Subject: [removed] Digest V2008 #19
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 1/20/2008 8:25 PM

To: [removed]@[removed]
Reply-to: [removed]@[removed]

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                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2008 : Issue 19
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                 [removed]
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Cincinnati convention                 [ "Bob Burchett" <haradio@[removed] ]
      Magic Island                          [ "Ian Grieve" <austotr@[removed]. ]
      Re: Vic and Sade                      [ "Jan Bach" <janbach@[removed]; ]
      Jewish characters                     [ "Bob C" <rmc44@[removed]; ]
      Re: Fibber & Molly, and when their p  [ Michael Shoshani <mshoshani@sbcglob ]
      Accents                               [ Rentingnow@[removed] ]
      Re:Jewish Radio CDs                   [ "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed]; ]

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    Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:05:19 -0500
    From: "Bob Burchett" <haradio@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Cincinnati convention

    The dates for this year's Cincinnati convention (April 11, 12)  have already
    been posted on the Digest.    The hotel is under new ownership. Last year the
    convention  was held during the sale. The old owners at that point did
    nothing to the hotel or for the quests. The new gal I'm dealing with assures
    me the house keeping is back, meaning you will have a clean room with towels.
    Renovations probably may be done by convention time, but they should be well
    underway.     The cost of the space for the recreations and the dealers
    rooms  depends on the number of room rental nights we have. If we don't  get
    our number the cost goes up. Those who came last year, and had a bad
    experience with hotel give the new owners another chance. It will help them,
    and the convention.     Cincinnati North is the new name of the hotel.
    [removed] When making room reservations ask for Betty. It Will make you
    life easier.     Send your mailing address and I will put you on our  mailing
    list. For more information call Bob Burchett toll free [removed]

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    Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 09:45:00 -0500
    From: "Ian Grieve" <austotr@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Magic Island
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

    In issue 18 BJ Watkins asked if Magic Island was 128 or 130 episodes, the
    answer is 130 episodes.

    128 was always circulating in mp3, because the originator who encoded the
    series from R2R only had 128 and so 128 it became.

    Thanks to Jerry H whose log is correct at 130 and Ben K who worked on the
    first lines of each episode, we were able to pinpoint where the episodes went
    wrong and Jerry H supplied me with the missing ones.  The 130 episode series
    certified by the researchers group on [removed] is correct.

    The way the series repeats the story of previous episodes, the 2 episodes were
    not missed and the series seemed to flow well without the 2 episodes, but it
    annoyed me after Jerry H confirmed that 130 episodes was the correct number
    and after several attempts over several years we finally put it to rest.

    Ian Grieve

      *** This message was altered by the server, and may not appear ***
      ***                  as the sender intended.                   ***

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    Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 09:45:31 -0500
    From: "Jan Bach" <janbach@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Vic and Sade

    Hello again --

    I too feel I have to remove Vic and Sade from the stereotypes mentioned in a
    recent OTR Digest article. I grew up only forty miles from Bloomington IL,
    Paul Rhymer's birthplace, and no doubt one of the reasons I am such a nut
    about Vic and Sade is because, like my mother from Memphis remarked when
    Jimmy Carter was president, "Finally they have someone in the White House
    without an accent!", I could paraphrase her remark by saying, "Finally they
    have someone on the radio that speaks like I do."

    Vic and Sade talked exactly like the folks from my home town. Their
    expressions like "come here once," or "you can appreciate (understand) how
    shy Ruthie is," or "Give me five" (yes, Rush actually said that in one
    program from the early forties, while I thought it was my generation's lingo
    around the early fifties). Of course, they also had expressions of their
    own, like "I cleaned the house today until who laid the chunk," or "That's
    the bullet that choked Billy Patterson," or "When you hear this news you'll
    throw your shoes over the People's Bank building." But most of my high
    school friends' fathers were 9-5 businessmen, most of their mothers were
    stay-at-home housewives, and few if any of their parents had any education
    beyond high school. So Vic and Sade were truer to life than many might like
    to admit.

    A moment of silence here in memory of Bill Idelson, Vic and Sade's son Rush,
    who passed away on the last day of 2007. As long as we can still hear the
    old V and S recordings, Bill will live in our memories, and in our
    appreciation and gratitude, through his great comic delivery and sense of
    timing.

    Jan Bach

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

    Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 09:47:20 -0500
    From: "Bob C" <rmc44@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Jewish characters

    As a WASP kid in West Texas, I can tell you that in the late
    '40s, early 50s, I didn't know anything about the Jewishness of
    hardly anyone. There was the man who ran a department store in
    our town who was Jewish.

    Other than that, on the radio, maybe I knew Eddie Cantor and Al
    Jolson were, but it was of no significance to me. And as Kermyt
    pointed out, Jack Benny and George Burns participated in the
    Christmas ritual of shopping. Who would have guessed?

    If my parents knew, they didn't let on to us kids, anymore than
    they told us the truth about Santa Claus. Being a tad slow, I
    didn't catch on to that until the summer between the fifth and
    sixth grades ... and I didn't learn the truth about Benny and
    Burns until I was in my 20s. And it didn't make any difference.

    Bob Cockrum

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

    Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 12:06:53 -0500
    From: Michael Shoshani <mshoshani@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Fibber & Molly, and when their program
     showed up

    Charlie North asks:

>     I hope someone can answer this question for me.  I found a site that shows
>     radio station air time slots, for different network  programing, and local
>     programing. For example. In Chicago, on Tuesday, December  the 2nd, 1941, it
>     shows
>     Fibber, and Molly on at 8:30 PM, CST. If I go to Los  Angeles, and search the
>     same time slot, the same day, not only is Fibber, and  Molly not there in
>     that
>     time slot, it is not even there on that day, and date,  for any time slot.

>     My question is: Were radio stations then, unlike  network TV stations today,
>     allowed to air a particular network show, at any time  they chose, on any day
>     they chose? I even went so far as to check the days  before, and after in Los
>     Angeles, with no results there either. A total mystery  to me.

    If I understand the situation correctly, the program advertiser had
    total control over which stations carried their particular program;
    there was no way for an individual station to "opt-out" of carrying a
    program. In fact, while large metropolitan areas usually had at least
    one full-time NBC Red affiliate and one full-time NBC Blue, smaller
    market stations that had only one NBC affiliate would have both Red and
    Blue programs mixed together on their station, all depending on how that
    time slot was sold to the advertiser.

    By 1941 I believe FM&M had moved from Chicago to Hollywood, as a lot of
    NBC programs that had originated from Chicago moved to those sunny
    climes after NBC's studio complex in Hollywood was built in 1937. Having
    access to Fibber production logs would be helpful, because while most of
    the popular programs were actually aired twice each evening (the first
    time for Eastern and Central time zones, the second for Mountain and
    Pacific time zones), it is not unreasonable to assume that perhaps the
    odd program only aired once and was carried live across the country.

    If a program only aired once, the program airing at 8:30 in Chicago
    would appear at 6:30 in Los Angeles.  If a program aired twice, the gap
    was usually an hour - a program originating at, say 8:30 in Chicago
    would be on at 9:30 in New York; the entire performance would be
    repeated at 9:30 in Chicago, going on the air live at 8:30 in the
    Mountain time zone and 7:30 in California.  (There were exceptions to
    the one-hour delay; Amos 'n' Andy, whose creators had originated the
    practice, had a gap of almost four hours between the two editions of
    their fifteen-minute serial program. They did the first performance at
    6:00 PM in Chicago strictly for a 7:00 PM airing in the Eastern time
    zone, then the program was repeated at 10:00 - the hour it had always
    appeared on the local station in Chicago - for Central, Mountain, and
    Pacific.)

    So unless Fibber was pre-empted by something like a speech by the
    Governor of California, Fibber should have aired in Los Angeles on
    12/2/41. I cannot imagine that a program of its national popularity
    would not have appeared; it should have been on KFI, if Fibber was a Red
    network program. (KECA was the Blue affiliate.)  A trivial aside, Los
    Angeles was the only major metro market in which NBC did not own their
    own affiliate stations. KFI and KECA were owned by local automobile
    dealer Earle C. Anthony, and were not for sale.

    Michael Shoshani
    Chicago IL

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

    Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:11:58 -0500
    From: Rentingnow@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Accents

    I would agree with the comments that accents  were important if not critical
    to provide to vocal variety needed to  differentiate the characters.  Without
    the differences the shows wouldn't  be interesting. Imagine a walk down
    Allen's Alley without characters having any  accents.  BOOORING.

    One thing I noticed, thought ,was the change  over time in the accent of
    Marian Jordan.  In the early shows she had a  very charming brogue which I
    thought
    helped in her continuing but futile attempt  to keep Fibber under control.
    But it disappeared in later shows.

    It added charming color but might have become objectionable because by
    having the accent she would have lost some of her universality. That is my
    guess
    thought but I don't remember if it disappeared before or after her bout with
    mental illness.

    Could be she needed to reinvent herself and out went the  accent.

    Larry Moore

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

    Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:15:34 -0500
    From: "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re:Jewish Radio CDs

    Russ Butler recommends (as do I) a wonderful recreation of the sound of
    ethnic Jewish/Yiddish radio "Kapelye On the Air" (Shanachie 67005)  It is
    important to note that we are now going into the area of ethnic broadcasting
    meant for the ethnic group itself, rather than what had started this
    discussion, ethnic characters on general broadcasting meant for the
    non-ethnic audience.  The leader of Kapelye is Henry Sapoznik who is an
    archivist at the Yivo Institute where he headed the Yiddish Radio Project, a
    collection of all known Jewish broadcast recordings.  There is a two-CD set
    of their narrated presentations from NPR's "All Things Considered" on
    Highbridge HBR 89173, and another CD with the original broadcast recordings
    "Music From the Yiddish Radio Project", Shanachie 6057.

    Of interest to the original subject area of this thread is listening to the
    performers on both the original and re-created recordings when they speak in
    English.  Some of them speak in perfect non-accented English, yet others are
    in accents that can be far, far thicker than any we discussed in earlier
    postings.  Oy, when I hear them I hear my grandparents.  My grandmother
    loved Mr. Kitzel, and she cherished Molly Goldberg (she was "MY Mollie" --
    and Eleanor Roosevelt -- don't interrupt her when either of them were on the
    air.

    Although I often played some of the great Jewish/Yiddish 78s I inherited,
    alas, unlike Stuart Lubin, I never really listened to the ethnic programs on
    WEVD although I knew they were there.  I never learned Yiddish -- it was the
    "secret" language my parents spoke when they did not want the kids to
    understand!!  (ALL 3rd generation kids of EVERY immigrant ethnic group had
    this happen to them.  I experienced it first hand when visiting my college
    chum at his South Philly Italian-American home!)  But I did listen every
    Sunday to "The Eternal Light" on NBC and the "American-Jewish Caravan of
    Stars" on WMGM, although sometimes I had to miss half of the Caravan's hour
    when WNBC moved Eternal Light opposite it.  Most of "The Eternal Light"
    recordings exist, and there is an excellent book about it by Eli Segal
    (available in the new Radio Spirits catalog), but Henry Sapoznik has been
    unable to find any recordings of the Caravan, even thru its announcer, Dick
    Defreitas, who is heard on the "Kapelye On the Air" CD.

    By the way, please, please do not pirate dubs of these CDs.  Buy the real
    ones because you will want to have the very informative and detailed
    booklets that also contain the all-important translations so that you (and
    I) can finally be let in on the "secret" language.  And don't forget the
    Siegel's "Radio and the Jews" that also has a CD.  (usual disclaimers
    apply.)

    Mykele Bielsky  mbiel@[removed]

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2008 Issue #19
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