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

[removed] Digest				Volume 96 : Issue 413

Table Of Contents: 

	 History lesson
	 Commercials on OTR Tapes
	 Larry Stevens
	 Help!!
	 Gotham Radio Players return
	 Jack Benny Christmas collection
	 Scariest Show Ever
	 JOHNNY MERCER
	 Vic and Sade
	 Amos n Andy
	 Sam 'N Henry survives
	 Radio drama for South Dakota

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

Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 12:14:18 -0500
From: [removed]@[removed] (Donald Dortmund)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: History lesson
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Description: cc:Mail note part

  Can anyone please give me some information about two shows:
  The Battleling Bickersons
   and The Baby Snooks Show.
  I have heard all sorts of stories that they were parts of other shows and 
  then became their own shows, and went from short sketches to a full 30 
  minutes. 
  
  Can anyone set the record straight??
  Thanks
  Don

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

Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 11:26:16 -0600 (CST)
From: Bruce Toews <toews@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Commercials on OTR Tapes
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Any reputable dealer of OTR will include the commercials, wherever 
possible. In some cases, most notably AFRS broadcasts of shows, the 
commercials were taken out long befor the OTR was ever OTR. In many 
cases, such as the Jack Benny episodes where the Sportsmen Quartet do the 
Lucky Strike commercials, this is a huge shame, since the commercials 
were very much integrated into the show.

Which brings me to a question. There was a whole series of Jack Benny 
episodes surrounding Jack's firing of the Sportsmen. How did the AFRS 
people handle this series of shows, since a lot of it centered around 
either the sponsor ordering Jack to rehire, or cast members taking 
light-hearted jabs at the sponsor ("I've been smokin' luckies for neigh 
on three thousand years" and so on). In a series such as that one, the 
commercials were a very central theme. How did AFRS handle such a situation?

Bruce

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

Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 12:26:19 -0600 (CST)
From: Bruce Toews <toews@[removed]>
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Larry Stevens
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Who was Larry Stevens? Am I right in assuming that he subbed for Dennis 
Day on Jack Benny while he was in the service? And was it always 
understood that Dennis would be back?

Also, can someone give me the date of the Jack Benny episode where the 
broadcast was from the [removed] Saratoga? Finding this episode appears to 
be the only way I'll ever be able to get a copy of Mr. Kitzel singing 
"Pickle in the Middle with the Mustard on Top".

Bruce

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

Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 15:02:13 -0700
From: PETER GRECO <pgreco@[removed]>
To: radio digest <otr@[removed]>
Subject: Help!!
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hi,
  The other day while driving to work,listening to an otr tape as 
[removed] show popped into my head,can't remember the show but the plot 
goes like [removed] friend met in a bar one is very young and the other 
is old they are both the same age,the reason why the one is younger is 
because he keeps traveling west and losing [removed] explains that he 
can't stay in the same place to [removed] all I [removed] hope 
someone can help.
    One more thing I think this Amos and Andy thing is getting a little 
out of [removed] are beginning to stray off what this digest [removed] to 
be, a light-hearted [removed] are other net. sites for that kind 
[removed] please let us keep it [removed] not Bud either.
Pete

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

Date: 26 Oct 96 15:24:57 EDT
From: Steve Lewis <[removed]@[removed]>
To: Old Time Radio Digest <[removed]@[removed]>
Subject: Gotham Radio Players return
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>

Good morning everyone.  It is 7:00am, and I have just returned from the spacious
studios of WBAI, where Max Schmid and myself have spent the last 8 hours putting
the finishing touches on the latest production of the Gotham Radio Players.

This Sunday (by transcription) we will be presenting a recreation of the LIGHTS
OUT tale "Murder Mind".  The script was written by famed horror writer Hobart
Donovan, and has not been heard since it was originally broadcast in 1939.  This
will be the fourth of the Gotham Radio Players' Halloween recreations of the
"lost" LIGHTS OUT tales.

If you live in the New York City metro area, be sure to turn off your lights and
tune in your radio.  We're part of the "Golden Age of Radio" Halloween
extravangaza, featuring a new adaptation of FRANKENSTEIN at 7:30pm, and our
LIGHTS OUT recreation beginning at 8:25pm.  It's all on WBAI, [removed] FM.

Your director,
Steve Lewis  

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

Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 16:23:53 +0600
From: cbholm@[removed] (c holm)
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Jack Benny Christmas collection
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

  Well, we all know the saying about [removed] but I'll throw mine in anyway.

I just got the Jack Benny Christmas collection from Adventures in Cassettes
and have several thoughts.

My sister ordered it for me last Sunday, and they said I would have it
within 10 business days.  I received it last Friday, a total of 5 days!
Bravo AIC!  

I've only listened to the first tape, and the shows are typical Benny.  Very
Funny.  There is some repitition of the same Christmas jokes, but I still
laugh each time.  I definitely think that this set is worth ordering.

Christopher Holm
Va Tech - Industrial and Systems Engineering
cbholm@[removed]

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

Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 17:11:18 -0500
From: Joe Oliver <joliver@[removed]>
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Scariest Show Ever
Message-id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

        Before we fully gear up into our seasonal habit of nominating our
all-time favorite scary radio shows, I just have to tell you that it's
really no contest.  The most frightening of them all is Orson Welles'
Mercury Players version of Dracula.  Welles, intoning as the Prince of
Darkness through that cardboard tube, really gets me; makes my hair turn a
little whiter ever time I hear it.  

                                                   Joe
W. Joseph Oliver
Department of Communication
Stephen F. Austin State University
Nacogdoches, TX  75962

     (409-468-4001)

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

Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 17:24:56 -0700
From: Bigbands <bigbands@[removed]>
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: JOHNNY MERCER
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

New Web Site to Check Out:

JOHNNY MERCER

[removed]~[removed]

Steve Taksler
Princeton Jct., [removed]
bigbands@[removed]
[removed]~bigbands
The Home of Cabaret Singers,Big Band Sessions,
and most of all the Lyrics of Johnny [removed]

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

Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 17:25:07 -0700
From: dunivenh@[removed] (Herbert Duniven)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Vic and Sade
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

  A short time ago people on the digest were looking for good
  shows of Vic and Sade.  RHAC will release 4 tapes with 75 good 
sounding shows from the 1938 -43 series.  All are 15 min shows on tapes 
5354 thru 5357 available November 1 for RHAC members on the Digest.

Tapes 5358 thru 5362  (5 of 'em) have 78 programs from 1944 thru 1946.
Tape 5362 has 8 of the half-hour programs.

   For details and dates go to the best OTR site on the Web and look up 
the catalog in the RHAC section of Lou Genco's:

                       [removed]

   All tapes are now available to RHAC  members on the Digest even tho 
the last 5 tapes won't be advertised to regular members until December.

       P&G didn't ditch them all, Thank Goodness.    Enjoy!!!

          herb  duniven    RHAC    denver  

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

Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 22:02:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Robert M. Connelly" <rush@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Amos n Andy
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

I have been reading with much interest the dialogue about Amos n Andy and all
the pros and cons about whether it is or is not racist, about whether it is or
is not acceptable, about whether it is or is not deprecating the negro. One of
the primary factors, I believe, in all the nonsense that is spread around
about Amos n Andy these days is the fact that most are not speaking from
experience of actually listening to the show as it was being presented every
night for I don't know how many years. (The time length has no bearing, by the
way.)

Amos n Andy is considered racist by many who have - literally - never heard a
single show. Why? Because Gosden and Correll were - horrors! - WHITE men. And
further those white men were also "gender" insensitive because they imitated -
jorros again! - WOMEN! Now the people who shout and deprecate A&A, as I say,
have NEVER heard a single show. What I related above is all the reason they
need to illustrate just how rotten this country was and radio in particular
when they permitted such insenstive and insulting comedy to be broadcast and
what is even *worse*, believe it or not, was that it was POPULAR! 

We have here in Cincinnati a self-proclaimed marxist who on one of the local
freenet political BBs attempted to put yours truly down by making a comment to
the effect "I'll bet Bob thinks Amos and Andy and Stepin' Fetchit were funny
too!". You can imagine what I did with that one! <grin> I told him that of
course both were funny and not only I - a white man, at that time a child -
but so did my negro classmates at the time. We all, black, white, red, yellow
enjoyed true comedy and that's what A&A was - real comedy.

I wish there was more A&A around of the original 15 minute shows that we heard
back in the thirties and the very early forties. The half-hour shows were
really not that good. As with Vic & Sade, stretching a 15 minute show premise
into a half hour just did not work. When I was broadcasting from a public
access community radio station a few years ago, I played a couple of the half
hour shows - my own library is devoid of the 15 minute shows which really was
an ongoing serial such as Lum and Abner was. People I knew for a fact -
because of previous conversations - were lovers of A&A called me at the
station and asked me not to play the half-hour shows, for the reason I have
stated. Since I agreed, I acquiesced - after all a broadcaster has to please
his audience if he wishes to kep his listeners happy and giving to support the
station.

The upshot of all of this is that Amos n Andy in its original fifteen minute
format was universally loved, appreciated and listened to. In those days of no
central air conditoning in the private homes, one could walk down the streets
of any neighborhood between 7 pm and 7:15 pm and not miss a word of Amos n
Andy. 

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

Date: 27 Oct 96 00:17:11 EDT
From: Steve Lewis <[removed]@[removed]>
To: Old Time Radio Digest <[removed]@[removed]>
Cc: <bigkids@[removed]>
Subject: Sam 'N Henry survives
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>

>By the way -- and then I'll get off the subject of A&A -- does anybody
>know if any "Sam 'n' Henry" shows survive? This program was the
>forerunner of A&A,

Yes, a least some of SAM 'N Henry survive.  I have 2 5-minute scenes
from the show in my collection.  I'm not sure if these are
actual show fragments or some sort of premium recordings that were made,
but it is SAM 'N HENRY.  There are also some very early episodes of AMOS
& ANDY out there - I have two episodes from 1929 and I think there are
some others that I've seen around.

Steve Lewis 

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

Date: Sun, 27 Oct 1996 01:15:00, -0500
From: UGTH94A@[removed] (MR TED   KNEEBONE)
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Radio drama for South Dakota
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=US-ASCII

   Last spring I put out a call for names and addresses of sources for both
old and new time radio drama/comedy for the South Dakota Public Radio Network.
   I got three answers: Atlanta, New Orleans, and WRVO. Just finished
writing a letter to the SDPR Program Director, Ross King, including the
email I got.
   Since being a subscriber to the OTR Digest since last April, I have a
hunch that there are other sources of both old and new time radio drama and
comedy. I would like to be able to send King more information.
   SDPR still has not one single series that anyone would call either old
or new time radio drama. I know there are people out there who would gladly
become contributors to SDPR's annual fund-raising drive if they offered
more than Garrison Keillor, What d'ya know? and Car Talk.
   Please give me some leads, including both snail mail and e-mail
addresses and phone numbers. Another helpful bit of info would be some idea
as to the price for a typical series. SDPR does cover nearly all of the
state plus some overlap into Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and
Wyoming. At one time I was told the reason that they could not carry such
programs was that the cost to air them statewide was prohibitive. King,
however, has not given me that excuse.
   Since I do not have access to a list of the complete offerings of
National Public Radio itself, it could well be that NPR has such
programming available. I have happy memories of listening to Earplay and
Bradbury 13, and taped several of their shows. Too bad they are gone.
Commercial radio in this part of the state (north central) is likewise
devoid of anything but music, news, and sports.
   Thanks for whatever help you can give me in this crusade.
                  Ted Kneebone / ugth94a@[removed]




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End of [removed] Digest V96 Issue #413
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