Subject: [removed] Digest V2005 #24
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 1/21/2005 9:29 PM
To: [removed]@[removed]

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2005 : Issue 24
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                             [removed]
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Dossier On Dumetrius                  [ "Austotr" <austotr@[removed]; ]
  Bill Felton                           [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
  Nose Full of Nickels                  [ David Loftus <dloft59@[removed] ]
  Major [removed] Cartoons             [ "Derek Tague" <derek@[removed]; ]
  Uncle Floyd Vivino                    [ "[removed]" <asajb2000@ ]
  [removed]                                 [ "James Yellen" <clifengr3@[removed] ]
  I'm My Own Grandpa                    [ "James Yellen" <clifengr3@[removed] ]
  Re: same old question                 [ Graham Newton <gn@audio-restoration ]
  OTR Research                          [ "bcockrum" <rmc44@[removed]; ]
  More "Im My Own Grandaw"              [ "Derek Tague" <derek@[removed]; ]
  Candy from Mars                       [ <otrbuff@[removed]; ]
  practical television in the '20's?    [ "Mark Kinsler" <kinsler33@[removed] ]

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 17:58:43 -0500
From: "Austotr" <austotr@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Dossier On Dumetrius

In issue #22 Jim Kitchen asked about Dossier on Dumetrius.

I just listened to the "Dossier on Dumitrius." It took me a month to
complete 104 episodes. With episodes averaging about 12 - minutes this
is 22 hours of enjoyable listening! The casting was fantastic with all
voices fitting their parts.

Perhaps, our Australian Colleagues can provide information about Grace
Gibson Radio Productions, Major Gregory Keen and are there other Major
Keen Serials in circulation?

G'Day Jim,

Below is a little blurb on Grace Gibson that I wrote a couple of years back.
There is a book in progress, being written about Grace Gibson by Reg James
who took over Grace Gibson Productions.  He is the best one to write it as
he was there at the time.  Not sure of a release date for the book, but will
advise when known.

As for Major Gregory Keen, there are 5 serials of which Dossier on Dumetrius
is the first.  All 5 series survive and thanks to Craig Nugent and Jamie
Kelly I have been able to put four of the 5 into circulation so far.  The
fifth will be in circulation shortly.

If you are a book reader, you will find Lindsey Hardy's books on Major Keen
are available in the [removed] out [removed]  in fact very few are
here in Australia, he was very popular in the [removed]

The other Major Keen stories are: Deadly Nightshade (only released into
circulation in the last couple of months), Twenty Six Hours (been in
circulation about 6 - 8 months),  Two Roads To Samarra (being released into
circulation in about a month).

The last for release is The Smell Of Terror.  It is still being recorded.

If you like Gregory Keen, try out Undercover Carson, another 104 episode spy
drama and Passage of the Tangmar a 52 episode whodunit.

If you are unable to find the shows I mentioned, just email me and we will
work out how to get them to you and anyone else wanting to listen.

GRACE GIBSON (work in progress)

(by Ian Grieve - Australian OTR Group)

Grace Gibson was born in El Paso, Texas, but was brought up and educated in
Hollywood.  She worked as a combined office-girl, typist, switchboard
operator, coffee maker and general rouseabout in one of the first [removed]
transcription companies, Radio Transcription Company Of America, a business
that transcribed plays, serials and talks for resale to radio stations.

She learnt so much about the business that she formed herself into a
one-woman entertainment committee and advisor for visiting buyers.

Amoung these buyers in the middle 1930's, was [removed] Bennett, the Manager of
Sydney's 2GB.  After returning to Australia he cabled Miss Gibson's boss
asking for a loan of his Girl Friday, with all expenses paid and a return
ticket thrown in.  Grace Gibson stayed 3 months in Australia, helping 2GB
with the technical side of setting up transcriptions, before returning to
America to sign up more contracts for Bennett, who was in the process of
setting up American Radio Transcription Agencies, or ARTRANSA, his own
transcribing service and Grace Gibson became its first Manager.

Grace Gibson became Managing Director of the company she originally worked
for in the [removed], then returned to Australia in 1944 to marry a good-looking
Irishman called Ronald McDonald Parr.

Shortly after her wedding to Parr she began Grace Gibson Radio Productions
in a small office in Savoy House, Bligh Street, Sydney.

At the peak of her productions, her weekly output was thirty quarter-hours,
each using a cast of no fewer than six, necessitating 180 calls (as radio
assignments are known).  Each quarter hour was rehearsed for forty five
minutes.

The words "A Grace Gibson radio production' heralded her shows, which were
heard on stations all over Australia.

Two of Australia's longest running serials were from her stable. Dr Paul
which ran for 4634 episodes and Portia Faces Life 3544 episodes.

Stories about Grace Gibson:

Kathleen Carroll, Chief scriptwriter, told that her Boss, Miss Gibson,
apparently read most of the scripts submitted to her while she lay in bed,
so:

"If she fell asleep before page three, my scripts had no chance of being
accepted.  If she got a little further, then, maybe, I could get by with a
[removed] she read the first episode to the end and reached for the
second, I was definately in.  So I figured the best way to keep the lady
awake was to open each new show with a lusty verbal battle between a couple
of [removed] forget the introduction, forget the explanation, just let
your characters go at it hammer and tongs for the first few pages.  Maybe
thats why Grace gibson shows were so successful, they had to open with a
bang."

Lyndall Barbour, who played the stalwart and noble Portia, once decided that
she didn't want to face life for a while, and made plans to go overseas.
When Grace heard this, she became very worried. Portia Faces Life was a
great money-spinner for her company and Barbour had played Portia for so
long and had such a distinctive voice that she would have been difficult to
replace.  "Will you give Lyndall a message from me?" she allegedly asked a
collegue.  "Tell her that I've seen the world and it's not worth it!"

The majority of the above information was from:

Wonderful Wireless by Nancye Bridges (publisher-Methuen Australia P/L) ISBN
0 454 00513 X
The Magic Spark-50 Years of Radio in Australia by [removed] Walker
(publisher-Hawthorn)SBN 7256 0116 7

Ian Grieve
Moderator
Australian Old Time Radio Group

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 18:12:56 -0500
From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio List <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Bill Felton

It is with heavy heart that I announce the passing of Bill Felton, long time
member of the Milwaukee Area Radio Enthusiasts and NightMARE Players. Although
not in network radio he did have a stints in local radio. This is the entry for
him in Luther F. Sies' "Encyclopedia of American Radio, 1020-1969."

8785  Felton, William "Bill," Newscaster
(WOSH, Oshkosh, WI, 1945). DJ ("Valley
Varieties," WNAM, Neenah, WI, 1947;
"Recreation Room", WHBY, Appleton, WI, 1949).

He assured me that he did much more radio than what was listed.

He was born March 17, 1918 in Greenland, MI and was raised in Appleton, WI.

He will be missed.

Ron Sayles
President
Milwaukee Area Radio Enthusiasts

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:52:51 -0500
From: David Loftus <dloft59@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Nose Full of Nickels

Somebody mentioned a novelty song called (or at least about) "nose full of
nickels." This is the first I heard of it being a song. However, Stan Freburg
built an entire sketch around the phrase, in the form of a "Lox Audio
Theater" drama presentation, "brought to you by Lox Soap, the only
salmon-shaped bar that swims up-tub."

The play was entitled "Rock Around My Nose," and concerned a wealthy codger
who could not "get close" to his son for reasons that were as plain as the .
. . well, you can guess. At a crucial point in the story, the narrator
recounts a golfing lesson during which the pro admonishes him to keep his eye
on the ball in order to avoid slicing. "I know, but that's hard to do, 'Mac,'
" he says. "My nose overshadows it."

The pro says (in a broad Scottish brogue, of course), "Aye, ye go' a pretty
big proboscis." And then adds enviously, "Oh, how I wish I had that nose full
o' nickels."

That nose full of nickels, the protagonist muses. I had heard that phrase
before, walking through the streets of town after dark. "Hey, Gerd; get a
load o' that bugle!"  "Wow, I wish I had that nose full of nickels!"
Whereupon voices start chanting in a climbing mound of hysteria, "Nose full
of nickels, nose full of nickels, nose full of nickels, NOSE FULL OF NICKELS."

"STOP IT!" Freburg cries, and in the ensuing silence adds, with suitably
dramatic portent in his voice: "I . . . I began to think about my nose. How
many nickels would it hold?" Just the whole ludicrousness of the imagery made
the story hilarious to me, even lacking any notion of an earlier pop
reference.

What topped off this sketch is that after the heartwarming end of the play,
the "actors" (one of them played by Arnold Stang, I suspect) gathered in the
"green room" of the Lox Audio Theater and commenced rather quickly to snipe
at and attack one another.

David Loftus

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:53:19 -0500
From: "Derek Tague" <derek@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Major [removed] Cartoons
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

With all this talk about Major (Edward) Bowes and his radio amateur hour, I'd
like to posit the following:

In a Paramount/Max Fleischer "Popeye" cartoon circa 1935, our hero runs afoul
of the cartoon's title adversary
"Big Chief Ugh-Amugh-Ugh" (all right, it extremely politically incorrect by
today's standards). It seems the Chief
has his eyes set on Olive Oyl and challenges Popeye to an archery contest in
order to win her. At one point, Jack
Mercer/Popeye mumbles  the line "Who made-your- bows? An amateur?"

There is also a line about being discovered by Major Bowes in the song "I Love
to Singa," originated by Al Jolson
and made popular by the Warner Bros. cartoon of the same name, directed by
Fred (before he was "Tex") Avery.

Best from the ether!

Derek Tague

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:53:46 -0500
From: "[removed]" <asajb2000@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Uncle Floyd Vivino

Someone mentioned Uncle Floyd (Vivino) and he is one
of those people who always seemed older than he was.
He was influenced by radio, collected thousands of
78's and electrical transcriptions and also knew the
old themes and big-band songs and is now only in his
50's.  He was impressed by radio at an early age and
hosts the Italian-American Show on WRTN in New
Rochelle on Sundays I believe as well as other
stations.  His audience on WRTN is all the folks who
live on Arthur Avenue in the North Bronx.

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:55:38 -0500
From: "James Yellen" <clifengr3@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  [removed]

Chet Norris recently posted:

hi all
i remember dr. iq saying something like "10 silver dollars to that lady
in the balcony" but if the person didn't answer correctly he then said
something about MARS BARS ..does anyone remember exactly what he said re
mars bars?
thanx, chet norris

I invite all Dr. IQ fans to go to my on-line novel, THE WISTFUL RADIO
CHRONICLES, and check out Chapter 3, THE GREAT RADIO GIVEAWAY DISASTER, for
a tale about a lesson in life that I learned from Dr. IQ. Here's the URL

[removed]

Thanks for listening

Jim Yellen

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:56:14 -0500
From: "James Yellen" <clifengr3@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  I'm My Own Grandpa

there were several poster references recently to I'M MY OWN GRANDPA,
including reference to a version by Phil Harris.

My recollection of the song is a version by Guy Lombardo, vocal by brother
Carmen (I think) on a 50s album my father owned.

But I see that the Phil Harris version is on a compilation CD I have called
THAT'S WHAT I LIKE ABOUT PHIL HARRIS. Except that the Harris version is
called HE'S HIS OWN GRANDPA, and Harris tells the story about his friend.
I'm a Harris fan, but I prefer the Lombardo version.

BTW, this CD also contains THE THING.

JIm Yellen

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:57:00 -0500
From: Graham Newton <gn@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: same old question

Pete <pappleyard_ca@[removed]; said to the OTR [removed]
On the subject:  same old question

My father-in-law George has asked this question many
many times and has never come across a show yet but
once a year he asks me to ask the folks that get The
OTR Digest again so here is the question  " Does
anyone have a copy of a Canadian show that was
broadcast during the war year, the show was named " L
for Lanky "

Hello [removed]

I've answered this before, but here it is [removed]

According to the actual transcription label the show is titled "L FOR LANKY"
written all in caps.

The program was not done live, but rather by an agency (Baker Advertising
Agency Limited) which apparently transcribed it and later scrapped all the
discs.  The recordings were done by CKCL Mutual Broadcasting System
444 University Avenue Toronto.

The show was, as many of that period were, controlled by the advertizing
agency for the sponsor, and most of the transcriptions were destroyed when
the agencies went out of business.

There are no complete shows but one short fragment does exist in the
CBC library.

I transferred a glass-based lacquer transcription, about 5 years ago, of
the first half of "L for Lanky" show No. 9 broadcast on December 19th 1943
and with excellent quality.  No more could be found where that one came from.

There are only the two known parts of that series still [removed]  the
fragment in CBC archives in Toronto, and the 1/2 show that I transferred a
few years ago.

A [removed] are you any relation to the vibraphonist Peter Appleyard?

... Graham Newton

--
Audio Restoration by Graham Newton, [removed]
World class professional services applied to tape or phonograph records for
consumers and re-releases, featuring CEDAR's new CAMBRIDGE processes.

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:57:41 -0500
From: "bcockrum" <rmc44@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  OTR Research

As long as we're griping about OTR authors and books and such, let me just
nominate "Same Time, Same Station" as one of the worst I've come across. It
was published, ironically, by Facts on File in 1996. Unlike the
better-heeled folks on the list, I wait for the remainders to hit places
like Hamilton Books and buy them for a tenth of their published price, so
it's only been within the last couple of years I saw a copy.

The broadcast histories (days, years, time of day) are confusing and in many
cases just plain wrong. I can't recall all the factual errors, but the one
that really stopped me cold was the entry for Paul Harvey: "Though he
retired in the mid-1980s, he occasionally gives special reports on ABC and
for National Public Radio." My guess is that might have been a sentence that
got loose from the description of Robert Trout, which doesn't mention his
switch from CBS to ABC.

But mistakes are going to happen regardless. As one of my college journalism
professors delighted in saying, "Reporters publish their mistakes, doctors
bury theirs."

Bob

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:54:51 -0500
From: "Derek Tague" <derek@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  More "Im My Own Grandaw"
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

Hjya Gang;

 >jameshburns@[removed] (Jim Burns) really made my day when he posted about
Phil
Harris's recording of "I'm My Own Grandpaw."

That's neat! I was only familiar with Floyd Vivino's version, from the
'70s and '80s, on THE UNCLE FLOYD SHOW.

To borrow a catch-phrase from a popular latter-day radio talk-show host,
MEGA-DITTOES to that.
My first exposure to the "Grandpaw" song was via it having been frequently
being performed by "Uncle
Floyd"  Vivino in character as "Cowboy Charlie" on his [removed] "The Uncle
Floyd Show."

As a teenager, I grew up living about three miles away from Floyd's Channel 68
studio in West Orange, NJ.
I spent a great deal of time hanging out at tapings of "Uncle Floyd."
Eventually, thanks to my then encyclopaedic
knowledge about the show, I was dubbed by Mr. Vivino "the Official Historian
of  The Uncle Floyd Show,"
and during one of the show's low ebbs in 1983-84, was an actual bit
player/sometimes cast member.

Floyd recorded "I'm My Own Grandpaw" as "Cowboy Charlie." From about 1979
until the mid-1980s, he released
this and other songs in the guise of some of his other characters as 45 rpm
singles on the small BIOYA label,
pronounced BOY-uh, which was actually an acronyn for something I cannot fully
repeat in this venue (hint:
the B & the I stand for "blow it.").  The BIOYA studios were located in the
often flood-prone Totowa NJ and
the masters for all these Floyd singles have since been destroyed by flooding
in the late 1980s.

For the record, Floyd's brothers Jerry and Jimmy Vivino are band members in
the Max Weinberg Seven, the house
band on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." Jerry's daughter  Donna played the
part of the child-waif "Cosette" in
the original American version of the Broadway stage musical "Les Miserables"
in the mid-1980s. It's  the young Donna
Vivino who is pictured as the little girl on all the "Les Miz" merchandise.

Jim Burns did mention Floyd's radio connections my citing FV's Italian music
radio show heard in the NYC area.
I'd like to add another: Floyd played the overnight DJ in the Robin
Williams-as-Adrian Croanuer film 'Good Morning,
Vietnam."

Walkin' Out!

Derek Tague

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:35:46 -0500
From: <otrbuff@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Candy from Mars

Chet Norris recalls for us those confectionary years ((1939-42, 1944-49)
that Mars, Inc. underwrote Dr. I. Q.  Mars made, we were repeatedly
reminded, "America's most enjoyable candy bars."  While the firm actually
did manufacture a chocolate bar named Dr. I. Q., it also produced Forever
Yours, Mars, Milky Way, Snickers, Three Musketeers and others (distributed
by Nestle today).  Mars normally budgeted $700 weekly as instant quicksilver
prize money for winning players.  ("Pay that man 18 silver dollars!")  The
sum in silver dollars for correct answers was measured by the perceived
level of knowledge required by a particular question.

Once a contestant got totally fouled up with his answer to a "Monument to
Memory" in which he was required to repeat a phrase verbatim that was read
aloud by Dr. I. Q.  Half way through it the guy on the spot cried, "Oh, just
gimmie the box of candy!"

Announcer Allan C. Anthony was celebrated by pundits for "marvelously
convincing marketing messages" on behalf of the sponsor.  He wrapped his
delivery in onomatopoeic phrases like "creamy nougat" and "delicious
chocolate."  So convincing was he that the sponsor hired him to perform the
same duty on several other series Mars underwrote including Dr. I. Q. Jr.
and Inner Sanctum Mysteries.

Many more details of this series appear in "The Great Radio Audience
Participation Shows" available at [removed] or 800-253-2187.

Jim Cox

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 22:21:36 -0500
From: "Mark Kinsler" <kinsler33@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  practical television in the '20's?

Many believed at the time that CBS was doing so well
with radio that it actually opposed the introduction of [removed];

This squares with my research into the fascinatingly captivating
compulsions
of David Sarnoff and William S. Paley.

I really wonder if the technology of the times (1928???) would have been up
to the task of television broadcasting.  The bandwidth of an acceptable TV
signal is so wide (one TV channel requires 6 MHz of frequency space, while
all of AM radio occupies but one MHz) that only VHF broadcasting makes the
medium practical.  And I don't believe that anyone was working with
frequencies that high outside of physics laboratories.  So while I don't
know the timeline, my sense is that VHF wasn't a practical proposition until
'lighthouse' tubes (named for their shape, they fit inside a large coaxial
cavity) were developed in probably the late 1930's.

I also doubt that a decent picture tube could have been made without our
experience with radar 'scopes in WWII.  The cathode ray oscilloscope barely
existed in the late '20's--I think it was exclusively a laboratory
instrument, and I don't think that the precision control circuits necessary
to make a useable quick-changing raster pattern could have been
mass-produced for quite a few years even if war hadn't intervened.

Corrections are invited.

M Kinsler

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2005 Issue #24
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