Subject: [removed] Digest V2005 #225
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 7/26/2005 6:34 AM

To: [removed]@[removed]

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2005 : Issue 225
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                 [removed]
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Re: Laurel & Hardy                    [ Fred Berney <fsberney@[removed]; ]
      Walter Brennan                        [ "randy story" <hopharrigan@centuryt ]
      Superman vs. the KKK                  [ "RICHARD RIEVE" <Rieve9@[removed]; ]
      Re: Superman vs. the Ku Klux Klan     [ John Mayer <mayer@[removed]; ]
      Texas Rangers and Friendliness        [ "Jim Harmon" <jimharmonotr@charter. ]
      The Rest of the Story!                [ "dennis townsend" <dltnkt@[removed] ]
      Somebody was asking about ...         [ "R. R. King" <kingrr@[removed]; ]
      Re: Prerecorded network Program drui  [ BryanH362@[removed] ]
      This Is Your Life                     [ "A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@attorneyro ]
      in the audience                       [ "Mike Hobart" <zines50@[removed]; ]

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

    Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 09:17:41 -0400
    From: Fred Berney <fsberney@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re:  Laurel & Hardy

    One of the DVD that we sell is the This Is Your Life  Laurel & Hardy.
    Email me directly for complete information. We also have almost the
    complete collection of L & H films transferred to DVD.

    Fred
    [removed]

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

    Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 11:51:17 -0400
    From: "randy story" <hopharrigan@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Walter Brennan
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

    A recent birthday entry for Walter Brennan mentioned these performances:
    Grandpa Vanderhof "You Can't Take it with You"; Judge Roy Bean "Law West of
    the Pecos"
    Anyone have access to some of these shows if they still exist? I would love
    copies of them as I am a huge Brennan fan!
    Let me know of these or ANY other shows featuring the three time Oscar winner.
    Brennan was a great character actor whose work is still enjoyable.
    Thanks,
    Randy

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

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

    Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 11:51:36 -0400
    From: "RICHARD RIEVE" <Rieve9@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Superman vs. the KKK

    Joel Siegel wondered whether the episodes of Superman vs the KKK still
    exist.  Yes and they are all available on cassette from both Sperdvac and
    the Radio History Society of Colorado.  Look for the Knights of the White
    Carnation which ran from February 26 to March 18, 1947.

    Best regards, Rick Rieve

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

    Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 12:32:43 -0400
    From: John Mayer <mayer@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Superman vs. the Ku Klux Klan

    joelsiegel@[removed] asked:

>     in the new book Freakonomics, there is a chapter on a man who
>     infiltrated the KKK (in Atlanta) and passed all of the secret
>     handshakes, words and rituals to the people who produced Superman on
>     the radio. Superman not only fought the Klan but Klan members were
>     aghast when they saw their own children making fun of the Klan.
>     Membership plummeted. The year would have been 1946. Do any of these
>     episodes exist?

    Indeed they do. In fact, the entire series of KKK adventures were
    broadcast here in Knoxville on our lamented Pirate Station KFAR on a
    program called _The Esoteric Trip_, hosted by Cat and The Cockroach
    (no connection, apparently, to Don Marquis's creations Mehitabel and
    Archie). In passing, since some on this list have questioned OTR's
    continuing appeal for those who are too young to remember it, I'll
    mention that the demographic for this station was almost entirely
    high school and college kids; the response to OTR (and NTR) was
    entirely favorable.

    The racist organization on the show was called The Klan of the Fiery
    Cross; It was clear enough that it was the KKK that was represented.
    I suppose it's possible that, in that day, had the actual name Ku
    Klux Klan been used there would have been a real possibility than
    some manifestation thereof might actually have been able to sue for
    defamation or libel. Some Klans were incorporated and would have had
    standing to bring action.

    The original victim of racism in the story, as it happens, was
    Chinese rather than black. An interesting choice. One wonders whether
    the producers of the show wished to skirt the issue of discrimination
    against blacks and Jim Crow laws, or whether they were hinting at the
    recent injustices visited against another group of people of Asian
    origin, Japanese Americans.

    Needless to say, secret handshakes would not have had much impact on
    radio, but rallies with burning crosses and the like were vividly
    described. The KKK members were portrayed, quite accurately, as
    ignorant, cowardly bullies. This took quite a bit of courage as the
    Klan was not simply scattered bands of comical country bumpkins
    trying to compensate for their total lack of any source of pride
    other than that they attached to their accident of birth as white
    people, as they are today. And it was not a Southern phenomenon, as
    so many today would like to believe. In the KKK's largest rally in
    about 1929, hundreds of thousands marched through the streets of DC;
    according to newspaper reports 90% were from the North. The Klan and
    its activities were so widespread, it seems unlikely that any
    "infiltrator" would have been necessary to accurately depict their
    rituals.

    As a measure of the fear the KKK was able to instill in Americans in
    their heyday, in his introduction to _Far Lands, Other Days_,
    published in the '70's by Carcosa, E. Hoffman Price, a gutsy guy and
    a genuine swashbuckler, a guy who fought Pancho Villa and had many
    adventures similar to those he wrote about in the pulps, apologizes
    to the KKK for any offense he may have given in the writings of his
    reckless youth.   Hey, they killed people.

    So, in running this series, the writers, producers and Mutual's
    officers were actually sticking their necks out (though it was not,
    as far as I know, until several years later a radio personality was
    shot by a racist for his on-air views). And, physical danger aside,
    it wasn't just a few Southern bigots they risked offending.

    In speaking of Ku Klux Klan infiltrators, I have to mention an old
    friend, the late Delmar Dennis, who was, I believe, a genuine hero.
    He was the one who infiltrated the Klan, if "infiltrated" is the
    right word, and made possible the original solving of the murders of
    the three freedom riders in Mississippi and the ultimate conviction,
    however belatedly, of at least one of the murderers, just a couple of
    months ago. His reminiscences, recounted by the author of
    _Klandestine_, also led, eventually, to the conviction of the
    murderer of Medgar Evers.

    Mr. Dennis had actually been invited to meetings of the Klan, perhaps
    had even joined (I don't recall), but quickly became disgusted by
    their activities, though he remained a conservative all his life. His
    "infiltration" consisted of continuing to attend Klan rallies and
    reporting serious criminal activity to the FBI, long after he
    otherwise would have stopped attending their meetings. After their
    investigations and the original trials were complete, the FBI
    relocated him to East Tennessee, where he lived quietly but not in
    hiding, and where I met him. He ran a health food store in Pigeon
    Forge for a few years, and then wrote for a local newspaper. He was
    depicted in the movie _Ghosts of Mississippi_, though not accurately;
    he was actually a well-read and intelligent man, not the uneducated
    redneck portrayed. In helping to put an end to the Klan's reign of
    terror in Mississippi he paid a heavy price: his house and car were
    bombed, he lost his livelihood and his marriage ended. He once told
    me no one had ever thanked him.

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

    Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 13:50:41 -0400
    From: "Jim Harmon" <jimharmonotr@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Texas Rangers and Friendliness
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

    Hello -- The other day I Googled the Texas Rangers as any of us can do, but I
    will give a brief rundown of what is there, in case everybody doesn't go to
    the trouble of investigating themselves.
        When the name of the organization is mentioned I frequently think of the
    line introducing Joel McCrea in "Tales of the Texas Rangers" on radio --
    "Texas-- more than two thousand square miles and fifty men who make up the
    oldest and most famous law enforcement body in North America".  That was back
    in the late 1940s.  Today there are 140 Texas Rangers.  Remember Walker, Texas
    Ranger's black sidekick on TV?  He must have hung in there longer than
    Walker.
    Today the "Captain (Chief)" of the Rangers is pleasant-looking black man.
        As I recall the statistics, last year the Texas Rangers investigated about
    ten thousand crimes, resulting in five thousand convictions.  That is an
    incredible record -- like hitting a home run every second time you come up to
    bat.   Someone has said the only law enforcement group equal to the stature of
    Britain's Scotland Yard in America is the Texas Rangers.
        It is not a group of fired-up youths.   You have to serve eight years with
    distinction on some other law force to get into the Rangers.  The average age
    this year of a Ranger is 44.  (Last year it was 45.)  There is no recruitment
    necessary, with a long waiting list available.
        I did find a disappointment.  Years ago I thought I had bought two
    different genuine Texas Ranger badges, but according to the Rangers site both
    are fakes.  One is a faithful reproduction looking as if it were stamped from
    a Mexican peso (see the back).   The other is a fantasy item -- reading "State
    Ranger -- Texas" in a horizontal half-moon design.  Live and learn.
        To change the subject completely, I was reading Jim Cox's excellent book,
    "Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons" (I haven't got to his new and equally
    excellent I understand "Radio Music" book, both available through him or
    McFarland).   In the book, Mr. Cox doubts the wisdom of New York City
    residents admitting Keen into their homes without any real proof who he is.
    As I wrote him, many of the listeners were not in New York but lived in the
    mid-west and accepted the mores of that area.
        In the forties, as a boy, I lived in Mount Carmel, Illinois and during the
    long, hot summers many a time a man or a woman we did not know, out on a walk,
    would knock at our door and ask
    "Could I trouble you for a glass of water?"  They didn't give their name or
    occupation, but my mother would say "Of course, won't you step in?"   And then
    the uninvited guest would often be served ice tea or lemonade instead of plain
    water.   And my mother was not the most open and friendliest person in town,
    believe me.
        Yes, real people were more hospitable during the Golden Age of Radio,
    similar to the characters they listened to on the air.
        I hope you will keep an eye out for my forthcoming BearManor book, "It's
    That Time Again -- New Stories of Old Time Radio", Vol. 3, edited and with
    several stories by me, other stories by
    other contributors to these internet pages.
        -- Jim Harmon

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

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

    Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 18:00:22 -0400
    From: "dennis townsend" <dltnkt@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  The Rest of the Story!

    Most of us have listened to Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story on the radio
    but did you know he also put them out on video? I have just converted my
    copies to DVD and would like to sell my VHS copies if anyone is interested.
    Dennis

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

    Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 20:52:30 -0400
    From: "R. R. King" <kingrr@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Somebody was asking about ...

    1. Somebody was asking about various authors on OTR.

    Sartre's "Les Jeux Sont Faits" was apparently adapted for NBC
    University Theatre in 1950 as "The Chips Are Down."

    The indispensable [removed] lists 25 entries for Guy de
    Maupassant. In addition, a half dozen of this author's stories were
    adapted in mid-1933 for CBS' "Columbia Dramatic Guild," which I gather
    was sort of a precursor to "The Columbia Workshop." I don't know
    whether or not any of these broadcasts still exist (probably not, I'm
    guessing) but here's a partial "log," culled from newspapers:

    05-14 The Necklace [by Guy de Maupassant]
    05-21 Murders in the Rue Morgue [by Edgar Allan Poe]
    05-28 A Piece of String [by Guy de Maupassant]
    06-04 The Invisible Wound [by Karoly Kisfaludi?]
    06-11 How He Got the Legion of Honor [by Guy de Maupassant]
    06-18 The Tell-Tale Heart [by Edgar Allan Poe]
    06-25 The Specter Bridegroom [by Washington Irving]
    07-02 The Man With the Golden Brain [by Alphonse Daudet]

    07-20 The Cask of Amontillado [by Edgar Allan Poe]
    07-27 The Watch Dog [by Guy de Maupassant]
    08-03 The Fall of the House of Usher [by Edgar Allan Poe]
    08-10 The Devil in the Manuscript [by Nathaniel Hawthorne]
    08-17 The Mask [sic] of the Red Death [by Edgar Allan Poe]
    08-24 Lilie Lala [by Guy de Maupassant]
    08-31 The Body Snatcher [by Robert Louis Stevenson]
    09-07 The Black Cat [by Edgar Allan Poe]
    09-14 The Horla [by Guy de Maupassant]
    09-21 The Pied Piper of Hamelin [by Robert Browning]
    09-28 Metzengerstern [by Edgar Allan Poe]
    10-05 [?]
    10-12 The Ace of Cads [by Michael Arlen?]
    10-19 [?]
    10-26 The Tell-Tale Heart [by Edgar Allan Poe]

    2. Somebody was asking about 1944's "The Star and the Story." Here's
    all I know, which isn't much:

    The Star and the Story
    (sometimes listed in newspapers as "The Walter Pidgeon Show")
    Dramatic anthology, mostly motion picture adaptations
    Sponsored by Goodyear Tire and Rubber
    Sunday nights, CBS (30 mins.)
    Walter Pidgeon "acts as both host and leading man" with a different
    leading lady each week. According to publicity, the series was
    Pidgeon's idea and he "not only suggests the leading ladies he would
    like to have opposite him ... but he also makes arrangements for their
    appearances ..." Jerry Haendiges' site ([removed]) has a complete
    log with the titles and guest actresses.

    A March 1944 item in Joe Rathbun's syndicated column "Joe's Radio
    Parade":

    Alfred Newman's orchestra on the new CBS series, "The Star and the
    Story," is made up almost entirely of musicians from 20th-Century Fox
    studios where Newman is music director. Only two members of the
    orchestra have appeared regularly on a radio series before but all
    possess many years experience in music for films.

    3. Somebody was asking about married couples in OTR. One obscure
    couple I didn't see mentioned was Ernest Chappell and Claudia Morgan.
    Morgan guested on at least five episodes of Chappell's "Quiet, Please"
    series.

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

    Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 00:14:14 -0400
    From: BryanH362@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Prerecorded network Program druing summer
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

>     Nope; Arizona folks follow the same protocol as Chicagoans (at least during
>     the summer). Everything is aired an hour earlier than it is on the east and
>     west coasts. I think the way the OTR programs handled the four time zones
>     with two broadcasts was to have one broadcast for the Pacific and Mountain
>     zones and another for the Eastern and Central zones.

    Well sort of.   In Network TV there was only two feeds. One for the East,
    Central and  Mountain  time zones coming out of New York and one for the
    Pacific
    Time Zone out of Los Angeles.  What happened in the mountain time zone was
    very inconsistent because different stations did different things. For
    example on
    a typical  Saturday evening in 1966 one Utah station did the following--
    Jackie Gleason came into Utah at 5:30 pm (7:30 NYT) . One station aired the
    program at 5:30 pm while one station , KSL I believe, delayed the show until
    9pm
    later that evening. However, beginning at 6:30 both stations took the feed
    direct . 6:30  Pistols and Petticoats (8:30 EST) , 7:00  Mission Impossible
    (9:00
    EST ) , 8:00 Gunsmoke ( 10pm EST) . At  9pm the one station aired the Gleason
    delayed broadcast while the other aired a movie (local) .   For the most part
    by the 1970s  Mountain time zone stations  were delaying the prime time
    programs one hour to be aired at the same clock time as they were being aired
    in the
    central time zone. Some stations had started much earlier with this practice
    and some not.  Daytime programming was not delayed from the feed . In fact
    many daytime network programs were actually shown  one hour earlier on the
    west
    coast also . For instance The Price is Right airs at 11am in New York, 10 am
    in Chicago , 9am in many mountain time zone cities ( 10 am in others ) and 10
    am out west.

    In radio there is much talk about East and west coast broadcasts but many
    programs did only one show.  For instance the Lux Radio Theater was heard out
    west at 6pm , Fibber McGee and Molly at 6:30 pm because they only performed
    one
    show aired live at one time to the whole nation. When there was a 2nd
    broadcast
    for the west sometimes the second broadcast went to the Pacific and mountain
    time zones and sometimes only for the Pacific.

    For example on Sunday Night on CBS Sam Spade was heard at 8pm EST, 7pm CST,
    6pm MST and 9pm PST.  (Only the Pacific time zone received the 2nd
    broadcast).
    When Sam Spade moved to NBC at 8pm it eliminated the west coast show and was
    heard out west at 5pm.  NBC west coast stations  evening time slot were
    already filled by the
    Standard Hour and the Jack Benny rebroadcast. The was no room for a Sam Spade
    2nd broadcast .

    When the Railroad Hour aired on NBC Monday Nights at 8pm . It was heard at
    7pm in the Central Time Zone and then a 2nd show went to the west coast at
    8:30
    pm PST and also to the mountain states at 9:30 pm .

    In radio it was never that consistent. Not like todays idea of prime time TV.

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

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

    Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 00:14:32 -0400
    From: "A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  This Is Your Life

>     Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 10:21:52 -0400
>     From: Lee Munsick <damyankeeinva@[removed];

>     Normally "This is Your Life" guests were not told about their
>     involvement in the program until escorted onto the stage of the
>     program, already in progress.  ...  One can understand why a lot of
>     the unhappy guests truly did not like all this.

    I wonder if anyone ever flatly refused to appear.  And I wonder what Ralph
    Edwards would
    have done if they had.

    This, of course, brings to mind Sid Caesar's parody, on "Your Show of Shows,"
    in which Sid
    plays the guest/victim.  As soon as he learns what's going on, he starts to
    run, and they
    chase him all over the stage, into the audience, and back, for what seems
    like a couple of
    minutes, and the longer it went on, the harder I laughed, until they finally
    caught him and
    forced him into a seat on stage to hear the first voice from his past.

    --
    A. Joseph Ross, [removed]                           [removed]
     15 Court Square, Suite 210                 lawyer@[removed]
    Boston, MA 02108-2503           	         [removed]

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

    Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 08:22:56 -0400
    From: "Mike Hobart" <zines50@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  in the audience

    Recently I had the pleasure of attending the broadcast of a live radio show,
    complete with studio audience and announcer.

    It wasn't really an Old Time sort of radio show - it was actually a concert
    for "Sunday Live" by a jazz quartet at the Federation Concert Hall on the
    waterfront in Hobart, Tasmania.

    The announcer retired behind a screen when she wasn't speaking to the
    national audience, and the microphones were very discreet compared to the
    traditional equipment used in the golden age of radio.

    But there was a certain frisson from the thought that if I had a coughing
    fit or one of the musicians fell off the stage, the sound would be beamed
    across the continent in stereo on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's
    Classic FM network.

    Just for a moment I felt a oneness with all those studio audiences from
    half-a-century ago, whose laughter and applause still exists on recordings
    of classic radio shows.

    Speaking of classic radio,  "Theatre Of The Mind" this week aired an episode
    of the 1940s thriller serial "First Light Fraser".   Billed as the story of
    a latter-day Scarlet Pimpernel, this Australian-produced 15-minute drama was
    the [removed] show in the ratings in 1944.

    Sadly this is the only episode known to still exist.  *Sigh*    It would be
    nice though to think that one day a cache of old recordings of this "drama
    of war-torn Europe" may turn up somewhere.

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2005 Issue #225
    *********************************************

    Copyright [removed] Communications, York, PA; All Rights Reserved,
      including republication in any form.

    If you enjoy this list, please consider financially supporting it:
       [removed]

    For Help: [removed]@[removed]

    To Unsubscribe: [removed]@[removed]

    To Subscribe: [removed]@[removed]
      or see [removed]

    For Help with the Archive Server, send the command ARCHIVE HELP
      in the SUBJECT of a message to [removed]@[removed]

    To contact the listmaster, mail to listmaster@[removed]

    To Send Mail to the list, simply send to [removed]@[removed]