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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