Subject: [removed] Digest V2003 #307
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 8/10/2003 3:32 PM

To: <[removed]@[removed];

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2003 : Issue 307
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Seeking Dan Dunn                      [ Jack & Cathy French <otrpiano@erols ]
      more on the Victrola thread           [ "ellsworth o johnson" <eojohnsonww2 ]
      suspense                              [ "Kurt E. Yount" <blsmass@[removed]; ]
      Seckatary Hawkins                     [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
      Re: The Evolution of Sapphire         [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
      Domineering wives on OTR              [ Kenneth Clarke <kclarke5@[removed]; ]
      Re: Bre'r Rabbit                      [ Gerry Wright <gdwright@[removed] ]
      Sekatary Hawkins                      [ otrbuff@[removed] ]
      THREE STOOGES                         [ wilditralian@[removed] ]
      Ernie Kovacs trivia                   [ "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@hotm ]
      Spy shows, etc                        [ Jack & Cathy French <otrpiano@erols ]
      Sekatary Hawkins (correct spelling)   [ Jack & Cathy French <otrpiano@erols ]
      Firefighters                          [ otrbuff@[removed] ]
      Glad Hal's Back                       [ "Penne Yingling" <bp_ying@[removed] ]
      Ted Healy                             [ JimInks@[removed] ]
      Domineering OTR females and miscella  [ JackBenny@[removed] ]

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 14:16:19 -0400
    From: Jack & Cathy French <otrpiano@[removed];
    To: OTRBB <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Seeking Dan Dunn

    In connection with my upcoming book on radio's lady detectives, I am
    trying to locate episodes of "Dan Dunn, Secret Operative 48." Jay
    Hickerson's Ultimate Guide indicates there are four surviving copies of
    this 1937 series, which originally distributed a total of 78 syndicated
    programs.

    Dunn, who came to the comic strips in 1933, was an obvious copy of Dick
    Tracy. Norman Marsh, who created and drew the strip, copied Gould's
    square-jawed sleuth with no apology. The difference in their
    occupations was that Tracy was a police detective, while Dunn was an
    operative for the [removed] Secret Service.  When Dunn arrived on radio, the
    scripters added a female associate, Kay Fields, who like Dunn, was a
    Secret Service operative and they worked as a team.

    So far, I've found only one episode, the initial one in a story about
    international spies sabotaging a new bomber airplane. It crashes at the
    airport, in view of Dunn and Fields, and their chief suspect, Lobar,
    escapes in a car a few minutes later. Would be interested in obtaining
    the other three episodes in circulation.

    Jack French
    Editor: RADIO RECALL

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 15:01:00 -0400
    From: "ellsworth o johnson" <eojohnsonww2@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  more on the Victrola thread

    For starters I own a book which I suppose is rare. It was printed in
    1991published by the General Electric Co primarily for their employees and
    former employees. It is absolutely loaded with pictures and has quite a
    story and history of the Victor Co. and the story goes that it took 6 years
    to get it altogether prior to printing. The title is " His Masters Voice In
    America " It is a beautiful hardback book with hundred of pages. I believe
    there were only 4500 printed. Mine is a first edition and I don't think it
    was ever reprinted.

    I tried [removed] and Powells in Portland, Or. Neither had one.
    I wanted to find out what they might ask for one.

    I owned two beautiful Victor Orthophonic phonographs back in the 40s and
    60s. All I have now are photographs of them. One was absolutely top of the
    Victor line. A huge beautiful cabinet with the first automatic record
    changer that Victor produced. Like a dummy I removed all the guts so as to
    use the cabinet to built a state of the art phonograph for those
    days---which I did. When I tired of it and it also went obsolete I donated
    it to a school my children were attending. I don't actually know what ever
    became of it finally.

    I imagine in todays collectors market it would be worth thousands of dollars
    if it were as I first obtained it. The story on that is my Father worked for
    a large furniture store in Spokane, Wa in the 1920s and they were sales
    agents for Victor. The CEO of this store had this Victor Orthophonic in his
    home. Eventually when something newer appeared it was taken back to his
    store and stored on an upper floor. When I returned from WW2 I was in the
    mood to build a modern phonograph . I had lots of electronic experience
    under my belt and some pretty fancy ideas of what I wanted to build. My
    Father and myself knew many of the exectutives at this store and when I went
    there looking for a cabinet and  they were so happy to see me home in one
    piece from the war that they practically gave this beautiful Victor
    Orthophonic to me .

    My collecting interests always favored top of the line things. For example I
    owned a Steinway Reproducing Duo Art player grand piano in a Louis XVI
    artcasework. I ultimetly sold it to a friend in Seattle, Wa who kept
    pestering me to buy it and one day I needed some money more than that piano
    and I weakened and sold it for $ 4500. Today that piano goes for $ 45,000.
    Harold Loyd the famous silent movie star had a twin to it. I visted his
    mansion in Beverly Hills Calif. after his death and saw his piano-- exactly
    a twin to mine which I had already disposed of.

    Ellsworth Johnson
    Spokane, Wa

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 15:05:44 -0400
    From: "Kurt E. Yount" <blsmass@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  suspense

    Well, suspense is one of my favorite shows.  Don't forget The Long Night
    with Frank Lovejoy.  That remains one of the best shows ever done.  House
    in Cypress Canyon is also quite good.  Return to Dust is definitely a
    must.  If you haven't heard those, enjoy.  Kurt

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 17:01:12 -0400
    From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Seckatary Hawkins

    Dennis Crow notes,

>     One of my Elderhostel audience members last night, originally from
>     Cincinnati, remembers an old-time radio program she felt was called
>     "Secretary Hawkins."  She had evidently acquired a book as a prize from
>     that program and wondered if I had heard of the show.   I have not.  Have
>     any of you?

    I've been told that Dunning's sometimes omitted syndicated programs, and
    this may have been one.  According to Tom Tumbusch's radio-TV premium
    book,

    "Seckatary Hawkins was the leader of a group of good boys who helped the
    authorities round up bad boys.  The program was based on the comic strip
    of the same name by Robert F. Schulkers.  The motto of the Seck Hawkins
    Club was 'Fair and Square.'  Ralston sponsored the program through the
    1932 season with a 'food drink' continuing the show for one more year in
    1933."

    Since Ralston sponsored the show, its premiums sometimes had the same
    checkerboard pattern as the later Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters
    premiums, and have even been mistaken for Tom Mix items.  One of the
    premiums listed is a paperback book, Ghost of Lake Tapaho, which is what
    the lady might have been talking about.  The only other premium
    associated with the program is listed as a reprint of the comic strip,
    and titled The Red Runners.

    The Seckatary Hawkins Fair and Square Spinner issued in 1932, is often
    mistaken for the Tom Mix Good Luck Spinner, issued in 1933.

    Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 17:01:19 -0400
    From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: The Evolution of Sapphire

    On 8/9/03 2:30 PM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:

>     4. On The Amos N Andy shows--- I can never get this [removed] but there
>     was that one woman who was attached to one of the boys who was constantly
>     getting on his back for money, getting a job, [removed] It wasn't Madame Queen,
>     was it?  As I recall, whoever it was, always had her mother around to help
>     instigate the verbal [removed] Can anyone help me with this fragmented
>     observation? Who am I actually talking about??  Am I making it up?

    In the sitcom-era incarnation of A&A, you're talking about Sapphire
    Stevens, wife of the Kingfish. The way she was portrayed in the sitcom
    was actually an amalgamation of two characters from the serial version of
    the program.

    Originally, Sapphire (or, "Mrs. Kingfish" -- she wasn't named until 1933,
    although one line in a 1928 episode suggested her name might actually be
    "Phoebe") was portrayed exclusively thru conversations about her or
    one-sided phone calls, and while her husband referred to her rather
    ruefully as a "battle-axe," it was usually quite obvious from the tone of
    other characters' discussions of her that he was exaggerating her
    fearsomeness. She didn't begin to take on her more familiar
    characterization until she was first given voice in 1937.

    The real battle-axe in the original A&A was Harriet Crawford -- Madam
    Queen's sister and Brother Crawford's wife. Mrs. Crawford *loathed* Andy,
    and it was she who badgered her sister into  pursuing the 1931
    breach-of-promise suit when Andy reneged on his engagement to the Madam
    the night before the wedding was to have taken place. Mrs. Crawford later
    tried to push her sister into a relationship with Frederick Montgomery
    Gwindell -- a plot which backfired when the Madam turned away from her
    groom at the altar and fell sobbing into Andy's arms. (Thruout all this,
    the Madam comes across as a rather naive sort of emotional victim --
    easily manipulated by people around her, and far different from the
    loudmouthed harridan she became in her occasional sitcom-era appearances.)

    Fittingly, Mrs. Crawford had only one speaking role in the entire
    fifteen-year run of the serial, and the one line she spoke was only two
    words long: "Shut up!"

    When the series mutated into a sitcom, most of Mrs. Crawford's unpleasant
    characteristics were transferred to Sapphire -- consolidating the two
    adversarial-spouse characters into one for simplicity's sake, and making
    Sapphire essentially twice as hostile as she was during the serial years.

    Sapphire's mother never had a speaking role in the serial, but was an
    occasional off-mike presence -- and in the tradition of all
    mothers-in-law in popular fiction, her role was always an adversarial one.

    Elizabeth

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 17:01:29 -0400
    From: Kenneth Clarke <kclarke5@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Domineering wives on OTR

              On this issue, I'd also like to add Sapphire Stevens (wife
    of the Kingfish) on OTR's "Amos n' Andy".  Heaven knows, she
    unleashed more venom on old George (Kingfish) Stevens
    during their marriage than anything.  It almost makes you wonder
    what brought them together in the first place.

              Can anyone think of any  more?

    Kenneth Clarke

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 18:01:01 -0400
    From: Gerry Wright <gdwright@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Bre'r Rabbit

    George M. Kelly rememberd:

>     Hardin's Bakery, where my mother worked, sponsored a Bre'r
>     Rabbit radio program that ran daily on WELO in Tupelo, Mississippi, in
>     the 50s.  If memory serves it was five minutes in length.  Does anyone
>     know anything about this show?

    The show was probably "Sleepy Joe" a Cardinal syndated show, commericals
    were added locallay, with Jimmy Scribner doing all the characters in the
    story, which ran about seven minutes.

    Jerry Haendiges log for this show only lists 20 episodes (most with a
    Christmas theme), but J. David Goldin's index lists shows numbered as
    high as 132.

    Gerry Wright
    ZoneZebra Productions
    San Francisco

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 18:01:09 -0400
    From: otrbuff@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Sekatary Hawkins

    Dennis Crow asks if anyone remembers a series titled "Secretary Hawkins."
     Actually, "Sekatary Hawkins" (note spelling) with Robert Franc Scholkers
    ran Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 5:45 [removed] ET over NBC between Oct.
    4, 1932 and April 4, 1933.  Its sponsor was Ralston Purina.

    Jim Cox

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 18:01:19 -0400
    From: wilditralian@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  THREE STOOGES

    09 AUG 03

    Martin Grams, Jr. wrote that he knows of a Three Stooges short where
    Lucille Ball plays a small part as a student at an all-girls college.
    That one I'm not familiar with, and if he could furnigh me with the name
    of the short, I'd be most appreciative.

    In return, I can give him the name of another Three Stooges short in
    which she acted -- "Three Little Pigskins", from 1936.  She plays one of
    three girlfriends of one of three tough guys who think that the Stooges
    are three famous football players, and are trying to get them to throw a
    game for some gambling interests.

    Regards,

    Jim Arva

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 18:01:35 -0400
    From: "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Ernie Kovacs trivia

    Press release dated Wednesday, October 1949 (sorry, can't read the exact
    date):

    An attempt by Ernie Kovacs, disk jockey heard on WTTM, Trenton, NJ, to set a
    one-week record for marathon broadcasting approaches the half-way mark today
    at the New Jersey State Fair.  From a radio booth located on the fair
    grounds, Kovacs has been making all station breaks on the quarter and
    half-hours, plus doing his three regular daily interview and record shows,
    since 11 [removed] last Sunday morning.  He hopes to continue the sleepless grind
    until 11 [removed] next Sunday.  After the first fifty hours of his stunt, Kovacs
    had lost about ten pounds.

    My question is this: would this station have broadcast music and programs
    for a full 24 hours per day or did the station sign off late at night and
    pick up a few hours later?  In other words, did Kovacs really stay awake all
    week or could their be a possibility of him getting some shut-eye for a few
    hours.  Any thoughts?  Just curious.
    Martin

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 18:10:33 -0400
    From: Jack & Cathy French <otrpiano@[removed];
    To: OTRBB <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Spy shows, etc

>     From: Backus2@[removed]
>       Subject: - Cold War Era
>     I have a special interest in the post WW2 era in Europe. US/Soviet
>     spying,
>     intrigue in the Balkans, etc. ... Can anyone recommend any others,
>     perhaps
>     on a more serious level?

    There are a few more:  "Time For Love" a 1953 series starring Marlene
    Dietrich, had her catching international spies and assorted bad guys
    around the globe.  Similar plot to "Top Secret" with Ilona Massey as
    female spy catcher, Karen Gaza. "The Man From G-2" with Staats
    Contsworth in the leading role dealt with espionage and spies. So did
    "Mr. Moto" with either Peter Lorre or James Monks providing the voice
    of a Japanese spy catcher. In addition, there's a deadly dull BBC show,
    "Spy Catcher' which dates from the 1960s, although the espionage events
    dramatized usually were in the 40s or 50s.

    Jack French
    Editor: Radio Recall

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 18:10:38 -0400
    From: Jack & Cathy French <otrpiano@[removed];
    To: OTRBB <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Sekatary Hawkins (correct spelling)

    Dennis Crow inquires about "Sekatary Hawkins".

    This was one of the first kids' series, which aired on  NBC from Oct 32
    to Apr 33, sponsored by Ralston Purina. It was a 15 min show that aired
    three times a week, afternoons. No copies have survived.

    The show was based on a juvenile character who had his own comic strip
    (same name) which  was the product of Robert F. Schulkers.  It
    concerned the  efforts of the "Fair and Square Club", a group of
    youngsters, who helped authorities round up bad guys, including bad
    little boys.

    Jack French
    Editor: RADIO RECALL

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 19:04:12 -0400
    From: otrbuff@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Firefighters

    Tom Z. inquires about the series titled "Firefighters."  It was a
    quarter-hour in syndication in 1948-49 featuring Lyle Sudrow.  There are
    195 episodes in circulation.  A subsequent version planned in 1952 never
    actually materialized.

    Jim Cox

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 20:59:26 -0400
    From: "Penne Yingling" <bp_ying@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Glad Hal's Back

    This is just to say "I'm glad to see Hal Stone's back."  He never fails to
    tickle my funny bone, regardless of what kind of day I've had and I've had
    some "doozie's" lately.  ("Doozie" was one of my Mother's favorite and
    well-used words - never hear it much, anymore).   So, thanks for making my
    day, Hal.  I always enjoy your posts, with stories of your old radio days.
    Keep 'em coming, please!

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 21:27:29 -0400
    From: JimInks@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Ted Healy

    Someone on this list said Ted Healy died from complications from drinking.
    That's putting it mildly.  Healy was celebrating the birth of his first child
    and drinking too much.  He got into a street fight and was badly beaten.  That
    fight directly caused his death.

    The rumor was that actor Wallace Beery was the one who beat up Healy.
    Supposedly, the movie studio hushed up the details of the incident, since
    Beery was
    a big star at the time.

    Too bad the Stooges didn't appear on radio.  I'd love to have heard a radio
    show with them.

    -Jim Amash

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

    Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 00:15:31 -0400
    From: JackBenny@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Domineering OTR females and miscellaneous
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

    The thread on domineering OTR wives made me think of Verna Felton as Dennis
    Day's mother.  Presumably Dennis had a father, which would have made his
    mother
    also a domineering wife.  Even Mary Livingstone could be classified as
    "domineering" in some fashion, although "sarcastic", "sardonic", or "acerbic"
    probably fits better.

    I am taking a certification exam for Project Management on Monday, and am
    spending most of the weekend studying.  As I was perusing the glossary of my
    study guide, I noticed a term that I didn't recall.  The term was "Fragnet".
    This
    made me laugh and I started on a ridiculous ad-lib [removed]"FRAGNET!
    Dun-de-dun-dun Dun-de-dun-dun-DUN!  My name's Joe Friday and I'm a Certified
    Project [removed]"  You get the idea.

    For the curious, a "fragnet" is also known as a "subnet", and represents part
    of your network diagram ([removed], effectively, part of your project schedule).

    --Laura Leff
    President, IJBFC
    [removed]

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    End of [removed] Digest V2003 Issue #307
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