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	  	         === Last Update 1/17/95  ====





	    [removed]   Volume 96 : Issue 40


Articles in this issue of [removed]:

	 Amos 'n' Andy
	 Self Introduction
	 Orson Welles Log and VCR vs. cassette question
	 Bickering
	 Re: Looking for Jack Benny tape
	 Sparky (the recorded version)
	 Re: Copyright, [removed] Digest V96 #39
	 Dial Tones and Politics
	 Randy's Thoughtfullness
	 Trout end-of-war broadcast
	 Copy rights
	 FINAL Water/Squeal Post

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

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 00:56:58 +0001 (EST)
From: "'A. Joseph Ross'" <lawyer@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Amos 'n' Andy
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

> Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 09:25:37 -0500
> From: nscott@[removed]
> To: [removed]@[removed]
> Subject: Amos 'n Andy
> Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
> 
> I was in a discussion recently about the Amos 'n Andy radio shows, and was
> somewhat surprised to hear that these where, in fact, white actors. Or at
> least some of them were white.
> 
> Is this true?  What about the tv version?  Seems the same key actors were
> involved, and they didn't look white to me.  If they were white, what was
> the reaction among the black community?
 
Yes, it's true.  Freeman Gosden and Charles Corell, who created and 
played Amos 'n' Andy, were both white.  They also played most, fi not 
all, of the other characters on the show.  The TV show, however, featured 
all Black actors.

I don't know the reaction of the Black community at the time of the shows
being broadcast (though I do remember a Black classmate who once mentioned
that he listened to "Amos 'n' Andy" on radio and liked it.).  I do know
that by the late 1960s, some Black organizations criticized the show,
mainly for what they saw as negative stereotypes, and CBS withdrew the TV
show from syndication. 

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

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

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 08:59:50 -0500
From: HET13@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Self Introduction
Message-ID: <960130085948_209980816@[removed]>

Hello everyone,

Since I have been following the Digest since early December, it is high time
for me to introduce myself.  I am Ed Titus.  As a child in the 1940's, I knew
old-time radio first-hand and loved it.  In the late 1960's after years of
believing radio as I knew it was dead and gone forever, I discovered that
there were many collectors and thousands of programs still available.  I have
been a collector with increasing enthusiasm ever since.

I retired from a career as a psychology professor and college dean last
summer.  My OTR interests are eclectic, but I especially enjoy the programs I
can actually remember listening to with my family.  One program in which I am
particularly interested is "One Man's Family."  The experience of meeting and
talking with Carlton E. Morse at the 1988 convention of Friends of Old-Time
Radio in Newark, NJ further enhanced my interest.  I have well over three
hundred episodes of OMF in my collection and I am extremely anxious to find
any others that may exist.  In addition, I have tried to locate premiums that
were offered on the show.  While I have had some success, I am still looking
for "Jack's Camera Scrapbook" from 1934 and father Barbour's "This I Give"
from 1953 and his "flower seed offer" from 1947.  I would appreciate any
clues and advice which might help me locate additional episodes or premiums.

Thanks for a great service.

H. Edwin Titus

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

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 08:57:00 -0500 (EST)
From: MAX SCHMID <mschmid@[removed]>
To: airwaves <[removed]@[removed]>
Subject: Orson Welles Log and VCR vs. cassette question
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>

	There is a great history, sometimes day-to-day, of all the 
activities of Orson in the back of Peter Bogdonovich's 1991(?, still in
print) Welles book "This is Orson Welles".  Since he made so many radio 
appearances during the war years, it may not be complete, but it is none-
theless extensive and quite useful, listing casts, rundowns on the 
variety shows, etc.  Many guest shots are chronicled as well.   One program
I didn't find is the (c. 1955) Civil Defense Sci-Fi epic "Tomorrow".  
It mentions the shows he wrote on the Harry Lime series, but only 
mentions 39 of them, listed alphabetically.  Also included are weddings, 
children, stage plays, TV shows, films, etc.  It's reason enough to buy 
the book ($14 in softcover).
	The new Simon Callow bio "The Road To Xanadu" also has a log of sorts,
but it is less than complete as the book only goes to 1941.  The Shadow 
show list is very incomplete (it omits more than half the shows) , and an 
error is repeated here from the Bogdonovich book on Mercury Theatre 11/06/38
- both books list a third story "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry that is 
not on the show.
	The Welles Special on WBAI was modsestly successful from the fund-
raising standpoint, a disaster on other fronts-some idiot pulled the patches
on the VCR aircheck.  Fortunately I have already heard from 3 people who 
taped the show, but I'm still hoping to find a Hi-Fi VCR aircheck or an 
otherwise high quality copy.  
	On that subject, what is the comparable quality of slowest speed
magnetic audio track on non-Hi-Fi VCR to standard cassette?  I assume
it's not as good, as it runs at an even slower speed than 1 7/8.  Anyone
know for sure?
	By the way, most New Yorkers missed Orson Welles part 2 on Monday
at midnight to 4 am.  It seems that no one was scheduled to be on the air
and I was in the right place at the right time - got to play several shows
we didn't get to on Sunday, and had Larry Gassman of SPERDVAC on to chat.
I had fun at least!
	-Max

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

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 09:04:58 -0500
From: JRayb71827@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Bickering
Message-ID: <960130090458_410152538@[removed]>

The best suggestion I've seen yet about some of the Digest squabbling came
from MTPawckett@[removed]
  He proposed sending Email direct to someone if you have a quarrel with
their opinion (particularly all of the incensed carrying-on about
copyrights.)  
   This is supposed to be a friendly forum for people who care a great deal
about Old Time radio.  It's perfectly all right for anyone to get "worked up"
over a certain subject.  I suppose that's a more or less human trait.
 However, there's certainly no reason to subject every subscriber to petty
individual sniping.  There's the protective cloak of anonymity that seemingly
allows some folks to blister someone else's notions. At least have the
courage to direct your opinions, vituperative or otherwise, directly to the
person with whom you disagree.  Quit cluttering up my mail box with the
on-going feuds.  
         NEW SUBJECT:
   Just happened to think, after the notes about Harold Peary and Willard
Waterman, that somewhere in my usual mixed-up files I have a great bit when
they BOTH appeared on "The Great Gildersleeve" on the same program.  Peary
was still Gildy and Willard played an insurance salesman trying to sell him a
policy.  And, yes, they sure sounded a lot alike - no wonder the vast
majority of listeners never realized there had been a change.  The basic
concept of the program stayed the same and as far as I'm concerned both
actors did a fine professional job during the process of entertaining us.

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

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 09:24:48 -0600
From: "Andrew C. Green" <acg@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Looking for Jack Benny tape
Message-Id: <[removed]@dlogics>

"Ethan J. Muse" <ejmuse@[removed]> writes:
>Does 
>anyone know if there is a tape available of the Christmas Shopping show 
>of 1946, where Jack buys the pair of shoelaces from Mel Blanc for Don 
>Wilson.  I've heard most of the other Christmas Shopping shows, but is 
>one that I've never been able to find.

A couple of years ago, Chuck Schaden had a Christmas special where he
played almost all the Benny Christmas Shopping episodes in a row (at
least, the segments of each with Jack and Mel Blanc). The one he
couldn't find to play was the first one, buying shoelaces, and he
said (quite firmly) at the time that it seemed to be lost forever.
I always thought Chuck was fairly well-connected in the business and
that if he says something's gone, it's gone. I haven't heard anything 
since then that would contradict him on this. Does anyone here know 
otherwise?

Andrew C. Green            (312) 266-4431
Adobe Systems, Inc. (formerly Frame Technology)
Advanced Product Services
441 W. Huron               Internet: acg@[removed]
Chicago, IL  60610-3498    FAX: (312) 266-4473

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

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 10:34:32 -0500
From: JanBach@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Sparky (the recorded version)
Message-ID: <960130103431_131257174@[removed]>

Hello, again --
A couple of months ago there was some discussion about the differences
between the Sparky of Big Jon and Sparky, and the Sparky of phonograph
records (Sparky and the Magic Train, Sparky and the Magic Piano, Rusty in
Orchestraville, etc.) Since that time  I have been looking in vain for a
recording of Sparky and his Magic Piano, which I thought I possessed and
didn't. I have located a videotape (cartoon? claytoon?) of this title in
several Illinois university libraries, but interlibrary loan services can't
get it for me because our university library won't lend its videotapes to
other institutions (a case of tit for tat)! Is there anyone out there in OTR
Land with either version? Let's make a deal!
Jan Bach

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

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 16:37 GMT
From: midshires@[removed] (Andrew Emmerson)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Cc: midshires@[removed]
Subject: Re: Copyright, [removed] Digest V96 #39
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

In-Reply-To: <[removed]@[removed]>
>2. The item in question was never copyrighted.

This situation seems unlikely to me. Any creative work that is set down 
in a form that others can enjoy (a book, an article in a magazine, a 
play, a piece of music or whatever) is _automatically_ copyright. The 
intellectual property and so-called moral rights belong to the person who 
created that work, at least in European law.

Nobody can take away that copyright, even though the author/creator may 
_assign_ that copyright to someone else. In the latter situation he or 
she will nowadays normally assert his/her "moral right to be regarded as 
the author of this work" which means that other people cannot revise it 
or otherwise alter it except with express permission.

I accept there was a period in American law when if you failed to claim 
or renew copyright, you _de facto_ lost the right to it, but even this 
loophole was closed some while back.

Some of the misconception over copyright comes through sloppy English, 
such as the so-called copyright-free music tapes and CDs you can buy to 
dub onto home movies. It is NOT copyright-free, it is merely that the 
author has assigned the copyright to a third party who for a one-off fee 
licenses you to use the music without further payment. In this situation 
royalty-free or licence-free would be a better description.

--Andy.

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

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 11:57:00 est
From: lee_maschmeyer@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Dial Tones and Politics
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

I saw my first episode of WENN last week and was astonished no one has 
caught a couple of really glaring errors.

First, the dial tone used when the callers were disconnected did not appear 
until the mid-1960s (at least in this area - Detroit).  In the suburb where 
I lived, we didn't get our first dial system until ca. 1950, and from then 
until they converted existing exchanges to be touchtone capable in the '60s 
the dial tone was a single note, the second B-flat below middle C.  I never 
heard the new dial tone (created by the E and the A-flat above middle C) 
until they started putting outside lines in our dorm rooms at the 
University of Michigan in ca. 1964.  It took longer than that to convert 
old exchanges to the new system.

The second piece of nonsense was the statement, after the close of the 
episode proper, that "everybody was so patriotic back then they would never 
DREAM of questioning government policy."  I was born only in '44 and so 
have no direct experience, but this strikes me as complete hogwash.  
Criticism of Roosevelt was really vicious, and I don't see how that could 
not extend to his policies.

An example of the kind of underhanded sniping that went on was the George 
Richards (I think) case.  I believe this was the guy who owned WJR in 
Detroit and WGAR in Cleveland, probably among other stations.  He sent out 
a memo to his newscasters directing that they were to follow EVERY story 
about Roosevelt with a story about crime.  Neat, huh?

Super patriotism, if it existed at all, did not start until after Pearl 
Harbor.

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

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 11:47:02 -0600
From: bechtell@[removed] (Linwood G. Bechtel)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Randy's Thoughtfullness
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

Thanks, Randy, for reminding us of the AMC 24 hours of otr based movies. 
It's that kind of consideration that makes this digest so enjoyable.

Jerry in Illinois

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

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 15:01:08 -0500 (EST)
From: SCOTT HOOKER <SCOTTHOOKER@[removed]>
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Trout end-of-war broadcast
Message-id: <01I0MJ1EDROI99EAOB@[removed]>

Friends, I just got through listening to William B. Williams' _Home Front_
broadcasts, and they are a hum-dinger, for the most part.  Most of the
period stuff is original, not recreations.  I wish I could say "all" instead
of "most," but there is at least one soundbite that is spurious, and it is
one I have heard so often given out as the real thing that I must comment on
it here.

It is Robert Trout's broadcast given at 7:00 [removed], Eastern War Time, on
August 14, 1945, or thereabouts.  I have heard the original of this only
once, and that on an NPR news program back about 1985 or so.  In the
original, Trout laughs in the middle of the broadcast, as he is announcing
Japan's acceptance of the Allied surrender terms, and it's a real laugh,
like he can't believe that he's finally reading the news everyone in America
had been awaiting for so long.

The recreation, which seems to be in all the documentaries dealing with that
time period, has its origins on the Edward R. Murrow album _I Can Hear It
Now_, which originally came out about 1947 or thereabouts.  It's still
Trout's voice all right, but that laugh of ebulient disbelief is reduced to
a chuckle and it sounds a lot slicker than the original.

If anyone has the original 1945 broadcast in their posession, or has any
knowledge of any vendor selling it, I'd love to know about it.  Thanks much.
 Keep 'em flying!

Scott Hooker
scotthooker@[removed]

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

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 13:00:45 -0800 (PST)
From: Rob Spencer <rspencer@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Copy rights
Message-ID: <[removed]@netcom15>

Regarding the practical application of copyright law, I feel Barry 
Mishkind did an excellent job of describing how best to apply current 
copyright law in a way that is practical while being morally defensible.  
	It has been interesting to watch the progression of this argument,
or rather its lack of progression.  One side says that any technical 
infraction of the copyright law is not just illegal, but immoral; the 
other side says, "finders keepers."  Mr. Mishkind is the only one I have 
noticed who has tried to till some middle ground on the issue.
	I think that the underlying problem is that the whole concept of 
copyright is being changed radically by the march of technology.  Many 
years ago, when the legal precepts behind our current law were formed, 
the means to publish were inaccesible to the consumer.  Thus, anyone who 
set out to break a copyright had to make an investment in the effort, and 
thus could be safely assumed to be motivated only by the prospect of 
illegal profits.  This also meant that enforcement of the law was 
reasonably easy, for printing presses (or record pressing plants, or 
whatever) were hard to hide inside a dwelling.
	Now, of course, things are quite different.  Technology exists at
the consumer level to make reasonably high-quality copies of virtually
every medium sold for profit nowadays. Thus whe have a situation wherein
people, in what they consider the normal, moral, lawful pursuit of
happiness, are without criminal intent commiting criminal activity as 
defined by the copyright laws.
	Since we have a government of, by and for the people, I believe 
that a law which makes a large percentage of citizens criminals who 
otherwise do not indulge in criminal activity is perforce questionable 
([removed], the 55-MPH speed limit).  Perhaps what is needed is an effort to 
propose a new set of laws that would better isolate criminal activity. 
	I agree with those who say that it is wrong to make "lawful" a
synonym of "convenient."  But I don't think that was Mr. Mishkind's point. 
His point, or at least one of them, was that current copyright law does
not adequately cover all situations commonly occurred nowadays, and that
one who technically breaks the law, even wilfully, is not committing an
immoral act if the intention to profit from the property being copied have
for all intents and purposes been abandoned by the owner.  
	Perhaps this would be a good point of departure for a truly 
productive discussion of copyright law.


Rob Spencer

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

Date: 30 Jan 1996 18:39:03 GMT
From: [removed]@[removed] (Ron B. Hare)
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: FINAL Water/Squeal Post
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

I think it was me that started all this stuff about water and tape squeal.
This was just a "handy hint". I have a large number of bad tapes and have
baked, microwaved, cleaned, and lubricated a lot of tape over the years. I
agree that long-term baking is the best solution, but it's not the only one.
The advice of 3M and Ampex is excellent, but it's aimed at professionals who
have a lot to lose if they damage valuable master tapes. SPERDVAC is in the
same position. This is more than a hobby to them.

Myabe it's just me, but I rarely have the patience to cook a tape all night
before listening. It takes mighty little lubricant for squeal elimination.
Water works great so why make a mess. A damp paper towel in contact with the
tape is all it takes. It's easy for me because my 10 1/2 inch capacity Revox
A77 has plenty of room to rest the paper towel on the tape as it leaves the
supply reel. This method is just too useful to ignore even though it is not
officially endorsed by experts.

BTW, as a hobbyist I'm not too motivated to invest in a
separately-instrumented convection oven for baking tapes. That, of course, is
the minimal-risk equipment that a professional *should* use for valuable
masters. I cook my tapes all night on inverted teacups in the center of my
non-convection oven. I set the knob so the oven just comes on from cold. If
you can comfortably rest your hand on the oven racks the oven is not too hot.
If it's too cool, the tapes may still squeal in the morning so I will try
again. I first did this with throwaways just to get the hang of it. The
temperature is apparently non-critical and I have never damaged a tape from
overheating (though some reels have warped a bit).

This is the last on the subject from me, but I think more postings from
people who have tried these things first-hand would be helpful to those of us
who just want a quick fix.

Ron
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transmitted via LiveWire, a Virtual Valley service. Modem: [removed]
(FirstClass, VT-100)  Voice: [removed]; E-mail: online@[removed]

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

    


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---- 
End of [removed] Digest V96 Issue #40

