Subject: [removed] Digest V2002 #198
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 6/1/2002 5:01 PM

To: <[removed]@[removed];

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2002 : Issue 198
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Re: Gene and Glenn                    [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
      Re:rewriting history                  [ hal stone <dualxtwo@[removed]; ]
      My Job: Clarify it Further!           [ "Michael Hayde" <mmeajv@[removed]; ]
      Boston Blackie and perhaps Blackston  [ Osborneam@[removed] ]
      Gene & Glenn                          [ "Robert Angus" <rangus02@[removed]; ]
      Boston Blackie and TV                 [ "Robert Angus" <rangus02@[removed]; ]
      Sherlock Holmes and G. Washington Co  [ leemunsick@[removed] ]
      MP3 players                           [ Dick Judge <dickjudge@[removed]; ]
      KEN NORDINE                           [ Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed]; ]
      Re: Sunshine Sue                      [ Jer51473@[removed] ]
      Re: Lee Munsick's "DVD player, MP3,   [ George Guffey <grguffey@[removed]; ]
      Re: something for nothing             [ "Rodney w bowcock jr." <rodney-self ]

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

    Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:34:49 -0400
    From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Gene and Glenn

    On 6/1/02 12:12 AM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:

>     I was catching up on a week of the Digest and while reading about Lum and
>     Abner, I remembered that as a child in Northampton, Massachusetts, my folks
>     took me to see to men Gene and Glenn. They stood on the stage and conducted
>     a dialogue. One of the men would put on a hat and be Jake and then would put
>     on a woman's hat and be Lena. Can anybody tell me about these two radio
>     comedians and their alter-egos Jake and Lena?

    Gene Carroll and Glenn Rowell were among the many performers to come out
    of Chicago radio in the mid-twenties. Rowell had been the more prominent
    of the two before they teamed up -- he had for several years partnered
    with Ford Rush as "Ford and Glenn -- the Lullaby Boys," one of the most
    popular comic-harmony duos in mid-twenties radio, based at WLS. Ford Rush
    was the chief announcer for the station, and Glenn Rowell was the studio
    manager -- and the pair first teamed up on an impromptu basis in 1924.
    They were well received, and continued as a team for several years,
    performing in a Van-and-Schenck/Jones-and-Hare sort of style. Ford and
    Glenn also made a number of phonograph records -- some of which feature
    introductions by WLS announcer George D. Hay, complete with steamboat
    whistle and "W-L-S -- Chi-CAW-Go!" station ID.

    Meanwhile, Gene Carroll was a dialect comedian who turned up at WLS
    around 1926 --  and worked with Tony Wons on his program of dramatic
    readings. One of Carroll's specialties was falsetto female voices, and he
    would often supply these characteriztions during Wons' programs, since
    Wons was unable to do a convincing woman's voice. He also supplied
    various comedy characterizations on other WLS features of the late
    twenties, notably the "National Barn Dance," where he began doing his
    "Lena and Jake" characters.

    Carroll ultimately teamed up with Ford and Glenn around 1928, creating a
    trio act billed as "Ford, Gene and Glenn," and they began interpolating
    comic dialogues into their songs in the manner popularized in Chicago by
    Correll and Gosden. Carroll's Lena and Jake characters were the focus of
    most of these skits. Then in 1930, Ford Rush dropped out of the team to
    devote more time to his announcing duties, and the act became "Gene and
    Glenn."

    As such, Carroll and Rowell continued to do comic-harmony selections
    mixed with comic skits about Lena and Jake. In the fall of 1930 they took
    over Phil Cook's old early-morning program for Quaker Oats on NBC, and
    continued in this slot for about a year and a half. They were on and off
    network radio for the better part of the next decade, with their home
    base drifting from Chicago to Cleveland to Detroit to New York to
    Hartford, and when they weren't on a network they could usually be found
    on some local station or other. Gene and Glenn also made a few phonograph
    records during the 1930s, usually doing hillbilly-oriented selections
    ("They Cut Down The Old Pine Tree," etc.) interpolated with Jake and Lena
    bits.

    The act finally broke up in the early forties, and after spending several
    years in Cleveland as a solo performer Gene Carroll eventually found his
    way to Hollywood -- where he appeared briefly as Lena on "Fibber McGee
    and Molly," continuing that program's tradition of novelty female
    impersonation after Marlin Hurt's "Beulah" was spun off into his/her own
    program.

    Elizabeth

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

    Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:35:50 -0400
    From: hal stone <dualxtwo@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re:rewriting history

    I really enjoy and appreciate Joe Mackey's "Today in Radio History", and I'm
    not trying to embarrass him in public, but I have to correct some major
    errors in his data. I don't blame Joe. He probably excerpted the information
    from OTR research books that contained the misinformation.

>     From Those Were The Days --

>     Friday, 31 May

>     1943 - A comic strip came to radio, as Archie Andrews was heard on the
>     Mutual for the first time. Archie, Veronica, Jughead and the gang stayed
>     on radio for about five years.

    Actually, (according to my trusty source Elizabeth) the "Archie" show first
    aired on NBC Blue in 1943, (before going over to Mutual). Then back to NBC
    in '45.  BUT!!! it was on the air for eleven (11) years, not "about five".
    >From what I can gather, between '43 and '44, NBC Blue had it for a short
    run, then, over to mutual for about 5 months. In those early years, it was
    mostly a 15 minute, five day across the board show. Finally in 45, (When I
    got involved) I was back on NBC in the half hour format till '53. The total
    years add up to 11.

    Sorry Joe. I was proud of our long 9 year run, and needed to set the record
    straight. But then again, not your fault.

    Regards

    Hal(harlan)Stone
    Jughead

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

    Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:37:09 -0400
    From: "Michael Hayde" <mmeajv@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  My Job: Clarify it Further!

    There's been some confusion as to the child actor who played altar boy
    Joseph Heffernan in the 1953 TV (and thus radio, too) version of DRAGNET's
    Christmas show, "The Big Little Jesus."  Derek Tague wrote:

>      I just wanted to clarify Dan Hughes's rejoinder <snip> When I referred to
>     Billy "Father Knows Best" Gray playing an "altar boy", I
>     was not referring to the little Mexican boy who took the statue for a ride
>     in his newly acquired red wagon.

    That's partially correct.  Billy Gray did not play Paco Mendoza; that honor
    went to the boy whose father voiced the character of Joe Carioca in Disney's
    "Saludos Amigos."  He ended up being billed Joe Carioca Jr.  Harry "Father
    Rojas" Bartell tells an interesting tale about working with the child.  It's
    in my book, but I wouldn't object if he'd like to tell it here himself.

    However, Billy Gray didn't play the altar boy, either, although I can
    understand Derek's confusion.  Joseph Heffernan was played by Billy CHAPIN,
    and if any of the experts here can confirm that he was in any way related to
    FKB's Lauren Chapin, I should like to know it.

    In fairness to Derek, he was correct about Barry "Greg Brady" Williams
    playing the role in 1967.  Williams' memoir "Growing Up Brady" contains a
    rather savage story about working with Jack Webb on that episode.
    Apparently he had and has no idea it was a retelling of a classic,
    beloved-by-many program.  About the only thing he enjoyed was using the
    teleprompter, so he wouldn't have to bother memorizing his lines.  There's a
    role model for you! :-(

    Michael

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

    Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:40:55 -0400
    From: Osborneam@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Boston Blackie and perhaps Blackstone?

    In the last OTR digest, Dennis Crow writes:

    That would be episode #36, dated 12/20/45.

    You can find dates, alternate titles, plot synopses and first lines of
    dialogue
    for all circulating Boston Blackie episodes in our Ultimate Boston Blackie
    Log at Charlie Summers fine Nostalgia web site.

    And John Southard writes:

>     Another memory I have is about a mystery/detective program where the
>     detective investigates supernatural cases and in the end explains how it was
>     done?  does this ring a bell?

    Sounds like it could be Blackstone, the Magic Detective to me.

    Arlene Osborne

    [ADMINISTRIVIA: The log, in printable PDF format, is available directly off
    the main page of The Nostalgia Pages; [removed]
    --cfs3]

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

    Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:41:09 -0400
    From: "Robert Angus" <rangus02@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Gene & Glenn
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    Gene & Glenn started as a radio team in the midwest (WCCO-Minneapolis, I
    think) before going network.  They ended their careers at WTIC in Hartford in
    the early 1940s.  I'm away from my reference materials, but I believe Glenn's
    last name was Rowell.

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    Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:41:25 -0400
    From: "Robert Angus" <rangus02@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Boston Blackie and TV
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
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    During the 1940s, many all-America 5 radios (cheap five-tube jobs) had inputs
    for television.  The idea was that when TV became available, a purchaser would
    buy a screen and tuner, then use the audio system (amplifier and speaker)  in
    his table radio.  Pilot did offer such a plug-in unit, and I think other Long
    Island City-based radio manufacturers like D'Andrea and Majestic did as well.
    When TV really came in the late 1940s, people preferred to buy all-in-one sets
    instead.

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    Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:42:06 -0400
    From: leemunsick@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Sherlock Holmes and G. Washington Coffee

    In my salad days, my brother and I attended Alfred Vail Junior High School
    (now Elementary), in Morris Township (a ring around Morristown, [removed]).  The
    wealthy Vail family lived just down the road, and was involved in Morse's
    invention in their barn, of the telegraph.  We were always told that
    actually young Alfred was the one who developed what became known as the
    Morse Code.  The Vails were deeply entrenched in the early days of
    AT&T.  I've always wondered if there's any connection with Vail, Colorado.

    [removed] next town to the north was Morris Plains, now the home of
    Warner-Lambert, with The Mennen Company and numerous other major consumer
    product and research firms in the area, such as Bell Laboratories and the
    chemical company which turned into Minneapolis-Honeywell!

    Just across the border in Morris Plains, perhaps a half-mile away, was the
    plant of G. Washington Coffee.

    When the breeze was from the north, we would bask in that wonderful coffee
    aroma.  In more recent times, often I found myself at Newark International
    Airport.  When the breeze there came from the west, one found oneself in a
    cloud of not-so-pleasant aroma from the largest brewery on the east coast,
    which made about a half-dozen different brands.  From a distance, the
    slight whiff smelled like hot cereal cooking (which, of course, it
    was).  But when one really got into that cloud, peee-yooo!   Made me long
    for the good old G. Washington days!  "I love coffee, I love [removed]".

    I was just listening to a newly-acquired, delightful tape of "Sherlock
    Holmes on American Radio", which among a lot of other neat stuff, included
    one of those charming conversations about G. Washington Coffee between the
    announcer and Dr. Watson.  Wasn't our radio great, with advertising
    pleasantly, often humorously, and definitely not offensively worked into
    the program content?  Don't you wish that [removed], well, no point raising
    all that!

     From this Holmesian tape, I learned that friends of Nigel Bruce called him
    "Willy", and that Basil Rathbone delighted in practical jokes aimed at his
    chum and colleague.  I also learned that while Nigel Bruce was part of that
    large colony of English-born actors in Hollywood, Basil Rathbone was born
    in South Africa.  But teddibly, veddy British, of course!

    Peg Lynch once told me a marvelous tale of the time Basil Rathbone guested
    (as himself) on her program, either "Ethel and Albert" or more likely "The
    Couple next Door".  But that's another story.

    For other radio advertising, our subject instant coffee firm used a
    jingle:  "G, G, G. Washington, Instant Coffee (Repeat and faded out), to a
    catchy beat.  Beat any other coffee promos, at least in my mind.  Offhand,
    I can't think of another coffee jingle, until the much later one for Chuck
    Full of Nuts, which got that product sued by the Rockefeller family,
    forcing the removal of the line "Better coffee Rockefeller's money can't
    buy", to replace it with "Better coffee a millionaire's money can't
    buy".  And later, there was Cora, our favorite kitchen witch.

    The coffee company name only very indirectly connected to George Washington
    and his threadbare, freezing army, who made their frigid headquarters in
    Morristown during two horrendous winters in the [removed] just
    before and just after Valley Forge.  The family which owned G. Washington
    Coffee was itself named Washington (I think no relation).  We went to
    school with their daughter Mimi.

    Eventually the operation was sold to a division of Coca Cola (perhaps
    Pepsi, I'm not sure which).  Because eventually they made ten different
    products, I assume all instant ones, their name became (and perhaps still
    is) Tenco.  Clever, what?

    I hesitate to think what aroma the plant puts out now!  Imagine coffee,
    onion soup and chili together!
    A nose meal!

    Lee Munsick

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

    Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:42:24 -0400
    From: Dick Judge <dickjudge@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  MP3 players

    Within the past week there were two Digest comments re MP3 players. One
    mentioned availability at Radio Shack and the other at Wal-Mart.
    Would these two people contact me since I inadvertantly deleted the OTR
    Digests that contained the information.
    Thanks.
    dickjudge

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

    Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:43:04 -0400
    From: Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  KEN NORDINE
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>     I was quite surprised by the length of time he had been involved in
>     radio.

    One of my first jobs in radio was at WBBM, Chicago, in 1943.  Ken, who
    announced the show, was a staff announcer.  Ken had a brother, also in
    Chicago radio.

    All of Ken's voice/over work was produced in the house he lived in, which
    was equiped with state-of-the-art audio and video gear.

          [removed]
          A DATE WITH SINATRA

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    Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:44:05 -0400
    From: Jer51473@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Sunshine Sue

     Sorry, i dont have any info except that i remember sue very well. Im from
    right outside richmond and as a kid saw her show in person as they, besides
    from the Old Dominion Barn Dance,  used to tour the various cities in the
    state. Sunshine Sue was a household name and i was surprised that in later
    years i seldom have heard her mentioned, she just seemed to dissappear. I
    would have thought she would have been in the CM hall of fame as so many
    future cm stars were regulars on her program. After retirement, she remained
    a prominent figure in the richmond area, tv, etc., but as Sue Workman with no
    mention of Sunshine Sue. I remember being in college at VCU and her two sons
    were there also and i believe they were twins. Sue passed on some years ago.
    One gets the feeling that she purposely dodged her own fame for a more normal
    life.

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

    Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:46:27 -0400
    From: George Guffey <grguffey@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Lee Munsick's "DVD player, MP3, VHS
     copier all in one!"

    In "Digest #190" Lee Munsick reported that he had seen
    at a Sam's Club store a "GoVideo machine which will
    play DVD and (it says) MP3 as well as regular CD, and
    record DVD (unless copyright protected) onto VHS."

    "There are," Lee added, "two decks in the unit,
    similar to the GoVideo dual-deck VHS player/copier.
    Sam's price was $179 and change."

    Finally, Lee sought relevant comments from readers of
    the "Digest": "I'd like to hear from anyone who has
    checked out this device. . . . The sealed boxes at
    Sam's gave very little information, although they were
    wonderful in supplying that laxity in several
    different languages! Any comments, anyone?"

    Lee does not indicate the model number of the Go-Video
    player he saw at Sam's Club, but it may have been a
    DVR5000. SONICblue Inc., manufacturer of the Go-Video
    series, produces a wide variety of players with
    numerous component configurations and model numbers.
    If Sam's is selling a DVR5000 for $179, it's offering
    the public a great deal! I paid $379 for one in May of
    2001.

    Connected to my Proscan TV, my own Go-Video DVR5000
    generates high-quality pictures and superb sound when
    I use it to play movie DVDs. In fact, the picture I
    typically get is, it seems to me, often nearly as good
    as the pictures I've seen on high definition TV demo
    setups in Video stores.

    The VHS circuitry of my DVR5000 is, however, a
    somewhat less impressive engineering accomplishment.
    Although the pictures it generates from commercially
    distributed VHS movie tapes are probably better than
    the average picture produced from similar source
    materials by the other VCRs I've owned over the past
    20 years, the pictures it generates from tapes it has
    itself recorded from cable and satellite telecasts are
    somewhat less impressive.

    I originally purchased my DVR5000 because it saved
    space by combining a DVD deck and a VHS deck and
    because I have for many years been successfully using
    a double-deck Go-Video VHS machine to produce
    educational materials. Although I was at the time of
    its purchase aware that the DVR5000 was said to be MP3
    compatible, that fact did not affect my decision to
    buy one.

    In the 112-page Manual that accompanied my DVR5000,
    only 2 pages are devoted to the subject of "MP3
    Playback." Furthermore, on those pages I can find only
    2 statements relevant to Lee's concerns. In a marginal
    note on the first page, this statement appears: "Your
    DVD-VCR can playback MP3 files burned onto a CD-R
    disc." In the operational directions on the same page,
    an ominous note is struck: "File names are truncated
    to eight characters: the first six characters of the
    song, plus an asterisk (*), then a number." When I
    first began to test the MP3 component of my DVR5000, I
    found this latter statement to be inaccurate. Although
    all file names were indeed truncated to eight
    characters, asterisks appeared only as substitutes for
    the underline character (_). Too, file names NEVER
    ended in a number.

    Unfortunately, what this all came down to in practice
    was that on my TV screen during the playback process a
    usefully descriptive OTR file name like
    "[removed]" was
    rendered as "Vic*and*.mp3" and the file name that
    followed
    ("[removed]") was
    identically rendered as "Vic*and*.mp3". Finding and
    playing a specific program on a disc containing
    perhaps a hundred OTR files would under such difficult
    circumstances be a tedious undertaking.

    Worse yet, if the file I wanted to play when testing
    the machine was encoded at a very low bitrate (as many
    available OTR files have been), my DVR5000 frequently
    wouldn't satisfactorily play it. It might begin to
    play a particular file as it should but shortly
    thereafter abandon it and jump to the beginning of the
    next file on the disc. This happened occasionally even
    when high-bitrate files were being played. Some
    low-bitrate files it wouldn't even begin to play. (I
    should note, on the other hand, that the player
    handled standard audio CDs well.)

    In my remarks thus far, I have frequently used the
    phrase "my DVR5000." I have done so not because I take
    special pride in personally owning a Go-Video DVR5000
    but because it is possible that the manufacturer has
    improved the MP3 circuitry and the file name display
    capability of the DVR5000 over the last year and that
    other people who have bought an updated version have
    gotten better MP3 results than I got when I first
    brought mine home and began to test it. In other
    words, the Go-Video machine Lee saw at his local Sam's
    store, whatever its model number, may do a better job
    of handling MP3 files than the DVR5000 I purchased a
    little over a year ago.

    In spite of the MP3 operational weaknesses of my own
    DVR5000, I would still even today pay $379 for a
    Go-Video player like it. I got exactly what I hoped to
    get when I bought it--a very good DVD/VHS playback
    machine with a small footprint.

    George

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

    Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 18:47:45 -0400
    From: "Rodney w bowcock jr." <rodney-selfhelpbikeco@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: something for nothing

    As a person who's been actively collecting OTR shows for a little over 2
    years, and owns no more than 10 discs of mp3's, yet nearly 700 cassettes,
    I can fully understand why some people are holding shows back.  I
    recently learned of a couple of Suspense episodes that were thought to be
    lost until they turned up on an mp3 disc.  So, who has the originals?
    How do we get them cleaned up?  How exactly do you track down the owner
    of a disc that has been traded by hundreds of collectors who are selling
    the CD to someone else who then copies it and sells it to others?

    I'm not against the mp3 technology.  I really like listening to shows in
    this format while at work, nor am I against paying someone a bit to copy
    them for me, but there is a problem when people get spoiled and think
    that shows should be provided at no cost.  I am convinced that there are
    literally thousands of shows that people are holding onto.  I personally,
    would like to hear many of them.  Until I get in good with many of these
    long time collectors with the really rare stuff, I have to keep hoping
    that I'll check my e-mail one day and find out how much cash I need to
    chip in for the missing Escape episodes or those long missing parts from
    the 5part Johnny Dollar [removed]

    rodney.

    Past Tense Productions
    "Charley Chase and The Boy Friends are here!"

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2002 Issue #198
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