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

      Please Read Information Boilerplate at the End of This Digest
                          Last Updated 10-28-96

[removed] Digest				Volume 96 : Issue 472

Table Of Contents: 

	 Who's That on First?  (or "Who's on First" First?)
	 re Irving Gordon
	       Misc.
	 Opps! Slight typo [removed]
	 WHOS
	 Jack Benny
	 Program request
	 Re:  Cultural Ignorance, cont'd.
	 World War I, World War II
	 Sheldon Leonard
	 Frances Alda help needed
	 Re: Erik Barnouw's books for [removed]

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

Date: Thu, 05 Dec 1996 10:37:57 -0700
From: Chet Cox <CHCOX@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Who's That on First?  (or "Who's on First" First?)
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

<<<Gordon also worked as a contract writer for Abbott and Costello, and wrote the famous ``Who's On First,'' comedy sketch, his son, William Gordon, said Tuesday.>>>

Hm?  Groucho (and, I think, Harpo, in *Harpo Speaks*) mentioned that the vaudeville team of Gallagher and Sheen occasionally performed "Who's on First?" and it was considered an old vaudeville & minstrel show standby even then.  Perhaps Gordon did write it, but it seems doubtful that Abbott & Costello were the first ones to use it.  It IS obvious that no one else ever popularized it as completely - - and it's likely that no one ever performed it better than A&C.



*jeep!
~~~~Chet
Quote of the day:  "A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer."
 --Robert Frost

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

Date: Thu, 5 Dec 96 11:50 CST
From: John Henley <jhenley@[removed]>
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: re Irving Gordon
Message-Id: <m0vVhvy-000kETC@[removed]>

Steven Lewis passed this on to us:

>LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Songwriter Irving Gordon, who wrote
>``Unforgettable'' and won a Grammy for it four decades later after
>Natalie Cole recorded it as a duet with her late father, died Sunday of
>cancer. He was 81. 
>
>Gordon also worked as a contract writer for Abbott and Costello, and
>wrote the famous ``Who's On First,'' comedy sketch, his son, William
>Gordon, said Tuesday. 
 
With all due respect to a talented man, and with due regard for his son, I
have to say the info in that second paragraph is highly doubtful.

For one thing, A & C's longtime staff writer was John Grant; and for
another, it's well known that the vast majority of their routines were
straight out of burlesque, and Grant just rewrote them to fit A&C's styles
of delivery.  In fact, some of those routines were probably older than they
were themselves.  And that goes for Who's On First.  ("Yes." "The guy on
first base."  "Who." "The fellow playing first!"  "Who."  "Whaddya asking
me for!!!!!!!!")

But I could be wrong.  ("That's our shortstop."  No, I just made that up. 
The shortshop was "I-don't-give-a-darn."  Or "-damn" if you were in the
armed forces.)
John Henley
jhenley@[removed]
ph  (512) 495-4112
fax (512) 495-4296

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

Date:          Thu, 5 Dec 1996 13:32:22 DST
From: "Pat premo" <PPREMO@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:       Misc.
Message-ID: <114612682A6E@[removed]>

Hello again,

I thought I had subscribed to this group, but have not received any 
messages in weeks.  I contacted Bill Pfeiffer (sp?) as to what had 
happened, but have not heard from him.  Can anyone help???

On another note, I am looking for old radio shows on:

Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
War of the Worlds by HG Wells (NOT the Orson Wells Mercury broadcast).

Can anyone help?

Thanks.

pat

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

Date: Thu, 05 Dec 1996 12:08:03 -0600
From: "Robert M. Bratcher Jr." <bratcher@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Opps! Slight typo [removed]
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Steven Lewis wrote the following:

>LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Songwriter Irving Gordon, who wrote
>``Unforgettable'' and won a Grammy for it four decades later after
>Natalie Cole recorded it as a duet with her late father, died Sunday of
>cancer. He was 81. 
>
>Gordon also worked as a contract writer for Abbott and Costello, and
>wrote the famous ``Who's On First,'' comedy sketch, his son, William
>Gordon, said Tuesday. 
>
>Gordon, whose songs were recorded by such greats as Duke Ellington,
>Billie Holiday and Patti Page, provided Nat King Cole with a hit in
>``Unforgettable'' in 1951. 
>
>Cole died in 1965, but his daughter gave the song a whole new life in
>1992 with a new duet version that merged her voice with her late
>father's recording. The Grammy for Song of the Year, a writer's prize,
>went to Gordon. 
>
>Gordon also wrote ``Prelude to a Kiss'' and gave the title and lyrics to
>Ellington while on a New York subway in the late 1930s. Decades later,
>the title of the song became the title of a play and a 1992 motion
>picture starring Meg Ryan and Alec Baldwin. 
>
>His other songs include ``What Can I Tell My Heart?'' recorded by Bing
>Crosby; ``Me, Myself and I,'' recorded by Holiday; ``Throw Momma From
>the Train,'' recorded by Patti Page, a song that provided the title of
>the 1987 Danny De Vito comedy; and ``Mr. and Mrs. Mississippi.'' 

That should be Mister and Mississippi

Mercury 5645
Patti Page (I have the 78)

Back side is 
These Things I Offer You
not written by Irving Gordon.

Robert M. Bratcher Jr.
E-mail to:
bratcher@[removed]
Record collector, 8mm, super 8, 16 and 35mm Film collector.
I like old radio's too.
Collins, Hallicrafters, National & Hammurland are my Favorites!

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

Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 16:31:23 -0800 (PST)
From: roy547@[removed] (Roy Trumbull)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: WHOS
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length:        121

I seem to recall an obit within the last three years in which
another writer (not Gordon) got credit for "Whos on first"

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

Date: Thu, 05 Dec 1996 20:03:57 -0600
From: Cockrum <bcockrum@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Jack Benny
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I want to thank Bruce Toews for the information about the Jack Benny
program. My original question concerned the last episode of the series
-- with the non-Mary Livingstone voice. Because I had checked with a
number of other collectors over the years about it, and their versions
were the same as mine, I had assumed that what I (we) had was THE
version that went out over the air ... and for whatever reason Mary was
unable, or did not want, to do the show. Good to know the broadcast
version is out there.
Bo Cockrum
Grand Prairie, Texas
bcockrum@[removed]

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

Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 21:37:42 -0500
From: vintage@[removed] (Andy Blatt)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Program request
Message-Id: <v01540b01aecce246745d@[[removed]]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I am posting a message here for someone looking for any copies of
"MOON RIVER" a 15-minute program that aired on WLW in Cincinnati in the 1930's
and 1940's.  There are approximately 75 episodes known to exist.

Lowell Thomas hosted a weekly PBS program in the 1980's (he was in his 80's)
called "Lowell Thomas Remembers" which offered a fascinating look at a specific
year or era in history.  I saw most of them, but this was before the advent
of low-cost, high quality videocassettes.  An impressive note about Mr. Thomas:
he was one of the larger (largest?) shareholders of Capital Cities
Communications, and when they bought The American Broadcasting Companies,
he was
made very much richer, although I suspect he had some wealth prior to this.

Andy Blatt
Vintage Broadcasts

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

Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 21:19:34 -0500 (EST)
From: lev@[removed] (S or A Levene)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re:  Cultural Ignorance, cont'd.
Message-Id: <v01530502aecce4286ba3@[[removed]]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

On a Jack Benny show I heard recently - and one I actually remember hearing
as a kid - Al Jolson is again a guest.  He arrives late.  Jack criticizes
Al's driving.  Al says, "Well Jack, you may not like the way I drive, but
you should see the way Larry PARKS!
A joke one cannot forget.

Sam Levene

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

Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 05:25:33 GMT
From: Richard Weil <richrw@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: World War I, World War II
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

In an episode of Gildersleeve from 1946 after the war was over, Gildy tells
Leroy that he was in the "last war". He of course was referring to World War
I, bur called it the "last war". My question is, when did people start
referring to the wars as World War I and World War II? Thanks

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

Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 20:28:44 -0800 (PST)
From: John Warmington <torus@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Sheldon Leonard
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

A friend of mine worked as a cue-card man for NBC around the late 1960
era.  He said that the worst chewing-out he ever got was when he slipped
in the wrong cue card for Sheldon Leonard.

He acknowledges that Mr. Leonard had every right to be upset, but the
incident is one of those "unforgettable" ones.

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

Date: Thu, 05 Dec 1996 16:34:46 -0600
From: "Robert M. Bratcher Jr." <bratcher@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Frances Alda help needed
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

The following is posted from 78-L
a 78 RPM record collectors E-mail list.
I hope someone can help this fellow out.
Normally I don't cross post like [removed]
Please reply to this person directly. Not to me or either OTR or 78-L list

>Reply-To: 78-l@[removed]
>Sender: owner-78-l@[removed]
>From: "Roger Flury" <[removed]@[removed]>
>To: 78 RPM Records <78-l@[removed]>
>Subject: Frances Alda
>X-PH: [removed]@[removed] (Cornell Modified) 
>X-Listprocessor-Version: [removed](a) -- ListProcessor by CREN
>Date: Thu, 5 Dec 96 21:06:49 +0000
>
>Dear List,
>
>I wonder if you can help me with some information on Frances Alda? We 
>are trying to locate a source for any sound transcriptions of her radio 
>broadcasts, if they exist. Also, where can we find "mint" copies of 
>the Vitaphone films? We have a VERY poor copy from Bel Canto, but Mme 
>Alda appears to be wearing a white plaster facial mask! It would be great to 
>be able to see her expression. 
>Hoping you can help.
>Best wishes,
>Roger
>Roger Flury,
>Senior Librarian (music),
>National Library of New Zealand.
>[removed] Box 1467,
>Wellington,
>NEW ZEALAND.
>
>E-MAIL: [removed]@[removed]
>Fax: (0064) 4 474 3035
>
>"My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my employer."
>

Robert M. Bratcher Jr.
E-mail to:
bratcher@[removed]
Record collector, 8mm, super 8, 16 and 35mm Film collector.
I like old radio's too.
Collins, Hallicrafters, National & Hammurland are my Favorites!

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

Date: Fri, 06 Dec 96 05:45:13
From: cmarvel@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Erik Barnouw's books for [removed]
Message-Id: <m0vW0fd-0000ijC@[removed]>

All:
    According to Walt Appel, The Scholar's Bookshelf in New Jersey has
copies of Erik Barnouw's radio history books.  I called them and they said
they never had copies for sale.  Walt, if you are reading this, would you
please double check your info and mail us which store has those books for
sale?  I am very interested in "The Golden Web" and would gladly pay for a
copy -- hopefully, with the original dust cover.

Keith Lee



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--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V96 Issue #472
*******************************************

