Subject: [removed] Digest V2008 #242
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 10/15/2008 6:09 PM

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

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2008 : Issue 242
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                 [removed]
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      #OldRadio IRC Chat this Thursday Nig  [ charlie@[removed] ]
      Re: Jack Benny and the ????           [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
      Numbers on acetate labels             [ rand@[removed] ]
      jack benny commercials                [ "Darrel Presley" <dpresley@jackson. ]
      WEAF                                  [ James H Arva <wilditralian@[removed] ]
      Captain Midnight                      [ "Sammy Jones" <sjones69@[removed] ]
      60th Anniversary of WAR OF THE WORLD  [ James Yellen <jjyellen@[removed]; ]
      Jack Benny and the ????               [ "Michael Leannah" <mleannah@sbcglob ]
      WEAF - Call Letters                   [ JimBourg@[removed] ]
      radio museums                         [ Ken Greenwald <kgradio@[removed]; ]
      Mary's Hideous Progeny stalks again!  [ Wich2@[removed] ]
      Radio Museums                         [ <radioaz@[removed]; ]
      Memories of Sonny and Gil             [ "Derek Tague" <derek@[removed]; ]
      Re: Home recordings                   [ <mbiel@[removed]; ]

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:12:02 -0400
    From: charlie@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  #OldRadio IRC Chat this Thursday Night!

    A weekly [removed]

    For the best in OTR Chat, join IRC (Internet Relay Chat), StarLink-IRC
    Network, the channel name is #OldRadio.  We meet Thursdays at 8 PM Eastern
    and go on, and on! The oldest OTR Chat Channel, it has been in existence
    over nine years, same time, same channel! Started by Lois Culver, widow
    of actor Howard Culver, this is the place to be on Thursday night for
    real-time OTR talk!

    Our "regulars" include OTR actors, soundmen, collectors, listeners, and
    others interested in enjoying OTR from points all over the world. Discussions
    range from favorite shows to almost anything else under the sun (sometimes
    it's hard for us to stay on-topic)...but even if it isn't always focused,
    it's always a good time!

    For more info, contact charlie@[removed]. We hope to see you there, this
    week and every week!

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:54:21 -0400
    From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
    To: otr-digest <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: Jack Benny and the ????

        Bryan Jensen posed --

>     Jack had Rochester get some ???? (some kind of baked good I think).
>     As I understand they mispronounced the name of the ???? and got some
>     laughs.  Well they kept the gag in for at least a month maybe more.  It
>     ends up someone asks what ???? was.

       Cinnamon rolls.
       The joke was Jack ordering sweet rolls, donuts, etc with Mel Blanc
    being the delivery boy from the bakery.
       Instead of saying cinnamon rolls he said "Cimarron rolls".
       Jack made a big deal of this and the gag went on a few minutes.
       Mary looks at the box and says that Mel was right, they were made by
    someone named Cimarron and "not to be confused with cinnamon rolls which
    were made with different ingredients (which Blanc pronounced
    "ingre-a-ments" in the routine).
        BTW, when I make cinnamon rolls I call them Cimarron rolls.  :)
        Joe

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:54:39 -0400
    From: rand@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Numbers on acetate labels

    I have a few original network acetates and I was wondering about numbers I
    see on the labels of some from NBC.

    For example, one I have is for the Dennis Day show from Jan 8, 1947 and,
    on the label is typed "R-28131".

    Anyone know what the number was used for or what it means?

    Some discs in my collection don't have a number (for example, a 1953 NBC
    acetate of an episode of "My Son Jeep" - it just has the series title,
    date, and time it was broadcast).

    I've been recording these numbers when I run into them in my disc database
    and wondered if they had some significance that would be useful to
    researchers.

    Randy

    __________
    Randy A. Riddle
    Mebane, NC

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:56:02 -0400
    From: "Darrel Presley" <dpresley@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  jack benny commercials

    I listen to a lot of Jack Benny and have noticed that during the commercials
    during later years, you cannot hear one peep from the audience.  Did they
    perform the commercials in a separate venue, were they recorded earlier, or
    was the audience under some kind of restriction during that time?

    Darrel Presley
    Nicholson, GA

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:56:38 -0400
    From: James H Arva <wilditralian@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  WEAF

    10-14-08

    In issue #238, Donald Tuttle queried:

>     always been intrigued by those
>     call letters in NY (WABC was CBS, [removed]). Did
>     WEAF stand for western electric audio feed, or some such?

    This morning I had lunch with my wife's 94-year-old uncle who was -- for
    a few years in the 30's -- chief engineer for WEAF, and I posed the
    question to him.  He said that he never remembers the call letters being
    an acronym for anything.

    Regards,

    Jim Arva

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:57:44 -0400
    From: "Sammy Jones" <sjones69@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Captain Midnight
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    Joe Mackey wrote:

>     10/17

>     1938 - Captain Midnight was heard on radio for the first time, on
>     Mutual. The Captain flew his plane all over the place fighting crime.

    Captain Midnight actually premiered closer to October 10, 1938 (I don't have
    the exact date at hand, but the radio listings of the Chicago Tribune
    indicate the premier).  I believe the October 17 date that is so often
    bandied about originates from the fact that the long run of Parada Treasure
    episodes begins on October 17, 1939.

    Also please note that Captain Midnight began life as a SYNDICATED serial, and
    did not air on Mutual until 1940.  Although I've never seen an original
    Captain Midnight ET, I believe it was produced by the Russell C. Comer
    Advertising Agency of Kansas City, Missouri (probably recorded in Chicago).

    WGN is often cited as the originating station, but I think they are nothing
    more than a key station in the syndicate.

    Perhaps Stephen Kallis could chime in?

    Happy Landings,
    Sammy Jones

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    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:58:21 -0400
    From: James Yellen <jjyellen@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  60th Anniversary of WAR OF THE WORLDS

    As we approach the 6oth anniversary of the famous Orson Welles broadcast of
    WAR OF THE WORLDS, I invite all to visit my website, THE WISTFUL RADIO
    CHRONICLES, to read my humerous short story about the time my friends and I
    were inspired by the Welles broadcast to attempt a similar Halloween hoax.

    [removed]

    While you're there, feel free to let your mouse wander and check out my other
    OTR related stories like The Great Radio Giveaway Disaster, or The Infamous
    Electric Radio Mike Caper, or The Flim-Flammed Sibling Strikes Back, or
    Bulldog O'Hara vs the Adolescent Crimbuster.

    Thanks for listening, and may God bless.

    Jim Yellen

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:58:31 -0400
    From: "Michael Leannah" <mleannah@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Jack Benny and the ????

    Bryan Jensen asked about the mysterious baked goods on the Jack Benny show.
    You must be thinking of "Cimarron Rolls," a thing between Mel Blanc and
    Jack, mostly. Listen to the shows of March through May of 1953 and you'll
    hear what you're looking (or listening) for.

    Mike Leannah
    Sheboygan, Wisconsin

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:59:26 -0400
    From: JimBourg@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  WEAF - Call Letters
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    In a message dated 10/13/2008 5:15:06 [removed] Central Daylight Time,
    [removed]@[removed] writes:

    [removed]

    For call letter origins see:

    [removed]

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:00:02 -0400
    From: Ken Greenwald <kgradio@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  radio museums
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
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    Jim Cox wrote:

>     "It occurred to me, are there lots of similar museums in existence?  And what
>     happens when the personnel maintaining them is no longer available?"

    Though there are a number of well established radio museums that are open to
    the public,
    Jim's question brought to mind that there are (or were) some private museum's.
    Two I can think of are those of John Porter and Mike Durrough.
    John lived in Vacaville, California and, over a fifty year period, collected
    hundreds of
    radios that he stored in his home. They were carefully arranged for display so
    anyone
    could enjoy looking at them or even (in the case of table models) pick them up
    and hold them.
    His was an amazing private collection that anyone could see if they asked
    John. He would
    warmly invite you to his home, show you his radio museum and explain all about
    the history
    of radio. John died some years back [removed]  where is his collection now?
    John was a
    regular visitor to PPB for years. After he died, no one seems to know where
    his vast collection
    has gone.

    Mike Durrough is the inventor of the Durrough instant diode VU meter. He is
    also the inventor of
    a broadcast stabilizing transmitter unit that allows transmission of broadcast
    waves for greater distances than regular transmitters. In the years he tried
    to establish himself
    with his products, he would travel across the US and literally stop at every
    radio station he
    could to demonstrate his inventions. At each station he would ask the managers
    if they had any
    old radio equipment they did not want. During those years of travel he
    accumulated just about
    everything; from radios to microphones to control boards, station id [removed]
    you name it.
    Though he did not set this equipment up in a museum, he stored everything in a
    large warehouse.
    He rarely has time now, but, if he knew you well enough, he would let you look
    at his
    collection. I am sure there are many private individuals we know nothing of
    who have collected
    the history of radio and created small "personal" museums.
    My friend Bill Hennesy has a very small area in his home where he displays his
    priceless
    collection of radio premiums. Marvelous to observe and to bring back those
    times when we sent
    in our ten cents and a boxtop [removed] you name it!

    This may not answer your question, Jim, but it at least shows there is much
    more out there in
    private collections or "mini-museums" than we are aware of.

    Ken Greenwald

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:02:57 -0400
    From: Wich2@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Mary's Hideous Progeny stalks again!

    Dear Folks-

    For news about a  FRANKENSTEIN: MODERN PROMETHEUS All Hallow's Audio Drama
    event coming up in NYC  (with many other treats in the bag as [removed]!), drop
    me
    a line  off-list.

    Happy Halloween,
    -Craig "The Monster" Wichman

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:03:43 -0400
    From: <radioaz@[removed];
    To: "OTR Digest" <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Radio Museums

    Jim Cox asked about radio museums and their futures.  We have such an
    undertakinmg in Scottsdale, AZ--The house of Broadcasting.  It is totally
    free and has no personnel in attendance at all.  I don't know why they
    aren't robbed blind.  It is not so much a "radio" museums as it is a history
    of broadcasting here in AZ.  It does have some equipemnt on display, but
    mostly it is pics and things about radio and TV here.

    One interesting thing about it is that it is currently displayed in what was
    once Tanya Tucker's apartment, after she left Glen Campbell.  So if you are
    ever in Scottsdale and want to back home and tell your friends you were in
    Tanya Tucker's bedroom, then visit the House of Broadcasting Museum.

    I have wondered about the future of this museum also.  It is largely the
    collection one woman.  I don't know what plans are in place if something
    happens to her.

    Ted Meland

    [removed]

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:06:35 -0400
    From: "Derek Tague" <derek@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Memories of Sonny and Gil
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    For about 15-17 years, James "Sonny" Raley had been a fixture at both the
    FOTR/NJ and Cincinnatti OTR coventions, and recently at the nascent MANC
    convention in Aberdeen MD, dealing in celebrity autographs. Early on, I had
    learned his backstory. In the early 1970s, he lived in the Greater Los Angeles
    area and would regularly cruise around Hollywood hotspots at night.  He had a
    crateful  of 8x10 glossies in the trunk of his car waiting for the
    corresponding celeb to show up.  Sometimes, he's have to settle for plain
    paper autographs. Convetioneers will remember the care Sonny took in his wares
    -- especially the way he artistically matted the plain paper autographs with a
    photo into a ready-to-frame work of art.

    The very first year Sonny set up at FOTR, I bought from him a Jack Webb and a
    two-for-one of Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert from TV's "Green Acres." Although,
    Mr. Raley was recently victimised by the ravages of Alzheimer's disease, he
    was particularly sharp-minded in the early 1990s. Naturally, as autograph
    collectors/dealers like this list's own Dan Hughes can testify, customers
    often put up a "caveat emptor" shield when patronising an autograph dealer.
    with the paramount concern being whether an autograph is "legit." Sonny, in
    his prime, could tell you exactly at what nightclub or at what traffic
    intersection, and the occasion he met any of  the  celebrities from whom he
    got his massive collection of signatures.

    In my case, he told me the why-and-the-wherefors and what was going on when he
    met Messrs. Webb, Albert and Miss Gabor.  Sonny brought a heightened sense of
    integrity to a field where charlatans abound. I'm proud to have known and have
    traded with James "Sonny" Raley, and equally proud of his dealer's ethic ...
    unless Sonny persoanlly acquired an autograph or could overwhelmingly
    ascertain said item's authenticity, he would not sell it. It was as simple as
    that.

    I only really knew Gil Stratton Jr. from having hosted him on a couple of
    panels at FOTR. In 2001, I  moderated  a Saturday afternoon tribute to
    "Dragnet,"  by hosting  Michael Hayde, author of "My Name's Friday" and
    Anthony Tollin, who had just put together a 60-episode "Dragnet" boxed-set and
    wrote its accompanying booklet for Radio Spirits [by way of qualification, I
    did research on both projects]. Also on the panel were "Dragnet" (TV)
    semi-regular Art Gilmore and two other FOTR perennials who did a "Dragnet" or
    two: Beverly Washburn and Richard "Dick" Beals. When Gil Stratton heard about
    the panel, he asked FOTR's head honcho Jay Hickerson if he could be on it
    since he also had appeared on the TV version. "Mr. Dragnet," viz. Mr. Hayde
    actually had a clip of a TV "Dragnet" in which Gil played a young drunk
    driver.

    Last year at FOTR, Gil appeared on a "Baseball in Radio" panel with my pal Ken
    Stockinger (pictured with Mr. Stratton on Fearless Leader Summers' blog), a
    panel hosted by George Downes about children's radio and TV shows and one-time
    juvenile performers, and the Funny Friday comedy panel (which I co-produce and
    co-host.) ... ALL IN ONE DAY. When I introduced him, I jokingly said "What is
    this, your seventh or eighth panel today? 'The Indefatigable Gil Stratton
    Junior!"

    Gil told some good stories given that his comedy pedigree included "My Little
    Margie" and three films as a "Bowery Boy" with Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey. On
    the panel, he spoke about having played one of the members of Marlon Brando's
    motorcycle gang in "The Wild One" and one of William Holden's fellow prisoners
    in "Stalag 17."

    Gil told me beforehand that he loved being on panels and asked if there were
    to be any others that could employ his services.  I found a circa 1941
    Playbill of him appearing in the Broadway musical "Best Foot Forward" (the
    show that gave us the song "Buckkle Down, Winsocki"), which also starred
    Nancy Walker and and a young June Allyson. I put it into the raffle & Mr.
    Stratton was kind enough to sign it for the winner.

    We lost two wondeful proponents of OTR this past weekend. For Digest readers
    who are so inclined, please remember to say a prayer for both Gil and Sonny.

    Yours in the ether,

    Derek Tague

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    [ADMINISTRIVIA: If you look closely at that photo on the blog, Mr. Stratton
    is paging through the Playbill Derek provided.  --cfs3]

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

    Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:09:13 -0400
    From: <mbiel@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Home recordings

    Peter Boe asked whether the Germans used X-ray machines during the war years
    to record banned jazz.  None of the German collectors, researchers, and
    archivists I know have reported this, but recording on surplus x-ray film
    using regular disc recorders was common in the Soviet Union post war.  In the
    50s it was called "Rock On The Bones."  The Soviet x-ray film is not the
    heavy stiff film we use here, it was the regular thickness of normal
    photographic film.  I had heard about this in the 1950s and had asked every
    Soviet collector I contacted to find me some, but no luck.  When I spent the
    summer in Moscow in 1995 I visited a major record collector there and he had
    a stack of a hundred or more of them.  That was the first time I found out
    what they felt like, which helped me the following Saturday at the Izmilova
    Flea Market when I felt one in a pile of records and was able to buy it cheap
    because I didn't hold it up to the light.  What was it?  Penciled in Russian
    was "Dgonie" which is Johnny.  That could be anything.  When I got home to
    Kentucky the first thing I did was play it.  I knew in three seconds what it
    was.  It was Les Paul and Mary Ford "Johnnie (Is The Boy For Me)" which was
    on the flip side of "Via Con Dios" which I had as a 45 since I was a kid.

    X-ray film was also apparently used pre-war because the Hungarians issued a
    special set of Bela Bartok broadcasts and home recordings and some of them
    from 1938 were noted to be on "x-ray foil".  This surprised me because
    Hungary was a free country with a good economy in 38.  So there is a
    possibility that x-ray film was used during the war, but as I said, none of
    the German and Austrian experts I've talked to have mentioned it for their
    countries, and I've never seen it in their national archives.

    On the general topic of home recording, I've posted about it in the past and
    some of them are probably on several web sites.  It also was detailed in my
    [removed] Dissertation.  All wax cylinder machines could be used to record going
    back to the 1880s and there are a number of home recordings that have shown
    up.  I have a box for a cylinder that a South African listener sent to WGY
    with an air-check in the early 20s.  (The person who gave me the box 30 years
    ago said he probably shaved and reused the cylinder because it didn't sound
    good and he wasn't interested in it.)
    Embossing on uncoated aluminum discs was developed in the teens, but was
    really started by Speak-O-Phone in late 1927 but the earliest seem to show up
    from 1929 or 30.  There are valuable broadcasts that have been found on
    these.  RCA Victor introduced a plastic pre-grooved disc in 1930 that also
    has been the source of some important broadcasts.  (See Elizabeth's web site
    and the NBC Chimes Museum site for some details of what she and I have turned
    up over the years.)  There also were some recordings done on celluloid or
    geletin sheets in the early 30s, and the four hour Amalgamated Broadcasting
    System inaugural program was on these.   Lacquer coated on aluminum discs
    were introduced in October 1934 by Presto, and in the next year or two this
    system became the major recording medium.   Coated discs showed up a year or
    so earlier in Europe, but details are still sketchy.

    Broadcasters in England, Canada, and Australia used huge Blattnerphone and
    Marconi-Stille steel band tape recorders from 1929, an optical film recorder
    was used for the Wagner festival in 1933, the Philips-Miller
    mechanical/optical film recorder was used by broadcasters in Holland,
    England, and WOR in the mid to late 30s till the war ended the source of
    tape,  the Germans used the Magnetophon tape recorder during the war, and the
    American military used wire recorders during the war.

    These other systems were not available for home use till after the war.

    Michael Biel   mbiel@[removed]

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2008 Issue #242
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