Subject: [removed] Digest V2002 #253
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 7/5/2002 1:58 PM
To: <[removed]@[removed];

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2002 : Issue 253
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Re: Networks, Agencies, and Contract  [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
  Pete Kelly's Blues                    [ dltnkt@[removed] (Dennis/Nancy Town ]
  Reel Storage                          [ "Thomas Mason" <batz34@[removed] ]
  reel to reel and other tape storage   [ leemunsick@[removed] ]
  Hal Stone at Reps                     [ lawrence albert <albertlarry@yahoo. ]
  Drinks in the house                   [ Alan Chapman <[removed]@verizon. ]
  RE:True-Ade                           [ "TIM LONES" <tallones@[removed]; ]
  NY in the Fifties ~ Grand Central St  [ "Irene Heinstein" <IreneTH@[removed] ]
  Re: buried alive                      [ Rick Keating <pkeating89@[removed]; ]

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

Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 10:52:11 -0400
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: Networks, Agencies, and Contracts

Bryan wrote:

Did all that  NBC  cared  was that the time was sold?   It was  the
advertising agency that had to produce the  show and it was the concern of
the agency and the client ( Bristol Meyers ) that the show be popular because
the amount paid for the time  was the same  regardless.
Bristol Meyers  went through quite a few programs in the 9-10 PM WED  slot
over the years . Among them  Town Hall Tonight  , Eddie Cantor , Mr. District
Attorney , Duffy's Tavern [removed]

Don't forget the Ipana Troubadours/Ingram Shavers -- same orchestra,
different name on alternate Wednesdays. Given that the Troubadours
program went back to 1923, the Bristol Meyers presence on NBC goes back
to the days of the old Telephone Group Red Network -- and stacks up as
one of the longest continuous contracts in nighttime radio.

I would still have to think that the networks overrall  listenership would be
some determing factor in the amount charged for the network  time.

Network rate cards were calculated on the basis of the "estimated
potential audience" for each specified class of station, and stations had
to be purchased in blocks, not a la carte. It wasn't so much how many
people that *were* listening as it was the number of people who *could
be* listening. This was a neat bit of weaselry which ensured the networks
top dollar for their time, no matter how many or how few people were
listening. It was therefore up to the sponsor to decide if the program
was bringing in the desired audience.

indicated,   to which programs the agencies produced once  the time was sold.
Also considering that the stars were actually contracted to the agencies how
could  a network then also have a contract with the star ?

During the early years, it was common for networks to have "personal
services" contracts with performers -- the NBC Artists Bureau and the
Columbia Concerts Bureau were departments within the networks which
handled personal management for performers appearing on those networks.
The case of Amos 'n' Andy is illustrative of this -- when Correll and
Gosden brought their program from syndication to NBC in the summer of
1929, they signed a contract with Lord and Thomas, representing the
Pepsodent Company, for their actual broadcasts -- and also signed a
contract with NBC to act as their exclusive personal representative thru
the NBC Artists Bureau. This contract gave NBC the exclusive right to
their services as broadcast performers, and also gave NBC the right to
book them for personal appearances in theatres -- with the network
receiving a commission thru the Artists Service for arranging theatrical
tours.

Due to Gosden's skill as a negotiator, Correll and Gosden did manage to
have much more say in this situation than most NBC acts -- in exchange
for signing this NBC agreement, they insisted that their own personal
manager, Alexander Robb -- who had administered the operation of their
"chainless chain" syndicate for the past year and a half --be hired as
the Chicago manager of the NBC Artists Service. So they still had their
old manager, even though he was now working for NBC. (After Robb moved on
to other duties at NBC-Chicago, C&G manipulated events so that Bill Hay,
their announcer, replaced him in the managerial role.)

This situation ensured that no matter who sponsored A&A, the program
itself would remain on NBC, and gave the network more control over the
scheduling of the feature than it would have had otherwise. This
situation explains how NBC was able to move A&A from the Blue network to
the Red in July 1935 without having to ask Pepsodent's permission -- and
also explains why A&A had to remain on NBC for fifteen months after
Campbell's Soup took over sponsorship in 1938. Campbell's preferred CBS
-- where all of its other programs then aired -- but Correll and Gosden's
NBC Artists Service contract wouldn't expire until the end of March 1939.
As soon as that contract ran out, A&A was moved to CBS, where it would
remain until the end of Campbell's sponsorship -- and the end the
original series -- in 1943.

Operation of personal-services agencies by the networks was viewed as
monopolistic by the FCC, however, and it was one of the issues given a
thorough investigation during the Chain Broadcasting hearings of 1938-41.
While the FCC acknowledged in its Report on Chain Broadcasting that it
had no jurisdiction in the operation of talent agencies by the networks,
it did clearly warn that such practices constituted a conflict of
interest -- and unless the networks voluntarily chose to divest
themselves of such bureaus, the matter would be referred to the Federal
Trade Commission for further review.

It gets confusing
. For instance Hal Peary worked for Kraft's ad agency  to do the Great
Gildersleeve on NBC but  later he contracts with CBS to do a show there.
However, Kraft stays loyal to NBC and the Gildersleeve program did not go to
CBS with Peary . But what about Peary's Kraft contract ? Expired?  I would
have thought that the  agency for Karft  would have had exclusives on Peary
and the only way he could have gone to CBS is if Kraft agreed.

The contract between Peary and Needham, Louis and Brorby could have
expired at the end of the 1949-50 season -- or Peary could have bought
out the remaining time. Either way, it was a situation easy to resolve:
better for the agency and the sponsor to let the performer go on his way
than to have an unhappy star becoming resentful over being chained by
contract to a role he no longer wanted to play.

And what about
the other stars like Benny?  I thought they worked for their sponsors so how
could they just up and sell their programs to CBS?

Creator ownership of programs went all the way back to A&A, and wasn't
especially unusual. In addition to A&A and Benny, such performers as Fred
Allen, Lum and Abner, and Fibber and Molly  were owners of their own
series. In such cases, the performers themselves (or their employees)
actually created the material for the broadcasts, and the agency simply
paid the bills. In the case of A&A, for example, the only part of the
program prepared and owned by Lord and Thomas was the Pepsodent
commercials -- the agency was never even allowed to *see* the actual
program scripts written by Correll and Gosden, much less have any say in
their creation. While the other performers mentioned above may not have
been quite so private about the creative process, they did *control* the
creative process, and owned the rights to the finished product.

If a series was created by an *agency*, however, that's a different
matter. "Fibber McGee and Molly" was created by Don Quinn and the
Jordans, working as a three-way partnership, and they subsequently signed
a contract with S. C. Johnson thru Needham, Louis and Brorby to provide
and perform a weekly series. They were paid a sum by the agency to put
together the show each week, and pay their supporting cast, etc. However,
"The Great Gildersleeve" was developed internally by the Needham, Louis
and Brorby staff -- Harold Peary was just the actor who played the lead
role -- so the *agency* owned the series. Presumably they had to pay a
cut to the Quinn-Jordan partnership for the right to use the basic
character, but otherwise Needham could do as it pleased with the program,
since everything else that made up "The Great Gildersleeve" was created
by writers working-for-hire at N-L-B.

When S. C. Johnson didn't choose to buy "Gildersleeve" in 1941, the
agency simply signed up Kraft to sponsor. And when Peary got tired of the
part and decided to move on, N-L-B continued to own the "Gildersleeve"
character -- although Peary did retain the rights to certain elements
that he had brought to the characterization, notably the "dirty laugh."

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

Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 11:05:32 -0400
From: dltnkt@[removed] (Dennis/Nancy Townsend)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Pete Kelly's Blues

I have several questions about this series and hope someone can help. I
know it was just a summer show but is there a log of it anywhere? Also
any idea how many of the episodes are available? I would like to find
them on audio cd or cassette. Finally an easy one. Who was the
announcer? Sounds very familiar like say Art Gilmore but its not
credited in the show. Thanks for any help. Dennis

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

Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 11:06:01 -0400
From: "Thomas Mason" <batz34@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Reel Storage

When I was at ABC-TV Engineering in [removed] I was always told that for long
storage you always stored the tapes tails out and should rewind them every
once in awhile.  We always stored them on their edge, not flat to keep the
tape from settling on itself.  Of course we kept them away from any motors
that would generate a magnetic field, and away from sunlight.

My reel to reel machine sits in my garage all these years, and I don't even
know if home versions of the machines are made [removed] certainly do no
see them at the electronics outlets, let alone blank stock.
I have seen people advertising reel to reel material such as OTR on Ebay, so
there must be a market out there for them somewshere.

Tom Mason

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

Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 11:07:26 -0400
From: leemunsick@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  reel to reel and other tape storage

Jerry Bechtel raised a question about using R-to-R tapes.

I thought I'd enter a caution about any kind of magnetic recording system,
which I've gleaned over the years from various people in the field who are
far more expert than I.

It's a good idea to "fluff" your tapes at each once a year.  That's the
engineers' term for running the tapes through to sort of shake them up a
bit.  This is a bit tough for folk with hundreds or even thousands of
tapes.  But it's a good [removed] forward and/or rewind the tape to give
it a chance to "breathe".

We've all experienced "pre-echo" on old tapes, even on some brand new
pre-recorded ones.  I just purchased a fascinating four-tape video set
about history "Between the Wars" with Eric Sevareid discussing the end of
WWI and the Versailles Conference, up to and briefly showing Pearl
Harbor.  For some idiotic reason the artwork on this set features the
famous picture of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin
seated together in their meeting which took place well into WWII, not in
the period of time included in the documentary!

Anyway, 3 of the 4 tapes were technically perfect.  The third had a
pronounced squeak, which I was pleased to see go away after the first
viewing.  I hope it will not return.  But it also had significant
pre-echo.  A week before, we watched a drama with the same problem.  One
would hear a loud noise such as a scream or gunshot a few seconds before it
actually occurred ("again") in the film.

This is due to the magnetic programming "bleeding" from one layer of tape
to the adjacent ones.  It is especially prevalent in cheap tape and in
extra-long tapes such as 160 minute videos, in the latter case because the
tape itself is thinner to allow for longer duration.  Avoid them like the
plague!

Years ago I purchased 130-minute VHS tapes from a supplier in
Pennsylvania.  He made up tapes in any desired length for various
professional uses, and found that 130 minutes with a good,
standard-thickness tape was the limit one could handle in a VHS cassette.

Back to recording echos.  "Fluffing" the tape ([removed] playing it, or better
yet just fast forward or fast rewind) helped to keep the tape from
settling, and therefore producing areas where the tape was wound too
tightly against the next layer.

Several suggestions made to me by those in the know are:

1.  Have plenty of blank-tape lead-in as particularly on R-to-R machines,
you'll probably knock off a few inches every time you have the tape
flap-flap-flapping around before you can stop the machine.  Also, the tape
is wound the tightest near the center core, so it's best to have the
tightest wind at the tail end of the tape, where there is likely less
program material.

2.  Video rental stores notwithstanding, on your own tapes do NOT rewind
after every use.  Leave the tape all the way near the tail end.  This
requires you to rewind before playing the tape, thus "fluffing" it in the
process.

3.  Never store tapes flat, with the actual tape sitting in its container
on edge, or vertically.  Store them so the boxes are vertical.  This means
racking them on a shelf so they look like slim books.  This pertains to all
magnetic media:  disks, reels, audio cassettes, VHS and Beta videos.

4.  This is my own contribution.  I store our videotapes so that the spine
of the box is on the shelf or facing up, and the smaller end faces out.  It
means you can increase the amount of tapes stored on a wall but a very
large [removed] it out yourself.

5.  I also strive to have all boxes completely sealed on all six sides, to
keep out dust.  This requires either replacing boxes with open spines or
ends with cases which seal all around, or placing those boxes in clear
boxes which fully seal.  After years of searching for a source to replace
my original which went out of business, I found one with nice white
cardboard boxes.

6.  In the case of what I call "published" tapes, meaning the kind in which
one buys or rents films, I found a source for the same kind of case made of
clear plastic, so one can see the original case artwork, but still protect
the tape from dust invasion.  It helps to "de-static" these cases before
using.  Usually just handling them will do this, but then one has to
"de-static" oneself on occasion, to get rid of the charge.  Check the nape
of your neck.  I worked in the everywhere-carpeted hotel industry for some
years, and found it necessary to carry a key in one's hand and touching
door handles with it before grasping them, thus saving what can often be a
jolting, and in a darkened area, rather spectacular looking spark!

All of which reminds me of the conclusion reached long ago by engineers in
the know.  The best possible recording medium in terms of long-life
preservation is not magnetic, not CDs, not digital.  It's good
old-fashioned analog phonograph or gramophone recordings of whatever speed
and stylus size.
This does not address fidelity, just preservation of the sound that is there.

Mike Biel and several others who contribute here will recall an ARSC panel
in 1977 in which engineers were already doubting the longevity of CDs,
because it is impossible to fully remove moisture in the manufacture of the
CD "sandwich".  Moisture eventually will cause some oxidation which blurs
the reflectivity of the reading laser beam.  Note, I said 1977.

Is there any "perfect" recording medium, in terms of the best possible
reproduction of sound AND best possible retaining over a long period of
time?  No.  Is magnetic the best?  Not by a longshot.  I haven't even
mentioned the danger of outside magnetic fields.  And who knows about
radiation, which is simply another form of electrical energy.  Remember
that the next time you take recorded magnetic media on a plane trip!

Happy days!   Lee Munsick

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

Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 11:51:14 -0400
From: lawrence albert <albertlarry@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Hal Stone at Reps

To all who want to know:
            I had the great good privilege of working
with Hal at this years REPS showcase. This is to
attest that I found him highly professional,very
funny, easily accessible and a pure joy to work with.
    I directed the ONE MAN'S FAMILY recreation and Hal
played a pivitol role in the script. The first thing
he asked me was how I wanted him to play the part.
This is always a good sign for a director, it means
the actor is thinking about the over-all scene and not
just his or her part. Later during the actual
performance one of the actors was too far off mic. I
was just about to try and catch the performers eye and
try to signal a move closer when Hal caught my eye. He
knew what I was thinking and quietly let me know he
would handle the minor problem if I wanted him to,
which I did. Now, I direct a goodly number of stage
plays and to me a this little exchange told me that
Hal and I were on the same page. I love working with
people who are concerned about the whole pie rather
then just their little slice.
       I loved working with all of the guests at the
showcase, and all wonderful off stage as well as on,
but since Hal is on the digest I feel that all of the
subscribers should know what I found out. He's a good
guy to have around. I'm only sorry I never got to meet
his lady.
              a new fan
                Larry Albert
[removed] His work on all of the other recreations was
excellent too. How he can still do that Jughead voice
is a matter for modern science to look into.
          Larry

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

Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 11:52:05 -0400
From: Alan Chapman <[removed]@[removed];
To: Old-Time Radio Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Drinks in the house

...And for us New Englanders, remembering soft drinks of old brings to
mind my favorite drink as a kid -- MOXIE (Just make mine [removed]" was
the jingle).

It was the nation's first mass-marketed soft drink, long before Pepsi
and Coca Cola. It was created in 1884 in Lowell, Massachusetts by Dr.
Augustin Thompson (a Maine lad), and originally touted as a patent
medicine guaranteed to cure almost any ill including loss of manhood,
"paralysis, and softening of the brain." (Probably explains why it
tastes sort of like a blend of root beer and cough syrup.)

No longer available nationally, MOXIE (and now Diet MOXIE) is still
bottled up in Maine, and it still can be found around New England (if
you look in the right stores or you can still order it on-line).  In
fact, there is an annual "Moxie Days Festival" -- this year's is coming
up this month -- July 12-14 in Lisbon, Maine --
[removed] -- (Almost in your backyard, Elizabeth.)

Wow, am I getting thirsty!

Alan Chapman

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

Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 12:20:34 -0400
From: "TIM  LONES" <tallones@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  RE:True-Ade

to Jim Cox:
     I've lived in Ohio most of my life, so I had never heard of True-Ade
before reading your post.  But thinking on it, .A Statler Brothers song, "Do
You Remember These?"..Has the Line."Hit Parade Grape True Ade Sadie Hawkins
Dance"..I thought for for a long time they were saying Kool [removed] members
of the [removed] and Don Reid, Phil Balsley and Jimmy Fortune, as well
as the late Lew DeWitt were all from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and
grew up through the 1950's. Most of their songs have to do with nostalgia
and days gone by.  One of the most awarded groups in music history.(I'm a
fan in case you can't tell)

Tim Lones
Canton, Ohio

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

Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 13:09:18 -0400
From: "Irene Heinstein" <IreneTH@[removed];
To: "OTR" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  NY in the Fifties ~ Grand Central Station

An appreciation of 'Grand Central Station':

I'm reading the book 'New York in the Fifties' by Dan Greenfield and I was
glad to see that the program 'Grand Central Station' played a special role
in the imaginations of people going off to NY to follow their dreams.

>From Chapter One:
<<The train took you straight to the city's heart, to Penn Station, or,
better still to the legendary Grand Central Station, whose name was the
title of a radio drama I listened to faithfully on Saturday mornings in my
family's kitchen.  My friends and I were enthralled by the drama that began
with the sounds of whistles, chugs, and escaping steam of the mighty trains
that crossed the land, as the deep voice of the announcer intoned each week
these thrilling words:

'As a bullet seeks its target, shining rails in every part of our great
country are aimed at Grand Central Station, heart of the nation's greatest
city.  Drawn by the magnetic force, the fantastic metropolis' day and night
great trains rush toward the Hudson River, sweep down its eastern bank for
140 miles, flash briefly past the long red row of tenement houses south of
the 125th Street, dive with a roar into the two-and-a-half mile tunnel which
burrows beneath the glitter and swank of Park Avenue and then . . . [sound
effects call for ESCAPING STEAM FROM LOCOMOTIVE] Grand Central Station . . .
crossroads of a million private lives.'

<<Whose blood could failed to be stirred by the prospect of such a journey?
.....>>

He then goes on to tell of others in the literary community who carried the
same images and inspiration from 'Grand Central Station' that he did when
they headed off from the hinterlands.   My and my friends trips to Grand
Central Station invoked the same images and promise even though our trip
only took a half hour from the suburbs.

Irene

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

Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 13:52:56 -0400
From: Rick Keating <pkeating89@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re: buried alive

I have also heard a story about someone incorrectly
assumed to be dead. In this case, in the early 1980s,
an elderly friend of mine told me a story (possibly
apocryphal) about  an incident many years previous
(before embalming). A very wealthy old woman had died
and was buried. Only the grave robbers who dug her up
to get at her jewels discovered that she wasn't dead
when she started to wake up as they were in the
process of robbing her.

If the story is true, the woman was lucky those men
chose to dig her up and so soon after she was buried.

Still, given that medical science was very much hit
and miss until about the mid 20th century, I'm sure a
lot of people were buried alive or almost subjected to
an autopsy while alive. Most were probably never
discovered, but all it would take would be one or
two-- or the rumor of such incidents-- to inspire the
imagination of  the writers of shows with suspenseful
themes.

Rick

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2002 Issue #253
*********************************************

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]