Subject: [removed] Digest V2002 #393
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 10/7/2002 8:34 PM
To: <[removed]@[removed];

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2002 : Issue 393
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Re: Thanx -- and another [removed]   [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
  Harry Bartell and Doc Savage          [ "alanladdsr" <alanladdsr@[removed] ]
  Turntable Belts !!!                   [ Rfmalone@[removed] ]
  Last Godfrey Radio Show(s)            [ leemunsick@[removed] ]
  NPR re: audio tape, Crosby, radio     [ marklambert@[removed] ]
  squealing reel tape                   [ EdHowell@[removed] ]
  Wonder Bread                          [ "CHARLES MONROE-KANE" <monroe-kane@ ]
  Re: London After Midnight             [ "Jan Willis" <jlwillis@[removed]; ]
  Re: Replacement Turntable Belts       [ Shenbarger@[removed] ]
  Important Godfrey Anniversary         [ leemunsick@[removed] ]

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

Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 16:03:29 +0000
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: Thanx -- and another [removed]

Phil Chavin wrote:

 > I'm now able to answer her question:  Yes.  After some digging, I've
 >learned that the Special Collections Dept. at the University Library (M/C
 >234) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (phone [removed]) has a
 >Preston Bradley Papers collection

Thanks much for running this down -- hopefully they'll have what I'm
looking for.

And speaking of radio clergymen, does anyone know of a collection housing
the papers of Jacob Tarshish? He was a liberal/Reform rabbi based in
Ohio, who broadcast regularly over WLW and later Mutual for much of the
1930s, usually under the title "The Lamplighter." Often the texts of his
broadcasts were published in booklet form and sent out to listeners
making requests, and were compiled into a series of popular inspirational
books.

I'm specifically looking for a printed transcript of Tarshish's 1/13/35
broadcast, which was devoted to a summary of the moral lessons taught in
"Amos 'n' Andy." Anyone out there happen to have a copy of this pamphlet?
I'm not sure if it ever showed up in one of his hardcover collections,
but it was definitely issued in booklet form.

Elizabeth

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

Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 16:04:36 +0000
From: "alanladdsr" <alanladdsr@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Harry Bartell and Doc Savage

I was listening to a show from a series called "Doorway to Life" and heard
Harry Bartell in the role of an "unfeeling husband." It was a sustaining CBS
series from 1947-48. Does he have any remembering from that series?

Does anyone know if the l930's series' of  Doc Savage has any existing
programs around. I know of the later serial but was wondering about any of
the original programs possibly available. Excuse the syntax but I hope you
know what I'm asking about!

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

Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 16:03:42 +0000
From: Rfmalone@[removed]
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Turntable  Belts !!!

Try this website. They sell all kinds of parts for turntables. Needles, Belts
etc.
       [removed]

                                           Richard!

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

Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 16:04:15 +0000
From: leemunsick@[removed]
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Last Godfrey Radio Show(s)

To respond to "Gunner" and his search for tapes of the final Arthur Godfrey 
network programs:

Counting down to the final Arthur Godfrey CBS network program in 1972, Mr. 
Godfrey for several weeks recalled the history of his programs and 
activities, from the past to the present, a particular year in each day's 
show.  When he finally got to April 27th, he made his farewell.  These 
tapes are readily available from numerous sources.  I'd copy mine for our 
poster, except that they're still packed away from my move fro NJ to 
VA.  Just keep searching, Gunner, you will find them, and they are worth 
having, as they reminisce about a lot of things.

I would take issue in part with his following comment: "by the time the 
program went off the air it was a very low keyed half hour in length, with 
no studio audience or big national sponsors, a far cry from its 
heyday".   Art Singer in his book about Arthur Godfrey ends his chapter on 
that last program with, "Studio 22 was never used for radio again".

Gunner's comment is correct except in one detail, regarding the note about 
the sponsor.  How would one have "no national sponsors" on a national radio 
network entertainment program, in this case the very last one to leave the air?

There's something amiss here, unless Gunner considers Lipton to be a tiny 
local organization.  On that last show, Mr. Godfrey slid into the sponsor's 
commercial thusly:  "Our sponsor?  Remember the old Biblical saying, 'the 
first shall be last'?   Lipton Tea!  They've been with us right to the very 
end."
Not absolutely, totally [removed] was a hiatus, and Mr. Godfrey even 
experimented with representing another brand.  I remember thinking, "Oh no, 
sir, you can't do this!"  I'm sure millions of his listeners felt the 
same.  He didn't count on the enormously loyalty which he himself had built 
with his listeners for Lipton and his other sponsors.  The transition did 
not work.  Ultimately, Lipton came back.

But except for that gap, Lipton and Chesterfield cigarettes were 
practically synonymous with Arthur Godfrey, who of course had scores of 
other sponsors as well, all with strong listener identification and brand 
loyalty.

 From the early days with "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts" in the 1940s, 
Lipton was there with its tea.  Godfrey's espousal of Lipton in particular, 
and tea in general, caused not only the sales of the Commodore's brand to 
grow, but Americans' use of tea in general.  Then as Lipton grew, Mr. 
Godfrey introduced their other, new products, like their famous powdered soups.

Mr. Godfrey was known for kidding the sponsors' advertising copy.  In this 
case, he typically joked about the copy and the product, wisely knowing 
that many consumers would look at this little package of dry powder and say 
that it would never produce anything edible, let alone good soup!  He was a 
marketer and salesman <par excellence>, and he knew his audience through 
and through.  It should be recalled that the only other quick-made soups 
readily available to buyers at the time, were the enormously popular 
Campbell's canned, condensed soups to which one only need add milk or 
water. They were the enemy, and that public knowledge had to be overcome.

Mr. Godfrey played the devil's advocate.  Skeptically, he poured out some 
of the powdered Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup in a bowl, poked his finger 
around in it, and said he couldn't find the chicken.  Laughter.  He 
wondered, "Where's the chicken?" (a precursor of the "Where's The Beef?" 
campaign of years later?).  More laughter, with his audience right in the 
palm of his hand, wondering how he would get out of this!  He remarked to 
his amused listeners and watchers that perhaps the chicken had walked 
through the powder!  After the laughter relaxed the audience and then 
calmed down, he had a cup of the hot soup available, noisily tasted some to 
be sure the radio audience caught on as the viewers would, and remarked, 
"But it sure tastes good!"

This approach made his listeners flood the stores and empty the shelves of 
the powdered soup.  He did this with many of his sponsors' products during 
his 50-year broadcasting career.  In ensuing years, Thomas J. Lipton became 
a gigantic international conglomerate, to a not insignificant extent 
because of Arthur Godfrey's promotion.  Unilever was formed with the merger 
of Lipton and Best Foods, and is a huge firm with many, many products, 
often with very familiar brand names beside Lipton:  Country Crock, 
Hellmann's, Knorr's, Lawry's, Ragu, Skippy, to name just a few.

Mr. Godfrey's approach seemed so casual, and he encouraged people to 
identify with him as "This li'l ol' country boy".  But he was no hick, no 
jerk.  I watched him on his morning simulcast one day as he said he wanted 
to introduce a new cereal for the Kellogg folk, another loyal sponsor for 
whose products he frequently served as the initial introducer, as he did 
with other firms and their products.

The camera and viewers saw Mr. G seated behind his little desk.  Mentioning 
that he had a new product for his audience, he bent down behind the desk 
and picked up the box of Kellogg's new cereal.  Reaching in front of him, 
he placed the carton on the little wall of the desk.  Oops!  He missed the 
wall, and the box dropped on our side of the desk, out of sight.  Mr. 
Godfrey struggled to get up amid the audience titters, and while mugging 
his chagrin to the studio (and TV) audience, carefully walked around the 
end of the desk to the front, picked up the cereal, carefully and with more 
chagrin showed it again to the TV camera, returned to his seat, and put the 
box back up where it belonged, in clear view of the audience.

All very understandable, to inadvertently drop the box that way, and have 
to go get it.  Don't believe it.  The entire thing was carefully thought 
out and executed, to focus the attention of his audience solidly on the new 
product.  Not to mention the idea that perhaps a lot of his housewife 
listeners would gossip to each other over the next day or so, "Did you see 
Arthur Godfrey drop the box of Kellogg's cereal on TV this morning?"  No, 
Arthur Godfrey may have had the image of the freckle faced Peck's Bad Boy, 
but he was nobody's fool.  Master-mind marketer, is what he was, a genius.

I was told by Frank Stanton of CBS, and it has been reliably reported 
elsewhere, that right up to that last show, there was still a list of major 
companies eager for the chance to sponsor Arthur Godfrey, to have him be 
the spokesman for their products or services.

The difficulty had little to do with Arthur Godfrey, except that his 
programs had escaped it far longer than any others.  His was the last; the 
penultimate was Don McNeill's Breakfast Club on ABC, which succumbed four 
years earlier.

The problem was the changing nature of the broadcasting business itself, 
not in this case one of a lack of sponsors, or of listeners.  It was the 
fatal inability of the national networks--in this case CBS--to guarantee to 
sponsors that local affiliates would carry their sponsored programs.  Those 
stations preferred instead to highlight a DJ with a stack of records, 
station IDs, timechecks, commercials, station IDs, record, commercials, 
station [removed] you get the idea <ad infinitum>.

CBS at least had remained loyal to Mr. Godfrey.  Although their format had 
changed almost entirely to All-News on the o & o's, they broke into that 
format every weekday to carry Arthur Godfrey until that final day, many 
years after the demise of the rest of the networks' schedules of 
entertainment, soap operas and the like.

Good luck finding the programs, [removed] think you'll enjoy them.  The 
pace of the Arthur Godfrey programs is undoubtedly too slow for the 
youngsters of today, saturated as they are with fast-moving TV programs 
filled with noise and color (especially in the louder commercials), and 
feverish burn-out.

Yet for those of us older folk willing to sit and listen, they have a 
timelessness which is informative, charming, poignant, and still enjoyable, 
educational and entertaining.  Other than with NPR on the radio, and TV 
channels such as A&E, History, Discovery, National Geographic, Biography, 
CNN and FoxNews, where do you get this in the "mainstream" of broadcasting 
today?  And where will the "mainstream" networks be in five or ten years 
from now?  And what kind of crud will they be airing?

Be the Good Lord willin', we'll still have some sources of intelligent 
programming available for years to come.  And the tape recordings of those 
precious, previous years, whether on reel to reel, cassette, VCR, CD, MP3, 
or whatever comes next.

Thanks for listening!

Lee Munsick

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

Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 22:11:28 +0000
From: marklambert@[removed]
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  NPR re: audio tape, Crosby, radio

On Friday, Oct. 4, I heard an interesting story on NPR's
"All Things Considered."  The report was about how a US
soldier returning from WW II brought back German technology
for recording on magnetic tape, took it to Bing Crosby, who
then used the machine (and the tape) to record his radio show
in advance.  The report also told how Crosby invested in
duplicating the technology.  The story also discussed how
the use of magnetic-tape recording (as opposed to wax disc
recordings) led to "laugh tracks," as well as the encouragement
of radio performers to take risks (knowing that risque comments
could be edited out before broadcast).  If you'd like to hear
the story, I think you can listen to archived NPR programs
on the NPR website:
[removed]

--Mark
Mark Lambert
[removed]
invested in duplicating the technology here

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

Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 22:11:43 +0000
From: EdHowell@[removed]
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  squealing reel tape

I used to have tapes that squealed on old Brush reel-to-reel machines and not
having anything else handy and haviing a show that must go on, I sprinkled a
little talcum powder on the tape and for some reason it stopped the squeal.
If it was a show that was to be bicycled I would make a good duplicate of it
to send to the next station. I was glad to see tape come along after babying
sometimes three Webster wire recorders at the same time during some delayed
broadcasts. Nothing like tying that wire back together when it broke during a
broadcast!  Almost as bad a nightmare as working in TV and having both sync
gens acting up at once while film on the projector lost its loop, the other
projector not loaded, and no one in the building except me (and the phone
ringing off the wall). I still have nightmares!

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

Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 22:13:11 +0000
From: "CHARLES MONROE-KANE" <monroe-kane@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Wonder Bread

I sent the following email last week but had email problems and
have no idea if I got a reply here it is again. Sorry.

Charles

# ################

  I am a producer for a national show on public radio called, "To the
Best of Our Knoweldge." It is an hour long show on ideas (based
on themes). I want to use more sound, bits, etc. from old-time
radio in my [removed] is why I joined the list.

Specificially I am looking for (for a show I am doing on the history
of bread):

Audio of the "Happy Wonder Bakers" (singing quartet cald in
spotless white uniforms) who sang about Wonder Bread on NBC
Radio. They started performing in 1929.

I have NO IDEA how to get this but would like very much to play it
on my show.

I am also looking for more contemporary (1950-60's) Wonder Bread
radio spots (but, of course, the "Happy Wonder Bakers" are the
Holy Grail).

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

Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 22:12:38 +0000
From: "Jan Willis" <jlwillis@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: London After Midnight

Martin wrote:
TCM has scheduled the silent Lon Chaney classic, LONDON AFTER >MIDNIGHT 
<<some snipping>>
Seems a group of people got together, found some 200+
stills from the movie, hired a couple voice actors (similar to radio
acting?) and reconstructed, scene for scene, the "lost" movie that is
being considered the "holy grail" of all horror films.

  One small but important correction, Martin, if I may. Far as I know, the 
information you'd read regarding voice actors being used for the LAM 
"restoration"  is not correct.
  It's definitely going to remain in its original silent form, with a new 
score by Robert Israel.  Unless I've missed something myself, along the way.
  Rick Schmidlin is doing the 40 minute long restoration, having to work 
with 100% stills and the motion control camera approach he used on the 
GREED restoration a few years ago, as the camera "moves" across each still, 
as the film progresses.
[removed]
"After reading the script and the continuity, I realized that this could be 
told totally in photo stills and still be a very complex, compelling, 
articulate story," Schmidlin said.
  Also, at:
[removed],12608,473|1259|475,[removed]
  From TOUCH OF EVIL to an Elvis Presley concert film, Schmidlin's done 
some wonderful work in recent years, and TCM has been showcasing his work 
each time, too.
  LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT gets a one-time showing on TCM, Halloween night.
  NO encores (for a while, at least).

Jan Willis

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

Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 22:12:09 +0000
From: Shenbarger@[removed]
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: Replacement Turntable Belts

In a message dated 10/6/2002 11:59:46 PM Central Daylight Time, Doug Leary
writes:

 > Are
 >  there special supply houses that sell old drive belts, or is my intended
DIY
 >  method probably as good as any?

I have tried DIY and failed.

There are a few places that sell belts for turntables, ready to install.
There is at least one place that sells belt material in various cross
sections and will provide a length to suit or make it up to match your needs.

[removed] - for ready to use belts

[removed] - for belts made to order

There are others. Search for "turntable belts" with Google.

Don Shenbarger

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

Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 22:13:28 +0000
From: leemunsick@[removed]
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Important Godfrey Anniversary

Amidst all the other interesting comments about Arthur Godfrey, I forgot to 
bring this up:

This week is the 73rd anniversary of the very start of the Godfrey 
broadcasting career.

It was the evening of October 5, 1929, in the port city of Baltimore, 
Maryland.  A bunch of Coast Guardsmen were doing what servicemen do on a 
night off, tipping down a few in a local watering hole.  This was not 
unusual for the times, even though it was illegal, as Prohibition was still 
in effect.  One of the "swabbies" was [removed] Coast Guard radio operator, 
newly-married Arthur Morton Godfrey.  His  buddies were listening to an 
amateur hour on station WFBR in that city.  They convinced their "shipmate" 
that he could sing better than those who were performing on the air.   His 
pals teased him into going to WFBR, even "helping him along" to the 
station, where he went on the air on the talent show as "Red Godfrey the 
Warbling Banjoist", and scored his first hit.  It's not so surprising that 
years later he would have his own program, "Arthur Godfrey and His Talent 
Scouts", which gave vital national exposure and a boost up to many, many 
performers who went on to stardom.  They included Patsy Cline, Eddie 
Fisher, Beverly Sills, Rosemary and Betty Clooney, Itzhak Perlman, Dinah 
Shore, Lenny Bruce, Pat Boone, Vic Damone, Wally Cox, Tony Bennett, The 
McGuire Sisters, Will Jordan, and scores more.

But back to that all-important Baltimore "talent scouts" show.  The station 
manager, the first of many to see a good thing, asked the 26-year old 
Arthur Godfrey to do a regular show on his station.  He did, which was 
constantly expanded and grew until the call came from the "big city" to 
move to the NBC station in Washington, [removed]   In time, he became an NBC 
Staff Announcer based there.

 From there, he moved a few blocks to the CBS outlet in the nation's 
capital.  As a new CBS Staff Announcer, he had a few breaks which never 
seemed to rev up to more than considerable local fame and fortune.  But one 
never knows about fate, "do one?"  In April 1945, Arthur Godfrey was chosen 
to describe the progress of President Franklin Roosevelt's funeral cortege 
through the streets of Washington, from his vantage point standing on a 
local theater marquee.

 From a News Director's point of view, this was a mistake.  But sometimes 
from small mistakes, big careers are born.  Never a newsman as such, Mr. 
Godfrey had difficulty controlling his emotions under the 
circumstances.  He knew Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt personally, and owed thanks 
to the Commander in Chief for getting him his commission as a Lt. Commander 
in the [removed] Naval Reserve.  When the President's casket drew near, he lost 
his composure and broke up.

Fred Friendly and Edward R. Murrow some years later put a brief excerpt of 
that broadcast in their "Hear It Now" album covering 1945.  But the 
original actual broadcast ran longer.  Oh, how I wish we could find someone 
who has the complete recording of the Godfrey-FDR broadcast!  Please, 
someone, come forth with the whole thing!

On the recording, the last we hear Mr. Godfrey say in a hurried, wavering, 
tearful voice is,  "We return you now to the studio!".  Mr. Godfrey always 
said afterward that he was thoroughly embarrassed by his shortcoming that 
day.  But it was this emotional side which made him the star he was.

I am told that in the 1945 instance, there was no-one at the studio to pick 
it up.  The engineers frantically discussed this on the talk-back line, and 
waved to Mr. Godfrey to continue.  All this is reminiscent to us, of the 
earlier Herb Morrison coverage of the Hindenberg Disaster, except that 
WSL's Morrison was making a recording intended for use only on his station 
the next day, while Mr. Godfrey was live on the Columbia network.  It 
turned out to be the break which finally got him to New York, and his 
network berth

I've been asked by people familiar with Mr. Godfrey's chagrin about his FDR 
funeral coverage,  why in heaven's name would Mr. Godfrey play it as part 
of his very last program?  It was virtually the last thing Mr. Godfrey put 
into that final network broadcast in 1972, using the excerpt from the "Hear 
It Now" recording.

I think this is a fair understanding of why:  Even 'though those last few 
days were pre-recorded, Mr. Godfrey knew that he was going to blubber when 
it came to the end.  So he had the engineers play his FDR break-up, which 
perhaps helped explain away the fact that he was having trouble keeping 
control in the last minutes of his quarter-century long network radio 
program.  Deja vu from 27 years before!

Well, let's think of happier things this week,  harking back to that first 
broadcast in Baltimore, 73 years ago!  If there are any young talents 
reading this, and your local radio station has its own amateur   program, 
give it a try!

Lee Munsick
Appomattox County, Virginia USA

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2002 Issue #393
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