Subject: [removed] Digest V2003 #451
From: <[removed]@[removed]>
Date: 12/20/2003 7:59 PM

To: <[removed]@[removed];

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2003 : Issue 451
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Nice Philco radio Winamp skin for OT  [ "Robert M. Bratcher Jr." <bratcher@ ]
      Re: Bud Collyer/Orson Bean            [ mark koldys <mkoldys@[removed]; ]
      making luv                            [ "Mark Kinsler" <kinsler33@[removed] ]
      live OTR on Christmas Eve             [ "Walden Hughes" <hughes1@[removed]; ]
      Revisionist history?                  [ "Ivan G. Shreve, Jr." <iscreve@comc ]
      Gildersleeve and Sex                  [ "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@hotm ]
      Captain Midnight decoders             [ "A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@attorneyro ]
      Barry Gray                            [ howard blue <khovard@[removed]; ]
      Donn Reed's Passing                   [ "Vince Long" <vlongbsh@[removed]; ]
                                            [ Steve Salaba <philmfan@[removed] ]
      12-21 births/deaths                   [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
      Dickens on OTR                        [ "Jim Erskine, Homeway Press" <homew ]

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

    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 19:07:35 -0500
    From: "Robert M. Bratcher Jr." <bratcher@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Nice Philco radio Winamp skin for OTR files

    Anybody use Winamp to play your MP3's on the computer?
    I use Winamp for my mp3's & just downloaded Winamp 5 (the free version)
    after using Winamp [removed] for quite awhile.

    Anyway I was looking around the Winamp skins & found this really neat one.
    Nothing wrong with the modern (ver 5) skin or the version 2 classic one but
    I really like this neat Philco Cathedral radio skin! And no, I didn't write
    it. By the way the new Winamp 5 works great. Not buggy like Winamp 3 was.

    Now if only I could find one that looks like a record [removed]

    [removed]

    You may want to uninstall Winamp 2 before installing Winamp 5. Thats how I
    got the Media Library to display the MP3 file information correctly.

    Oh & the radio with all other parts (playlist editer, equalizer, media
    library, thingy & visualization) takes up a lot of screen real estate even
    if resized. If you have just the radio, playlist & equalizer then it can
    fill up a third of your screen. Still, it's a nice Winamp skin & I really
    like it!

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

    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 21:55:30 -0500
    From: mark koldys <mkoldys@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re:  Bud Collyer/Orson Bean

    Jim Widner wrote:

>     I doubt if they clashed off
>     camera but most likely kept a respectful distance from each other.

    They were actually pretty good friends. I believe that while To Tell
    the Truth was airing, they were on opposite sides of a union election,
    with Bean part of a slate with John Henry Faulk that successfully
    defeated the Collyer faction and took over the union.

    Bean was quickly disillusioned, however, with his political associates,
    as Faulk apparently was not honest with him. Eventually, Bean would
    write an article about the situation for the conservative magazine
    National Review (it appeared in 1971).

    Orson Bean is often referenced as having been blacklisted but it didn't
    seem to affect his career. He worked steadily through the 50s and 60s
    and beyond. Catch his appearances on To Tell the Truth (4:00 am Eastern
    on Game Show Network) while you can; TTTT will be replaced with
    Password and Beat the Clock as of the week of Jan 12.

    --
    "Any powder that kills flea is good powder." --Charlie Chan

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

    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 21:56:19 -0500
    From: "Mark Kinsler" <kinsler33@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  making luv

>     It meant "wooing" back then.  Or "courting."  The language has evolved,
>     not necessarily for the better.

    Yep.  In 1960 or so, at age 13, I was part of a school play that was written
    maybe thirty years before.  The phrase was used therein to describe
    extremely-limited sofa athletics, but by the end of the 1950's was
    understood to mean a lot more.  Both the kids and the adults were
    embarassed.  We all realized that we were victims of changing times and
    changing language usage.

    M Kinsler

    who cringed through it. It was my first and last contact with the theater.

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

    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 21:56:51 -0500
    From: "Walden Hughes" <hughes1@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  live OTR on Christmas Eve

    Hi Everybody,

    I will be live on Yesterday USA Christmas Eve starting around 10 [removed] I
    believe there will be the normal live show from Texas that Wednesday, but I
    love the OTR Christmas show and I will play some mor that night.  I will
    bless here in California in the 1970s that on Christmas Eve KOGO would run
    them from 6 [removed] to midnight.  In the 1980s and 1990s the Gassman had there
    Christmas marthon on KPCC.  Thus I feel it is a great way enjoy the special
    day.

    Merry Christmas,

    Walden Hughes

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

    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 22:40:39 -0500
    From: "Ivan G. Shreve, Jr." <iscreve@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Revisionist history?

    Deric assembled the multiudes and spoke:

>     Revisionists don't like to see solutions to life's problems.  The attack
>     on the Waltons in the 1970s was one of their best shots.

    I'm not quite certain I understand what this means.  If it's in response to
    Elizabeth's assertion that THE WALTONS wasn't necessarily "the way it was,"
    I'm going to have to thrown in with her on this.

    My father often had to be physically restrained from kicking in the TV when
    THE WALTONS was on--primarily because he grew up in an Appalachian coal
    mining family during the Depression, and life was most certainly not all
    peaches and cream.  "You people aren't POOR!" he would yell at the TV.  "You
    have your OWN business!  You own a big piece of land, for cryin' out loud!"

    My father will occasionally relate stories and anecdotes from that time
    period, and after having listened to them for thirty-some odd years, I can
    state unequivocally that NONE of them have happy endings.  None whatsoever.
    Revisionism?  Nah.  Just putting things in perspective.

    Ivan
    ----
    OTR Ramblings and Musings at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear:
    [removed]

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

    Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 22:42:54 -0500
    From: "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Gildersleeve and Sex
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from text/html

>     There  was  an  early  episode  (c. 1941) of THE GREAT GILDERSLEEVE in
>     which  Leroy asked Gildy why couples have a honeymoon.

    >From B. Ray:

>     There's a scene in "Horsefeathers," (okay, okay, I know, it's a movie, not
>     an  OTR  program,  but it's the only example that comes to mind) where Zeppo
>     Marx  is  sitting  on  a  sofa  with  a sort of blond bimbo character,
>     talking, and one asks the other, "Are you making love to me"?

    The  Marx  Bros. pushed the limits on sex but if you observe the early
    films,  (Night  at  the  Opera,  Day  at  the  Races, Monkey Business,
    Horsefeathers,  etc.)  the Bros. only pursued, annoyed and wrecked the
    lives of the hoi poloi.  During the Depression era, this was something
    that both the rich and poor were able to enjoy together.  The Brothers
    would not make sex talk to a woman of "their class."  Remember Groucho
    in the bedroom (and bedroom closet) in Monkey Business??

    Martin

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

    Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 10:24:46 -0500
    From: "A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Captain Midnight decoders

>     Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 22:45:10 -0500
>     From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];

>     * The radio Code-O-Graphs were essentially annual premiums.  The TV
>     version spent 4 years before issuing its first all-plastic "decoder",
>     [_not_ called a Code-O-Graph].

    Quite so.  And I rather prefered the endings where Captain Midnight would give a preview in
    the clear of the next episode.  The code messages usually were about three words and
    rather cryptic at that.

>     I suspect that some older kids told the younger of the "secret code":
>     messages, and Ovaltine finally decided to do something about it.

    It wouldn't surprise me.

    BTW, Captain Midnight wasn't the only show to use that secret code message gimmick.
    Space Patrol did it briefly around the end of 1954, beginning of 1955.  On both radio and
    television, they offered a boxtop premium of a cardboard Rocket Cockpit, which was a cheap
    replica of the Rocket Cockpit that figured in the current story arc (I have some of the TV
    episodes on video.  Their Rocket Cockpit is NOT cardboard!).  One of the things it had was a
    coder-decoder, with a simple number cipher.  A was N-1, B was E-2, C was S-3, etc.  The
    numbers were consecutive numbers.  The letters read "Nestles Chocolates And Cocoas
    Taste The Best."

    --
    A. Joseph Ross, [removed]                           [removed]
     15 Court Square, Suite 210                 lawyer@[removed]
    Boston, MA 02108-2503           	         [removed]

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

    Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 10:25:11 -0500
    From: howard blue <khovard@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Barry Gray

    Can anyone tell me the month of the 1949 interview which Barry Gray
    conducted of actor Canada Lee .

    Thanks,

    Howard Blue

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

    Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 10:31:45 -0500
    From: "Vince Long" <vlongbsh@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Donn Reed's Passing

    The LA Times obits from December 18 lists Donn Reed who was a long time news
    reporter for CBS.  The obit says,

    "A Los Angeles native, Reed began his career in radio covering dance bands.
    After World War II, during which he served as a navigator on a B-17 in North
    Africa for the [removed] Army Air Forces, he produced "Nightwatch" for CBS,
    gathering material while out with police and then re-creating the gun
    battles, vehicle pursuits and arrests he had witnessed."

    Dunning's book lists Sterling Tracy as the producer and spells Reed's name
    "Donn Reid."

    Anyone know who's right?

    Vince

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

    Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 12:09:28 -0500
    From: Steve Salaba <philmfan@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:

    At 7:09 PM -0500 12/19/03, [removed] wrote:

>     There's a scene in "Horsefeathers," (okay, okay, I know, it's a movie, not
>     an OTR program, but it's the only example that comes to mind) where Zeppo
>     Marx is sitting on a sofa with a sort of blond bimbo character, talking, and
>     one asks the other, "Are you making love to me"? It seems that back in the
>     thirties and forties, the term did indeed have a much more innocent meaning
>     than it does today.

    IIRC, that was Thelma Todd, and all four of the Marx Brothers "made love"
    to her at some time during the movie. I seem to remember that she married
    all four brothers simultaneously (!) at the end. I don't know how the
    censors missed that one! I do remember that Thelma's character was referred
    to as the "college widow", whatever that means. Did Thelma Todd ever appear
    on radio? I know she passed away under mysterious circumstances during the
    30's - supposedly suicide but there were rumors of gangster involvement.
    --
    Steve Salaba

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

    Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 15:19:25 -0500
    From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
    To: Olde Tyme Radio List <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  12-21 births/deaths

    December 21st births

    12-21-1908 - Sylvester L. "Pat" Weaver - Los Angeles, CA - d. 3-15-2002
    producer: "Fred Allen Show"
    12-21-1913 - Louise King - Salt Lake City, UT - d. 8-14-1997
    singer (The King Sisters) "Horace Heidt and His Brigadiers"; "Al Pearce and
    His Gang"
    12-21-1917 - Rolly Bester - NYC - d. 1-12-1984
    actress: "Tales of Tomorrow"
    12-21-1922 - Paul Winchell - NYC
    ventriloquist: "Paul Winchell-Jerry Mahoney Show"

    December 21st deaths

    02-14-1902 - Stu Erwin - Squaw Valley, CA - d. 12-21-1967
    comedian: Fairchild Finnegan "Phone Again Finnegan"
    03-27-1904 - Hal Kemp - Marion, AL - d. 12-21-1940
    bandleader: "Phil Baker Show"; "Lady Esther Serenade"; "Gulf Gas Program"
    10-26-1876 - [removed] Warner - London, England - d. 12-21-1958
    actor: "Hollywood Hotel"; "Lux Radio Theatre"
    12-02-1910 - Robert Paige - Indianapolis, IN - d. 12-21-1987
    actor: "Harold Lloyd Comedy Theatre"; "Screen Guild Theatre"; "Lux Radio
    Theatre"
    12-07-1910 - Rod Cameron - Calgary, Alberta, Canada - d. 12-21-1983
    actor: "Screen Guild Theatre"
    12-13-1890 - Marc Connelly - McKeesport, PA - d. 12-21-1980
    writer: "Free Company"; "Security Workshop"; "Lux Radio Theatre"

    Ron Sayles
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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

    Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 21:58:01 -0500
    From: "Jim Erskine, Homeway Press" <homeway@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Dickens on OTR

    Hi folks,

    I'm trying to locate OTR versions of Charles Dickens' works.

    Aside from "A Christmas Carol" and more recent British adaptations, do you
    know of any other books by Dickens that were adapted to radio back in the
    "golden age"?

    kylistener

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2003 Issue #451
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