Subject: [removed] Digest V2003 #123
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 3/22/2003 3:26 PM

To: <[removed]@[removed];

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2003 : Issue 123
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      March 22nd Birthdays                  [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
      converting reel to reel to another f  [ "parker2" <parker2@[removed]; ]
      Radio Fights Jim Crow                 [ Howard Blue <khovard@[removed]; ]
      Charlie Chan                          [ leemunsick@[removed] ]
      Re: Sam and Henry -- After The Fact   [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
      Re: Radio Fights Jim Crow             [ "Dennis Mansker" <dennis@[removed] ]
      Re: Jean Hersholt/ Dr. Christian      [ hal stone <dualxtwo@[removed]; ]
      In dash MP3 player info               [ "Poindexter" <poindexter@[removed] ]
      Chicken Heart                         [ "Ryan Osentowski" <rosentowski@neb. ]
      Today in radio history                [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
      March 23rd Birthdays                  [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]

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

    Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 16:57:25 -0500
    From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  March 22nd Birthdays

    If you were born on the 22nd of March, you share your birthday with:

    1891 - Chico Marx - New York City
    1914 - Karl Malden - Chicago, Illinois
    1917 - Virginia Grey - Los Angeles, California
    1924 - Bill Wendell - New York City

    Ron Sayles
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin
    Make your day, listen to an Olde Tyme Radio Program

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

    Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 19:12:05 -0500
    From: "parker2" <parker2@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  converting reel to reel to another format--
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

    I have a friend that does this professionally C. Park Seward

    he did several for me from AFRTS reel's. I will let you contact him--I asked
    him first to make sure he agreed-- here is his response

    Paul,

    Yes, I would be happy to help if they want the tapes on CD. The quality would
    be of course better than to cassette but I can do cassette too.

    I am not clear on how many tapes they have so it would be hard to set a price
    but I could them for $10 per hour including the CDs.

    Thanks,
    Park

    --
    C. Park Seward
    Video Park
    visit us at: [removed]

      *** This message was altered by the server, and may not appear ***
      ***                  as the sender intended.                   ***

    [ADMINISTRIVIA: Of course, there are many people, some on this list, who
    would cheerfully make the conversion for only the [removed]  --cfs3]

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

    Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 19:08:52 -0500
    From: Howard Blue <khovard@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Radio Fights Jim Crow

     As I recall, "Radio Fights Jim Crow"  features an interview with Frances
    Lee, widow of the black actor, Canada Lee  whose voice can be heard on
    "New World A'Coming." Blind and frequently in poor health, Frances has
    been working with a voice-activated computer to try to complete a memoir
    about Mr. Lee.  Lee died quite young in the early 1950s. It's a sad and
    complicated story. For more information, please contact me off-line.

    Howard Blue

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

    Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 19:10:29 -0500
    From: leemunsick@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Charlie Chan

    Recently I had the pleasure of spending several days poring over some of
    the Arthur Godfrey Archives at the Library of American Broadcasting at the
    University of Maryland in College Park.

    Friend Michael Henry of the LAB is Program Chairman of the Washington OTR
    group, which had its regular monthly meeting last Friday night, so I was
    honored to sit in, and have the opportunity to set up some Arthur Godfrey
    display materials.   I'd like to thank the members of the club for their
    warm reception.

    Jack French opened the program with a 15-minute segment of Charlie Chan,
    starring Ed Begley.  Somehow, my education has omitted the fact that Mr.
    Begley was one of many talented actors associated with that role.  I
    listened with fascination, thinking to myself, "That's Ed Begley?"

    Jack French told us he has several such segments, but each one including
    the one we heard, for some reason is the Monday night section from what was
    always a week-long story line.  Now we'll never know what happened!

    Thanks, Mike and Jack, for your kindness.  Now you have me hooked!  This
    unworthy person would like more!

    Mee Lunsick

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

    Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 19:42:45 -0500
    From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Sam and Henry -- After The Fact

    On 3/21/03 5:16 PM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:

>     It should also be noted that the SnH had been
>     taken off of WGN in December 1927.

    Specifically, the program went off the air after Episode 586, 12/18/27,
    and Correll and Gosden immediately left Chicago for a personal appearance
    tour thru the South that took them as far as Shreveport, LA. Their time
    slot on WGN was filled for the next two weeks by Bill Hay reading the
    Bible.

    Two weeks later, though, "Sam and Henry" *returned* on WGN -- but without
    Correll and Gosden. They were replaced by two other dialect performers
    who had never been identified until I uncovered evidence indicating that
    they were most likely two performers by the names of Henry Moeller and
    Hal Gilles. "Sam and Henry" continued in this ersatz form until 2/16/28,
    when it disappeared for good.

    There were a number of things going on behind the scenes at this time.
    Correll and Gosden had been feuding with WGN management for months over
    their proposal for syndicating their program by recordings, and they
    finally decided that if the Tribune Company wouldn't relent on that
    point, they'd walk at the expiration of their contract. The Tribune
    essentially told them -- go ahead. We own the program, we own the
    scripts, we own the characters. And we *don't* need you.

    The replacement "Sam and Henry" was evidently the Tribune Company trying
    to call Correll and Gosden's bluff -- but while they were in Shreveport,
    E. C. Rayner of Radio Digest -- a friend of the performers who may very
    well have given them the idea for syndication in the first place --
    arranged a meeting for their agent, Alec Robb, with Judith Waller of
    WMAQ. Correll and Gosden themselves met with Waller as soon as they got
    back to Chicago in mid-January of 1928, and it took nearly a month to
    work out the deal -- a $25,000 contract for the services of Gosden,
    Correll, and Bill Hay that required the Chicago Daily News to double
    WMAQ's operating budget.

    All during this time the fake "Sam and Henry" continued on WGN, until it
    became evident that Correll and Gosden wouldn't be coming back. Given
    that the first "Amos 'n' Andy" promo aired on 2/25/28, the termination of
    "Sam and Henry" on 2/16 suggests that this was when word reached the
    Tribune Company that Correll and Gosden had signed with WMAQ, and this
    allows a couple of weeks lead time for the preparation of the promotional
    campaign. Considering that Correll and Gosden had written four scripts
    before even settling on the names of "Amos" and "Andy," one can imagine
    this was a very intense period of work for the performers.

    Henry Moeller and Hal Gilles had direct connection to Correll and Gosden.
    All four of the performers had been colleagues at the Joe Bren Producing
    Company during the early 1920s, and Gosden had taught Moeller and Gilles
    a basic form of African-American dialect, just as he had taught it to
    Correll -- and Moeller and Gilles then toured as a team producing Bren
    minstrel shows for service clubs and lodges around the midwest, just as
    Correll and Gosden had done. When Gosden was promoted to the position of
    Manager of the Bren Circus Division in 1924, he hired Hal Gilles as his
    advance man -- and worked closely with him until leaving the Bren Company
    in September 1925. So on the surface, Moeller and Gilles might well have
    seemed a very logical choice to continue "Sam and Henry," and it probably
    burned Gosden to no end to see the Tribune Company using his one-time
    protege as a pawn in a corporate power-play.

    Although the Moeller-Gilles version of "Sam and Henry" only ran a month
    and a half, the team remained at WGN -- creating a dialect serial of
    their own, known alternately as "Herr Louie and the Weasel," or "Louie's
    Hungry Five." This was a series done in German dialect, dealing with the
    leader of a German oompah band and his sidekick, and it ran on WGN for
    more than three years. And in 1930, WGN finally gave in to the idea of
    syndication and began distributing recordings of this series --
    acknowledging the inevitable about three years too late.

    Moeller and Gilles remained active in Chicago radio in various capacities
    thru the 1930s, and Hal Gilles has an interesting footnote to his career
    -- some time in the late 1940s he teamed up with a partner by the name of
    Herbie Hardt, and recorded a risque, sold-under-the-counter "party
    record" called "Sixteen Old Ladies Stuck In a Lavatory." He went on to
    become a partner in Hargill Records, a company which apparently
    specialized in novelty material of the sort that Grandpa used to snicker
    over while Grandma wasn't around.

    Elizabeth

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

    Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 21:08:59 -0500
    From: "Dennis Mansker" <dennis@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Radio Fights Jim Crow

    Someone just posted 27 "Destination Freedom" shows in mp3 format in the
    [removed] newsgroup.
    I'm in the process of downloading them now, so I can't vouch for things like
    quality, etc., but I thought the group would be interested.

    Dennis Mansker

    The Mansker Chronicles: [removed]
    Chairborne Ranger, featuring A Bad Attitude: A Novel from the Vietnam War:
    [removed]

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

    Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 21:09:44 -0500
    From: hal stone <dualxtwo@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Jean Hersholt/ Dr. Christian

     Ron Sayles just posted;

>     I came across this in my readings just recently. I think that it is
>     something that I knew, but forgot. DID YOU KNOW: Leslie Neilson's uncle is
>     Jean Hersholt (Dr. Christian).

    Hmmm! Ron. Is it possible that your "discovery" in a recent reading was from
    my book, "Aw! Relax [removed]! (page 123) :)  C'mon guy. I know you
    just read it. Give credit where credit is due. :)

    Just kidding him folks. He is one of my best customers. He just ordered 4
    more autographed and inscribed copies for his Milwaukee OTR club (MARE).
    Ron can do no wrong. :)

    Speaking of my book (how's that for a seque?) we'll be going out of town for
    over a week, (Cincinnati OTR Convention bound) so if anyone is desperate for
    a copy between now and mid April, best get your orders in.

    Or, come to the Convention and save the shipping costs. My lovely wife
    Dorothy will be manning (woman-ing) a dealers table for that purpose. But if
    you can't get there, go to;

    [removed]

    Regards

    Hal(Harlan)Stone
    Jughead

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

    Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 11:16:09 -0500
    From: "Poindexter" <poindexter@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  In dash MP3 player info

    I just bought a Sony MP40 from Best Buy ($188). The disc I took with me had
    files that were encoded at 64K and it played flawlessly. It also played on a
    deck with the brand name Resonance ($80), but could not be read by a Jensen
    deck ($149).

    The Sony unit has a nice big display area, which can be set to display the
    time, the disc name, folder name or ID3 information.  It also has a display
    of the elapsed time on the track you're listening to. Changing folders can
    be done with one button, either up or down, but it doesn't have the ability
    to search for a specific filename or title.

    An unexpected bonus was the resume feature.  The Sony will start up the next
    time on the same file, at the same place it stopped (a previous unit I owned
    would resume at the same file, but only from the beginning of the file). A
    very nice feature if you're 41 minutes into a 45 minute file and hit the
    wrong button, thus having to restart the CD player.

    When you turn the car off, it beeps to remind you to take the detachable
    face off.  It also comes with a remote.  Why would I need a remote when the
    deck is within arm's length in the car?

    Best advice: take a disc with you and test any model before you buy it.

    OTR [removed] Blackie is said to be "enemy to those who make him an
    enemy, friend to those who have no friends" and I've always wondered:

    What would this poor guy do if someone who had no friends were to make him
    an enemy?

    Poindexter
    Many, many years ago when I was a mere lad, a wise old man revealed to
    [removed] secret of life.
    Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to write it down.

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

    Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 11:16:43 -0500
    From: "Ryan Osentowski" <rosentowski@[removed];
    To: "old time radio" <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Chicken Heart

    Hi all:
    I was listening to a broadcast of Lights Out and Arch Oboler said that his
    story the following week was called, Chicken Heart.  I looked it up in the
    Lights Out log and see that it is not in circulation.  Does anyone happen to
    know more about this story?  Was this the same version of Chicken Heart that
    Oboler used on his record, Drop Dead?  That was a short, five-minute story
    about a chicken heart that kept growing larger until it broke out of the
    building in which it was housed and began to envelop the entire city.
    RyanO

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

    Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 11:16:51 -0500
    From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
    To: otr-net <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Today in radio history

     From Those Were The Days --

    1948 - The Voice of Firestone was the first commercial radio program to be
    carried simultaneously on both AM and FM radio stations.

       Joe

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

    Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 16:12:21 -0500
    From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  March 23rd Birthdays

    If you were born on March 23rd, you share your birthday with:

    1904 - Joan Crawford - San Antonio, Texas
    1910 - Akira Kurosawa, Tokyo, Japan
    1926 - Martha Wright - Seattle, Washington

    Ron Sayles
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin
    Make your day, listen to an Olde Tyme Radio Program

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2003 Issue #123
    *********************************************

    Copyright [removed] Communications, York, PA; All Rights Reserved,
      including republication in any form.

    If you enjoy this list, please consider financially supporting it:
       [removed]

    For Help: [removed]@[removed]

    To Unsubscribe: [removed]@[removed]

    To Subscribe: [removed]@[removed]
      or see [removed]

    For Help with the Archive Server, send the command ARCHIVE HELP
      in the SUBJECT of a message to [removed]@[removed]

    To contact the listmaster, mail to listmaster@[removed]

    To Send Mail to the list, simply send to [removed]@[removed]