Subject: [removed] Digest V2010 #180
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 10/16/2010 10:18 AM

To: [removed]@[removed]
Reply-to: [removed]@[removed]

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2010 : Issue 180
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                 [removed]
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      long-running program(me)s             [ Kermyt Anderson <kermyta@[removed]; ]
      [removed]                         [ aeiouqwert@[removed] ]
      Re: Oldest Programs/Trace of Reality  [ LBiel <[removed]@[removed]; ]
      Thanks, Jim Cox!                      [ "Ted Kneebone" <tkneebone1@[removed] ]
      forgotten laughter                    [ karl tiedemann <karltiedemann@hotma ]
      10-15 births/deaths                   [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
      Gunsmoke query                        [ serialous@[removed] ]
      Private collections                   [ <radioaz@[removed]; ]
      The Fourth Wall                       [ "Paula Keiser" <pkeiser1@[removed]; ]
      Perry Mason on OTR                    [ "kclarke5@[removed]" <kclarke5@juno. ]

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    Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:08:51 -0400
    From: Kermyt Anderson <kermyta@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  long-running program(me)s

    Ted Kneebone asks:

>     I wonder if there are long-running programs still on the air from the
>     CBC and BBC?

    Possibly the longest running extant BBC show is Desert Island Discs, which
    began in 1942 and is still going strong. It's had only four hosts over that
    entire run (nearly 70 years). The BBC recently made it available for download
    as a podcast.

    Kermyt

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    Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:09:31 -0400
    From: aeiouqwert@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  [removed]

    My old-time radio site has returned from the dead (grin).  Currently,
    I'm offering modem-friendly 16kbps MP3 streams of 40 shows - all with a
    holiday season theme or connection (that's Christmas, not Halloween).
    I'll keep them up until after the holidays.

    Regards,
    J. Alec West
    [removed]
    --

      aeiouqwert@[removed]

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

    Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:07:33 -0400
    From: LBiel <[removed]@[removed];
    To: "Old Time Radio Digest" <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Oldest Programs/Trace of Reality

      Joe Salerno is right that there are published excerpts of the NY
    Philharmonic-Symphony broadcasts from 1924, and I do have transfers of
    some others going back into 1923.  As they were made by Western
    Electric, the recordings might be line-checks rather than air-checks of
    their radio station WEAF.

    And I agree with Jim Cox's "Just a trace of reality" when he describes
    his "lifetime trying to correct the mistakes that were originally penned
    by a nameless hack sans accurate data." and trying to "set the record
    straight on behalf of those to whom little details matter.  I guess it's
    probably a quirk of the journalistic craft."  As a fellow nit-picker,
    and someone who has recently been scolded by our listmaster for (gasp!)
    wondering what research a posting was based on, I have been meaning to
    correct a couple of things in Jim's books -- knowing that this IS what
    he wants!  In two books there are scripts of the 1922 Queensboro Corp
    WEAF paid-broadcast for Hawthorne Estates.  The footnote tells us that
    part was from Gleason Archer's book and part was from Bob Schulberg's
    1989 "Radio Advertising: The Authorative Handbook."  Don't believe the
    title.  That last paragraph starting with "Friends, you owe it to
    yourself and your family . . ." is FAKE.  It was invented for the August
    1952 30th anniversary program "The Billion Dollar Show".   As usual, NBC
    screwed up their own history by not being able to find the easily
    accessible real script and making up this little excerpt.  So don't
    trust a book even if it has "Authorative" in the title!!!!

    The other error concerns a typo from a source that has also been copied
    by several other books.  The station which AT&T first started in NYC was
    WBAY in 1922, not WBNY in 1921.  WBNY is a different station, not owned
    by AT&T, and was somewhere listed as the station that preceded WEAF by a
    TYPO.   I've seen the bound original WBAY/WEAF logs, and this is
    discussed in the Banning WEAF book which is not in your bibliography but
    is vital for any history of early broadcasting.  (Edgar H. Felix, who
    was the pre-NBC publicist for WEAF, personally endorsed the veracity of
    the Banning book to me.)

    Nit picks which have traveled from book to book to book!!!

    Another nit pick.  While putting on the final touches of my announcing
    styles of the 20s paper for FOTR I noticed the preview of the "1930"
    audition program for "Clara, Lu and Em" on Jerry Haendiges' site and
    started editing together just the opening announcements.  I was amazed.
    This could be the greatest announcing job of the first decade of radio
    -- but it ain't!  Not only is the style way, Way, WAY ahead of its time,
    the theme song "You" wasn't written until 1936!!!  This program has been
    falsely identified as 1930 going back as far as Jay Hickerson's 2nd
    edition, and maybe even further.  If it really is an audition program,
    it might be for the 1945 attempt at syndication that Dunning mentions as
    "unsuccessful".

    Here's my nit.  Somebody (Jerry??) had or has the disc.  If it was an
    audition -- the opening says "NBC presents" -- it might be on a
    pressing, rather than being a one-off lacquer disc.  If it is a vinyl or
    shellac pressing there will be matrix numbers in the material, most
    likely RCA Victor numbers since this is NBC.  Those numbers will give us
    the date of the recording.  If it really is 1930 -- and it can't be --
    the prefix would be MVE.  If from the mid 30s it would be MRC,  MS, or
    NS.  If 1945 it would probably be ND5.  The numbers after the prefix
    would help give more accurate dates.  I have been amazed for the past
    40+ years that OTR dealers and collectors who have access to syndication
    discs would rather guess at a date, make one up, or put "unknown"
    instead of writing down the matrix numbers that are actually there on
    the disc.  (Penciled dates on syndication discs are always wrong.)  If
    this disc still exists, send me a scan of the label and/or a description
    and the matrix numbers.

    Michael Biel  mbiel@mbiel  (sent via Leah's email)

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

    Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:09:39 -0400
    From: "Ted Kneebone" <tkneebone1@[removed];
    To: "Old Time Radio Digest" <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Thanks, Jim Cox!

    Thanks, Jim Cox, for setting the record straight on Mr. Keen.  If I had the
    time, I would copy notes from Jim, Martin, and others and paste them into my
    books.  But I probably would not need to because most of my books are
    authored by Cox, Grams, Halper, Blue, and other trustworthy writers.  This
    is just my way of thanking the people who spent the time to research their
    books.
        I would not think of just copying info from sources -- without checking
    the validity of them.  As a former reference librarian, I recall helping a
    student at Sangamon State Univerity find biographical info about some
    historical figure.  We checked every souce we could find in their library.
    It was amazing how many authors merely repeated info from other sources.  We
    finally located an author who had different information. I told the student,
    "Use your own judgement.  Merely saying something ten times does not
    automatically make it correct.  Maybe the author who wrote something
    different was correct!"

    Ted Kneebone. Old Time Radio:
    [removed]

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

    Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:09:46 -0400
    From: karl tiedemann <karltiedemann@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  forgotten laughter

    Hello, all. I'm in the early stages of work on a documentary about three
    neglected television comedians of the 1950s: Ben Blue, Martha Raye and George
    Gobel.

    The latter two, of course, have radio connections-- as most of you probably
    know, [removed] was a regular on NATIONAL BARN DANCE and the Tom Mix [removed]
    We've already started to get on-camera interviews set up, both in California
    and back East, with various friends colleagues, co-workers, etc.

    If anyone can point us to any good interview subjects, or research resources
    we may have overlooked, etc., we'd be most grateful. In addition, I already
    have some radio material with M. Raye but have yet to find any with Lonesome
    George so leads there would also be very welcome.

    Thanks.

    Karl Tiedemann (NYC)

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

    Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:09:54 -0400
    From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
    To: Olde Tyme Radio Digest Digest <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  10-15 births/deaths

    October 15th births

    10-15-1879 - Jane Darwell - Palmyra, MO - d. 8-13-1967
    actor: "Lux Radio Theatre"
    10-15-1879 - Sara Allgood - Dublin, Ireland - d. 9-13-1950
    actor: "Radio Guild"; "Family Theatre"; "Lux Radio Theatre"
    10-15-1881 - P. G. Wodehouse - Guildford, Surrey, England - d. 2-14-1975
    author: (Jeeves and Wooster) "Forecast"; "Stagestruck"
    10-15-1893 - Ina Claire - Washington, [removed] - d. 2-22-1985
    actor: "Lux Radio Theatre"
    10-15-1896 - Joe Sanders - Thayer, KS - d. 5-14-1965
    bandleader: (The Ole Left Hander) "Nighthawks Frolic"
    10-15-1898 - Ransom Sherman - Appleton, WI - d. 11-26-1985
    actor: Uncle Dennis "Fibber McGee and Molly"; Hap Hazard "Hap Hazard"
    10-15-1900 - Fritz Feld - Berlin, Germany - d. 11-18-1993
    actor: "NBC Uinversity Theatre"; "Nightbeat"; "Advs. of the Saint"
    10-15-1900 - Mervyn LeRoy - San Francisco,CA - d. 9-13-1987
    film director: Intermission Guest "Lux Radio Theatre"; "Songs By
    Sinatra"
    10-15-1908 - Gus Hatula - d. 10-9-1997
    audio engineer for WXYZ
    10-15-1908 - Herman Chittison - Flemingsburg, KY - d. 3-8-1967
    jazz pianist: "Casey, Crime Photographer"; "The Gloom Dodgers"
    10-15-1908 - John Kenneth Galbraith - Iona Station, Canada - d.
    4-28-2006
    economist: "University of Chicago Round Table"; "Meet the Press"
    10-15-1909 - Robert Trout - Wake County, NC - d. 11-14-2000
    commentator: "Headlines & Bylines"; "Robert Trout with the News Til Now"
    10-15-1912 - Vivian Fridell - Milwaukee, WI - d. 8-20-1998
    actor: Mary Noble "Mary Noble, Backstage Wife"; "Road of Life"
    10-15-1912 - "Zeb" Tennis - Missouri - d. 8-10-1972
    fiddle: "Plantation Boys"
    10-15-1915 - Nellie Lutcher - Lake Charles, LA - d. 6-8-2007
    jazz singer: "Jubilee"; "Spotlight Revue"; "Command Performance"
    10-15-1917 - Jan Miner - Boston, MA - d. 2-15-2004
    actor: Ann Williams "Casey, Crime Photographer"; "Lora Lawton "Lora
    Lawton"
    10-15-1917 - Merrill Ash - d. 11-9-1999
    newscaster: KOMO Seattle, Washington
    10-15-1918 - Bob Sherry - Chattanooga, TN - d. 2-17-2003
    announcer: "Archie Andrews"; "Author Meets the Critics"
    10-15-1918 - Bobby Gimby - Cabri, Saskatchewan, Canada - d. 6-20-1998
    musician, songwriter: "Happy Gang"
    10-15-1918 - Harold Gast - d. 12-28-2003
    writer: "Front Page Farrell"; "Real Stories from Real Life"
    10-15-1918 - Robert Lee - Elyria, OH - d. 7-8-1994
    writer: "Columbia Presents Corwin"
    10-15-1921 - Allan Drake - Massachusetts - d. 3-8-1986
    actor: "The Ethel Merman Show"
    10-15-1921 - Geri Fontane - New Milford, NJ - d. 9-13-1993
    singer: (The Fontane Sisters) "Chesterfield Supper Club"
    10-15-1921 - Robert Rockwell - Chicago, IL - d. 1-25-2003
    actor: Philip Boynton "Our Miss Brooks"
    10-15-1922 - Paul Kasander - Detroit, MI - d. 10-17-2002
    actor: "Challenge of the Yukon"; "Lone Ranger"; "Green Hornet"
    10-15-1926 - Jean Peters - Canton, OH - d. 10-13-2000
    actor: "Lux Radio Theatre"
    10-15-1929 - Art James - d. 3-28-2004
    announcer: Armed Forces Radio

    October 15th deaths

    01-20-1920 - Derek Bond - Glascow, Scotland - d. 10-15-2006
    actor: "A Christmas Carol"
    03-08-1912 - David Friedkin - d. 10-15-1976
    writer: "Bold Venture"; "Broadway Is My Beat"; "The Front Page"
    03-23-1917 - Josef Locke - Londonderry, Northern Ireland - d. 10-15-1999
    actor: "Variety Fanfare"
    04-16-1927 - Edie Adams - Kingston, PA-d. 10-15-2008
    singer, actor: "Stewart Foster Show"
    05-07-1900 - Ralph Truman - London, England - d. 10-15-1977
    actor: John H Watson "BBC Home Theatre"
    05-21-1923 - Rick Jason - NYC - d. 10-15-2000
    actor: "Sears Radio Theatre"
    06-09-1891 - Cole Porter - Peru, IN - d. 10-15-1964
    composer: Theme for "My Friend Irma"
    06-17-1916 - Terry Gilkyson - Mont Clare, PA - d. 10-15-1999
    singer, songwriter: "Solitary Singer"; "America Sings"; "Here's to
    Veterans"
    07-06-1924 - Bobby Mauch - Peoria, IL - d. 10-15-2007
    actor: "Coast-to-Coast on a Bus"; "Let's Pretend"; "Robinson Crusoe,
    Jr."
    07-09-1917 - Ted Steele - Hartford, CT - d. 10-15-1985
    bandleader: "Ted Steele's Studio Club"; "Chesterfield Supper Club"
    09-12-1918 - Ethel Beard - d. 10-15-2003
    actor: "Experimental Playhouse of the Air"
    09-20-1937 - Tom Tresh - Detroit, MI - d. 10-15-2008
    baseball player: "Tops In Sports"
    09-25-1905 - Carl Hoff - Oxnard, CA - d. 10-15-1965
    bandleader: "Al Pearce and His Gang"; "Your Hit Parade"
    10-09-1916 - Jack Boyle - Illinois - d. 10-15-1965
    actor: Andy Gump "The Gumps"
    10-13-1918 - Cornel Wilde - NYC - d. 10-15-1989
    actor: "Lux Radio Theatre"
    10-16-1904 - Raymond Meurer - d. 10-15-1974
    Part owner of WXYZ
    11-11-1899 - Pat O'Brien - Milwaukee, WI - d. 10-15-1983
    actor: Dan Carson "Dan Carson"; "Screen Guild Theatre"; "Family Theatre"
    11-13-1922 - Jack Narz - Louisville, KY - d. 10-15-2008
    announcer: "Meet Corliss Archer"; "Tenneessee Ernie Ford Show"
    11-23-1911 - Edward Breuder - Hoboken, NJ - d. 10-15-1989
    director of CBS radio network music division
    12-18-1919 - Ralph Levy - Phildelphia, PA - d. 10-15-2001
    director: "Burns and Allen"

    Ron

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

    Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:10:16 -0400
    From: serialous@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Gunsmoke query
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    I was wondering something after reading about Suspense and leafing through
    John Abbott's Yours Truly Johnny Dollar book that the latter show moved from
    Hollywood to New York because CBS radio had shut down (or was in the process
    of) their west coast radio drama department. If that's the case, since Johnny
    Dollar's first NY shows are in late 1960, what kept Gunsmoke on the air for
    the next 7 or so months? Was it still being respected because of the audience
    it built up and probably any goodwill generated by Meston & McDonnell? Or was
    it supposed to complement the TV version?

    Thanks

    Michael Nella

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    Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:44:48 -0400
    From: <radioaz@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Private collections

    Is anyone else watching the current PBS series about Michael Feinstein?
    This week he visited several people who each have an extensive private
    collection of musical recordings.  One of them had reel-to-reel tapes of
    many old radio shows.  Wonder how many such private collections there are
    and what can be done to preserve and share them with others.  Many of the
    people Feinstein interviews are getting along in years.  Seems a shame to
    have unknowing family and friends sweep in after they are gone and just
    destroy these recordings.

    Ted

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

    Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:44:58 -0400
    From: "Paula Keiser" <pkeiser1@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  The Fourth Wall

    On October 15 Dixon Hayes wrote:

>     I always remembered the TV "Ellery Queen" for being the first dramatic show
>     I ever saw in which someone (Jim Hutton, as Ellery Queen) broke the fourth
>     wall.

    Although not a dramatic show, George Burns regularly broke the fourth wall
    in the 1950 "Burns and Allen" show.  I wonder if there is an earlier TV show
    that used this OTR technique.

    Paula Keiser
    Topeka

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

    Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:17:07 -0400
    From: "kclarke5@[removed]" <kclarke5@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Perry Mason on OTR
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           I realize I'll probably get many responses from this question, so
    please
    contact me off list with the replies.  I heard recently that "Perry Mason"
    was
    on OTR before it ever was broadcast on TV in the 1950's with Raymond Burr
    (which is what I remember). I did some research, and asked around to some
    OTR collectors, and many told me that the radio version of "Perry Mason"
    was different in some respects to the TV version.

           One told me that the storylines weren't 30-60 minutes long, but were
    stretched out over several episodes.  (Were there any 60 minute episodes of
    this program?)  Another one told me that although the TV version included
    some investigation of the crime as well as the courtroom adjudication, that
    the radio version was centered more on the investigation aspect. (Were there
    any more differences between the two versions of this program?)

           Also, what OTR program(s) would you suggest if I were looking for one
    with
    some courtroom action as well as some investigation?

    Please help!

    Kenneth Clarke

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    [ADMINISTRIVIA: There's nothing wrong sending your responses to the list;
    there may be others here who have never heard the original Perry Mason
    series.  --cfs3]

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2010 Issue #180
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