Subject: [removed] Digest V2008 #273
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 11/29/2008 5:03 PM

To: [removed]@[removed]
Reply-to: [removed]@[removed]

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                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2008 : Issue 273
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                 [removed]
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Question on Radio Premiums            [ Dick Fisher <w9fjl@[removed]; ]
      radio gone bad                        [ "Bob C" <rmc44@[removed]; ]
      The Cinnamon Bear!                    [ Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed] ]

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    Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:57:25 -0500
    From: Dick Fisher <w9fjl@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Question on Radio Premiums
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

    I lived through the golden age of radio and as a kid had many radio
    premiums (decoders, rings, pins, etc.).  I have now gotten back, thanks
    to E-Bay, nearly everything I had as a kid and paid a "premium" price to
    revisit my youth. (As the Senator might say "A little play on words son
    - words that is!!")

    I have Tumbush's book on premiums as well as others.

    Now to my question.  I have been able to find nothing about how these
    premiums were manufactured - specifically once, lets say, the decoder
    was stamped out of brass and assembled what was the next step in
    production?  I am guessing that the decoders were then suspended in a
    chamber of some sort and real gold (about one atom thick) electro
    statically applied and then the decoder coated with a clear lacquer of
    some type.  The problem is I would really like to know if this is
    correct and if not how did they achieve that beautiful golden color
    which wore off quickly if the decoder was used very much. Annie and a
    few other in the beginning used silver instead of gold. Again was this
    real silver applied the same way?

    Any information would be greatly appreciated. Googling the subject in
    every way I can imagine brings up absolutely no help.

    Contact me off list if you wish and thanks for any help.

    Dick

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    Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:59:16 -0500
    From: "Bob C" <rmc44@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  radio gone bad

    Sorry to say Jim Cox's summary of the sad state of radio in his
    fair city is not unique - larger market or smaller. Having once
    labored in the field, I can say what passes these days for radio,
    radio entertainment, radio serving its community is sickening.
    You have four, maybe six radio stations, housed in the same
    building, with some of them occupying no more than a closet with
    a computer running the shows, playing the music or switching to
    various "network" feeds. Not only that, a weatherman over at one
    of the TV stations - not a radio staff member - probably comes on
    with the forecast - and if it's during one of the early morniing
    shows, it's something he actually recorded the night before.

    What passes for a local newscaster is a high school or college
    kid who might have some potential, but really doesn't cover any
    news events - they've got him too busy programming the stupid
    computers - which, by the way, are out of sync with the network
    so that program openings/closing, commercials beginnings/endings
    get clipped. I can't tell you how many times I've tuned in for a
    particular program on a Sunday only to be greeted by dead air ...
    or in the case of one night, a hum or dial tone, followed by Fox
    News on the hour, followed by more hum. They don't answer their
    phones. I e-mailed their sister TV station in the same building;
    I have no idea if it really did any good, but after 45 minutes
    somebody must have kick-started the computer and regular
    programming resumed.

    There are at least four stations where I live that offer morning
    talk shows with local hosts - gosh-awful uninformed coffee shop
    kind of commentary on news and events. What this town needs is a
    good drive-time news block with reports from people who actually
    covered a story rather than rewrite something from the local
    paper. But wait - that would cost money.

    When you confront station managers about all this, they love to
    go on about how they serve the community with a wide variety of
    programming, their news, etc. Problem is, it all stinks. Instead
    of these conglomerates coming in and buying up everything, it
    would have been wise to have kept the old regulations of one AM,
    one FM to a company in a given market. If some other stations
    couldn't make it, they should have just gone dark - use the
    frequencies to open doors at the supermarket ... at least that
    would have been a better use use.

    Here yesterday (Thanksgiving Day), at least one of the morning
    talk shows ran a "best of ..." program. It really is hard to find
    a "best" of anything they do. And to top it off, it wasn't a
    golden oldie from a few months earlier, it was from Monday, Nov.
    24 ... and it was dated because of all the other announcements
    they are making about football coverage, etc. It would be nice if
    they would just put some effort into their programming. On
    another station, instead of their talk show, they were running a
    Wall Street Journal morning show, followed in another hour by a
    special from ABC Radio about holiday movies - whoopee! But at
    least it wasn't a program I had heard just three days earlier.

    And people wonder what we find so attractive about listening to
    old time radio!

    End of current rant. We return you now to our regularly scheduled
    turkey leftovers.

    Bob Cockrum
    Lubock, Texas

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    Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 01:00:31 -0500
    From: Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed] (Old Time Radio Digest)
    Subject:  The Cinnamon Bear!

    Dear Reader:

    Hi, everybody!  I hope by now you have established a schedule for playing
    episodes of "The Cinnamon Bear."  Remember, there are 26 installments
    (available everywhere, including your local Borders).  They should be
    programmed between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.  Research by First
    Generation Radio Archives has determined that the very first episode was
    broadcast in the USA on Friday, November 26, 1937, so you will be carrying
    on a tradition lasting over seventy years!

    Your family will thrill to the adventures of Paddy, Jimmy and Judy Barton,
    and the Crazy Quilt Dragon, as they search Maybeland for the missing silver
    star that goes atop the Barton family Christmas tree. If you don't have the
    program tapes, all the clubs and dealers have them, most of whom write to
    this list. YES, It is time once again to celebrate THE CINNAMON BEAR, first
    heard in 1937.

    Charlie helped me make the Maybeland map and the eleven songs in the serial
    more accessible to you this year.  Just go to:

    [removed]

    You can print them off and use them as you listen with your kids to the
    program.  You'll have so much fun.

    It is golden age radio at its best, with the actors who are so familiar to
    you---Joseph Kearns, Elvia Allman, Gale Gordon, Frank Nelson, Martha
    Wentworth, Barbara Jean Wong, Verna Felton, Hanley Stafford, Elliott Lewis,
    Lou Merrill, Howard McNear, and the list goes on and on and on.

    As Paddy himself says, "I'd be much obliged to you!"

    Sincerely,

    Dennis Crow
    (via Charlie Summers, who reminds you the best-sounding copies of these
    programs are available from the First Generation Radio Archives - see:

    [removed]

    ...for more details.  --cfs3)

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    End of [removed] Digest V2008 Issue #273
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