Subject: [removed] Digest V2008 #36
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 2/10/2008 4:18 AM

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

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2008 : Issue 36
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                 [removed]
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      OTR on cds                            [ laurie platt <laurie1125@[removed] ]
      Ray Kemper                            [ jack and cathy french <otrpiano@ver ]
      Devil's tools                         [ <radioaz@[removed]; ]
      Martin's mp3s                         [ david rogers <david_rogers@hotmail. ]
      OTR in the News                       [ Sean Dougherty <seandd@[removed] ]
      This week in radio history 10-16 Feb  [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
      Magic Island                          [ Kermyt Anderson <kermyta@[removed]; ]
      Tom Corbett Space Cadet comic         [ Kermyt Anderson <kermyta@[removed]; ]
      Re: Harold Peary's other radio chara  [ "Jan Bach" <janbach@[removed]; ]
      Five thoughts on "Suspense"           [ Richard Carpenter <newsduck@[removed] ]
      More Trivia on Gildersleeve           [ Ken Greenwald <kgradio@[removed]; ]
      Re: Radio -- Tool Of The Devil?       [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
      2-10 births/deaths                    [ Ronald Sayles <bogusotr@[removed] ]

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 07:05:08 -0500
    From: laurie platt <laurie1125@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  OTR on cds
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    I just happened to be at my local Tuesday Morning store and where they keep
    the cd's they had some otr shows on cd's, in stock where Alfred Hitchcock, Sgt
    Preston, Gangbuster's, and Father Knows Best. Check it out if you have a
    Tuesday Morning store near you

    Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser!
    [removed]

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    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 07:05:34 -0500
    From: jack and cathy french <otrpiano@[removed];
    To: OTRBB <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Ray Kemper

    I've lost touch with Ray Kemper, the extraordinary sound effects
    artist of CBS west coast. The "@psnw" email server I had for him no
    longer works.

    Anyone on list know of any contact info for Ray?

    Thanks,

    Jack French
    Editor: RADIO RECALL

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 07:06:07 -0500
    From: <radioaz@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Devil's tools

    I'm not surprised that fundamentalists would be against radio.  They are
    against so many new ideas.  I remember as a kid in the 50s that they were
    against rock 'n roll and were urging kids to burn their R 'n' R records.
    That went over real big.  Now-a-days take a look at a TV channel called
    JCTV--they feature some of the most awful music I have heard in a long
    time--all of it rock and heavy metal and all of it aimed at winning kids
    over to the church.  So, yes--those religious groups have been against many
    changes up until they find out they can use them for their own cause.

    I wouldn't be surprised if Billy Sunday, Sister Aimee Semple McPherson and
    Father Coughlin were in great part responsible for evangelicals adopting
    radio as a tool.  I'm sure there are many others.

    Ted

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 07:06:27 -0500
    From: david rogers <david_rogers@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Martin's mp3s
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    Martin Grams, Jr wrote:

    "I use my laptop and my DVD player to play MP3s, so I don't need any
    stand-alone MP3 player but someone on this digest may."Dear Martin, how do you
    listen to your otr mp3s when you go jogging?

    Love as always, David Rogers

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    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 10:26:57 -0500
    From: Sean Dougherty <seandd@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  OTR in the News

    A couple of pieces today that mention old time radio.

    This newspaper article on the "Hannah Montanna" pop culture phenomenon
    traces the character's roots to Ozzie and Harriet as well as Jack Benny and
    Burns and Allen (a bit of a stretch).

    [removed]

    This black history month column takes a look at the casual racism of the era
    that included OTR, mentioning jokes at Eddie "Rochester" Anderson's expense
    as part of that phenomenon.  This type of column never mentions that having
    a white star playing stooge to a black comedian was pretty progressive for
    back then but it is a valid observation regardless.

    On one Fred Allen program, Fred complained he had been at an event outside
    when it was so hot that "the only shade available was under a Ubangi's
    lips."  I remember thinking that if the most literate popular comedian of
    that era would pop off with a joke like that, imagine what the average night
    club hack must have been like.  I also notice that when Eddie Anderson guest
    starred or his character was mentioned on programs not written by Jack
    Benny's writers, the stereotype jokes were more crude.  Of course, that was
    also true of Jack Benny so that might not prove anything. His guest
    appearances on Eddie Cantor's show, for example, always relied on really
    obvious cheap jokes that generally lacked the careful pacing and subtle
    modifications that made it work on his own show.

    [removed],0,[removed]

    Sean Dougherty
    SeanDD@[removed]

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 11:06:16 -0500
    From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
    To: otrd <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  This week in radio history 10-16 February

     From These Were The Days --

    2/11

    1940 - NBC presented The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street for
    the first time. The famous Blue network series included several
    distinguished alumni -- among them, Dinah Shore and Zero Mostel. The
    chairman, or host, of The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street
    was Milton Cross. He would say things like, "A Bostonian looks like he's
    smelling something. A New Yorker looks like he's found it." The show
    combined satire, blues and jazz and was built around what were called
    the three B's of music: Barrelhouse, Boogie Woogie and Blues.

    2/12

    1924 - Calvin Coolidge, known by many as the "Silent Cal", made the
    first presidential political speech on radio. The speech originated from
    New York City and was broadcast on five radio stations. Some five
    million people tuned in to hear the President speak.

    1924 - The Eveready Hour became radio's first sponsored network program.
    The National Carbon Company took the honor of being the first sponsor of
    a network show.

    1940 - Mutual presented the first broadcast of Superman. The identity of
    the man from planet Krypton was unknown to listeners for six years. The
    secret eventually leaked out that Superman's voice was actually that of
    Bud Collyer.

    2/13

    1939 - Virginia Payne, already popular as the voice of Ma Perkins, took
    on a new character in NBC's soap opera, The Carters of Elm Street.
    Virginia played the part of Mrs. Carter.

    2/15

    1932 - George Burns and Gracie Allen debuted as regulars on The Guy
    Lombardo Show on CBS.

    1943 - My True Story was heard for the first time on ABC.  The program
    continued for 17 years and was presented in cooperation with True Story
    magazine.

    Joe

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

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 12:18:00 -0500
    From: Kermyt Anderson <kermyta@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Magic Island

    Somebody a few weeks ago mentioned Magic Island on this list. I'd never
    heard of this series, so I downloaded a copy from [removed] and
    launched into it. Thanks very much to whoever brought it up--I'm really
    enjoying it! Does anybody know anything about the cast? It's not in
    Dunning's book, and Hickerson says merely "With Bill Johnstone." Is he
    Captain Tex Harding? I had thought the Captain's voice sounded a little
    like Johnstone's--but not quite him. I'm only six episodes into it;
    perhaps he hasn't shown up yet. Since this show is dated to the
    1935/36, that would imply this is a New York production, since
    Johnstone was working there at the time. Are any of the other voices
    known?

    Kermyt

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 12:17:55 -0500
    From: Kermyt Anderson <kermyta@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Tom Corbett Space Cadet comic

    I know the readership here has a certain overlap with comic books. Has
    anybody else noticed that a number of independent comic publishers are
    taking a growing interest in OTR-related properties? A new series of
    "The Lone Ranger" was released a couple of years ago, which I haven't
    read but which apparently is selling pretty well. I don't know how much
    it would appeal to fans of the radio show, though, since I think they
    updated the character to make him grittier (the norm for most
    contemporary comic books). I read somewhere that Tonto no longer speaks
    pidgin English. You can see some of the covers from the comic here, at
    the publisher's website (it's about the third or fourth row down):
    [removed]

    Everybody's favorite fighting Buddhist monk, the Green Lama, has been
    revived as well, in a series featuring public domain superheroes from
    the 30s and 40s called "Superpowers." You can see Alex Ross's designs
    for the character here:
    [removed];sessionid=b27aade9c5e15226df023aa0452532a0
    And there's also a link to the book at the link I gave above for the
    Lone Ranger.

    Also, I just read that there's a forthcoming series based on Tom
    Corbett, Space Cadet. I haven't seen anything else besides the cover,
    though the art implies that it might have a more juvenile/less gritty
    approach that would be truer to the original character:
    [removed]

    See you in the funny papers!
    Kermyt

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 16:15:05 -0500
    From: "Jan Bach" <janbach@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Harold Peary's other radio characters
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    Hello again --

    Mention has been made of Harold Peary's appearances as characters other than
    Gildersleeve. According to the book "Heavenly Days" by Charles Stumpf and Tom
    Price, he had a long history appearing as other characters even when he was
    appearing with Fibber and Molly. Peary's first appearance was on their first
    radio show "Kaltenmeyer's Kindergarten" where he was called in to play the
    role of the Italian father of one of the school's pupils. He was then heard on
    the Fibber McGee show as a blustery mayor, a fussy interior decorator, a
    dignified art instructor, a bombastic Army General, piano salesman, taxi
    driver, Italian wrestler, assorted doctors, lawyers, a few Indian chiefs,
    optometrists and dentists, the stuffy Cicero Clod, the veddy-veddy British
    Lord Bingham, a vain movie star named "Silverscreen," a theater manager called
    "Mr. Frite-Wig," a department store owner named "Dinwiddie," and many
    characters named "Gildersleeve" including Widdicomb P. Gildersleeve, president
    of the Gildersleeve Baby Carriage factory or the manager of a girdle factory
    (which was chosen as his persona when his spin-off from the Fibber show
    began).  He was also heard as the pharmacist at Cramer's drugstore, and a
    Chinese laundryman called "Gooey-Fooey." Finally, on October 17, 1939, Peary
    became the McGee's pompous neighbor, Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, complete
    with a wife who was mentioned but never seen, and dropped altogether when
    Peary began his own show as a bachelor.

    yOurs TRuly,

    Jan Bach

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    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 16:15:33 -0500
    From: Richard Carpenter <newsduck@[removed];
    To: Old Radio <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Five  thoughts on "Suspense"

    "Suspense," of course, was one of radio's greatest series. Lately I've been having these thoughts and questions about the program:

    1) Watching one of the relatively rare "Suspense" TV shows on an OTR fundraising disc (available at [removed];products_id=44 ), I decided it was a pretty good show even with the primitive TV techniques of 1954. That led me to think that someone should bring the series back on television. Pulse-pounding stories in widescreen and high-def -- wow!

    2) When he wasn't pushing Johnson's Glo-Coat on "Fibber McGee and Molly,", Harlow Wilcox was busy selling Auto-Lite spark plugs and its other products on "Suspense." On a few shows, I heard him mention a new spark plug that wouldn't cause radio and TV interference. Was that a problem back then? I have a vague memory of the picture on our tiny TV flipping and flipping while a car idled outside, but I may be misremembering.

    3) I know that some of the "Escape" shows were also on "Suspense." Was this a budget move as radio lost its luster and advertising to TV? And did "Suspense" use recordings of the "Escape" shows with new introductions and farewells, or did "Suspense" use its own actors, [removed]

    4) What was with the several  hour-long shows sometime in 1948? They seemed overlong, dragged out, and lacking in, er, suspense.

    5) I got a kick out of Harlow Wilcox urging radio listeners to watch the "Suspense" TV show "if you live in a television area." Today, that  area embraces the entire world. Sigh.

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 21:59:00 -0500
    From: Ken Greenwald <kgradio@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  More Trivia on Gildersleeve

    Martin Grams, Jr. had a bit of trivia about Gildersleeve:

>     Small bit of trivia: After Willard Waterman took over the role for the radio
>     series, AND after Waterman was doing the role on the short-run syndicated
>     television series, Peary was instructed (on a legal basis) not to play any
>     characters or display any characterization that might resemble the character
>     of Gildersleeve. This is why in early films like ROAD TO VICTORY, Peary does
>     the Gildy laugh even though he's not Gildy, and in episodes of THE ADDAMS
>     FAMILY and FIBBER McGEE AND MOLLY, he isn't playing anything remotely similar
>     to the character of Gildersleeve.

    I just wanted to add that Peary wanted to take The Great Gildersleeve program
    to another network because he was not financially happy with what they were
    paying. To his surprise  he discovered that he did not own the rights to The
    Great Gildersleeve, though he thought he did. When Willard Waterman took over
    as Gildy and Peary went on to do Honest Harold, he also found out that the
    only thing he could use from The Gildersleeve show was his laugh. The laugh
    had been originated by him and was legally his. He used it sparingly after
    leaving The Gildersleeve show. He did a number of commercials in the 1970s
    for radio - by that time the Gildersleeve show was long gone, so it didn't
    matter - and, if my memory serves me correctly, he used the laugh on some of
    them.

    Ken Greenwald

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 21:59:17 -0500
    From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
    To: otrd <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re:   Radio -- Tool Of The Devil?

       Paula Keiser asked --

       > "In the earliest days of radio, religious fundamentalists were
    appalled at the appearance of radio.  They declared it a 'tool of the
    devil.'  Then someone realized that they could make money with [removed]"

     > Is there any basis in fact for this story?

       I recall reading something, many years ago, written about 1940, this
    minister said that no Christian would have a radio in their home since
    it was "the devil's music box", bringing worldly music into the home,
    music no real Christian should listen to.  The writer also railed
    against radio in general.  I wish I could recall the name of the book.
    This was just a part of a chapter and read it in either the late '60s or
    early '70s, but its always stuck in my mind.
       Joe

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

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

    Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 23:10:57 -0500
    From: Ronald Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
    To: Olde Tyme Radio Digest Digest <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  2-10 births/deaths

    February 10th births

    02-10-1868 - William Allen White - Emporia, KS - d. 1-31-1944
    writer: "American Forum of the Air"; "University of Chicago Round Table"
    02-10-1892 - Alan Hale, Sr. - Washington, [removed] - d. 1-22-1950
    actor:"Lux Radio Theatre"
    02-10-1893 - Bill Tilden - Germantown, PA - d. 6-4-1953
    tennis player: "Information Please"
    02-10-1893 - Jimmy Durante - NYC - d. 1-29-1980
    comedian: (Da Schnozz) Claudius 'Brainy' Bowers "Jumbo Fire Chief
    Program"
    02-10-1897 - Judith Anderson - Adelaide, Australia - d. 1-3-1992
    actor: Royal Gelatin Hour"
    02-10-1899 - Dolph Gobel - Regensburg, Germany - d. 8-xx-1970
    organist: "Ethel and Albert"; "Doplh Goebel Trio"
    02-10-1900 - Lou Breese - d. 1-xx-1969
    bandleader: "Invitation to the Fair"
    02-10-1902 - Stella Adler - NYC - d. 12-21-1992
    acting teacher: "Fleischmann's Yeast Hour"
    02-10-1903 - Lewis Allan - NYC - d. 10-xx-1986
    writer for theatre, radio, television and films
    02-10-1905 - Chick Webb - d. 6-16-1939
    bandleader: "Chick Webb and His Orhestra"
    02-10-1906 - Lon Chaney, Jr. - Oklahoma City,  Oklahoma Territory -
    d. 7-12-1973
    actor: "Pursuit of Happiness"
    02-10-1910 - Joyce Grenfell - London, England - d. 11-30-1979
    writer, actor: "How"; "A Note with Music"; "We Beg to Differ"
    02-10-1913 - James Monks - NYC - d. 10-2-1994
    actor: Jim Brandon "The Avenger" I. A. Moto "Mr. I. A. Moto"
    02-10-1914 - Larry Adler - Baltimore, MD - d. 8-6-2001
    harmonica player: "Forecast"
    02-10-1922 - Neva Patterson - Nevada, IA
    actor: "Cavalcade of America"
    02-10-1927 - Leontyne Price - Laurel, MS
    singer: "Metropolitan Opera"
    02-10-1929 - Jerry Goldsmith - Los Angeles, CA - d. 7-21-2004
    composer, conductor: "Frontier Gentleman"; "Romance"
    02-10-1930 - Robert Wagner - Detroit, MI
    panelist: "Juke Box Jury"; "Suspense"

    February 10th deaths

    01-11-1870 - Alice Hegan Rice - Shelbyville, KY - d. 2-10-1942
    writer: "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" based on her novel
    01-11-1910 - Richard Kendrick - Vermillion, SD - d. 2-10-1987
    actor: Bill Baker "Portia Faces Life"
    02-07-1867 - Laura Ingalls Wilder - Pepin, WI - d. 2-10-1957
    author: some her works adapted for radio
    02-22-1912 - Buddy Tate - Sherman, TX - d. 2-10-2001
    jazz saxphonist: "Jubilee"; "One Night Stand"
    05-02-1902 - Brian Aherne - King's Norton, England - d. 2-10-1986
    actor: Simon Templar "The Saint"
    06-16-1899 - Frank X. Capano - Philadelphia, PA - d. 2-10-1956
    singer and program director
    06-19-1910 - Virginia Payne - Cincinnati, OH - d. 2-10-1977
    actor: Ma Perkins "Ma Perkins"; Kerry Carter "Carters of Elm Street"
    06-25-1886 - Edna Wheeler Ballard - d. 2-10-1971
    harpist: WBBM Chicago, Illinois
    09-06-1899 - Billy Rose - NYC - d. 2-10-1966
    creator-stager: "Jumbo Fire Chief Program"
    09-30-1916 - Wendell Noble - Mesa, AZ - d. 2-10-1988
    singer, actor: "Bride and Groom"; "Listener's Digest"
    10-17-1915 - Arthur Miller - NYC - d. 2-10-2005
    writer: "Cavalcade of America"; "The Doctor Fights"

    Ron Sayles
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2008 Issue #36
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