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

[removed] Digest				Volume 96 : Issue 314

Table Of Contents: 

	 Prissy or Just Plain Joe?
	 Cleaning belts
	 Tape Shellls/Replacing
	 Train OTR
	 "Watching" radio
	 Old 78's
	 Watching Radio / Corrections & Disagreements
	 OTR actors on television
	 Lux and Quiz shows

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

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 01:28:39 +0000
From: "Ross & Corinne Learn" <learn@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Prissy or Just Plain Joe?
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Walter W. Davis wrote:

> I cannot remember the actor who appeared on some show, always
> introduced by a harried announcer who said,
> "Will you come in, sir? (pause)  Will you come in now? (pause ) WILL
> YOU PLEASE COME IN?!"
> To which the character responded,
> "Don't RUSH me!! You Crazy, you!"

I believe the actor you were refering to was Joe Besser.  He did his 
"little boy" character in several comedy shows, including The Abbott 
and Costello Show (on radio and television).  He later went on to be one
 of the Three Stooges (after Shemp Howard and before "Curly Joe" 
DeRita.  

I don't agree that Besser's character was meant to be a prissy man, 
as much as a "Little Lord Fauntleroy" child-like character.  If you 
ever catch any of his Abbott and Costello television stuff, he always 
(or usually) is dressed like a little kid in his Sunday best.  That 
was the character he portrayed.  The same as all the other stars of 
radio had their own characters.  He was just plain Joe (or Stinkey).

This may well have been the way to disguise an openly "gay" character from 
censors, sponsors, and for the most part the listening (or viewing)
audience.  Perhaps, a gay character would not have been embraced in 
those days by the public, given the connotations we have today.

Ross Learn

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

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 07:51:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Philip Quardokus <quardok@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Cleaning belts
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

>Cleaning these belts and associated pulleys and such with alcohol will
>help, maybe cure, the problem.

I have spent more time inside the guts of VCR's than I care to remember.  
I use alcohol for most of the cleaning.  I have found that alcohol is not 
always effective on slipping belts.  Go to Radio Schack and get their 
Zero Residue Cleaner.  This stuff will work wonders on belts.  Of course 
eventually parts will have to be replaced but you will be surprised at 
what this cleaner will do on belts.

Philip Quardokus

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

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 96 08:30:07 -0500
From: Marty_Dzik@[removed] (Marty Dzik)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Tape Shellls/Replacing
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hello Fellow OTR Fans,

All this talk of replacing tape shells, stomping on the tape, [removed] makes me
want to add my two cents worth.

In my many years experience with audio tapes, I have to agree with the
comments about the tape machines.  A lot of times, the belts are neglected to
be cleaned/replaced and a lot of tapes get ruined.  

However, if you have a cassette that you think is defective, Radio Shack sells
a cassette replacement shell (#44-626) that is meant just for this problem. 
You open-up/(crack?) the case of the DEFECTIVE cassette and remove the two
"reels of tape" and place them into the new cassette shell.  And now you have
a new, hopefully working, cassettee again. (Since I have no connections to
Radio Shack whatsoever, the usual disclaimer applies.)

Marty Dzik
marty_dzik@[removed]





--

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

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 10:16:58 -0400
From: Kubelski@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Train OTR
Message-ID: <960902101657_275065125@[removed]>

One of the best train OTR stories was an episode of Suspense! in which yet
another white male husband wants to murder his wife.  (typical).  The show
was called "Commuter Ticket" and was real hoot -- particularly to one such as
I who rode the rails in and out of Manhattan for a year or two.

His plot to get in and out of his office by drugging the security guard, take
the commuter train home, murder his wife, get back on the commuter train,
sneak back into his office and he can show the building records that he was
there all night.

He is gambling that no one on the commuter train remembers anyone else on the
commuter train.

  So he goes to his house, kills his wife (or so he thinks) and gets back on
the [removed] even allows himself to get into a rolling poker game on the way
out.  Then he draws to a straight flush.  Spills something on someone.  Is
mistaken for someone else's childhood friend. Several other incidients making
him memorable, you get the idea.

So he gets back to the office.  The police come get him.  He says, I've been
here all night, go ask the watchman.  "We can't," the police say," someone
murdered him and you were the only one in the building, what's your alibi for
that?"

Also, his wife didn't die when he hit her on the head.  So he's clear on that
one and to avoid the electric chair, (and presumably still do an impressive
stretch for attempted murder), he has to find someone on the train who
remembers him.

Of course, his original plan was perfect.  No one remembers him and he is
convicted of killing the watchman and sentenced to death.

Great great show.

Sean Dougherty
Kubelski@[removed]

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

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 10:32:30 -0400
From: JRayb71827@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: "Watching" radio
Message-ID: <960902103230_275072242@[removed]>

Ken Peletic said he didn't watch radio and figures most people didn't.  That
may be so but I, for one, DID watch and a lot of my litle ol' buddies did,
too, when we were tuned into our favorite after-school shows.  Mostly,
though, i remember "watching" sports.  For example, the second Joe Louis/Max
Schmeling fight after the Brown Bomber had become champ.  My Dad and I pulled
our chairs up close and were all set to "view" the proceedings when suddenly
the fight was over.  I can also remember "watching" St. Louis Cardinal
baseball games when France Laux was their announcer.  That was before Harry
Caray became their regular announcer in 1945, a job he held until 1968.
 Then, Caray had a year with Charlie Finley's Oakland A's, before going to
Chicago for a stint with the White Sox before taking over the Cubs from Jack
Brickhouse and becoming a cult figure.
  As I look back on the period of time that I would estimate as being around
60 years ago, I think my folks would "watch" such as Benny, Allen, etc.  I
don't necessarily feel we were in a majority of listeners who did that but I
don't feel we were alone in such activities either.

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

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 09:25:03 -0700
From: dabell@[removed] (Alan Bell)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Old 78's
Message-Id: <v01520d02ae50565cd637@[[removed]]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Please bear with me here, inasmuch as this is not really OTR. But I figured
some on this forum might have some advice.

One of my aunts recently died at age 92, and my father is going through her
"stuff" and has come up with a lot of old 78-rpm records. He asked me if he
should just toss 'em, or would they be of any value to anyone. I'm quite
certain that *none* are OTR transcriptions.

Is anyone here either a collector of 78's or perhaps can recommend a
newsgroup or Listserv group dedicated to the subject?

I'm not looking to making any money on this, just hate to throw anything
away that someone might want.

_____________________________________________________________________
ALAN BELL  3768 Sonoma Avenue  Santa Rosa, CA 95405  dabell@[removed]
=============================707-546-6988============================

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

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 13:10:29 -0400
From: Bigkids@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Watching Radio / Corrections & Disagreements
Message-ID: <960902131028_470204638@[removed]>

Well, I qualify as one of the members who was born before 1940. In February
of 1935, to be precise. And you're right, I have no recollection of
"watching" the radio. My memories of listening to the radio are:

-- Lying on top of my bed, reading comic books while listening to the
late-afternoon block of 15-minute kid-oriented adventure shows. At one time
we lived near Trenton, New Jersey, and could pick up both WOR (New York) and
WIP (Philadelphia). At least for a while, these stations ran the programs
"off-one." That is, is "Buck Rogers" ran from 5:00 to 5:15 one WOR, it ran
from 5:15 to 5:30 on WIP.

My favorites were "Captain Midnight," "Superman," and "Buck Rogers." Didn't
care as much for "Straight Arrow," "House of Mystery," or "Bobby Benson and
His B-bar-B Riders." (Do I have those shows right? Corrections welcome!) I
generally started listening on WOR, but if a favorite show had a particularly
good instalment, I would skip the next show on WOR and switch to WIP and hear
the instalment again.

Query: Does anyone else recall this sort of "one-off" programming, or have
any idea of why and how it was done?

(I may have the stations wrong -- corrections, please?)

Incidentally, I celebrated this phase of my life in a short story, "A Funny
Thing," that is included in my recent Fedogan & Bremer collection, [removed]
12[removed] AND AFTER. (You can get ordering information from <Fedogan@[removed]>
if your local bookstore doesn'thave the book.)

Please forgive the plug, but I suspect that OTR fans would enjoy this book
and I want to tell them about it.

-- Lying on the living room carpet with the Sunday comics spread on the rug.
This was at a time when at least one radio station featured a personality who
would read the funnies aloud on Sunday mornings. (And during a New York
newspaper strike, the mayor himself read the funnies to help people keep up
with Dick Tracy and others.)

-- While riding in the car -- either watching scenery whiz by or while
semi-dozing and "seeing" *The Shadow,* *Nick Carter,* and *True Detective
Cases* in the "theater of the mind."

-- While building model airplanes at my desk (especially Saturday afternoon
college football games in the 1940s)

-- While doing homework.

BUT . . . at no time to I recall *staring* at the radio itself. Just didn't
happen. The Norman Rockwell image of the family gathered by the radio after
dinner was of course a semi-fantasy, idealization, but not totally unrelated
to reality. You remember the pic: Dad in his easy chair, smoking his pipe and
reading the newspaper; Mom sitting on the sofa with her knitting basket
spread beside her; Junior and Sis sprawled on the carpet, playing with that
damned black-and-white spotted cocker spaniel.

Well, it wasn't all that pretty and sanitary and tranquil, but at least in
very general terms, that's the way it was.

Nobody sat transfixed "watching" a radio!

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

I like to think of the Digest as a gathering place where congenial people
with a shared interest can gather and chat for an hour a day. Not unlike a
backyard barbecue, a house party, or a cheerful neighborhood tavern.

Occasionally somebody says, "I think that was Freddie Jamison who played the
lead on *Zoomin' Rockets,* and somebody else says, "No, I think that was
Freddie Johnson you're thinking of. Freddie Jamison was on *Flyin' Fools.*

Or sometimes somebody says, "I think Kate Smith was the greatest female radio
personality of her generation. In fact, of all time!" And somebody else sayd,
"No, I would give that title to Mary Margaret McBride." Or to Gertrude Berg.
Or whoever. . .

Hey, friends, no cause to get angry. And no cause to pout, or to go off and
sulk.

Listen, I'll get very personal for a moment. Recently I started a thread
here, about Candy Matson and other female sleuths on the radio. I wondered if
Candy might not have been the first of the breed, and several other members
told me, in effect. "No, Richard, there were several such before Candy
Matson. They [removed]"

What am I supposed to do, take my baseball and go home? Let's not be silly.
I'm grateful for the information, and I'd rather learn that I was mistaken
and get the straight dope than walk around with a false notion in my head.

It's wonderful to recapture the joys and innocence of childhood (I think
that's part of the appeal of OTR, at least for some of us) but we don't have
to repeat the quarrelsomeness and immature conduct that goes with that.

Puh-leeze, friends!

Dick Lupoff

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

Date: Mon, 02 Sep 96 13:14:57 +0500
From: "Donald A. Tevault" <donnie@[removed]>
To: "OTR Digest" <[removed]@[removed]>
Subject: OTR actors on television
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

A few days ago, Jack Mann wrote:

"Also, a few issues back someone asked about TV actors on radio, and I
believe one was Gale Gordon. Mr. Gordon was a very prolific radio
actor, and some of the shows he acted on were Fibber McGee and Molly
(Mayor LaTrivia), The Casebook of Gregory Hood (Gregory), Big Town
([removed] Miller), The Cinnamon Bear (various roles), Flash Gordon (Flash),
Burns and Allen (regular), Granby's Green Acres (John Granby), The
Great Gildersleeve (Rumson Bullard), Jonathan Trimble, Esquire
(Trimble), The Judy Canova Show (Harry Graves, her father), Miss
Pinkerton, Inc., Mr. and Mrs. Blandings (the lawyer), Our Miss Brooks
(Osgood Conklin), The Penny Singleton Show (Judge Grundell), The Phil
Harris-Alice Faye Show (Mr. Scott) and bunches of others. As I said,
very prolific!"


Thanks for the post, Jack.  It's the best answer I've received on this topic so far.  Of cours, that's not to say that the others weren't interesting as 
well.  I knew that Gale Gordon was quite busy in radio, but it looks as if he was even busier than I thought.


					Later,



					Donald A. Tevault

OS/2--Where *I* want to go today!

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

Date: 2 Sep 1996 12:27:16 CST
From: [removed]@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Lux and Quiz shows
Message-Id: <m0uxckG-000YUQC@[removed]>

hi All,
Just saw the movie ?Quiz Show the other night and I was wondering if
during the quiz show scandalls if any radio quiz shows were found guilty
of any wroung doing?
New topic
I got a log of the Lux Radio Theater from Frank Passage and was suprised
of how many shows there were. Now I am trying to get people's ideas of
what they thought were the best shows that Lux presented. So if you have
any favorites, either post them for all to see or just e-mail them to
me.
Thanks.




--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V96 Issue #314
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