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

[removed] Digest				Volume 96 : Issue 326

Table Of Contents: 

	 First Bay Area radio station (clipping) (fwd)
	 "Pardon My Blooper"
	 correction
	 Darned Uncle Don
	 Fast talkers
	 RE: SuperRadio, OTR themes
	 comics on the radio
	 train show of the day
	 The Comic Weekly Man and Uncle Don
	 George Burns and Gracie Allen
	 Sorry, I'll Read That Again
	 RE: How good is the super radio?
	 OCR Theme songs
	 Re: Thatıll Hold the Little B-------
	 Re: Tapes Available

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

Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 23:18:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: MAX SCHMID <mschmid@[removed]>
To: airwavesOTR <[removed]@[removed]>
Subject: First Bay Area radio station (clipping) (fwd)
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

A bit of radio history from the Free Pacifica newsgroup.  Sorry I can't 
edit the headers- Speaking of which, I hope more of you (us) learn to use 
your editing features when responding to the digest.  So much clutter!  It
really is not necessary to repeat 3 screens of a previous posting to respond.
Edit, edit, edit.  End of sermon.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 18:29:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Larry or Lynn Tunstall <beedleum@[removed]>
To: Free-KPFA mailing list <freekpfa@[removed]>
Subject: First Bay Area radio station (clipping)

Somewhat off-topic, but an interesting bit of Bay Area radio history
from the "Q&A on the News" column in the San Jose Mercury News, 
4 Sept 1996:

Q  What was the first radio station in the Bay Area?
                      Rae Caplan, Los Gatos

A  San Jose had the first radio station, not only in the Bay Area but in
the world.  Launched in 1909, it had no name, but identified itself on
the air with the words, "This is San Jose calling."
   It was started by Charles David Herrold, a scientist and inventor who
also founded the College of Engineering and Wireless.  He began broad-
casting from the Garden City Bank building at the corner of First and
San Fernando streets in January 1909.
   He broadcast with a mere 15 watts of power and for only a half-hour
at a time to keep his equipment from overheating.  The broadcasts could
be picked up by primitive receivers he and his students had built.
   Most of Herrold's programming was music, but he and his assistant,
Ray Newby, would also read the newspaper over the air and discuss the
top stories.  Live music was attempted once, when a woman volunteered to
play the harp on the air.  But to pick up the music, Herrold had to keep
moving the microphone closer and closer -- and when it was about an inch
from the woman, she panicked and fled the studio.
   When radio licenses were issued in 1921, Herrold was assigned the
call letters KQW.  But his days as a broadcaster were numbered, with
vacuum tubes making the technology he used obsolete.  He sold the
station in 1925 to the First Baptist Church, which decided that KQW
stood for "the King's Quickening Word."  It broadcast religious
programming, but it went commercial when it sold 15 minutes of daily air
time to the Sperry Flour Co. for a cooking program.
   Herrold died in 1948, largely unrecognized for his pioneering work.
A year later, the station he founded was bought by the Columbia
Broadcasting System, which changed the name to KCBS.
++++++++++
Q&A on the News is written by Karl Kahler.  Send e-mail to
kkahler@[removed]

***Posted to freekpfa by Beedle Um Bum Larry, beedleum@[removed]

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

Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 23:27:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: "'A. Joseph Ross'" <lawyer@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: "Pardon My Blooper"
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I have two of the "Pardon My Blooper" records, which I've just dug out for
this post.  The records are 10-inch LPs.  Neither of them has a list of
what it contains.  Both have the following on the back of the record
jacket:

	This recording is a catalogue [sic] of unintended indiscretions
	before microphone and camera in Radio and Television.

	It covers an approximate 25 year span, from the early pioneer days
	of radio, to modern day television.  The material in this
	recording is authentic, and it contains types of BONERS known in
	Radio and TV by varied names such as FLUFFS, SPOONERISMS, SLIPS,
	FLUBS, BLOOPERS etc.

	Material for this recording was gathered from transcriptions,
	kinescope sound tracks, off the air recordings, tapes, and other
	sources.

Nevertheless, I must say that, when I listened to the records, I thought
many of the bloopers sounded like re-creations, not actual airchecks.

======================================================================
A. Joseph Ross, [removed]                                      617/367-0468
15 Court Square                                   lawyer@[removed]
Boston, MA 02108-2573                    [removed]~lawyer/
======================================================================

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

Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 23:43:53 -0500
From: vintage@[removed] (Andy Blatt)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: correction
Message-Id: <v01540b04ae595081ae3a@[[removed]]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

In my earlier comment regarding death of radio drama and comedy in the age of
(growing) interest in TV, my comment should have read "the ultimate and
inevitable demise of radio drama and comedy in the mid 1950's"...The copy
department screwed-up this one; we regret any confusion this may have
caused.
(only kidding)...
Andy Blatt

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

Date: Sun, 08 Sep 1996 00:11:22 -0600
From: Chet Cox <CHCox@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Darned Uncle Don
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

I dunno if it was Uncle Don, but on two different radio blooper cassettes,
there's a fellow (It seems like he signed off with something like "this is
your Uncle Don") who muttered, "That'll hold the little [removed]" as he was
walking away from what turned out to be, after all, a very live mike.  No
urban legend here.

But -- many times?????

*jeep!
~~~~Chet
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote of the day:  "I told you to make one longer than another, and 
instead you have made one shorter than the other--the opposite."
--Sir Boyle Roche (an ancestor to Dan Quayle?)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 08 Sep 1996 22:25:03 -0400
From: Frank_Mallory@[removed] (Frank Mallory)
To: "otr@[removed]"@[removed]
Subject: Fast talkers
Message-ID: <MSGID_1=3A109=[removed]@[removed]>

Last Friday night I was in Cleveland and happened to pick up an OTR show at 9pm
EDT on WWCR 3215 khz.

The first show was the Great Gildersleeve, and I noticed that the speech was
much faster than usual.

I don't remember that particular show, but I assume the original was live and
therefore broadcast in "real time".

I'm just wondering if a technical glitch of some kind caused the transcription
or tape to be speeded up, or whether this was done deliberately by the WWCR
show in order to compress it into the time available. Any guesses?

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

Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 00:16:34 -0500
From: Steven Lewis <lewis@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: RE: SuperRadio, OTR themes
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

About a year ago I bought a collection of 90 original OTR themes on CD
from the Radio Yesteryear company. Their address is:

Radio Yesteryear
Box C
Sandy Hook, CT 06482

The CD was called "Themes Like Old Times."

Regarding the GE SuperRadio, I bought one about 5 years ago and have
been most pleased with the results. It picks up stations that my big
receivers with external antennae cannot. I bought the radio at K-Mart
for less than $50.

Steven Lewis
[removed]

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

Date: 09 Sep 96 01:38:39 EDT
From: MICHAEL BERGER <[removed]@[removed]>
To: otr <otr@[removed]>
Subject: comics on the radio
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>

Reading from the comics on Sunday morning in the 1940s and early '50s was also a
regular radio show in the San Francisco Bay Area when I was a kid.

Puck the Comic weekly was sponsored by the San Francisco Examiner, the flagship
Hearst paper. Believe Puck the Comic weekly was a Hearst enterprise, as the NY
JA, also a Hearst paper, published it as well.

My memory is that the readings were limited to 2-3 strips, starting with Prince
Valiant, a long-runnning series, and Maggie & Jiggs.

KLX in Oakland, across the bay, had a similar program featuring the comics from
the Oakland Tribune.

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

Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 06:43:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: MAX SCHMID <mschmid@[removed]>
To: airwavesOTR <[removed]@[removed]>
Subject: train show of the day
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Henry may have been right about X-1 "Tunnel Under the World".  I haven't
heard it for quite some time. Maybe someone wants to collect bus episodes.
It's an interchangeable form of commuting here in NY.
Today's train show: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.  Dark's
Carnival arrives in the dead of night on that evil train.  does anyone 
know the source of this show, by the way?  It uses the soundtrack of the 
Disney movie from the early 80s, with additional narration by Orson Welles.
I assume it was for NPR, as it has no commercials, but my copy has no 
credits.

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

Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 07:23:58 -0400
From: bilj@[removed] (Bill Jaker)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: The Comic Weekly Man and Uncle Don
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I also remember listening every Sunday to the "Comic Weekly Man" but never 
being able to follow Donald Duck and Little Iodine and Prince Valiant and 
all the other great strips in the New York World-Telegram because -- for 
reasons my young mind could never appreciate -- my father would never allow 
a Hearst newspaper in the house.  So it was a very special treat to find 
"Puck, the Comic Weekly" at someone else's house.  Meanwhile, I learned 
years later (since it was never mentioned on the program) that the Comic 
Weekly Man was a virtuoso performance by Lon Clark, who also played "Nick 
Carter, Master Detective" at the other end of the WOR Sunday schedule.  Lon 
is a regular at the annual OTR convention in Newark, and when I took the 
opportunity to ask him if it were true that he was the Comic Weekly Man he 
responded with a bear hug!  (He did a session about the CWM a couple of 
years ago).

And now, kiddies, for a story that is not true.  It's a good story, which is 
probably why we still hear it.
Did Uncle Don curse out the kiddies on the air?  The legend is still going 
around and I've spoken with people who worked with him at WOR who were sure 
it happened, and others just as sure it didn't.  Perhaps to clarify this we 
should let Ted Husing speak (he was one of the best announcers in the great 
days of radio, so why shouldn't he speak?)  This is from his book "Ten Years 
Behind the Mike":
        "About once a week, on the average, I meet some guy who asks me if I 
heard the break Uncle Don made over the air the other night.  Uncle Don, it 
is almost needless to explain, runs a bedtime hour for kids every evening 
over WOR in New York."  Husing describes a typical conversation with someone 
who claims to have heard it and responds, "I don't want to call you a liar 
or anything but you're about the zillianth person who's told me that tale 
during the past five or six years.  Uncle Don must sign off with the line."
        "Ten Years Behind the Mike" was published in 1935.  Uncle Don began 
at WOR in 1929.  So the story must have originated with his first show.  
It's my hunch that this bit of urban folklore actually started at WOR.  You 
see, in "real life" Don Carney was not such a nice man and may well have 
made his cursing comments in the hallway many times.

        well, that oughta hold the OTR Digesters for another [removed]

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

Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 08:21:48 -0400
From: JayHick@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: George Burns and Gracie Allen
Message-ID: <960909082147_474687521@[removed]>

Greenwood Publishing Group has published many bio-bibliographies in the
performing arts. James Robert Parish is the series editor.  72 have been
published.  For a list or to order call [removed] 72nd book is
George Burns and Gracie Allen, a Bio-Bibliography by Cynthia Clements and
Sandra Weber (444 pages; $[removed]).  This book gives a complete log of every
radio and television program they were in. It also gives every vaudeville
performance, movie, film, etc. besides a detailed biography.  We will be
selling it at our convention for about $62.  

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

Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 12:30:17 +0000
From: "F. Charles Simar" <FCharlesSimar@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Sorry, I'll Read That Again
Message-ID: <[removed]@DEFAULT>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I am looking for a recording of radio shows (if available) for my parents.
What information I have, the show was a BBC production called (I believe)
"Sorry, I'll Read That Again".  John Clese (from Monty Python fame) is 
supposed to be heard on this show.  If anyone has any info about this show
and how I can get some shows, please post the info here or contact me at
this address:

                 FCharlesSimar@[removed]

Thanx. 8'>

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

Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1996 08:49:12 -0400
From: Francis Fisher <fisherf@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: RE: How good is the super radio?
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Troy Burnham <dburnham@[removed]> wrote:
>>>
> I am interested in talking to anyone who either has, or has had 
> experience with the so-called super radio from GE.  I live about 100  east of Houston where there is a station that carries OTR on 
> Saturday and Sunday nights, but I can't pick it up very well after 8:I don't know if they turn their power down or what.  I also live acrossstreet from an airport, and that may have something to do with it.  
<<<

The super radio is a $45 product that is worth its price. One of its fe that it has better immunity to strong adjacent channels when it is tuneaker station -- it can still perform. It uses D cells for long battery the sound is great for kitchen listening. Some say is it ugly but not e is what can be said. If you can receive the Houston signal on your cahen it is more than likely that you stand a chance with the super radiottle radio can't make something from nothing. You must have a usable siegin with. If it works on your car radio then this little radio is wortestment.  --ff
_______________
Francis Fisher
Dir Engineering
WV Public Radio

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

Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 08:54:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: "[removed]" <alortie@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: OCR Theme songs
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Someone asked about the following theme songs (all info from the Library of
Congress):

1. Contented (Carnation Hour)
        Sorry, no info
2. Bell Waltz (Telephone Hour)
         Music of love ([removed] The Bell waltz)
	 By Donald  Voorhees, words & arr. for voice & piano: Guy  Wood.
3. Andante Cantabile (The Road of Life)
         Theme from Tchaikovsky's Andante cantabile.
	 By Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky
4. Love in Bloom
         Love in bloom.
         Words & music: Leo  Robin & Ralph  Rainger
5. Thanks for the Memory
         Thanks for the memory.
         Words: Leo  Robin, music: Ralph  Rainger

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

Date:  9 Sep 96 10:21:44
From: [removed]@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Cc: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Thatıll Hold the Little B-------
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

Several years ago I read a story which stated uneqivocally that the incident never happened - which helps to explain why no one has been able to come up with an original recording of it.
As I recall the story, a newspaper columnist in Boston, bereft of anything ŞtantalizingŞ to write about that day, created the incident out of his own imagination.  Of course, the story was taken as gospel and all but destroyed Uncle Don who is reported to have been one of the nicest people in radio.
 Iıd be interested to hear of anyone elseıs knowledge on the subject.  However, having grown up with Uncle Don I prefer to believe the above explanation is true.

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

Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 12:04:08 -0400
From: OTRDSIEGEL@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Tapes Available
Message-ID: <960909120407_474803502@[removed]>

  Two recent postings RE: old [removed] their availability deal with: A)
PUCK, The Comic [removed]  These programs run 30 minutes each and were
syndicated (I believe by WOR, NY) I have a run of  120 of them (8/6/50 thru
12[removed]) (Pgms. 172 thru 347).   B) RE: WHATS MY LINE?...featuring John
Daley, Benet Cerf and Arlene Francis I have five (5) pgms.  which I think are
[removed] which could be TV soundtracks  (one features Fred Allen & Arnold
Stang, another features Carl Sandburg & Milton Berle).  I'm always willing to
trade for otr material that I don't have.    Dave Siegel




--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V96 Issue #326
*******************************************

