Subject: [removed] Digest V2005 #64
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 2/26/2005 6:10 PM
To: [removed]@[removed]

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2005 : Issue 64
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                             [removed]
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Bill Johnstone                        [ "Larry Dunham" <ldunham@[removed] ]
  which is better?                      [ "Garry Lewis" <garrylewis747@earthl ]
  Many Springfields                     [ "Stewart Wright" <stewwright@worldn ]
  2-27 births/deaths                    [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
  This week in radio history 27 Feb to  [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
  This week in radio history 27 Feb to  [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
  OTR baseball                          [ Michael Berger <intercom1@attglobal ]
  OTR baseball broadcasts               [ "bcockrum" <rmc44@[removed]; ]
  Re:Springfield redux, Popeye, postal  [ "Irene Heinstein" <IreneTH@[removed] ]
  Let's Pretend Book                    [ "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@hotm ]

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

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 10:30:16 -0500
From: "Larry Dunham" <ldunham@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Bill Johnstone
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

Hello all:

I was a subscriber to this list several years ago, and finally am beginning
to have some time to pay attention to my OTR hobby again.

My current question is this-was Bill Johnstone, the fabulous radio actor of
"The Shadow" fame (as well other great supporting character roles too
numerous to mention), the same person who played on the TV soap opera "As
The World Turns" in the original 1956 cast, playing Judge James Lowell until
1978?  The cast list says William Johnstone, and his [removed]
<[removed];  bio says he had been billed
occasionally as Bill Johnstone.

I remember my mother watching this program when I was a small boy, and I
remember the character, just never knew the actor's name until I ran across
it yesterday.

Also, [removed]'s bio of Johnstone is pretty [removed] there a more complete
bio somewhere on the net?

Thanks!

Larry Dunham

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

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

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:48:51 -0500
From: "Garry Lewis" <garrylewis747@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  which is better?

  I grew up watching "Gunsmoke" and "Have Gun Will Travel" on TV. I easily
watched every episode twice or thrice. I recently bought a DVD of all the
radio episodes of both shows. Now I can say, after 2 weekend of listening,
that- I like both.
  I look upon them as different flavors of ice cream. Each has a base
com-position, but each has it's own different appeal. I feel the same way
about "Superman". But the strange thing is, I'm just the opposite about
"Dragnet"(TV preferred)- I wonder why?

Now onto YTJD.

Garry

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

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:50:35 -0500
From: "Stewart Wright" <stewwright@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Many Springfields

    My list of Springfields in the United States in The Old-Time Radio
Digest Volume 2005: Issue 58 seems to have stimulated quite a bit of
discussion and a little confusion.

    The source of the list was the U. S. Geological Survey's Geographic
Names Information System (GNIS) which is a database containing the names of
nearly 2,000,000 cultural and physical geographic features in the United
States and its territories.  These features appear on the U. S. Geological
Survey's topographic maps.

    My list was the result of a GNIS query of "populated places" with the
name of "Springfield."  A "populated place" in GNIS is defined as "a place
or area with clustered or scattered buildings and a permanent human
population (city, settlement, town, village)."  So a populated place can be
an incorporated city the size of New York City or it can also be a small
group of inhabited buildings at a rural crossroads that carries the name an
original settler or the name of the original local store or tavern that was
located at that crossroads.

    When most of the population of the United States lived in rural areas
there were probably tens of thousands of these small populated places.  They
may have had only a general store and a couple of houses.  Perhaps it might
be more accurate to call them Villages or Hamlets.  They are a reminder of a
previous time in the history of the United States.

    Most of the "Springfields" on my list are quite small and
unincorporated, that is they Do Not have a charter of incorporation from
their respective State government and do not have official boundaries.  They
would not appear on State government lists of incorporated places.

    Most would not even have their own post office.  Therefore, their
official [removed] Postal Service mailing town name would usually be that of the
nearest town with a Post Office.

    Many of these small, populated places do not appear on commercial roads
maps or in road atlases and travel planning software.  Nearly 40 years ago,
my first paying, geography-related job was working for a mapping firm that
among its products were road maps produced for Oil Companies.  (Remember,
when road maps were Free for the asking at your Neighborhood gas station?)
In some cases, the decision on whether to show one small village over
another on a specific Oil Company's road map was based on a single criteria:
the brand of gasoline sold at the village's gas station.

Signing off for now,

Stewart Wright

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

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:50:51 -0500
From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio List <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  2-27 births/deaths

February 27th births

02-27-1880 - Georgia Burke - Atlanta, GA - d. 11-28-1985
actress: Lily "When A Girl Marries"
02-27-1888 - Lotte Lehmann - Perleberg, Prussia, Germany - d.
10-24-1976
soprano: "Command Performance"; "Concert Hall"; "Here's to Veterans"
02-27-1891 - David Sarnoff - Minsk, Russia - d. 12-12-1971
executive: National Broadcasting Company"
02-27-1892 - William Demarest - St. Paul, MN - d. 12-28-1983
actor: Mr. Cobb "Cobbs"; "Eddie Bracken Show"
02-27-1894 - Frank Munn - The Bronx, NY - d. 10-1-1953
singer (The Golden Voice of Radio) Paul Oliver "Palmolive Hour"
02-27-1894 - Upton Close - Kelso, WA - d. 11-14-1960
commentator: "Events and Trends of the Week"; "Close-Ups of the :News"

02-27-1902 - Gene Sarazen - Harrison, NY - d. 5-13-1999
golf legend: "Tops in Sports"
02-27-1902 - John Steinbeck - Salinas, CA - d. 12-20-1968
novelist: "Radio Hall of Fame"; "Lux Radio Theatre"; "Screen
Director's Playhouse"
02-27-1903 - Reginald Gardiner - Wimbledon, Surrey, England - d.
7-7-1980
actor: "Document A/777"
02-27-1905 - Franchot Tone - Niagara Falls, NY - d. 9-18-1968
actor: "Arch Oboler Plays"; "Free Company"; "Knickerbocker Playhouse"
02-27-1907 - Kenneth Horne - England - d. 2-14-1969
comedian: "Round the Horne"; "Ack Ack Beer Beer"; "Beyond Our Ken"
02-27-1907 - Mildred Bailey - Tekoa, WA - d. 12-12-1951
singer: (Rockin' Chair Lady) "Mildred Bailey Show"; "Camel Caravan"
02-27-1909 - Carl Frank - d. 9-23-1972
actor: Jerry Malone "Young Dr. Malone"; Bob Drake "Betty and Bob"
02-27-1910 - Joan Bennett - Palisades, NJ - d. 12-7-1990
actress: "Ford Theatre"; "MGM Theatre of the Air"; "Skippy Hollywood
Theatre"
02-27-1913 - Irwin Shaw - NYC - d. 5-16-1984
author: "Columbia Workshop";"Studio One"; "The Gumps"
02-27-1915 - Donald Curtis - Cheney, WA - d. 5-22-1997
actor: Michael Shayne "Michael Shayne"
02-27-1923 - Dexter Gordon - Los Angeles, Ca - d. 4-25-1990
saxophonist: "Newport Jazz Festival";"White House Jazz Festival"
02-27-1927 - Guy Mitchell - Detroit, MI - d. 7-1-1999
singer: "Stars On Parade"; "1957 March of Dimes Galaxy of Stars"
02-27-1932 - Elizabeth Taylor - London, England
actress: "Theatre Guild On the Air"; "Lux Radio Theatre"

February 27th deaths

01-20-1899 - Joseph Buloff - Vilnius, Lithuania - d. 2-27-1985
actor: Barney Glass "House of Glass"
02-25-1908 - George Duning - Richmond, IN - d. 2-27-2000
composer: "Bud's Bandwagon"
04-16-1918 - Spike Milligan - Ahmednagar, India - d. 2-27-2002
comedian: Eccles the Idiot, Miss Minnie Bannister, Count Moriarty
"Goon Show"
06-01-1915 - John Randolph - NYC - d. 2-27-2004
actor: "New World A' Coming"; "A Date with Judy"
06-16-1885 - Tom Howard - County Tyrone, Ireland - d. 2-27-1955
comedian: "It Pays to Be Ignorant"; "Sunday Night Party"
07-14-1901 - George Tobias - NYC - d. 2-27-1980
actor: "Cavalcade of America"; "Screen Guild Theatre"
10-14-1893 - Lillian Gish - Springfield, OH - d. 2-27-1993
panelist: "Arthur Hopkins Presents"; "Texaco Star Playhouse";
"Suspense"
12-31-1897 - Orry-Kelly - Kiama, New South Wales, Australia - d.
2-27-1964
costume designer: Intermission Guest "Lux Radio Theatre"
12-31-1914 - Pat Brady - Toledo, OH - d. 2-27-1972
sidekick, stooge: "Roy Rogers Show"
--
Ron Sayles
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:50:59 -0500
From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
To: otrd <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  This week in radio history 27 Feb to 5 March

 From Those Were The Days --

2/27

1922 - Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover convened the first National
Radio Conference in Washington, DC. There, industry regulations were
widely discussed.

3/1

1932 - Radio's greatest effort of on-the-spot news coverage began as NBC
and CBS rushed to Hopewell, NJ to cover the kidnaping of the Charles and
Anne Lindbergh baby.

1941 -  Commercial FM broadcasting began in the [removed] when station W47NV
in Nashville, TN started operations on this day.

1941 - Duffy's Tavern debuted on CBS.

3/2

1945 - Mystery fans remember this day when they gathered around the
radio set to listen to the Mutual Broadcasting System as Superman
encountered Batman and Robin for the first time.

1952 - Whispering Streets debuted on ABC, remaining on the air until 1960.

3/4

1877 -- Emile Berliner came up with a thing called the microphone.

1925 - Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office in Washington DC. The
presidential inauguration was broadcast on radio for the very first time.

1930 - 'The Redhead', Red Barber, began his radio career this day.
Barber broadcast on WRUF at the University of Florida in Gainsville. He
soon became one of the best known sports voices in America.

1942 - Shirley Temple had a starring role in Junior Miss on CBS. The
show, heard for the first time, cost $12,000 a week to produce and
stayed on the airwaves until 1954.

1951 - Sir John Gielgud, starring as Hamlet, was heard on The [removed] Steel
Hour on the NBC.

1952 - President Harry Truman dedicated the Courier, the first seagoing
radio broadcasting station, in ceremonies in Washington, DC.

   Joe

--
Visit my homepage: [removed]~[removed]

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

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:51:15 -0500
From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
To: otrd <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  This week in radio history 27 Feb to 5 March

 From Those Were The Days --

2/27

1922 - Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover convened the first National
Radio Conference in Washington, DC. There, industry regulations were
widely discussed.

3/1

1932 - Radio's greatest effort of on-the-spot news coverage began as NBC
and CBS rushed to Hopewell, NJ to cover the kidnaping of the Charles and
Anne Lindbergh baby.

1941 -  Commercial FM broadcasting began in the [removed] when station W47NV
in Nashville, TN started operations on this day.

1941 - Duffy's Tavern debuted on CBS.

3/2

1945 - Mystery fans remember this day when they gathered around the
radio set to listen to the Mutual Broadcasting System as Superman
encountered Batman and Robin for the first time.

1952 - Whispering Streets debuted on ABC, remaining on the air until 1960.

3/4

1877 -- Emile Berliner came up with a thing called the microphone.

1925 - Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office in Washington DC. The
presidential inauguration was broadcast on radio for the very first time.

1930 - 'The Redhead', Red Barber, began his radio career this day.
Barber broadcast on WRUF at the University of Florida in Gainsville. He
soon became one of the best known sports voices in America.

1942 - Shirley Temple had a starring role in Junior Miss on CBS. The
show, heard for the first time, cost $12,000 a week to produce and
stayed on the airwaves until 1954.

1951 - Sir John Gielgud, starring as Hamlet, was heard on The [removed] Steel
Hour on the NBC.

1952 - President Harry Truman dedicated the Courier, the first seagoing
radio broadcasting station, in ceremonies in Washington, DC.

   Joe

--
Visit my homepage: [removed]~[removed]

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

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:51:40 -0500
From: Michael Berger <intercom1@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  OTR baseball

Tapes of the 1948 Series offer a side by side
comparison of the styles of Jim Britt and Mel Allen.
Britt, who also broadcast the Boston Braves' games,
was always more 'under control' than Allen, who often
seemed to be talking as a way of working off nervous
energy.

The greatest contrast I hear between contemporary play
by play and the 30s-50s concerns detail.  Most of the
old timers just called the plays. Very little personal
information about players, or comments about strategy.
Red Barber was one of the first who began adding much
more information to  his calls. Allen, to my ear, was
much stronger on stats than analysis.

I used to think Helfer was superb, but re-hearing some
of his work, he suffers from the same weakness as most
of his contemporaries, with the exception of the
then-young Vin Scully - he gave you very little except
the action itself.  Some people critique Scully for
talking too much, but since baseball is a game of
constant time spaces between the action, how an
announcer uses that time is what separates the few
very good ones from the rest.

That is what made Dizzy Dean such a delight. He and
the low key Bud Blattner were a great team and by far
the most 'fun' to listen to. Diz also used the 'bear
hunting with a switch' line, along with his many other
famous phrases and mispronunciations.

Growing up in San Francisco, I rarely heard the famous
local announcers like Bob Prince in Pittsburgh, Harry
Caray in St. Louis and Ernie Harwell in Baltimore and
then Detroit, but we had one in the Bay Area, Bud
Foster, who was as good if not better a play by play
man than most of the MLB voices I heard in the 50s.

Michael Berger

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

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:52:00 -0500
From: "bcockrum" <rmc44@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  OTR baseball broadcasts

Regarding the OTR Baseball post in the last digest. The man often referred
to as baseball's greatest "re-creator" was Gordon McLendon. He was not
bashful about self-promotion, so he might have given himself the title. You
can do a search on his name and come up with a number of accounts of his
exploits. He and the story of his Liberty Broadcasting System that carried
his game broadcasts, starting in 1948, also is told in "Texas Signs On," by
Richard Schroeder.

And game recreations lasted well beyond OTR. I remember being surprised when
I lived in Denver in the 1970s that KLZ was recreating the games of the
city's minor league team, the Bears, I believe. I didn't discover what was
going on until one evening, when the team was playing in Ohio, they had done
the pre-game show (sounding "live" from Ohio), but then the game was rained
out ... so they went to the club manager's post-game show -- with the
play-by-play announcer in "studio-quality" sound and the manager in
telephone-quality sound. No wonder the announcer sounded so good -- the
studio was exactly where he was!

bc

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

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 18:05:52 -0500
From: "Irene Heinstein" <IreneTH@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re:Springfield redux, Popeye, postal names,
 baseball recreations and Mel Allen

I haven't had much to say for a while so I thought I'd group a few
responses.   Sorry for the lenth.

Re:  Springfield

Richard Carpenter wrote:

All right, I'll grant you that the Andersons of
"Father Knows Best" may have lived in Springfield,
Ill., or, as Dunning says, some Springfield in the
Midwest. But I still think TV's "The Simpsons" are
from Massachusetts.

Matt Groening has said that Springfield 'is a state of mind'

He grew up in Oregon and watched 'Father Knows Best' on TV and assumed that
Springfield was Springfield, Oregon.   Much later he found out that every
state has a Springfield.

"I picked the name so that everyone might feel the same relation to the
Springfield in 'The Simpsons' that I felt to the Springfield in 'Father
Knows Best,'" Groening continued.

"Springfield is a pretty name for a town with many problems," Groening said.

= =========================================================
Re:  Popeye and Spinach

Rodney Bowcock wrote:
I'm sure that spinach farmers everywhere rejoiced as children
stopped scorning the leafy vegetable so much in hopes that they too would
have disproportioned, python like forearms just like Popeye.  [removed]
was
enough for me to try it!  :-)

My negative feelings about spinach were too ingrained to be influenced by
Popeye.   :))
However I was shocked when I learned that one of my favorites of my mother's
Greek dishes, spanakopita included spinach.

I loved Popeye.   In fact we had a Popeye living in our town during the late
40s, and 50s. His name was Harry Welch.   As a kid I assumed he was the only
Popeye, as did my friends, and he was a great guy, always performing for us.
Loved kids.  He called  his daughter Swee'pea.   (She handled that ok since
she was a gorgeous blonde who created a sensation on her first day of school
at Scarsdale HS, an event covered by the local Westchester press).   Since
he regularly frequented my dad's luncheonette I was privileged to talk to or
more correctly listen to 'Popeye' a lot.   In recent years, out of
curiosity, I checked IMDB and found that he was the uncredited voice of
Popeye for 7 films as a substitute for Jack Mercer and was a Popeye voice in
the TV series from 1956-63 along with Jack Mercer and William Costello.   He
also narrated some Popeye records.  He was a wonderful incarnation of Popeye
and a great guy and made me a Popeye lover for life.     Kids know.
= ====================================
Jim Yellen wrote:

Just because there's a town or village is shown on a map, doesn't mean
that
there's a post office there.
<snip>
I believe there are many towns around this vast country that suffer from
the
"identity crisis" of not having a post office with their name on it.

I grew up in the Town of Eastchester which consisted of the villages of
Bronxville, Tuckahoe and an unincorporated area.    Bronxville had its own
post office early on.   Being one of the most affluent communities in
Westchester they were not willing to accept a Yonkers address.   Tuckahoe
mail also used to be postmarked Yonkers, which Tuckahoe folks didn't like
and eventually Tuckahoe got its own PO. [Tuckahoe 7, NY].   The
unincorporated area also went from Yonkers to Tuckahoe.    However they
wanted their own postmark and eventually got it, despite the fact they were
unincorporated, but with protest from the residents in the northern part of
Eastchester who had been assigned to the Scarsdale post office all those
years and didn't want to give up such a tony association.   They prevailed
and can still pretend they live in Scarsdale.

The prestigious Sarah Lawrence College is always mentioned as being in
Bronxville but it's actually in Yonkers, albeit close to the border with
Bronxville.   They know they're in Yonkers, and participate with that city
in many events and educational programs.  I'm not sure how they got to keep
a Bronxville address and zip code, but according to local history that area
of Yonkers was once part of Bronxville, known as Lawrence Park West.
[Lawrence Park being an enclave of grand houses built at the turn of the
20th century as a potential artists' colony]  The college is named for Sarah
Lawrence whose mansion (and her husband William's) is now the admin building
of the college.  My connection to the Lawrence family is that I was born in
the Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville!

Out here in the Bay Area there are some anomalies as well.   Kensington is a
very desirable and affluent unincorporated area of Contra Costa Co, one
which is very much like its adjoining hill neighbors in Berkeley, which is
in Alameda Co.    For years Kensington had a Berkeley address and most
people understandably assumed Kensington was a section of Berkeley, despite
its being in a different county.

You don't have to live out in the country to get caught up in the postal
zone game.
= ===================================
Rogers wrote of recreated baseball broadcasts:

An oft untold secret is that many of the early BB broadcasts were, in
fact,
recreations.

So were many of the later games.   When the Giants and the Dodgers left NY
in 1958 their devastated fans continued to follow their games.    My Dad and
I were avid Giants fans and I ended up in the SF Bay Area at UC the same
year the Giants moved here.    However when visiting my parents back East it
was sad to see my father having to listen to recreated Giants games off the
ticker.

And on the subject of baseball and Mel Allen.

I recently went on a Vic and Sade binge [I want more of that wonderful
program!] and was surprised to find that Mel Allen was an early announcer
for that program.    Sometimes he was Mel and sometimes he was Melvin.    In
what I'm sure  is a rare omission by Dunning. Mel Allen is not listed in the
Vic and Sade section as an announcer.

--Irene Heinstein

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

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 18:14:46 -0500
From: "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Let's Pretend Book

Hal mentioned about Arthur Anderson's revised edition of LET'S PRETEND.

The books is recommended as it is a fascinating history of how the show was
put together, bios about the cast and crew, details about the scripts, and
unlike the previous McFarland hardcover (which retailed something like
$[removed] if I recall correctly), the new edition features more info, extended
tid-bits, and for the first time ever a complete broadcast log listing all
1,200+ radio broadcasts including episode numbers, titles and airdates.
Also includes the same for The Adventures of Helen and Mary, which was the
forerunner to Let's Pretend.  The log was compiled by two fans who are
frequent posters on this Digest, one being Derek Tague, who also is part of
the FOTR Committee like Arthur Anderson.

I have a copy on my book shelf and it's worth the price - especially since
the log itself isn't available on the web and the price is less than half
the price Mcfarland was selling theirs.

Book is available at [removed].

Martin Grams, Jr.

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2005 Issue #64
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