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

[removed] Digest				Volume 96 : Issue 321

Table Of Contents: 

	 Burns & Allen Books
	 Another Train Episode
	 CBSMT
	  Cliff
	 Hiawatha series
	 Watching radio
	 Use It or Lose It / Sterling Holloway
	 Cliff Edwards and Watching Radio
	 looking for old-time radio show traders
	 Re: Radio Mystery Theatre
	 Old Radio Studios
	 Reading the funnies OTR
	 log for lone ranger
	 Re: CANDID MICROPHONE
	 Thanks for slipping cassettes
	 Railroads and riches

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

Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 08:44:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: ERNST@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Cc: ERNST@[removed]
Subject: Burns & Allen Books
Message-id: <01I95I5WJDNA965ISM@[removed]>
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

I have four Burns & Allen related books for sale.  They are:  I Love Her
That's Why, Gracie:  A Love Story, All My Best Friends, by George Burns; and
Say Goodnight Gracie:  The Story of Burns & Allen.  Please email me for
details.

Gordon Ernst
ernst@[removed]

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

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 12:56:03 +0000
From: "F. Charles Simar" <FCharlesSimar@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Another Train Episode
Message-ID: <[removed]@DEFAULT>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Here is another episode with a train in it.  I don't believe that it was
mentioned.  
The Show:  CAVALCADE OF AMERICA
Airdate:   12/24/45
Episode:   Names On The Land

New subject
-----------

Could anybody give me any info about THE ADVENTURES OF ARCHIE ANDREWS
(actors, sponsors, etc.)

Thanx. 8'>

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

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 10:32:32 -0400
From: JRayb71827@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: CBSMT
Message-ID: <960906103230_195659381@[removed]>

   Insofar as the CBS Mystery Theater was concerned, it didn't so much BRING
back OTR as it did to REACH back to OTR.  That's because the show was mostly
a re-do of the material from the far earlier "Inner Sanctum."  Both were
Himan Brown creations with CBSMT merely substituting [removed] Marshall as "host"
without the quite-so-eerie openings.  Another time when he couldn't work out
a deal to do some work with the "Nero Wolfe" series, Brown came up with "The
Affairs of Peter Salem," with Santos Ortega, who had been one of the actors
portraying Wolfe.  
   As for getting Himan Brown to do something nowadays,  he has a bunch of
new scripts ready and told me in an interview that he'd like to get them on
NPR - haven't heard of any success.  He presented one of the scripts at the
SPERDVAC convention about three years back.  It featured Burgess Meredith and
Jeannette Nolan and they were absolutely magic.  Then, after that, Himan did
another of the scripts with Mercedes McCambridge at an AARP convention.

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

Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 09:14:40 -0600
From: Chet Cox <CHCOX@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Cliff
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

Thank you, BILL KNOWLTON, for getting the facts in this matter.  It is
heart-warming (especially in light of the New, Un-Waltish Disney) to find
that (the old) Disney really did come through when they weren't required
to do the right thing.

BILL KNOWLTON posted:  "I received a well-documented and detailed
letter from the Disney people after
Cliff Edwards had died "forgotten and impoverished." It was mailed to me
upon
my letter of outrage to them when I heard of Cliff's alledged state.

It was an injustice to Disney; they subsidized him and made him
comfortable
in his final days, and they geve proof on what they did for him in their
letter to me."

Thanks again, Bill.  It's not OTR (_maybe_), but it's good to hear.

*jeep!
~~~~Chet
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote of the day:  "I told you to make one longer than another, and 
instead you have made one shorter than the other--the opposite."
--Sir Boyle Roche (an ancestor to Dan Quayle?)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 10:50:15 -0700
From: [removed]@[removed] (Donald Dortmund)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Hiawatha series
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Description: cc:Mail note part

  My friend Bill, who was born in 1927 said he remembers a program but has 
  not found any copies of it, so he asked me to ask you; 
  
  'Does anyone have any information about an OTR called "Hiawatha", from 
  the late '30s or early '40s.'

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

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 10:50:19 -0500 (CDT)
From: caldwell@[removed] (Wayne Caldwell)
To: otr@[removed] (otr mailing list)
Subject: Watching radio
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length:        807

I can remember listening to a Floyd Patterson fight in the 1950's with my dad
and I was laying on my bed staring up into space.

[removed]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Wayne Caldwell        |                                  |   
  [removed] 831183        |    caldwell@[removed]    |   214-436-2724
  Richardson, Texas     |    MSGID = CWB                   |  answer machine
  75083-1183            |                                  |   
                    [removed]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"They say your memory is the second thing to go. But I can't remember what
 the first was."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 11:51:47 -0400
From: Bigkids@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Use It or Lose It / Sterling Holloway
Message-ID: <960906115145_302888104@[removed]>

In re: the comment about having lost the power of visualization of sports
events, now that we're all conditioned to watching them on TV --

I have a feeling that the power of visualization based on verbal (or
auditory) clues, is one of those abilities that we must either "use or lose."
Thinking back to my radio days (as a kid), I actually did more than "see"
radio shows in the theater of the mind, I was able to *live* them.

I rode that train with The Mysterious Traveller; I crossed the rope-bridge in
the The Cave of Vampires with Jack, Doc and Reggie; I flew in the spaceship
with Buck and Wilma and Dr. Huer; I even stood with Jack Benny while he
dithered over buying shoe laces with metal tips or plastic tips; I knocked on
doors along Allen's Alley, and so forth.

Nowadays we can actually see all these things on the tune, but I don't think
we're actually (or virtually) *there* the way we used to be.

But OTR can still do the trick -- at least, once in a while, when I listen to
a taped show from that era, the old magic still works and I am walking down a
dark alley on a chilly, damp evening, my breath rising in the cold air, fog
making halo's around streetlamps, and . . .

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

My most vivid recollection of Sterling Holloway is of his singing "Hooray for
Hollywood" as he leads a parade of small-town folks seeing Benny Goodman and
his band off to California to make movies, in a movie circa 1936 - 38.
Holloway had a funny, high voice, and if you didn't know better you might
think it was a woman singing.

Holloway also had a marvelously funny face, and I believe he was the
inspiration for the Disney comic-book character Gyro Gearloose, the eccentric
inventor.

Dick Lupoff

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

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 09:58:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: BURT WILSON <futurecon@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Cliff Edwards and Watching Radio
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Cliff Edwards also did a number of "party" records in tandem with pianist
Ben Light in the 40's.  They are great!  I'm sure Disney would not have
approved.  If you want to hear one, it's called "Mr. Insurance Man" and is
on the "Copulating Blues" album.  Don't have album info, but if you e-mail
me I'll get it for you.

I believe we are all influenced by thos pictures of people "watching radio"
that have no all been archived.  They were posed.  (Not that people at times
did NOT watch rado)  But we see pictures of people gathered around the radio
to listen to an FDR "Fireside Chat," and those pictures were posed for that
effect.  Since then, still such as these have been taken from the archives
when anyone wants a photo depicting OTR.  Personally, I always did my
homework to OTR.  I did pretty well in school and never missed a joke on
"Our Miss Brooks."
Burt Wilson

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

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 13:09:22 -0500 (CDT)
From: Dewana Burnham <dburnham@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: looking for old-time radio show traders
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Hello Everyone,

I hope I am allowed to make this request.  My name is Troy Burnham and I 
live in Beaumont, Texas.  I am an old-time radio show collector, and I am 
looking for someone to trade with.  

My favorite shows are dragnet, gunsmoke, Fibber McGee and Mallei, and Our 
Miss Brooks.  Other than these shows I collect any westerns, mysteries, 
detective/police.  If anyone is interested in trading, please E-mail me.  

The reason that the name is different on the E-mail address is because my 
mom had to get the account in her name because the only people who can 
get a tenet account is people who work for the school district.  

Anyway, I will be looking forward to hearing from you!

Troy Burnham

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

Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 13:11:05 -0500
From: "Andrew C. Green" <acg@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Cc: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Radio Mystery Theatre
Message-Id: <[removed]@dlogics>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Steve Lewis <[removed]@[removed]> writes:
>I caught what must have been the tail end of the run of the RADIO 
>MYSTERY THEATER when I was away at college in 1982. [...] Now I was
>already a big OTR fan at that point, and the RMT just didn't measure up.

I've been thinking about this topic for a couple of days now, and 
while it's hard to argue with the point that any show running for 
a dozen years must be doing something right, I too remember the 
CBSRMT as just not very good, but why, I couldn't put my finger on.

What I do recall was actually writing to them to get the proper 
paperwork for submitting a storyline. Looking back on it now, I 
think I was motivated by the realization that (1) this radio 
theatre concept was _really_ interesting (I had no concept of OTR 
at that time and probably didn't even know it had ever existed), 
and (2) they were doing such an awful job of it at the time that 
I figured even I could write better scripts.

No agent was required, it seemed, since they actually wrote back 
and sent me some pre-printed forms I was supposed to fill out with 
a two-page (or thereabouts) summary of my proposed storyline. To 
this day I remember the odd typeface and ivory-colored paper they 
used -- my first contact with show biz :-) -- but I suspect they 
round-filed it as soon as it arrived as I never heard anything back.

>When the show was good, it could be really good. But much more often 
>than not, the scripts were just uninteresting or plain dumb.

As I recall, it seemed like almost everything was churned out by the
same four writers. I never had a problem with the acting, which was
apparently done by the same small troupe each night, but the writing
just never held my interest.

>Maybe the show was better in its earlier days, but my honest reaction 
>as a teenager who was also an experienced OTR buff was that it was 
>stuff like that which gave radio drama a bad name.

(I was a teenager in the '70's as well.) I don't know that it gave
OTR a bad name so much as it did little to polish its _good_ name.
I think perhaps there were two problems with it:

1) It was an anthology, and anthologies can be hard to build an
audience for. You never knew from one night to the next what to
expect, and any character you came to like would be gone at the
end of the episode.

This is not to say that anthologies can't be done nor that there
have not been quite a few of them, but I think that radio and TV 
are littered with a lot of failed anthology concepts.

2) It was on every night. I have to believe that the staff must
have been stretched thin trying to generate an hour of original
material each night, what with writing, rehearsal and production
time added in, and it tended to show in the finished product. The
OTR shows we listen to these days were, by and large, weekly
productions, not daily ones, soap operas excepted, of course (and
those were often 15 minutes a day, not 60, with continuing stories).

So I appreciate CBSRMT not really as a _good_ effort but as a 
well-intentioned one. Certainly their twelve-year run meant that a
lot of people appreciated it and I'm glad for that, but I suspect
that had it come out in the '40's or '50's, it might not have made
it past thirteen weeks.

Andrew C. Green            (312) 266-4431
Datalogics, Inc.
441 W. Huron               Internet: acg@[removed]
Chicago, IL  60610-3498    FAX: (312) 266-4473

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

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 16:17:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: Philip Quardokus <quardok@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Old Radio Studios
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I worked for a time at KFUO in St. Louis while I attended Concordia 
Seminary in the mid 70's.  The KFUO building was built in the 20's.  (I 
believe that KFUO is the oldest non-commercial station in the country.) 
Anyway the studios were all pretty much intact from the time of 
construction.  The old network board was still in the control room. (KFUO 
originated "The Lutheran Hour" in the 40's.)  They also had some _old_ 
stand-by transmitters.  If you would like to see what an OTR radio studio 
looked like and you live near St. Louis, give KFUO a call and ask for a tour.

Philip Quardokus

BTW "The Lutheran Hour" is still on the radio.  It is a weekly broadcast 
which began in the 30's.

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

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 12:43:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Henry A. Campbell-Ickes" <hacickes@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Reading the funnies OTR
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Gang --

I thought sure that someone would have pounced on this before now, but ...

in response to a recent posting: Fiorello LaGuardia, while Mayor of NYC, 
did read the sunday funnies (the NY Journal-American, if I'm not 
mistaken) over the radio.  As I heard the story (I either wasn't around 
or was too young to notice), it was over the municipal station, WNYC.

Separate from that was "Uncle Don", who also read the comics to kids.  
He's the one who (reputedly), after apparently thinking the mike was cut 
off, commented something along the lines of "... well, *that* ought to 
hold the little Ba----ds!"  Apocryphal?  I'd be delighted to hear from 
anyone who "vas dere, Charlie."

Later, in the late '40s/early 50s, I remember hearing someone else 
reading from "Puck, the Comic Weekly" (also the NY J-A, I believe), but I 
never caught the announcer's name, and I couldn't understand why he didn't 
read *all* the comics!

Hank C-I

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

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 17:50:39 -0700
From: [removed]@[removed] (Donald Dortmund)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: log for lone ranger
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Description: cc:Mail note part

  Is there a log available for the lone ranger episodes?

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

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 20:09:17 4
From: "edcarr" <edcarr@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: CANDID MICROPHONE
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

the allen funt family are looking
for shows of candid microphone
they only have two,
08/10/47 and 08/24/47
can anyone help?.email me not
the newsletter.
                     edcarr@[removed]

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

Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 19:31:32 EDT
From: jjyellen@[removed] (James J Yellen)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Thanks for slipping cassettes
Message-ID: <[removed]@[removed]>

     Thanks to all those who send advice about my problem with cassettes
from Radio Spirits being eaten by my player. I'll be trying some of the
ideas received (and there were alot) except for stomping on the cassette.
Thanks again.

See you in Newark!

Jim Yellen

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

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 23:00:36 -0400
From: bilj@[removed] (Bill Jaker)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Railroads and riches
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

With the many many mentions of rail-related radio I believe that one of the 
most obvious has been omitted: THE RAILROAD HOUR!  It was a musical program 
that ran from 1948 to 1954, and although it wasn't really about railroads it 
was certainly of the railroads, sponsored by their national trade 
association.  The institutional commercials are probably as good a 
reflection of railroads in American life as anything on the air.

And about big money quiz shows.  True, most radio quiz shows didn't give 
away enough to steal, but remember that "Break the Bank" had a top prize 
around $10,000 -- double the average annual income in 1948.  Also, let's not 
forget another Bert Parks giveaway, "Stop the Music".  The top prize for 
naming the Mystery Melody once reached $30,000!  And at the same time, Fred 
Allen's "quiz show insurance" (a payoff to any listener who was called by 
"Stop the Music" while listening to Allen) was about $5,000.

"...and always remember to clean out the bowl after your little cleanliness 
chore."    -- Big Jon




--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V96 Issue #321
*******************************************

