and for some reason it stopped the squeal.
    If it was a show that was to be bicycled I would make a good duplicate of it
    to send to the next station. I was glad to see tape come along after babying
    sometimes three Webster wire recorders at the same time during some delayed
    broadcasts. Nothing like tying that wire back together when it broke during a
    broadcast!  Almost as bad a nightmare as working in TV and having both sync
    gens acting up at once while film on the projector lost its loop, the other
    projector not loaded, and no one in the building except me (and the phone
    ringing off the wall). I still have nightmares!

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

    Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 22:13:11 +0000
    From: "CHARLES MONROE-KANE" <monroe-kane@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Wonder Bread

    I sent the following email last week but had email problems and
    have no idea if I got a reply here it is again. Sorry.

    Charles

    # ################

      I am a producer for a national show on public radio called, "To the
    Best of Our Knoweldge." It is an hour long show on ideas (based
    on themes). I want to use more sound, bits, etc. from old-time
    radio in my [removed] is why I joined the list.

    Specificially I am looking for (for a show I am doing on the history
    of bread):

    Audio of the "Happy Wonder Bakers" (singing quartet cald in
    spotless white uniforms) who sang about Wonder Bread on NBC
    Radio. They started performing in 1929.

    I have NO IDEA how to get this but would like very much to play it
    on my show.

    I am also looking for more contemporary (1950-60's) Wonder Bread
    radio spots (but, of course, the "Happy Wonder Bakers" are the
    Holy Grail).

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

    Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 22:12:38 +0000
    From: "Jan Willis" <jlwillis@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: London After Midnight

    Martin wrote:

>     TCM has scheduled the silent Lon Chaney classic, LONDON AFTER >MIDNIGHT
>     <<some snipping>>
>     Seems a group of people got together, found some 200+
>     stills from the movie, hired a couple voice actors (similar to radio
>     acting?) and reconstructed, scene for scene, the "lost" movie that is
>     being considered the "holy grail" of all horror films.

      One small but important correction, Martin, if I may. Far as I know, the
    information you'd read regarding voice actors being used for the LAM
    "restoration"  is not correct.
      It's definitely going to remain in its original silent form, with a new
    score by Robert Israel.  Unless I've missed something myself, along the way.
      Rick Schmidlin is doing the 40 minute long restoration, having to work
    with 100% stills and the motion control camera approach he used on the
    GREED restoration a few years ago, as the camera "moves" across each still,
    as the film progresses.
    [removed]
    "After reading the script and the continuity, I realized that this could be
    told totally in photo stills and still be a very complex, compelling,
    articulate story," Schmidlin said.
      Also, at:
    [removed],12608,473|1259|475,[removed]
      From TOUCH OF EVIL to an Elvis Presley concert film, Schmidlin's done
    some wonderful work in recent years, and TCM has been showcasing his work
    each time, too.
      LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT gets a one-time showing on TCM, Halloween night.
      NO encores (for a while, at least).

    Jan Willis

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

    Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 22:12:09 +0000
    From: Shenbarger@[removed]
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Replacement Turntable Belts

    In a message dated 10/6/2002 11:59:46 PM Central Daylight Time, Doug Leary
    writes:

     > Are
     >  there special supply houses that sell old drive belts, or is my intended
    DIY
     >  method probably as good as any?

    I have tried DIY and failed.

    There are a few places that sell belts for turntables, ready to install.
    There is at least one place that sells belt material in various cross
    sections and will provide a length to suit or make it up to match your needs.

    [removed] - for ready to use belts

    [removed] - for belts made to order

    There are others. Search for "turntable belts" with Google.

    Don Shenbarger

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

    Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 22:13:28 +0000
    From: leemunsick@[removed]
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Important Godfrey Anniversary

    Amidst all the other interesting comments about Arthur Godfrey, I forgot to
    bring this up:

    This week is the 73rd anniversary of the very start of the Godfrey
    broadcasting career.

    It was the evening of October 5, 1929, in the port city of Baltimore,
    Maryland.  A bunch of Coast Guardsmen were doing what servicemen do on a
    night off, tipping down a few in a local watering hole.  This was not
    unusual for the times, even though it was illegal, as Prohibition was still
    in effect.  One of the "swabbies" was [removed] Coast Guard radio operator,
    newly-married Arthur Morton Godfrey.  His  buddies were listening to an
    amateur hour on station WFBR in that city.  They convinced their "shipmate"
    that he could sing better than those who were performing on the air.   His
    pals teased him into going to WFBR, even "helping him along" to the
    station, where he went on the air on the talent show as "Red Godfrey the
    Warbling Banjoist", and scored his first hit.  It's not so surprising that
    years later he would have his own program, "Arthur Godfrey and His Talent
    Scouts", which gave vital national exposure and a boost up to many, many
    performers who went on to stardom.  They included Patsy Cline, Eddie
    Fisher, Beverly Sills, Rosemary and Betty Clooney, Itzhak Perlman, Dinah
    Shore, Lenny Bruce, Pat Boone, Vic Damone, Wally Cox, Tony Bennett, The
    McGuire Sisters, Will Jordan, and scores more.

    But back to that all-important Baltimore "talent scouts" show.  The station
    manager, the first of many to see a good thing, asked the 26-year old
    Arthur Godfrey to do a regular show on his station.  He did, which was
    constantly expanded and grew until the call came from the "big city" to
    move to the NBC station in Washington, [removed]   In time, he became an NBC
    Staff Announcer based there.

     From there, he moved a few blocks to the CBS outlet in the nation's
    capital.  As a new CBS Staff Announcer, he had a few breaks which never
    seemed to rev up to more than considerable local fame and fortune.  But one
    never knows about fate, "do one?"  In April 1945, Arthur Godfrey was chosen
    to describe the progress of President Franklin Roosevelt's funeral cortege
    through the streets of Washington, from his vantage point standing on a
    local theater marquee.

     From a News Director's point of view, this was a mistake.  But sometimes
    from small mistakes, big careers are born.  Never a newsman as such, Mr.
    Godfrey had difficulty controlling his emotions under the
    circumstances.  He knew Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt personally, and owed thanks
    to the Commander in Chief for getting him his commission as a Lt. Commander
    in the [removed] Naval Reserve.  When the President's casket drew near, he lost
    his composure and broke up.

    Fred Friendly and Edward R. Murrow some years later put a brief excerpt of
    that broadcast in their "Hear It Now" album covering 1945.  But the
    original actual broadcast ran longer.  Oh, how I wish we could find someone
    who has the complete recording of the Godfrey-FDR broadcast!  Please,
    someone, come forth with the whole thing!

    On the recording, the last we hear Mr. Godfrey say in a hurried, wavering,
    tearful voice is,  "We return you now to the studio!".  Mr. Godfrey always
    said afterward that he was thoroughly embarrassed by his shortcoming that
    day.  But it was this emotional side which made him the star he was.

    I am told that in the 1945 instance, there was no-one at the studio to pick
    it up.  The engineers frantically discussed this on the talk-back line, and
    waved to Mr. Godfrey to continue.  All this is reminiscent to us, of the
    earlier Herb Morrison coverage of the Hindenberg Disaster, except that
    WSL's Morrison was making a recording intended for use only on his station
    the next day, while Mr. Godfrey was live on the Columbia network.  It
    turned out to be the break which finally got him to New York, and his
    network berth

    I've been asked by people familiar with Mr. Godfrey's chagrin about his FDR
    funeral coverage,  why in heaven's name would Mr. Godfrey play it as part
    of his very last program?  It was virtually the last thing Mr. Godfrey put
    into that final network broadcast in 1972, using the excerpt from the "Hear
    It Now" recording.

    I think this is a fair understanding of why:  Even 'though those last few
    days were pre-recorded, Mr. Godfrey knew that he was going to blubber when
    it came to the end.  So he had the engineers play his FDR break-up, which
    perhaps helped explain away the fact that he was having trouble keeping
    control in the last minutes of his quarter-century long network radio
    program.  Deja vu from 27 years before!

    Well, let's think of happier things this week,  harking back to that first
    broadcast in Baltimore, 73 years ago!  If there are any young talents
    reading this, and your local radio station has its own amateur   program,
    give it a try!

    Lee Munsick
    Appomattox County, Virginia USA

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2002 Issue #393
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