Subject: [removed] Digest V2003 #196
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 5/13/2003 11:59 AM

To: <[removed]@[removed];

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2003 : Issue 196
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Today in radio history 5/12           [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
      LIFE WITH LUIGI SCRIPTS               [ james h arva <wilditralian@[removed] ]
      Rinso, Super Suds, and Grand Opera    [ "Frederick S. Hillman" <fshillman@6 ]
      Re: Arthur Godfrey                    [ Dixonhayes@[removed] ]
      Re: bloopers                          [ Dixonhayes@[removed] ]
      Super Suds, Super Suds                [ "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@hotm ]
      Re: Musical Interludes                [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
      The Station of all Free Americans     [ Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed]; ]
      XM gets out of the car                [ "Nemesis@[removed]" <nemesis@[removed] ]
      Arthur Godfrey                        [ "A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@attorneyro ]
      Re: Firing Julius LaRosa              [ SanctumOTR@[removed] ]
      LONE RANGER ON CBS ???????            [ HERITAGE4@[removed] ]
      Re: Godfrey on TV                     [ Herb Harrison <herbop@[removed] ]
      Network Consolidation                 [ Herb Harrison <herbop@[removed] ]
      White bread in Saginaw                [ "[removed]" <[removed]@[removed] ]
      re:more abc-tv                        [ "Frank Phillips" <frankphi@hotmail. ]
      Arthur Godfrey outcues                [ W4CU@[removed] ]
      Strange Dr. Weird                     [ "Don Frey" <alanladdsr@[removed] ]
      Bill Stern                            [ "Don Frey" <alanladdsr@[removed] ]
      Roger Kahn                            [ "Don Frey" <alanladdsr@[removed] ]

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

    Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 18:23:03 -0400
    From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
    To: otr-net <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Today in radio history 5/12

       From Today's Almanac --

    1922-- the magazine "Radio Broadcast" commented, "The rate
    of increase in the number who spend at least part of an
    evening listening to radio is almost incomprehensible."

       Joe

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

    Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 18:23:10 -0400
    From: james h arva <wilditralian@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  LIFE WITH LUIGI SCRIPTS

    12 MAY 03

    JJiovanazz@[removed] writes that he's having trouble finding scripts for
    "Life with Luigi".  Well, finding scripts is not the easiest thing to do,
    by any means.  A few years ago, however, I produced a re-enactment of an
    episode from "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" for a Sherlock
    Holmes club I belong to in Baltimore.  I simply sat down with a little
    hand-held cassette player and played the audio of that program ...
    started and stopped it as needed ... backed up and re-listened as needed
    ... and kerplinked it into my computer, line by line.  It's not really as
    laborious as it might sound.  It represents about 8 hours of work for a
    half-hour show.  It happened to be one of the episodes in which our good
    friend Harry Bartell was the announcer, and I sent him a script and he
    was kind enough to record his  lines from this old script, and during the
    performance I played his parts from the recording.
    	I'm in the process of producing another one for our Christmas meeting
    in
    December, and I have the script already transcribed, printed out, copied,
    and sent to the cast members.  The thought of trying to find a script
    never crossed my mind.  I'm sure it would take a lot longer than the 8
    hours the transcription took me to do.

    Best regards,

    Jim Arva

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

    Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 18:23:40 -0400
    From: "Frederick S. Hillman" <fshillman@[removed];
    To: "Old Time Radio" <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Rinso, Super Suds, and Grand Opera
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

    I recall the jingle for Super [removed] a brief line for Rinso ("Rinso white
    -- Rinso bright -- Rinso blue," the latter when blue Rinso came out,
    presumably an improvement).  The vocalist for Rinso's jingle was a young Belle
    "Bubbles" Silverman, later known as Beverly Sills, one of the greatest to
    grace the operatic stage.  Following a stellar career in opera she became, if
    I recall correctly, a manager (General?  Artistic?) for the New York City
    Opera Company.  I read somewhere -- and it makes sense -- that she got her
    nickname not only from her effervescent and pleasant personality but from the
    product for which she sang the jingle decades ago.

    Amazing how high one can go when starting from a lowly soap jingle.  Would
    that be from soap opera to grand opera?

    Fred Hillman

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      ***                  as the sender intended.                   ***

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

    Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 19:49:40 -0400
    From: Dixonhayes@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Arthur Godfrey

>     What could he have done
>     to so infuriate Godfrey to fire him on the air instead of
>     waiting until the
>     show was over? Being fired is bad enough but to be humiliated
>     on top of the
>     firing by having it broadcast to the nation makes it even more
>     traumatic.

    The A&E "Biography" retells this in gleeful detail. Apparently Godfrey was
    jealous of LaRosa's rapidly rising star, and felt threatened.  It sparked a
    major furor at the time that escalated when Godfrey held a news conference
    days later to explain that he fired LaRosa because "he lacked humility."
    (Obviously the controversy got worse and Godfrey's ratings actually took a
    hit.) Up to that point, Godfrey was so big at CBS (ratings wise and ego wise)
    the network heavily pampered him and he got whatever he wanted; but the
    fallout from this incident (and the one where he buzzed the airport control
    tower and lost his pilot's license) supposedly, resulted in CBS finally
    standing up to him and telling him how things would be done from now on.

    The A&E special, BTW, recounts the day of the firing, with clips of the TV
    feed then the audio of the actual radio feed when Godfrey says "I'll Take
    Manhattan" was LaRosa's "swan song."

    One final note:  you know that famous fictional phrase, "How are ya, how are
    ya, how are ya?" The one that impersonators often quoted from Godfrey?  I may
    have a recording of the only time Godfrey ever actually said it or claimed
    to: in a 1979 radio PSA for Social Security Direct Deposit, in which Godfrey
    makes the point that, until that moment, he never actually said it.

    Dixon

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

    Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 19:50:11 -0400
    From: Dixonhayes@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: bloopers

    I always knew many of the entries on Kermit Schafer's Blooper albums were
    re-creations, sometimes of fictional incidents or urban legends (the "Uncle
    Don" fiasco, for instance), but weren't there a few real ones sprinkled in
    there?  Some of the Lowell Thomas bloopers sounded legitimate, like the one
    where he cracks up after describing how President Eisenhower had just met
    "all the folks who make Hershey's Chocolate, with and without nuts," or the
    breakup over Dolly Dimples' comeback after her near-fatal heart attack (guess
    which phrase got mangled?).

    I heard at least one online version of a "Pat Novak for Hire" episode (I hope
    it's the right series?) in which the announcer ends the program by mangling a
    cast member's name, then blurts out "This is ABC, the National Broadcasting
    Company," then someone else's laughter as the network feed ends.

    [removed] think at least one cassette company has the "Double or Nothing"
    broadcast in which one contestant goes into vivid (and frank) detail
    describing what was, for all practical purposes, an orgy (a "screwing party,"
    as she put it).  CBS only *thought* they had destroyed all transcriptions of
    the show.

    Dixon

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

    Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 20:20:55 -0400
    From: "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Super Suds, Super Suds

>     Wasn't the Super Suds, Super [removed] commercial for RINSO ?

>     Jerry B.

    No, Rinso's went:
    Rinso white - Rinso bright -
    Happy little washday song!

    It may have been a jingle for an actual sponsor, but I do recall accurately
    that SPIKE JONES had a hit song using "Super suds, Super suds . . . over and
    over as a jingle refrain between lyrics.  It's probably that song you
    remember.
    Martin

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

    Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 21:01:59 -0400
    From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Musical Interludes

    On 5/12/03 6:48 PM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:

>     What was the thinking in including so much music in what today would be
>     straight-forward situation comedy shows? An example was a Fibber McGee &
>     Molly where the segment ends and Harlow Wilcox introduced Billy Mills and
>     the orchestra, who played a song. Or Fred Allen introducing Al Goodman. Or
>     Dennis Day, who was at least integrated into the program.

    This was an evolution from stage revues and vaudeville -- which, in turn,
    leads directly back to the minstrel shows of the pre-Civil War era.

    These forms of stage entertainment always integrated music with sketches
    and dialogue, and by the 1920s, the better vaudeville houses managed
    their programs in very much the same format as would become familiar in
    radio, with a wisecracking master-of-ceremonies overseeing the
    proceedings and often performing in skits and sketches in order to give
    the show a loose continuity. This type of presentation carried over
    intact into radio.

    One of the most striking examples of this is the familiar Jack Benny
    format of the 1930s -- which corresponds almost exactly with the
    ritualized format of a minstrel show. The opening banter with the cast
    corresponds to the comedy dialogue exchanged between the end men and the
    interlocutor. The tenor solo and band number in the middle of the program
    correspond to the minstrel "olio," which featured a range of music and
    variety-type acts, and the concluding sketch corresponds precisely to the
    minstrel "afterpiece." Benny's format during the 1940s drifted away from
    this rather rigid model, of course -- but vestiges remained.

    Elizabeth

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

    Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 21:03:01 -0400
    From: Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  The Station of all Free Americans

    Paul Feavel mentions Eric Barnouw's discussion of "Black" Radio:
    "Barnouw describes a German station calling itself 'The Station of All True
    Americans' purporting to come from somewhere in the American midwest, but
    traced to Germany. "

    This was a station "Debunk" The Station of all FREE Americans. It was
    developed by Dr. Herbert John Burgman, who was employed at the US Embassy
    in Berlin before the US entered the war. When Germany declared war on the
    US, instead of being repatriated, he chose to stay in Germany and assumed a
    new name "Helmuth Bruckmann."

    Beginning on March 12, 1942, Bruckmann broadcast  to North America under
    the pseudonym "Joseph Scanlon" a fictitious figure who was supposedly
    connected to the isolationist, anti-communist Christian Front movement. His
    broadcasts came from "clandestine" station "Debunk." Its focus was as
    mentioned to create suspicion around Roosevelt's foreign policies.

    The station claimed to be coming from Iowa, but was soon identified to
    actually be transmitting from Germany.  The station regularly played "Carry
    Me Back to Old Virginny" and always ended its daily broadcasts with the
    National Anthem. One of its specialties were news flashes, for example:
    Flash from Australia: General MacArthur driving an open car has run over
    several American soldiers and killed them!
    Flash from Denver: The citizens of Denver suggest that this war should be
    called "Franklin's Last Experiment."

    After the war, Burgman was sentenced to 20 years in prison where he died.

    I suspect that if any copies of these programs exist, they are in the
    German Archives and usually very hard to obtain copies.

    Jim Widner
    jwidner@[removed]

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

    Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 22:04:46 -0400
    From: "Nemesis@[removed]" <nemesis@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  XM gets out of the car

    Here's a link to a story about XM radio being able to move to a PC without
    hooking up to the [removed]

     [removed]

    Linda Thuringer

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

    Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 23:20:51 -0400
    From: "A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Arthur Godfrey

>     Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 09:14:47 -0400
>     From: Mark J Cuccia <mcuccia@[removed];

>     have him closing out with an outcue and local-ID (while Godfrey's theme
>     "Seems Like Old Times" plays softly underneath), the outcue being "This is
>     CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System" prior to Summer/Fall 1951. Since
>     both CBS Radio and CBS-TV outcued at the end of every program/segment this
>     way, it didn't matter if Godfrey was simulcasting that 15-minute segment.

    This brings to mind an old memory.  I think it was Arthur Godfrey we were
    listening to, and while I don't remember just what they were talking
    about, it had something to do with soup.  And Godfrey (I think) then gave
    the outcue "This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting Soup."

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

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

    Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 23:21:29 -0400
    From: SanctumOTR@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Firing Julius LaRosa

    In a message dated 5/12/03 5:49:14 PM, Andrew (no relation to Arthur) Godfrey
    writes:

>     However, the Julius LaRosa firing is something I really don't understand.
>     What could he have done to so infuriate Godfrey to fire him on the air
>     instead of waiting until the show was over? Being fired is bad enough but to
>     be humiliated on top of the firing by having it broadcast to the nation
>     makes
>     it even more traumatic.

    ***Actually, the problems had been building for some time and LaRosa's agent
    was demanding a release from the singer's contract with Godfrey.  Godfrey
    reportedly discussed the problem with CBS execs Bill Paley and Frank Stanton
    over a meal, and Dr. Stanton suggested: "You hired him on the air.  Why don't
    you fire him on the air?"  (There was apparently some concern with putting
    Julie on-air if he knew in advance that it was his last show. )

    Have you actually listened to Godfrey's farewell to LaRosa?  (It's included
    in the TOO HOT FOR RADIO collection I prepared a few years ago for GAA.)
    After LaRosa sings "I'll Take Manhattan," Godfrey pays tribute to Julius'
    talents, predicting great things for his future: "Thanks ever so much, Julie.
     That was Julie's swan song with us.  He goes off now to make it on his own,
    as his own star, soon to be seen on his own programs, and I know you wish him
    godspeed the same as I do.  This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System."

    It was done so subtly that Julius reportedly didn't even know he had been
    fired until after the show when others told him what "swan song" meant, and
    later that day Godfrey claimed that firing Julie "was like tearing my
    eyeballs out."  A lot of people have been publicly fired in a far worse
    manner than
    Julius LaRosa (who still credits Godfrey with giving him his career in the
    first place). --ANTHONY TOLLIN***

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

    Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 23:57:51 -0400
    From: HERITAGE4@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  LONE RANGER ON CBS  ???????

    RE: A. Joseph Ross' comments about THE LONE RANGER in Boston --
    I'm not sure what station you were listening to, but CBS did not rebroadcast
    LONE RANGER radio programs.  ABC did.
    The Boston CBS station was WEEI,  and was owned and operated by CBS.  They
    never re-broadcast ABC or NBC or MBS programs.
    I worked at WCOP - one of the two local ABC station,  the other being
    WLAW Larence/Lowell.  We broadcast THE LONE RANGER and most other ABC radio
    programs.  The RANGER had run previously
    on MBS and The Blue Network.  In 1944 BLUE became ABC.

    Tom Heathwood _ Heritage Radio -Boston

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

    Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 13:47:00 -0400
    From: Herb Harrison <herbop@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Godfrey on TV

    Mark J. Cuccia wrote:
    Lots of stuff that I didn't know about Godfrey's long career.
    I remember, as a kid, seeing/hearing his various shows on radio & TV. I
    remember reading about the La Rosa (sp?) episode in my mother's TV/Radio
    magazines. It seemed to be a big scandal at the time; I always thought it
    more-or-less put an end to Godfrey's career. I had no idea that he was
    still on radio through the 1960's.
    I read an "interview" article (I think around 1968, in TV Guide) where he
    predicted that he would experience a comeback on TV, and lamented the bad
    press that came from the "firing incident" and the "airport buzzing" in his
    private plane.
    He seemed sorrowful to me.
    Question: Are there any Godfrey radio sound clips out there on the web that
    I could listen to, just for old times sake?

    Herb Harrison

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

    Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 13:47:19 -0400
    From: Herb Harrison <herbop@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Network Consolidation

    Mark J Cuccia <mcuccia@[removed]; wrote, in part:

>     Also "ironic" that Westinghouse (or what remained of them) merged with or
>     bought out CBS in more recent [removed] of course, today, I think of CBS as
>     being part of CBS/Viacom/Paramount/Westwood/Infinity/Mutual/NBCRadio/etc.

    Just wait until the FCC is finished with their next Rules change
    publication: Add three television stations, unlimited radio stations, and a
    bunch of newspapers to the ownership of any corporate entity = finish to
    ANY independent media voices.

    Herb Harrison

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

    Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 13:48:47 -0400
    From: "[removed]" <[removed]@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  White bread in Saginaw

    In Digest #186, Roger writes:

>     Awhile back someone mentioned that white bread was
>     tasteless.  Hal Stone worked for WNEW in Saginaw,
>     Michigan and seeing he was there for a few years I
>     I bet that he would disagree about white bread
>     being tasteless, that is  if he had any Spatz's bread
>     while he was there.

    As a current Saginaw resident, I'll second this posting.  Spatz's is pretty
    good bread, and makes great sandwiches here at the local Tony's.

    While at Cincy, I got to chat with Hal Stone about his career, the OTR hobby,
    and his time in Saginaw, MI.  Somehow, he also suckered me into buying a book
    too.  Just kidding, but he did write a very kind inscription in the book for
    me.  If there are still one or two of you out there who haven't got the book
    yet, get one before they run out.  It's fun to read, filled with pictures,
    and to a younger person in the hobby (28 years old) like myself, a great
    introduction to some radio people who I didn't know much about, but whose
    work I was familiar with.

    -chris holm

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

    Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 13:49:01 -0400
    From: "Frank Phillips" <frankphi@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  re:more abc-tv

    Got in on the exchange rather late, but ...

    In the late 1950s, maybe even into the '60s, WKZO-TV, Channel 3, Kalamazoo,
    Mich., advertised itself as BOTH  an ABC and CBS affiliate. That ended soon
    after, as I recall.

    Frank Phillips

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

    Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 13:49:11 -0400
    From: W4CU@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Arthur Godfrey outcues
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

    I can remember one unforgettable [removed]"This is the columbia Broadchasing
    System".  Given, of course, by Arthur.  John Reinke( 60 years in B/c
    engineering).

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      ***                  as the sender intended.                   ***

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

    Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 13:49:24 -0400
    From: "Don Frey" <alanladdsr@[removed];
    To: "otr message" <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Strange Dr. Weird

    In responding to Walden Hughes' inquiry about shows broadcast  on VE Day,
    one
    mention was made of "Strange Dr. Weird" 5/ 8/45, "Picture of a Killer." This
    is a
    common error that must be corrected once and for all! That story was not
    presented
    on 5/8. On VE-Day, the series presented "One Million BC." I have the show
    and an
    announcement concerning the fall of Germany is included. The stories are
    similar, each
    involves a picture, which is reason enough for the confusion. "One Million
    BC" is
    rarely listed in the logs printed and the total # of shows is not 28 but
    [removed] think "Picture of a Killer" was 5/15/45, with the last show being
    5/22/45, "Revenge From the Grave."
    Jay Hickerson's latest has the information. I may have the last two dates
    wrong but the
    "One Million BC" for 5/ 8/45 seems certain. Radio Memories has the show for
    those who may wish to "check it out."

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

    Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 13:49:41 -0400
    From: "Don Frey" <alanladdsr@[removed];
    To: "otr message" <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Bill Stern

    My favorite Bill Stern: Baseball game, the batter is hit, ear permanently
    injured, causes
    deafness. The batter: Thomas Edison. [removed] you wonder who threw that
    ball,
    well, legend has [removed] James.

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

    Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 13:49:55 -0400
    From: "Don Frey" <alanladdsr@[removed];
    To: "otr message" <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Roger Kahn

    Martin Grams was asking about a pianist for radio shows in the 30's-40's. He
    thought
    the name was something like "Cohen." How about Joe Kahn who was the pianist
    for Information Please. (See Dunning.) He was the father, by the way, of
    Roger Kahn
    who wrote the great baseball book "Boys of Summer."

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2003 Issue #196
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