------------------------------
The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2005 : Issue 288
A Part of the [removed]!
[removed]
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
Glenn Strange as The Frankenstein Mo [ "Scott Eberbach" <saeberbach@earthl ]
But - whose is it? [ Wich2@[removed] ]
TLs [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr" <skallisjr@j ]
YOU ARE SO RIGHT, CRAIG! [ Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed]; ]
IRVING BERLIN [ Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed]; ]
Ron Lackman and his books [ "Richard Simpson" <rsimpson3@[removed] ]
Re: Hoarding and MP3 dealers [ "jazmaan@[removed]" <dmf273@ya ]
[removed] [ "alanladdsr" <alanladdsr@sunflower. ]
Glenn Strange [ Richard Pratz <[removed]@[removed]; ]
A "[removed]" [ Al Girard <24agirard24@[removed] ]
Hoarding [ jackbenny@[removed] ]
King Karloff [ NightMaster <nightmaster@[removed] ]
Hoarding, MP3 Dealers, and other sun [ Michael Shoshani <mshoshani@sbcglob ]
Ron Lackmann [ <whhsa@[removed]; ]
Theatre Guild [ Jim Widner <widnerj@[removed]; ]
Glenn Strange [ Bob Slate <moxnix1961@[removed]; ]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 18:04:24 -0400
From: "Scott Eberbach" <saeberbach@[removed];
To: "OTR Digest" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Glenn Strange as The Frankenstein Monster
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Hi Gang!
Actually Boris Karloff played the Frankenstein monster in three films:
Frankenstein, The Bride Of Frankenstein, and The Son of Frankenstein. Lon
Chaney Jr. as the monster in The Ghost Of Frankenstein and Bela Lugosi as the
monster in Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman. Glenn Strange played the monster in
House Of Frankenstein, House Of Dracula, and Abbott and Costello Meet
Frankenstein. Just setting the record straight.
Scott
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Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 18:25:52 -0400
From: Wich2@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: But - whose is it?
Dear Folks-
The debate about hoarding vs. sharing cycles along every once in a while;
makes sense that it would.
I have deep respect for the dealers that have been finding, saving,
restoring, & making available shows for years; I've happily dealt with many
of them.
And I have deep disdain, for the scavengers who cheesily acquire masses of
this material, and make it available cheesily (to be fair, this was
happening
long before mp3; we all remember nasty, hissing, off-pitch
dupes-from-dupes-from-dupes, don't we?)
But it's worth quoting an expert, from the last time this debate went
'round. Paraphrasing here; don't have the post in front of me:
"All the time, effort, and money in the world that you put into an old show
you found, don't add up to true "ownership." They were written, produced, &
performed by folks who earned that." - St. Harry of Bartell.
Those folks did that work in the hopes that it would be heard and enjoyed by
the public. Not rest in a box in a closet.
Best,
-Craig
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 19:03:53 -0400
From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr" <skallisjr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: TLs
mikeandzachary asks,
In the dialogue, George said that he had a "[removed]," which seemed to mean
a noteworthy piece of information. Does anyone know if the letters
actually stood for something?
One meaning of "TL" is "trade last," referring to compliments. I think
it was Art Linkletter in one of his books who explained it. If a child
said to another, "I have a TL for you," it meant that the person whom he
or she was addressing had to respond with a compliment from a third
party. After that was related, the person with the TL would relate the
compliment, also from a third parts, he or she had heard.
Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 19:04:06 -0400
From: Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: YOU ARE SO RIGHT, CRAIG!
'Spooked' me out, when I learned how dumb that post was.
All the Universal horror flicks played The Woods Theater, in downtown
Chicago -- ADULTS ONLY -- what a laugh, today, but, that was then!
[removed]
Sandy
[removed]
[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 19:04:15 -0400
From: Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: IRVING BERLIN
One of the all-time great songwriters -- his work was beautifully simple
and simply beautiful. He DID have his finger on the pulse of what people
wanted to hear.
[removed]
Sandy
[removed]
[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 19:06:18 -0400
From: "Richard Simpson" <rsimpson3@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Ron Lackman and his books
In my view Mr. Lackman is not an author to
trust when researching OTR.
Larry Albert
I wondered about that. It seems that I have his encyclopedia book, and
there are a LOT of differences between what I have found on the web and what
is in his book. The major difference that I can see off the top of my head
is the "Speed Gibson" entry. Lackman says it was a daily show. Everything
on the web that I have seen says it was a weekly show. Which is it?
I organize my OTR MP3's by date, ep number, network and broadcast time.
There are some discrepancies between what I have in that book and what I
have found at some of the better OTR info sites.
The problem I had was that this was the only book available where I shop for
books (Half Price Books). Being broke most of the time, I have to do what I
can.
Richard M Simpson III
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 20:19:38 -0400
From: "jazmaan@[removed]" <dmf273@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Hoarding and MP3 dealers
Ted, I read your post with much interest. As a relative newbie to the world
of OTR, let me give
you my own perspective.
My own tastes in OTR lean towards horror/sci-fi (Nightfall, Quiet Please,
Inner Sanctum),
adventure (ILAM, Escape), African Americans (Beulah, Duffy's Tavern, Amos n
Andy) jazz and variety
(Jubilee, Command Performance.) I only recently and accidentally discovered
the world of OTR
while researching one of my favorite MGM songbirds, Virginia O'Brien. I read
that she had
appeared on Command Performance a few times and was pleasantly surprised to
learn that "Command
Performance" was well archived and easy to find online for a very reasonable
price in MP3 format.
Although I do appreciate the fact that people like you have spent their lives
preserving OTR so
that people like me can hear it, I am MOST appreciative of people who have
made thousands of
hours of OTR available online for immediate download at a reasonable price to
people like me.
I'm not really talking about the MP3 discs for sale on Ebay and other places.
(Although once I got
hooked, I did purchase some "Jubilee" discs that I couldn't find elsewhere.)
I'm talking about
the online subscription libraries that give you a huge selection of OTR for
pennies a minute.
It's thanks to those libraries that I have discovered shows like "Duffy's
Tavern" and become
enough of an enthusiast to pay to attend a SPERDVAC convention and buy many
of the items sold
there.
So I have to disagree with you when you rail against MP3 dealers. If it
wasn't for MP3's, I
wouldn't have an iPod full of OTR. My children wouldn't have been exposed
to the joys of OTR
while driving around in my car listening to the iPod.
A few weeks ago a hitherto unknown performance by Charlie Parker and Dizzy
Gillespie recorded live
in high fidelity at New York's Town Hall in 1945 was released by a collector
who purchased it from
a professional rummager who found it at a swap meet. People are calling it
the "Holy Grail of
Bebop". He released it on CD on a small private label, and I bought it.
Maybe he wasn't as
concerned with MP3 pirates as you are, but I thank god he didn't choose to
release it only on
cassette!
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 20:29:39 -0400
From: "alanladdsr" <alanladdsr@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: [removed]
Glad to read the inquiry into what "[removed]" means. Other shows at that time
seemed to use the "I have a [removed] for you" [removed] heard it on an
Ozzie and Harriett.
It must have been in popular lingo at the time and I have a vague memory
that it was popular and I knew what it [removed] But no longer
remember! PLEASE, hope someone can tell us codgers the [removed]
Don Frey
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 20:29:50 -0400
From: Richard Pratz <[removed]@[removed];
To: "OTR (Plain Text Only)" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Glenn Strange
IMDB trivia on Boris Karloff notes that when Karloff died Feb. 2, 1969, one
newspaper obituary featured a picture of Frankenstein's monster.
Unfortunately, the image was actually Glenn Strange in full makeup, not
Karloff.
Rich
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 20:36:07 -0400
From: Al Girard <24agirard24@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: A "[removed]"
That term is heard on quite a few different series. It pops
up occasionally on Fibber McGee and Molly, for example.
That question has been raised before, and as I recall, it stood for
"touch last".
Al girard
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 20:36:48 -0400
From: jackbenny@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Hoarding
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I know the question of hoarding has been discussed here many times, and I
wanted to echo a part of the sentiment put forth by Ted Davenport (although I
think that I'm repeating myself). People who subscribe to "The Jack Benny
Times" know that I do a lot of exclusive interviews with various people
associated with the Benny show. The transcripts of these interviews are then
published, almost verbatim and in toto, in the Times. Anything that's edited
is either an unrelated side conversation or occasionally a stray comment
(almost always non-Benny) that could sound strange if you hadn't been there
at the time.
The tapes are physically stored in the audio library, but they are not
released to the public. I may not be technically "hoarding" this
information, as almost all the information/words/whatever are released in
printed format. If these recordings were released and converted (without
permission, of course) to MP3, then they're going to end up on someone's MP3
set. Then someone is, at least in part, going to be making a buck off
IJBFC-exclusive property without permission or reimbursing us.
If I could be assured of copyright being respected, I'd consider releasing
them. But we all know that it wouldn't be. So I just don't open that
Pandora's Box and publish the transcripts instead.
Laura Leff
President, IJBFC
[removed]
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Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 20:41:14 -0400
From: NightMaster <nightmaster@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: King Karloff
Karloff did reprise his most famous monster one more time, on the
early TV show ROUTE 66.
Glen Strange played the Frankenstein monster the one time in the A&C
flic and it is interesting to note that it was only the second, but
last time that Bela Lugosi played DRACULA in the same film.
Sinscarily your's,
Gordon Guy
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 21:19:50 -0400
From: Michael Shoshani <mshoshani@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Hoarding, MP3 Dealers, and other sundries
TED DAVENPORT <tedotr@[removed]; wrote:
I understand why material is being "hoarded" and I agree with [removed]
I also feel that "hoarding" will become more and
more the standard with the people that have the new material.
I hear over and over how OTR should be free to anyone that wants it. What I
don't hear is where the shows came from that are supposed to be free to
anyone that wants them. I'll tell you where they came from. They came from
people like me who have spent countless dollars and time to put them
together. It seems to me that "free for anyone that wants it" is a very
relative term.
We kick this subject around every few months, and it seems to end in
stalemates until Charlie asks us to please find something else to talk
about, then six months later it starts up again :-)
Some, like yourself, would argue that if they happened upon a rare
radio program they would restrict its "release" because since it is
rare and since the person spent time and money on it, it is their
right to restrict it in such a fashion. However, many others would
argue that the person who spent time and money on this rare program
and is now restricting its release may not have the legal right to
release or restrict in the first place. This is due to ownership,
trademark issues, copyright, music rights, and legal restrictions.
Some radio show characters, such as The Lone Ranger and The Shadow,
are owned and protected by copyright and trademark registrations to
this day. Many radio show episodes had their scripts copyrighted,
either by the show's creators or by the sponsors who owned a good many
programs. If these copyrights were renewed, the shows actually do not
belong to the finder who spent time and money on the rare program
whose release they are restricting, they belong instead to the
copyright holder. If there is music in the program, particularly
popular songs, this is a completely different area of law - the music
will almost certainly be under copyright and owned by a music
publisher, most of which have more legal muscle and teeth than the
rest of us do. And finally there are legal restrictions. The late
Harry Bartell used to participate in these "who owns what"
discussions, and his stance was a flat and frank opinion that all OTR
dealers were breaking the law, because there was a specific clause in
the AFRA union contract with the actors and networks that expressly
forbade the reuse, rebroadcast, recirculation, re-anything of these
radio broadcasts in any form. The programs were a one-shot deal, and
that's what the actors were being paid for. Any recordings made off
studio lines were intended for archival purposes (or post-show
critiques), and were not intended for public distribution.
I have been asked many times why I only offer cassettes and not CD's or
MP3's. I will be happy to answer that question. I personally master each
tape in real time and listen to each and every master. If I offered the
material on CD, the MP3 dealers could convert them without having to go to
the trouble of even listening to it. If they are going to use my material, I
want to make it as difficult and time consuming to them as I can.
This kind of thinking leads to painting one's self into a corner. If
you are copying from tape to tape, two things are happening. One,
your master is wearing a little more each time it passes over the
heads; Two, you are not just copying the program material to the new
tape, you are also copying the tape hiss - onto a new tape which
already has hiss of its own. Meanwhile, someone who wants to take your
tape and make an MP3 from it will find it laughably trivial to do so.
It's a simple operation that most people can do at home, and it's
something that looks after itself and requires little personal
attention. Piracy is a problem, but so long as cassette players have
direct outputs, and computer sound cards have direct inputs, releasing
only on cassette is not going to solve the problem.
I really cannot think of a solution. Just 10-15 years ago the idea
that someone could make a copy of a recording, and make an infinite
number of replicas instantaneously through Usenet/web sites/whatever,
was unthinkable. Sure, one person might have taken an OTR record or
tape from the library and copied it at home, but it was never like
this. Nowadays they take it home, copy it, post a torrent, and dozens
of people can make copies of it. The points about finding it
unprofitable to spend time and money cleaning up and restoring a
recording, only to find someone ripping it off "for free" and sending
it around the world, are valid. I have no answers. For that matter,
I don't know how outfits like First Generation Radio Archives keep
their sanity; you know their stuff is being drained somewhere down the
line. These days it's almost a given, and I feel terrible saying it.
It really does not have to be that way.
Michael Shoshani
Opinionated In Chicago
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 21:48:43 -0400
From: <whhsa@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Ron Lackmann
Dear OTR fans;
Peace and prayers for those suffering the aftermath of Katrina and those
facing Rita.
I recently bought the "updated edition" of The Encyclopedia of American
Radio, etc. at a greatly discounted price. I had read the hardback edition
and was especially surprised at errors in the Straight Arrow entry. Lackmann
noted that Straight Arrow was largely heard in the South and West. Straight
Arrow was one of the most popular radio shows during it's limited run heard
over the entire 409 stations of the Mutual Network. Then he writes that the
show was originally a Western variety-show called "pow-wows." There was one
Straight Arrow Pow-Wow from the Hitch Post Theater, my guess it was a formal
announcement of Straight Arrow's entry into the Mutual Network line-up. Then
he makes the same mistake many others have made concerning Steve Adams'
identity. Straight Arrow was a Comanche Indian disguised as Steve Adams.
Lackmann describes Adams as a mild manner ranch owner, which is far from
true. Adams could handling himself very well and did on occasions, but he
would discard his disguise and ride as Straight Arrow when an Indian was
needed to bring about justice.
When I first read this entry I wrote the publishers, who responded that they
would note this information and make the changes if the book every went into
another printing. This paperback edition was called a "updated version." I
only bought the book for the great photographs.
Be on the look out for the definitive Straight Arrow book coming soon.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 21:49:23 -0400
From: Jim Widner <widnerj@[removed];
To: OTR Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Theatre Guild
For what it is worth, Harrison Summers in his book "A Thirty-year
History of Radio Programs 1926-1956" (published by Ayer Company
Publishers) does have the following listing:
January 1944:
Sustained Theater Guild Dramas CBS 30 Minutes Tuesday 10:00 PM
Summers was in the Department of Speech at Ohio State University in 1958
at the time the book was published. He states the following about his
entries:
"An effort has been made to include all of the really important programs
carried over the networks; however, for convenience, only those programs
are listed which were included in schedules of radio networks during the
month of January of each season."
"The materials given were secured from a wide variety of sources.
Reports of such commercial program research organizations as [removed]
Hooper, Incorporated and the [removed] Nielson Company, provided valuable
information concerning the sponsors of network [removed]
invaluable source for the weekly listing of programs broadcast by radio
stations in the New York area published in the Sunday edition of the New
York Times ; naturally, programs listed in the Times had to be checked
against the advanced program schedules published by newspapers in other
cities, to eliminate programs carried only locally in the New York area."
Hope this helps provide another confirming source of the existence of
the program.
Jim Widner
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 02:30:30 -0400
From: Bob Slate <moxnix1961@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Glenn Strange
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Besides playing the Frankenstein monster over at Universal Pictures in
"Abbott & Costello Meet The Monster." he also played Sheriff's, ranchers,
and delightfully, bad guys, at most of the Poverty Row studios in the
1930's,40's and early 1950'[removed] was also in many serials at [removed] lot
of people don't know this, but he also sang in Western bands in B"-Westerns
in the 1930's with his cousin "Cactus" Mack Peters, as well as other western
character actors, such as Jack [removed] had a very nice [removed] used to,
between cattle rustling and robberies, sit around the campfire and sing in
[removed] was born in Sunspot, New [removed] think they went by the moniker(
the such and such) [removed] can't exactly remember if it was the Arizona
Wranglers, Starlight Rangers or [removed] very nice man!
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--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2005 Issue #288
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