Subject: [removed] Digest V2003 #406
From: <[removed]@[removed]>
Date: 11/9/2003 9:17 PM
To: <[removed]@[removed];

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2003 : Issue 406
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  "SAY HAY!" Judge [removed]               [ Udmacon@[removed] ]
  Paul Harvey Vs Bill Stern             [ Faulknerian189@[removed] ]
  RIP Ron Downey                        [ benohmart@[removed] ]
  A&A Doll?                             [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
  Well, They _Did_ Have a Show On OTR   [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
  re :books                             [ "Ed Carr" <edcarr@[removed]; ]
  Re: Under Milkwood                    [ Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed]; ]
  Nan Dorland                           [ jef <jefolson2000@[removed]; ]
  Bill Stern, Mel Allen and more        [ Lee Munsick <leemunsick@[removed] ]
  11-10 births/deaths                   [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
  the rest of the story                 [ "Mark Kinsler" <kinsler33@[removed] ]
  stern story                           [ Michael Berger <intercom1@attglobal ]
  Re: Howard Stern's "three-Oh Mark" C  [ RickEditor@[removed] ]
  tapes vs. CDs                         [ "joe@[removed]" <sergei01@earthli ]
  Re: A&A Doll                          [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
  The Fred Allen Fan Club               [ "steven kostelecky" <skostelecky@ho ]

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

Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 16:01:11 -0500
From: Udmacon@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  "SAY HAY!" Judge [removed]
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Today, Sunday, is the 118th birthday of GEORGE D. HAY, the Solemn Old Judge
born in Attica IN on Nov. 9th, 1885.

Without Judge Hay there very well may have never been a "Grand Ole Opry."

He introduced the "WSM Barn Dance" on the snooty WSM, fought to keep in on
the air in academic and intellectual "Athens Of the South," renamed it the
"Grand Ole Opry," emceed it, and started the WSM Artists' Bureau.

Nashville and the National Life & Accident Insurance Company has made, by
now, billions of dollars from the ideas and foresight of George D. Hay.

Hay was retired by WSM in the late 50s on a small staff member's pension and
moved to Virginia where he's buried near Virginia Beach (check [removed])

"that's all for now, friends, because the tall pines pine and the paw paws
[removed] and the bumble bees bumble all [removed] grasshopper hops and the
eavesdropper drops, while gently the old cow slips [removed] D. Hay saying
so long for now! TOOT TOOT!!"
--Judge Hay's weekly signoff of the Grand Ole Opry"

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Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 16:22:03 -0500
From: Faulknerian189@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Paul Harvey Vs Bill Stern
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Not likely that Paul Harvey reported any untruths on his REST OF THE STORY.
I am a historian by profession and training, and everything Paul Harvey has
aired is the whole truth, nothing but the truth, as strange as it seems.  The
most strangest of all (and I verified this personally) is one day Robert Todd
Lincoln, in 1910, was suffering from a high fever and had to leave the theater
and go home to bed.  A physician who happened to have been in the same hotel
was summoned.  He treated Mr. Lincoln all night, and personally stayed with
him
until his fever broke.  The Physician------why, the son of Edmond Booth (the
very brother of JOHN WILES BOOTH!).  Now that is something strange!!!!!   Jim
Faulkner

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Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 16:22:18 -0500
From: benohmart@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  RIP Ron Downey

For those fortunate enough to have known the Downeys, publishers of Under Western 
Skies, Cliffhanger, The World of Yesterday and The Golden Years of Radio and TV, I'm 
sorry to report that Ron Downey died today. He'd been having a lot of health problems 
in the last few years, and Linda Downey has been overwhelmed with many hardships 
lately. In lieu of flowers, if any friends could send cash donations to 

Linda Downey 
104 Chestnut Wood Dr.
Waynesville, NC 28786

to help with Ron's services, you would be doing a very good deed. Thanks. 

Ben 

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

Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 16:55:14 -0500
From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  A&A Doll?

George Kelly asks,

I did an otr presentation yesterday at a local church, and one of the
ladies present, said some time in the 40s she bought her daughter an Amos
and Andy doll.

I remember, when I was growing up, on sale in a dime store was a doll of
a baby black girl, it was the "Amos Andrea" doll.  Perhaps that's what
the lady was referring to.

Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

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

Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 16:55:23 -0500
From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Well, They _Did_ Have a Show On OTR

Ivan Schreve, speaking of Abbott and Costello, notes,

I think "A&C Meet Frankenstein" (1948) and "A&C Meet the Invisible Man"
(1951) are two of their very best.

"Time of Their Lives," was released, as I recall, around 1946.  I
consider it, and "Frankenstein," their tops.  I do have a soft spot in my
heart for "Keep 'Em Flying," which had the stunt work flown by the great
Paul Mantz, but some of their later work was quite good.

Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

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

Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 16:55:28 -0500
From: "Ed Carr" <edcarr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  re :books

hi
i have for sale
saturday afternoon at the  bijou and in manors and alleys
a casebook on the american det film 460 pages
by jon tuska, this one is $55 and post is included(spine has never
been cracked)
the above has a torn cover so $15 will include post
ed

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

Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 17:03:10 -0500
From: Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: Under Milkwood

At 03:59 PM 11/9/2003 -0500, you wrote:

I could be wrong on this and probably am, but it is my feeling that the
version that exists (I assume only on vinyl) was done in America. (Please
don't quote  me on that), but it is a very different play.)  Richard Burton
also did a version of it, although I assume that was all in England.

I have a copy and it is on cassette. I bought it in England and it is a BBC 
production. I'd have to dig it out, but I don't recall Richard Burton being 
in the particular production I have.

Jim Widner
jwidner@[removed]

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

Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 17:39:46 -0500
From: jef <jefolson2000@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Nan Dorland
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I'm seeking info and hopfuly a tape of radio actress Nan Dorland. She was
part of a show called "Keeping up with daughter" or "bringing up daughter":
She was my mother, but died 2 1/2 weeks after my birth. email replies would
be much appreciated- jefolson2000@[removed]

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Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 18:30:06 -0500
From: Lee Munsick <leemunsick@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Bill Stern, Mel Allen and more

I really enjoyed listening to Bill Stern's radio programs, and watching
his theatrical film shorts.  This is contrary to my reaction to another
radio "sports great" of the time, Mel Allen.  He fictionalized as did
Bill Stern, but in a much more dangerous and deceitful way.  When
television came along and began covering the New York Yankees, I recall
my father listening to Mel Allen on the radio while Dad watched the same
ballgame on television.  More than once, I heard him scream in
frustration, "Is he watching the same game I am?"  Dad would get
absolutely livid at Mel Allen's made-up descriptions.  Stern's output
made no particular attempt to claim historical accuracy.  His
presentations were always well written, dramatically produced, and
all-around entertaining.  We didn't find Mel Allen's efforts to be any
of these.

The discussion of the Bill Stern programs and shorts reminds me of
another set of theatrical fillers.  I loved the "Pete Smith Specials",
for the same reasons as I did the Stern offerings.  Plus, they were
funny!  Pete Smith, by the way, was not the thinning-hair star of his
offerings.  He was the producer and narrator of these hilarious shorts,
which played up the foibles of his eternally-hopeful bungler, played by
the talented Dave O'Brien.  Pete Smith himself was never seen, only
heard in his condescending voice-overs.

Dave O'Brien starred in the cult classic now known as "Reefer Madness".
Today's college students find this side-splitting, and often fill the
host theatre with peculiar smoke while viewing the film.  "Madness" was
issued in 1938 as a serious warning about the dangers of smoking
marijuana, called "Tell Your Children".  It circulated in its early days
also as "Dope Addict", "Doped Youth", and "Love Madness".  It was
reissued in 1939 as "The Burning Question", and again eight years later
as "Reefer Madness".  In the film, O'Brien plays "Ralph", who starts
smoking the funny cigarettes and ultimately goes totally bonkers,
screaming and out of his mind, a hyper reaction to Mary Jane which
produces today's hilarity.

The film was a serious effort by director Louis Gasnier, who emigrated
after a career as a stage director-producer-actor in Paris.  He did
scores of films over 40 years from the turn of the last century, and
made use of his experience years later as Technical Advisor on the 1974
"The Perils of Pauline", in homage to the career of early serial star
Pearl White.  He had directed the original film of that name 60 years
before, in 1914!

Dave O'Brien started out as a chorus boy, dancer, then stuntman, did a
series of westerns, often billed as "Tex" O'Brien.  He appeared in,
wrote, or directed some 200 films.  Dave finally found his niche as the
frustratee in the Pete Smith Specials (aka Pete Smith Specialties) for
many years, gamefully trying to cope with household problems as leveling
wobbly coffeetables (they started out as dining tables), leaky faucets
which seemed to have the viciousness of their brothers in Laurel and
Hardy films ,and the like.

O'Brien met his first wife Dorothy Short while appearing in these
popular shorts, which often pop up now as "One Reel Wonders" on TCM.
She appeared with O'Brien in "Reefer Madness".  Later divorced and
remarried, he fathered 5 children between the two families.  He wrote
and directed as well as starred in many of the "specials", but contrary
to popular opinion, he was NOT Pete Smith!

In the 1950s, O'Brien turned his writing talents to broadcasting media,
under the nom de plume "Dave Barclay".  He wrote for Red Skelton, and
won numerous plaudits, including an Emmy!  O'Brien's real name was David
Poole Fronabarger, which explains why he chose the shorter moniker.  An
avid sailor, he owned a 60-foot sloop dubbed "White Cloud".  While
participating in a yacht race from Marina del Rey to Catalina off
California in November 1969, Dave O'Brien collapsed and suffered a fatal
heart attack.

Apparently Pete Smith was a real name, although he sometimes billed
himself as "A Smith Named Pete".   His son Douglas Smith followed in his
dad's footsteps, adding his talents to several documentaries.

I'm hoping that those of you who recall Bill, Mel, Dave, and Pete will
all enjoy fond memories from this "Non-Special"!
Happy days!     Lee

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

Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 18:35:40 -0500
From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio List <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  11-10 births/deaths

November 10th births

11-10-1907 - Jane Froman - St. Louis, MO - d. 4-22-1980
singer: "Florsheim Frolic"; "Bromo Seltzer Hour"; "Gulf Musical Playhouse"
11-10-1916 - Billy May - Pittsburgh, PA
orchestra leader: "Music Depreciation"; "Stan Freberg Show"
11-10-1925 - Richard Burton - Pontrhydfen, South Wales - d. 8-5-1984
actor: Readings of poetry, plays and school programmes for the BBC

November 10th deaths

04-17-1918 - William Holden - O"Fallon, IL - d. 11-10-1981
actor: "Hour of Mystery"; "Smiths of Hollywood"; "So Proudly We Hail"
06-11-1914 - Gerald Mohr - NYC - d. 11-10-1968
actor: Philip Marlowe "Advs. of Philip Marlowe"; Jacque Monet "Our Miss Brooks"

Ron Sayles
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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

Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 19:31:52 -0500
From: "Mark Kinsler" <kinsler33@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  the rest of the story

I've heard a good many of Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story" broadcasts.
While many of them aren't too earthshaking or novel, and some
simplifications are involved, they are for the most part correct.  I'm sure
that he's fallen for an urban legend or two, and I believe he's admitted
this on the air when it has happened.

Paul Harvey's broadcasts always struck me as something that would be quite
at home in the Readers' Digest.

Mark Kinsler

(My eye doctor stocks the large-print edition.)

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

Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 20:11:21 -0500
From: Michael Berger <intercom1@[removed];
To: otr <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  stern story
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A brief ad to the Bill Stern tales:

A well known story that often saw print years ago noted that  if Stern
misidentified a ball carrier on the football field during a radio broadcast,
he often would have the wrong player lateral the ball to the correct one at
the last minute. Once when Stern was assigned to cover the Preakness, a rival
broadcaster, Clem McCarthy, was said to have cautioned him, "Remember, Bill,
you can't lateral a horse."

Re the cautioning intro each week: as kids, or adults, who remembers a weasel
phrase of a few seconds, after you've heard the breathless revelation that
the man who convinced Chiang Kai Shek to go into politics [removed]
Rockne!!

That last line, by the way, is from an old Bob and Ray routine in which they
spoofed Stern, whose initials, interestingly, were BS.

Michael Berger

Please reply to: intercom1@[removed]

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Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 21:29:57 -0500
From: RickEditor@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: Howard Stern's "three-Oh Mark" Closing
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In a message dated 11/9/2003 4:17:34 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[removed]@[removed] writes:

It wasn't till many years later that I learned the meaning of his
closing line, "That's the three oh mark for tonight."
Frank Coopersmith

Note from a lifelong newspaper editor about how the -30- came to mean "end of
story."

     In the early days of newspapering, reporters typed their stories on
yellow paper known as "copy paper." (Stories were known as "copy.") This was
CHEAP
paper -- some of it barely one step above tree bark. As a result, it was
pitted with little brown and black spots we really believed were pieces of
tree!

     The pages would then go through the editing process and finally to the
typesetters, who transformed the lines of story into lines of lead type that
made up the newspaper columns.

     The problem was that the linotype operators worked so quickly that
sometimes they would mistake the wood-barkish dots as periods, or even commas,
resulting in errors.

     So editors began a convention that became universal: When reading a
story, an editor would replace a period with a little X in a circle. That
way, the
linotypist knew it was a period and not a brown or black spot.

     The convention continued this way: The editor would put TWO Xs at the
end of each paragraph. And, finally, THREE Xs when the story was complete.

Three Xs, of course, is "30" in Roman numerals. Ultimately, paper quality
improved and the X system was abandoned. Except for XXX, which morphed to -30-.

"Not a lot of people know that," as Michael Caine was fond of saying.

rick selvin
philadelphia

end

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Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 21:30:26 -0500
From: "joe@[removed]" <sergei01@[removed];
To: "OTR List" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  tapes vs. CDs

Not all tapes are prone to developing sticky shed syndrome. Those from the
50s & 60s are not so inclined in my experience, only the formulations used
in the 70s and later. Ampex was one of the worst offenders.

Interesting note, some of the lacquer transcriptions of the mid 40s tend to
separate from the substrate, peel and crack. Those from the 1930s that I
have handled are less prone to do so.

I was reading recently one author who was sharing his experience - CDs with
labels affixed were much more prone to fail, while none of those labeled
even with a permanent marker (generally not recommended) had failed. Not a
scientific experiment, but interesting evidence.

Joe Salerno

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

Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 22:20:11 -0500
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: A&A Doll

On 11/9/03 3:59 PM [removed]@[removed]  wrote:

2,  I did an otr presentation yesterday at a local church, and one of the
ladies present, said some time in the 40s she bought her daughter an Amos
and Andy doll.  Any information about such a doll would be appreciated.

The "Amosandra" doll was manufactured by the Sun Rubber Company of
Barberton, Ohio, under license from CBS, from 1949 into the mid-fifties.
She was about ten inches long, molded from dark brown rubber with painted
hair and facial features, and came in an illustrated box with a bottle, a
diaper, and a birth certificate. She was designed by Ruth Newton, a
well-known doll artist of the 1930s and 1940s. Sun Rubber successfully
test-marketed the doll in Harlem department stores during mid-1949, and
introduced her nationally that Christmas.

As a rare specimen of a realistic-looking African-American baby doll and
also as one of the last licensed "Amos 'n' Andy" products, Amosandra is
very much in demand among collectors today. The rubber hasn't held up
well over the years, and specimens in excellent condition are quite
valuable. Those in the original box often sell for several hundred
dollars.

Amosandra was the youngest daughter of Amos and his wife Ruby -- born on
Valentine's Day 1949, as described in the radio episode aired on 2/20/49.
She was named after her father, and after her godfather, Andy. Amosandra
was Amos and Ruby's third child, with Arbadella the oldest (born in 1936)
and then Amos Jr. (born in 1941).

Elizabeth

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

Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 22:20:26 -0500
From: "steven kostelecky" <skostelecky@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  The Fred Allen Fan Club

I'm asking one last time if anyone knows if a Fred Allen Fan Club existed
during the 30s-50s. I will post at the Fred Allen Phorum if anyone has heard
of one or if one ever existed. I just wanted to give it a shot.
Thanks.

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2003 Issue #406
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