Subject: [removed] Digest V2001 #307
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 9/19/2001 12:08 AM

To: <[removed]@[removed];

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2001 : Issue 307
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Elephant Boy on Smilin' Ed's [Buster  [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
      OTR Memorabilia                       [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
      OTR epitaph                           [ "Ivan G Shreve Jr" <igsjr@[removed]; ]
      Re: Weber City                        [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
      Re: Coverage: Then and Now            [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
      Pledge of Alleigence - Red Skelton    [ WRVO Radio <wrvo@[removed]; ]
      The Aldrich Family                    [ Jerry Bechtel <[removed]@[removed] ]
      OTR blacklisting, Red Scare infor et  [ khovard@[removed] ]
      OTR blacklisting, Red Scare: Correct  [ khovard@[removed] ]
      station WEAF                          [ khovard@[removed] ]
      [removed]                            [ "Harold Zeigler" <hzeigler@charter- ]
      Hudnut                                [ Osborneam@[removed] ]
      When the Lights Go On Again All Over  [ Osborneam@[removed] ]
      Kate Smith                            [ "B. J. Watkins" <kinseyfan@hotmail. ]
      abysmal news coverage                 [ chris chandler <chrischandler84@yah ]
      Missing a cassette                    [ Richard Carpenter <sinatra@ragingbu ]

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

    Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:37:07 -0400
    From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Elephant Boy on Smilin' Ed's [Buster Brown]
     Gang?

    The question as to whether there were stories about an elephant boy on
    the Buster Brown Saturday Morning show is yes, though I'm unsure about
    the name (there was a movie, Elephant Boy, starring Sabu, which had been
    released in the late 1930s or possibly in the 1940s, so there may be some
    name confusion). This was one of a few sets of short dramatizations that
    were part of the show (another was of some nomadic desert tribe and a
    third about a boy who had a genie).  All of the stories were templated
    (and rather simplistic) and thus created few lasting memories.

    Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

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

    Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:37:30 -0400
    From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  OTR Memorabilia

    Previously, I'd noted my favorite radio memorabilium (a pair of original
    Code-O-Graphs ensconced in a badge case).  However, outside my Captain
    Midnight stuff, I have several radio premiums that bring back fine
    memories.

    Two Sky King items: a Magni-Glo Writing Ring, with four features neatly
    packaged in a small crownpiece, and a Spy-Detecto Writer, a pocket unit
    with enough features to catch the admiration of a former [removed]
    intelligence operative I've been in communication with (cipher disk,
    magnifier, printing mechanism, and ruler, all in a pocket-sized package).

    Also, a Kix Atom Bomb Ring (aka The Lone Ranger Atom Bomb Ring), which
    actually showed nuclear reactions.  Sadly, the radioisotope used has
    become inert, so the light show in my unit is gone.

    Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

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

    Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:37:50 -0400
    From: "Ivan G Shreve Jr" <igsjr@[removed];
    To: "Old Time Radio Digest" <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  OTR epitaph

    Will Nicoll wrote:

>     Now, I know from reading the digest there are a lot of clever
>     [removed] would be interesting hearing their plans for an OTR epitaph.

    My epitaph?  "We're a little late, [removed] good night!"

    Ivan

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

    Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:40:07 -0400
    From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Weber City

    Owens Pomeroy [removed]

>     A color Map of "Weber City" (Pepsodent Premium my Dad sent for in 1936)

    There's actually an interesting story behind this premium -- it was a
    ploy by Gosden and Correll to prove to the Lord and Thomas agency that
    their program was still a powerful draw.

    In the spring of 1934, they were moving into the last year of the
    $200,000-a-year contract they had signed in the summer of 1930, and
    Pepsodent was grumbling a bit about renewal. That original deal had been
    signed during the full flush of the national A&A craze, and since that
    time, the program's popularity had settled down considerably from its
    "fad" level. Pepsodent wasn't sure it wanted to renew on the same terms
    as the 1930 contract, and sent Lord and Thomas agency president Albert
    Lasker to Correll and Gosden to tell them so, and try and convince them
    to take a pay cut. The performers instead asked for a raise -- and the
    situation remained unresolved when Correll and Gosden took an eight-week
    vacation that summer (the only vacation they would ever take during the
    fifteen-year run of the serial).

    When they returned in September, the performers approached Lasker with a
    plan -- they would prove to him just how popular their program still was,
    by making a serious shakeup in its plotline. Roland Weber, the self-made
    millionaire philanthropist and mentor to Amos who had figured strongly in
    the storyline since the previous winter, would be killed in a random
    pedestrian accident -- and his will would leave a 500-acre plot of land
    in upstate New York to Amos and Andy for the construction of a "model
    town" housing development to be called "Weber City." Amos and Andy and
    their closest friends would leave Harlem and move upstate to begin work
    on the project -- and after several weeks had gone by in order to
    establish the plot, Andy would announce that he had drawn an
    intentionally-funny map of Weber City, and that he was using the map to
    settle a lot of gripes that he had with various people involved with the
    project. (There are many obscure references in the map that only become
    understandable when you read thru the scripts for the storyline. In
    reality, the map was probably drawn by Fred C. Graham, a popular magazine
    cartoonist of the day.) This map was then offered as a premium for
    listeners, who would enter a "Why I Like Pepsodent Tooth Powder" contest.
    Correll and Gosden told Lasker to be ready for a huge listener response.

    At the start of the promotion in November 1934, Lord and Thomas had
    assigned eight typists to handle A&A-related mail. By the end of the
    first week, more than 200 were needed, and by the end of the promotion,
    over a million maps had been sent out. Correll and Gosden made their
    point, and were renewed by Pepsodent for $300,000 a year.

    The map wasn't the only publicity stunt related to the Weber City
    storyline -- early in the sequence, Correll and Gosden were visiting
    Washington DC, and took the opportunity to burst in on a meeting of the
    Reconstruction Finance Corporation to demand an RFC loan for Weber City.
    As the astonished bureaucrats watched, RFC chairman Jesse H. Jones -- a
    personal friend of Gosden and Correll -- wrote out a check for $2, and
    sent the triumphant performers on their way. That framed check hung on
    their office wall for years thereafter.

    Elizabeth

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

    Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:33:17 -0400
    From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Coverage: Then and Now

    On 9/18/01 2:10 AM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:

>     was astounded at how different it was from the plethora of
>     non-stop news coverage of last week's events. The NY Philharmonic was
>     interrupted with the newscaster telling the general skeleton of the
>     information that he had just received about the Pearl Harbor bombing, and
>     then went back to playing music of the Philharmonic again. That would be a
>     novel concept in today's media, actually going back to the regular
>     programming until something new developed.

    Unfortunately, this particular clip is a proven forgery -- taking the
    pastiche clip of John Daly "interrupting this program" from the
    Murrow-Friendly "I Can Hear It Now" album and thrusting it rather
    clumsily into a fragment of the Philharmonic broadcast. CBS in fact
    *didn't* interrupt any programming for the first announcement of the
    attack -- it was announced by them as the first story of their
    regularly-scheduled 2:30 pm (EST) newscast. The Philharmonic broadcast
    did come on next, at 3 pm, and included a roundup-type summary of
    developing news at the intermission.

    In fact, though, neither CBS or NBC went to "continuous coverage" during
    Pearl Harbor -- although there were long stretches of semi-continuous
    coverage. Regular programming did continue thru the evening. There may be
    several reasons for this -- foremost of which were contractural
    committments. Sponsors owned the time slots they bought for their
    programs, and the networks required special permission from those
    sponsors in order to dump sponsored broadcasts for special news reports,
    and any portion of a program that was interrupted required compensation
    for the time lost. It may be that, as the attack came on a Sunday
    afternoon when advertising agency offices were normally closed, there was
    simply no chance to obtain the permission of sponsors to dump their
    programs en masse and clear the schedule for continuous news. This is
    just an off-the-top of the head theory on my part, and if anyone has
    researched exactly what happened in the network business offices that
    afternoon, it would be interesting to hear the story.

    The situation with D-Day was different -- protocols for the invasion were
    laid out clearly well in advance for clearing air time, and thus there
    was a great deal of continuous coverage. NBC, to its credit, ran
    continuous coverage for over 24 hours after the invasion began -- while
    CBS, rather embarassingly, returned to its regular schedule at 10 am on
    June 6th -- as though anyone could possibly have cared what happened to
    "Valiant Lady" at that particular point in history. NBC's continuous
    coverage of D-Day was not at all unlike the continuous coverage we've
    seen lately -- long, long stretches of time-filling commentary taking up
    the slack between items of hard news, interviews, schmaltzy essays, and
    patriotic music fill.  One may prefer H. V. Kaltenborn's extemporaneous
    analysis to that of Tom Brokaw -- but they were basically doing the same
    thing.

    All that said, though, I don't really think there's any valid basis to
    compare what we've seen over the past week with *anything* broadcast
    during the OTR era. OTR-era news divisions dealt admirably with the
    progress of a world war, working in close cooperation with military
    authorities -- but they never had to deal with a sudden and devastating
    simultaneous attack on the middle of New York City and the heart of the
    military from an unknown enemy. Radio City wasn't being evacuated of all
    non-essential personell while Kaltenborn was on the air on D-Day morning,
    nor did Richard Harkness suddenly hear an enormous explosion while he was
    on the air from the Pentagon. How would OTR-era stateside news personell
    have responded to such an attack? We'll never know. They never had to
    face one.

    Elizabeth

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

    Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:41:03 -0400
    From: WRVO Radio <wrvo@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Pledge of Alleigence - Red Skelton

    Folks:

    I have a local librarian looking for a copy of a Red Skelton recording or
    broadcast she heard over the weekend.  Since WRVO airs 30 hours of OTR, she
    thought we aired but we did not.

    Its Red performing the Pledge of Allegiance.

    If anyone can point me to the broadcast information, I can check our
    collection or even better if its up on the web somewhere I can send the
    Librarian directly to it.

    Thanks

    John Krauss
    Host WRVO Playhouse - Syracuse NY

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

    Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:41:23 -0400
    From: Jerry Bechtel <[removed]@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  The Aldrich Family

    When you are a 6 year old kid listening to the radio in the early '40's,
    you believe almost anything. The plots of The Aldrich Family may seem
    unbelieveable now, when you listen to them, but much of the show was
    just as we were back then. Henry and Homer simply reflected how we lived
    back in those days. I know it's pretty unbelieveable! Henry's dates with
    the girls, been there done that, his problems with Homer, been there
    done that, his misunderstandings  with the neighbors, been there done
    that, but of course, all in the "40's. It's really not all that
    unbelieveable.

    Jerry Bechtel

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

    Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:41:56 -0400
    From: khovard@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  OTR blacklisting, Red Scare infor etc.

    Bryan Powell asked how he might   learn more about the effects of
    anti-Communist activities, blacklisting, self-censorship, etc. on the
    Hollywood film community during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s,
    He also wanted to know how the Cold War climate in general, affected OTR
    programming.

    My book, Words at War: World War II Era Radio Drama and the Postwar
    Broadcasting Industry Blacklist  is scheduled for publication in 2002 by
    Scarecrow [removed] Besides describing the history of wartime radio drama,
    I tell how during the war from time to time the Red Baiters tried to
    silence progressive radio writers. After the war, they were successful in
    doing so. With the  cooperation of a variety of organizations the
    blacklist  drove  many writers and some actors out of  broadcasting -
    some  permanently and others temporarily.

    A second book, already published, is  Paul Buhle's "A Very Dangerous
    Man," the biography of film director (and  for a while radio writer)
    Abraham Polonsky. (I don't have the book in front of me - he had a
    co-author) It gives a very clear full and clear picture of the times. The
    University of California  Press published it and it is not a light read.
    But it's a fascinating one. So is Buhle's book

    Howard Blue

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

    Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:42:28 -0400
    From: khovard@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  OTR blacklisting, Red Scare: Correction.

    Whoops. I erred  in the message that I  just sent. The correct title of
    Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner's new book is "A Very Dangerous Citizen" - not
    "A Very Dangerous Man"

    Howard

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

    Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:42:28 -0400
    From: khovard@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  station WEAF

    >From where  does (did?) Radio Station WEAF broadcast?

    Howard

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

    Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:32:43 -0400
    From: "Harold Zeigler" <hzeigler@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  [removed]

    	Hi Anybody,
         I just saw a item obout a book "Behind Your Radio Dial" put out by
    [removed] I believe would be the same title of a film short made for movie
    theaters in 1948.
         I have a copy of "Behind Your Radio Dial" on video I bought at one of
    the radio conventions in the past few years which was narriated by Ben
    Grauer.
    				Till Next Time,Harold

    	[removed]
    	GOD BLESS AMERICA.

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

    Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 01:53:41 -0400
    From: Osborneam@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Hudnut

    I just noticed that Dunning states that Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy's
    show was sponsored by Hudnut between 1952-1953.

    Can anyone tell me what Hudnut was?

    Arlene Osborne

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

    Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 01:53:50 -0400
    From: Osborneam@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  When the Lights Go On Again All Over the World

    Can anyone tell me who sings "When the Lights Go On Again All Over
    the World" that is being played on YUSA?  (It has been following Kate
    Smith's magnificent rendition of "God Bless America")

    Arlene Osborne

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

    Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:03:13 -0400
    From: "B. J. Watkins" <kinseyfan@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Kate Smith

    In Digest 305, Michael Biel wrote about Kate Smith:

>     But then she started her dramatic repeat of that last line: "God Bless
>     America . . ."

    <snip>

>     About ten years later I know I saw it again and I am sure I was
>     videotaping it.  Does anybody recognize what it might have been so I
>     might try to dig it up.

    I enjoyed reading your description of Kate Smith singing "God Bless
    America". From the facts you gave, I got out my copy of Richard K. Hayes'
    book on Kate Smith to see if I could identify it. I believe it might be the
    "Stars and Stripes Show" taped on June 17 and televised June 30, 1976.
    According to Hayes, it was a two-hour, star-studded bicentennial special.
    She sing "God Bless America" and was her final television performance. If
    you have the book, it's on page 231.

    At least it's a starting point in your search for the tape.

    Barbara

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

    Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:01:48 -0400
    From: chris chandler <chrischandler84@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  abysmal news coverage

    Ryan Hall writes:

>     I have to agree that the news coverage of the tragedy

    last week was >abyssmal.

    Then to [removed]

>     went and listened to a broadcast of

    a >radio show that was playing the New York
    Philharmonic when the news of
    Pearl >Harbor was breaking

>     on that). I was astounded at how different it was

    from the plethora of

>     non-stop news coverage of last week's events.

    There've been a couple posts on this subject over the
    past couple days, each implying that the 1941-style
    Pearl Harbor coverage is superior to what we've seen
    over the past week.

    First, as many others will likely point out, Mr.
    Hall's cherished NY Philharmonic broadcast is a phony:
     a not-very-cleverly doctored mish-mash of two
    separate recordings, one of which is also a fraud, and
    which bares no resemblance to the way the Pearl Harbor
    story actually broke.

    Other posters, notably Mr. A. Kallis, Jr. and Mr.
    Harris are correct, and on a point I'm not sure lots
    of people today would really guess:  strange as it may
    seem today, indeed there was NOT blanket or
    "continuous" coverage of the attack on Hawaii.

    NBC's longest pre-midnight news broadcast on December
    7th, 1941 ran less than an hour!  Almost every program
    WAS interrupted for bulletins, and the overnight hours
    did feature a higher news content.  But the Red
    network didn't even broadcast the famous "live bombing
    of Manila" as it happened the next afternoon (2:20PM);
    the soaps continued as normal until the Red finally
    deigned to play a (*gasp*) recording of the broadcast
    late that afternoon, with the not-very-convincing
    explanation that it was meant for defense workers who
    may have 'missed' the earlier live broadcast.  Nice
    try. :-)

    In fact, that night, even the news that 50
    unidentified planes were headed for San Francisco
    wasn't enough to get the Red to interrupt "Voice of
    Firestone"!

    Truly, a FAR cry from what we've seen this week.

    I've always wondered WHY this was the case in 1941,
    and never come up with a very satisfactory
    explanation.  The technical difficulties of getting
    the story out of Hawaii?  Not likely; both NBC and
    CBS, as late as 11PM that Sunday night, were calling
    in remotes from Honolulu.  And certainly there was
    plenty of information to justify a longer-form
    broadcast.

    Was it that the very *concept* of continuous coverage
    was unknown?  Not really.  The nets, down to and
    including Mutual, had broadcast several free-flowing,
    relatively unstructured, long-form broadcasts upon the
    outbreak of war in Europe in September, 1939.
    Although they were mostly in the middle of the night,
    NBC ran several long-form crisis broadcasts as Hitler
    crossed into country after country through 1940 and
    1941.

    In that case, of course, the networks (particularly
    CBS) were indulging in their Anglo-centric, almost
    snobbishly elitist fascination with all things
    European.  Perhaps the outbreak of Pacific war didn't
    hold the same fascination.   Or perhaps executives,
    like many Americans, didn't quite grasp the magnitude
    of the crisis.  My grandmother always told me she'd
    never *heard* of Pearl Harbor til that day.  And
    contestants on the 12/8/41 "Dr. IQ" quiz program,
    asked questions about the unfolding emergency, missed
    almost ALL of them--the quizmaster himself
    misprouncing "Oahu" and other topical names.  Was
    nobody paying attention? :-)

    In any event, on the question of whether the Pearl
    Harbor-type coverage was 'better' than what we've seen
    in [removed] one question:  was it really necessary
    for NBC Red to finish broadcasting the 'Mary Marlin'
    soap opera before reporting first word that 1,500
    people were dead in Hawaii?  The answer was just as
    resounding a "NO" 60 years ago as today. Surely a
    critic like Mr. Hall would be complaining just as
    loudly today had the NBC of 2001 continued
    broadcasting "Days of Our Lives" while the nation was
    literally under attack.  What would he have had the
    networks do?

    As a broadcaster who works in a largish American city
    which, like most others, found itself in the middle of
    a genuine national emergency last Tuesday, I feel a
    few of our critics might reconsider.  I can promise
    you that there was not a person near a mirophone or
    camera that day who had EVER felt a heavier weight
    upon his shoulders.  Of course there were mistakes.
    But I doubt we'll ever see a finer performance from
    the nation's broadcasters:  the networks stayed almost
    completely devoid of hype, sensationalism,
    self-promotion, or preening.  The national anchors
    fulfilled a vital national function during a period of
    terrifying uncertainty.  And the reporters on the
    ground in New York and Washington, some of whom came
    close to losing their lives, almost unanimously did
    some of the best work of their careers.  Compare that
    to a national crisis that unfolded in 1941 with
    relatively scant on-air effort to inform, calm, or
    prepare a frightened nation, and I think you have to
    say THIS--not Pearl Harbor--was broadcasting's finest
    hour.

    Chris

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

    Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:03:29 -0400
    From: Richard Carpenter <sinatra@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Missing a cassette

       While traveling, I lost Tape 12 from the "CBS 60 Greatest Old Time Radio
    Shows" collection. Could some nice person who has the collection make me a
    copy of that tape? I'd be happy to swap an MP3 or copy a cassette of my own
    for them or whatever. Thanks.

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2001 Issue #307
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