Subject: [removed] Digest V2013 #71
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 6/30/2013 10:18 PM

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

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                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2013 : Issue 71
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                 [removed]
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Thanks to Lum and Abner Sponsors!     [ Donald Pitchford <donniepitchford@s ]
      Fond memories of Elliott Reid         [ Derek Tague <thatderek@[removed]; ]
      This week in radio history 30 June t  [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]

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    Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 20:28:50 -0400
    From: Donald Pitchford <donniepitchford@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Thanks to Lum and Abner Sponsors!

    Many thanks to the Old Time Radio Researchers Group for two years of "Chet
    Lauck & Tuffy Goff Platinum Circle" sponsorship of the "Lum and Abner" Comic
    Strip project! I truly appreciate the support from this great organization,
    and maybe one day in the future it can happen again. I salute you!

    Donnie Pitchford,
    "Lum and Abner" Cartoonist
    Carthage, Texas

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    Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 20:29:01 -0400
    From: Derek Tague <thatderek@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Fond memories of Elliott Reid

    Elliott "Ted" Reid was a class act. I don't need to recount his OTR
    accomplishments such as working in the Mercury Theatre with Orson Welles or
    how he was the lead actor in "Three Skeleton Key" prior to Vincent Price.
    For those of us who would like to introduce him to a younger audience, the
    best way would be via the Disney "Absent-Minded Professor"/"Flubber" movies
    where he played Fred MacMurray's buddy or in the landmark film version of the
    Broadway show "Inherit the Wind" (written by former radio writers Jerome
    Lawrence and Robert E. Lee) where he was the assistant prosecutor alongside
    Frederic March.

    My recollections of Mr. Reid involve his perennial appearances at the annual
    FOTR convention here in New Jersey and his near-appearance on "Funny Friday,"
    the annual "comedy panel" which I co-produced and co-hosted for several years
    at FOTR.

    Sometime around 2000-2001, I had found an old Playbill for an early 1960s
    Broadway offering called "Hermione Gingold -- From A to Z." Said show was
    essentially a one-woman showcase for Ms. Gingold but it did include a few
    stray sketches with a small supporting cast including Elliott Reid.

    I bought the Playbill for a dollar at Morristown's The Old Book Store intent
    on giving it Mr. Reid at the following FOTR convention -- but that didn't
    transpire immediately. While doing some house-cleaning a couple of years
    later, I chanced upon it and decided to mail it to him outright with a note
    to the effect that I had intended to present it to him at an FOTR, etc., etc.

    Mr. Reid was delighted to receive this item. He wrote me a handwritten letter
    that stated that this was a Playbill he did not have and that he was grateful
    to receive it for his personal collection. It seemed the Gingold revue closed
    within two weeks after having been savaged by the NYC critics and that
    Elliott just never acquired a copy of its Playbill.  Mr. Reid then told me
    that the reason he hadn't been to FOTR in recent years was because he just
    wasn't invited.

    I'm sure this was an oversight that had befallen the regular FOTR re-creation
    directors who might not have thought of him for any plum roles. However, I
    thought at the time "we've got to fix that."

    After having co-produced and co-hosted (with Mary Lou Wallace)  in 2003 the
    first FOTR comedy panel which seemed to go over quite well, I requested
    during the FOTR steering committee's winter meeting that we invite him. I
    made the case that Mr. Reid had wanted to come again and that I'd gladly
    enpanel him on "Funny Friday." I also made the case that although he might
    not be considered a comedian, he did possess a comedy "pedigree" as a "comedy
    performer" in the aforementioned Disney comedy films, on the US version of
    "That Was the Week that Was," on shows like "I Love Lucy," and as an
    impressionist who was doing JFK impersonations before Vaughan Meader.

    Glad to say, Elliott Reid was approved for FOTR 2004 and that once he was
    announced several re-creation directors had some nice roles for him. However,
    Mr. Reid never made it to the comedy panel.

    When the FOTR schedule was announced during the summer of 2004, "Funny
    Friday" was  slated to be the lead-in to the Gotham Radio Players production
    of a "lost" episode of "The Eternal Light" recounting the Warsaw Ghetto
    Uprising of 1944 and intended as a sixtieth anniversary commemoration of that
    momentous event in history. Gotham director Steven M. Lewis and I decided
    that the comedy panel and its uproarious trappings would not be an
    appropriate lead-in to a solemn Holocaust drama, resulting in us asking FOTR
    director Jay Hickerson to alter the schedule. "FF" was scheduled for earlier
    on Friday afternoon but because of this schedule shift, Elliott Reid was tied
    up in a rehearsal and, thus, unable to share his stories with us.

    If I remember correctly, Ted Reid wearing his ever=present tam-o'-shanter did
    make it to another one or two FOTRs. Soon thereafter, he suffered a stroke
    and could no longer fly cross-country. Yes, it was a disappointment for me
    that he never made it to the comedy panel, but, at least, we regular FOTR
    conventioneers got to enjoy his company and his talents a few more times.

    We all loved Elliot Reid. OTR has lost a giant. Rest, my good friend.

    Yours in the ether,

    Derek Tague

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    Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 20:29:06 -0400
    From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
    To: otr-digest <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  This week in radio history 30 June to 6 July

     From Those Were The Days

    6/30

    1921   Documents were signed forming the Radio Corporation of America,
    better known as RCA. RCA soon rivaled its main competitor, General
    Electric (GE).

    7/1

    1934   The Federal Communications Commission, as mandated in the
    Communications Act of 1934, replaced the Federal Radio Commission as the
    regulator of broadcasting in the United States.

    7/2

    1939   The Aldrich Family debuted on NBC.

    1946   CBS signed Arthur Godfrey to do a weekly nighttime show.

    1951   Bob and Ray (Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding) presented NBC on a
    network show.

    7/3

    1939   Chic Young's comic strip character, Blondie was first heard on CBS.

    1940   The legendary comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello debuted
    with their network show on NBC.

    1945    NBC gave the comedian/pianist Victor Borge his own the summer
    replacement show for Fibber McGee and Molly.  He had been heard a few
    years earlier as a semi regular on NBC's "Kraft Music Hall" with Bing
    Crosby.

    7/4

    1943   The Rhythm Boys, Bing Crosby, Al Rinker and Harry Barris, were
    reunited for the first time since the 1930s on Paul Whiteman Presents on
    NBC.

    1951   Jack Webb, along with Dragnet, also did a summer show that of
    Pete Kelly. Pete Kelly's Blues, a crime drama, was the summer
    replacement on NBC for Halls of Ivy (with Ronald Colman and Benita Hume).

    7/5

    1943   The Adventures of Nero Wolfe debuted on the NBC Blue network.
    Nero Wolfe was "the detective genius who rates the knife and fork the
    greatest tools ever invented by man." The 'gargantuan gourmet' continued
    on the air until 1951.

    1948   My Favorite Husband, with Lucille Ball, became the gifted
    redhead's first regular radio program on CBS.  Richard Denning
    co-starred with Lucy as "two people who live together and like it."
    (Which today has a different [removed] -ed)

    1951   The Silver Eagle debuted on ABC as a entry into radio's action
    adventure lineup. Jim Ameche starred as Jim West.

    7/6

    1943   Judy Canova, the 'Queen of the Hillbillies', began a weekly
    comedy show on CBS.

    1947   A hidden microphone eavesdropped on unsuspecting people for the
    first time this night, as Candid Microphone hit the ABC airwaves.

    Joe

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    End of [removed] Digest V2013 Issue #71
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