Wistful Vistas

Princess Pet, Pt. 3

2009-04-14T06:12:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Princess Pet on Radio Was Memorable Program During Early 50s
Box Cox

Volume 2 concluded in a “they lived happily ever after” fashion: “From high up in the sky over the castle, the Ice Cream Star looked down and smiled a special smile, for it was plain to see, Goodness would live forever in the Kingdom of Princess Pet.”

Storylines from the series include “A Dragon Has Been Slain,” “Ice Cream Star Seeks Yellow Forest,” “Evil Duke Plans to Get the Golden Thread,” “Pet Brown Mule and Pet Brown Bear are Hiding” and “The Princess Dreams of Prince Gallant.” The plot for Volume 2 entails Brown Bear and Brown Mule helping Princess Pet when some evil characters try to harm her. On one page, her majesty bestows membership in her Regal Court upon a little boy.

Youngsters like me eagerly tuned their Bakelite radios to the next broadcast each Saturday morning, at the sound of the clanging bottles, to follow the antics of Ms. Pet and her fantasized court. Situations always seemed to turn out right for the good guys and wrong for the evil ones, a condition all children fervently demanded.

If you have even a hint of memory of this long-ago radio program, please drop me a note and share it with me. boblcox@bcyesteryear.com

- This article first appeared in the Johnson City Press, Tennessee on January 1, 2008 and is reprinted by permission of the author.

Princess Pet, Pt. 2

2009-04-13T06:08:00.001-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Princess Pet on Radio Was Memorable Program During Early 50s
Box Cox

In addition to the weekly radio programs, the company published two 36-page, eight-chapter, color/b&w booklets titled “The Adventures of Princess Pet,” Volumes 1 and 2. Each volume contained a list of the “Royal Commands of Princess Pet” to her youthful listening audience, offering one per month such as always tell the truth, bring home a good report card, keep your room neat, look both ways before crossing a street; and regularly attend Sunday School.

An introductory page presented a short synopsis of the plot: “This is the story of some of the strange and wonderful things that happen in the beautiful Kingdom of Prince Pet in the Land of the Ice Cream Star. Nearby lies the Black Forest, a wicked, wicked place. The ruler of the forest is the Wicked Duke, who many years ago placed a curse upon the forest because Princess Pet’s mother, the Queen, refused to become his bride. If even the tiniest shadow of Black Forest falls upon you, you become enchanted.”

The most dazzling sketch in Volume 1 was a full color page offering a panoramic view of Ice Cream Star. The text contained a colorful description of the frozen fantasyland: “Layers of soft, filmy clouds floated and sparkled in the warm sunlight. Everywhere around them were lakes of rich, fresh cream, rivers of bubbling chocolate and mound after mound of cherries, nuts, pineapples, peaches, coconuts and strawberries.” The tiny elf-like workers, dressed in bright jackets, were “hustling and working everywhere – churning and turning, hopping and chopping, icing and slicing – making delicious Pet Ice Cream.”

- This article first appeared in the Johnson City Press, Tennessee on January 1, 2008 and is reprinted by permission of the author.

Princess Pet, Pt. 1

2009-04-12T06:10:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Princess Pet on Radio Was Memorable Program During Early 50s
Box Cox

I recall a delightful Saturday morning children’s program over WJHL radio from about 1951 to 1953 titled The Adventures of Princess Pet. The sponsor was Pet Dairy Products, a Johnson City-based business that began operation in 1929 at 106 S. Boone Street. The company produced 111 delightful 15-minute episodes.

I attribute my attraction for the radio series to my fondness for Brown Mules, vanilla ice cream bars coated with chocolate, and Brown Bears, solid chocolate ice milk bars. Both were produced on a splinterless wooden stick. I favored the stubborn hybrid work animal over the shaggy carnivorous mammal but eagerly wolfed down both. The frozen delights each cost a nickel - half of my weekly allowance.

In addition to the weekly radio programs, the company published two 36-page, eight-chapter, color/b&w booklets titled “The Adventures of Princess Pet,” Volumes 1 and 2. Each volume contained a list of the “Royal Commands of Princess Pet” to her youthful listening audience, offering one per month such as always tell the truth, bring home a good report card, keep your room neat, look both ways before crossing a street; and regularly attend Sunday School.

- This article first appeared in the Johnson City Press, Tennessee on January 1, 2008 and is reprinted by permission of the author.

Remember Crystal Sets? Pt. 3

2009-04-11T06:03:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Anyone Remember Crystal Radio Sets?
Ned Norris

Now I understand I needed to pay much more attention to installing a good antenna –– a 50-foot piece of wire outside the house and as high as possible –– and that I needed a good ground. But as a 13-year-old, I simply wanted to listen under the bed covers in the dark to my favorite old time radio radio thriller.

It almost didn't matter what the program was. Each had the compelling signature music, sometimes just single musical notes, the voices with their sense of urgency, the suspense, the climax, the scripting formula. I also remember the screech of car tires in chase scenes. It was pretty gripping stuff for a small boy.

Remember how shoes were always soled in hard leather? Rubber didn't make enough noise. Doors always squeaked; silent ones would not have been much use on radio. And do I remember correctly that detectives were always men and that secretaries were always women?Today, when I recall those days long ago, I remember the crystal radio set with its finicky connection that would fade to almost nothing at the crucial point in the story. Then it would come back just as the announcer was saying something like: "So long! See you next week."

- Ned Norris is the webmaster of www.rusc.com

Remember Crystal Sets? Pt. 2

2009-04-10T06:01:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Anyone Remember Crystal Radio Sets?
Ned Norris

Radio Shack sells starter kits too. Describing a project for "beginning experimenters" at http://www.thebest.net/wuggy/rs99fun.htm one reviewer said "the Radio Shack crystal radio kit Cat. No. 28-178 is a pretty fair starter set. It does work, and some simple modifications will enhance its performance." When he wrote four years ago, the price was $9.99. After some modifications, which he describes, he was able to listento New York, Netherlands Antilles, Cuba, Charlotte NC, Chicago, "and a few others". What a difference acoil of wire for an antenna makes!

For some fascinating photographs, you might want to take a look at http://www.schmarder.com/radios/crystal With their knobs and dials for tuning in a favorite station they make me positively envious!

There was no simple method for tuning my set. I remember there was a contact of some sort, and that by moving this minuscule distances across the crystal you could, with much patience, tune in a radio station. Usually, it was faint. Fiddle with the contact and the signal would be lost and found again many timesbefore a signal strong enough to enjoy came in. And it would often disappear in the middle of a show for no obvious reason.

"He aims and fires, but he misses……and that was his last bullet. The killer reaches for him, the axe raised in his other hand, and ……" fizzle, crackle, silence. Mutter, mutter (the latter being me)!

- Ned Norris is the webmaster of www.rusc.com

Remember Crystal Sets? Pt. 1

2009-04-09T05:59:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Anyone Remember Crystal Radio Sets?
Ned Norris

Like many people of my generation I was brought up under strict conditions. Bedtime was at a certain rigid time every night. Lights out meant no reading; it meant sleep. It certainly did not include listening to radio broadcasts.

But as a child of thirteen, I discovered the delights of the crystal set. It was probably what started my love affair with old time radio. But it was a frustrating affair. The workings of my crystal radio set have remained a complete mystery. How, I wondered then, could a lump of gray mineral possibly capture radio waves and do so without a battery?

Now, several decades later, the answers are easy to find on the Internet –– here I quickly discover that crystal sets, and the parts to make them, are readily available today –– even though they look vastly different from the crude thing I had. In comparison, today's look . . . well …positively modern.

To my amazement, according to Google there are 245,000 pages that contain the phrase "crystal set". There is even The Xtal Set Society http://www.midnightscience.com which says it is "dedicated to once again building and experimenting with radio electronics." It advertises books, parts and kits. One kit is called the Quaker Oat Box Radio Pack. It contains one roll of 24-gauge hook-up wire (100 feet), one germanium diode, one 47,000-ohm resistor, one alligator clip, and one crystal earplug. Sounds just about as basic as my old set……but I don't remember the otherinstructions that come with this kit: "You will need to provide your own antenna wire and oatmeal box. "The advertised price is $8.95. Do some reverse inflation calculations and you will know better than I now remember roughly how much I paid for my set back in 1947. Any money I had in those days was 'earned' by not spending my lunch money at school, so I know the set I had was dirt-cheap.

Curious George, Pt. 2

2009-04-08T16:43:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Curious George

In researching Invisible Stars, Halper learned that women were welcome in radio in the 1920s, when the amateur ethic prevailed and there wasn’t much money to be made. But as the decade drew to a close and the medium became more commercial, women were cast aside, or ghettoized on women’s shows.

Yet Halper argues that, in a sense, things are actually worse today. The women’s shows may have emphasized domestic bliss, she says, but they also served as “an electronic community” where topics such as feminism (before it was even a word), birth control, and greater involvement in public life could be discussed. “It wasn’t all recipes,” she says.

Since the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, though, most of the country’s 10,000 radio stations have fallen into the hands of just a few giant media conglomerates, resulting in the loss of scores of jobs. These days, Halper notes, smaller markets may not have a single locally based radio station; programming frequently pipes in by satellite from a distant headquarters. “Before, you were channeled into the women’s shows,” she says. “Today you’re just not hired. And that worries me.”

As Halper notes in Invisible Stars, there is one bright spot for women in radio: National Public Radio, whose most popular and respected news personalities are women such as Linda Wertheimer, Nina Totenberg, and Susan Stamberg. NPR even has its own female hack purveyor of conventional wisdom (my characterization, not Halper’s), Cokie Roberts, showing that women can equal men in mediocrity as well as excellence.

And though Halper laments the devolution of commercial radio into “shock and vulgarity,” she retains a nostalgic affection for the medium. “I was a very lonely kid, and radio was my companion,” she says. “Those DJs were my friends. And while other girls might have dreamed about marrying them, I dreamed about being one of them.”

- Donna Halper is a lecturer and broadcast consultant based in Quincy, MA. Her love of radio history is evident in the way she captures the essence of her subjects.

Curious George, Pt. 1

2009-04-07T16:41:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Curious George

Donna Halper arrived on the campus of Northeastern University in the fall of 1964, determined to be a disc jockey at WNEU, the university’s closed-circuit radio station. “I was told, ‘We don’t put girls on the air,’” she says. “That was not the answer I had expected.” But Halper was used to being an outsider, having grown up as the only Jewish kid in her Roslindale neighborhood. She persisted, and finally got her own show in 1968.Now, after more than 30 years of working in radio (her consulting business is on the Web at www.donnahalper.com) and teaching broadcasting at Emerson College, Halper has written a book. Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting (M.E. Sharpe, 331 pages, $39.95) pays tribute, she says, to the women who came before her in an industry that has never been particularly accepting of women.

If Invisible Stars has a central character, it is Eunice Randall, who grew up in Mattapoisett and who, in 1918, was hired by the American Radio and Research Company to do technical drawings for engineers. The company also operated a radio station known as 1XE (later a commercial station, WGI), in Medford. Soon Randall – later Eunice Randall Thompson – was doing everything from building radio equipment to volunteering as an announcer to climbing the station’s tower and repairing the antenna. She stayed active in ham radio into the 1960s.

Early Broadcasting in the Bay Area, Pt. 9

2009-04-06T16:30:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Early Broadcasting in the San Francisco Bay Area: Stations that Didn’t Survive, 1920-25
John F. Schneider
Seattle, Washington Copyright 1997

Another incident Cormack recalled is the night a small orchestra played for the KDN microphone. There wasn’t enough room in the operator's shack for the orchestra, so they stationed themselves on the roof while Cormack positioned his microphone in the doorway. Just as the broadcast got under way, it began to rain. But, the show must go on, and the little group played its entire concert in the downpour, although, as he recalled, the violins sounded a bit "soggy" towards the end.

At one point in the station's history, Mayor James Rolph and several officials of the Matson Line visited the station. A new luxury cruise ship was beginning its maiden voyage that date, and the men's' speeches were picked up by the ship and piped to the passengers through the P. A. system.

In later years, KDN broadcast regular programs of Rudy Seiger's Fairmont Orchestra through a line that had been installed down to the hotel's ballroom for remote pick-ups. In February of 1922, the station built a 50 watt transmitter, and the old five-watter was relegated to standby use. However, the station was still mainly a vehicle for phonograph records and news reports.

Several things finally brought about the demise of KDN. The first was the death of Sheldon Peterson, the driving force behind the station. Mr. Meyberg, the company President, was an older gentleman whose primary interest was in the sale of lighting fixtures and associated electrical equipment. He had little real interest in the station, and lost the desire to operate it after Peterson's death. In addition, a new station, KPO, had installed a remote amplifier to pick up the orchestra programs from the Fairmont, and KPO's 500 watts would provide reception of the Rudy Seiger broadcasts over a larger area than KDN could provide. So, KDN quietly left the air in early 1923.

Early Broadcasting in the Bay Area, Pt. 8

2009-04-05T16:29:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Early Broadcasting in the San Francisco Bay Area: Stations that Didn’t Survive, 1920-25
John F. Schneider
Seattle, Washington Copyright 1997

6XG went on the air in June, 1921. It was first operated by the Meyberg staff, but this soon became difficult, and the company hired a young radio operator who had just returned from sea. His name was Alan Cormack, later to be Chief Engineer of KFRC and KCBS. Cormack recalled his task was to go to the Sherman-Clay music store daily and pick out records for the programs that evening. These would be borrowed from Sherman-Clay in exchange for mentioning the store as the source of the music. After selecting his records, he would go to the Meyberg offices on Market Street where he would pick up the weather and market reports, "mostly butter and egg prices". He would then go to the station and put the program on the air.

All programs went on the air through the single telephone-style carbon microphone connected to the transmitter. Besides announcing into the microphone, Cormack would hold it up to the phonograph to pick up records, winding it occasionally to keep the music up to speed. Or, he related, "I used to hang the microphone at the back of the piano, put on a roll, and sit down and pump it." Programs of this nature were on the air between one and two hours daily.

After a while, the station began receiving calls from listeners requesting different types of programs, and KDN started branching out. Some notable special programs broadcast on KDN include a broadcast by a quartet from the Scotti Grand Opera Company, September 29, 1921. This group was staying in the Hotel, and accepted an invitation to sing over KDN. Cormack led them up the tiny wooden stairs to the roof, where they sang into a microphone rigged to the end of a phonograph horn. Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink, an internationally-known opera singer of the time, also sang over the KDN microphone one evening. Cormack recalled that she was "big, hefty, very German, and very emotional. She was pretty much overcome that her voice was going over the air, to the point where she shed quite a few tears."

Early Broadcasting in the Bay Area, Pt. 7

2009-04-04T16:27:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Early Broadcasting in the San Francisco Bay Area: Stations that Didn’t Survive, 1920-25
John F. Schneider
Seattle, Washington Copyright 1997

6XG/KDN
Perhaps the most popular early Bay Area station was 6XG, later KDN, operated by the Leo J. Meyberg Company, a wholesale electrical firm. KDN was one of a long series of stations to broadcast from the Fairmont Hotel, atop San Francisco's Nob Hill, which had always been considered a prime radio site due to its height. The first Nob Hill station had been an experimental telephone transmitter operated by the Dewire Wireless Telegraph Company about 1910. This station, and another in the Fruitvale District of Oakland, were the two experimental radiotelephone stations of the short-lived company.

Another Fairmont station was operated by the National Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, and operated by San Jose experimenter Doc Herrold. It coincidentally had the same call letters as the later Meyberg station, 6XG.

The Meyberg operation was established by Sheldon Peterson, Manager of the company, and Gerald M. Best, a phone company engineer. It was situated in a small wooden shack on the roof of the Hotel, right next to the time ball that was used to signal ships. Equipment consisted of a home-brew five- watt transmitter, a Victor phonograph for music programs, and a player piano. A flat-top antenna was strung between two fifty-foot poles on the roof.

Early Broadcasting in the Bay Area, Pt. 6

2009-04-03T16:26:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Early Broadcasting in the San Francisco Bay Area: Stations that Didn’t Survive, 1920-25
John F. Schneider
Seattle, Washington Copyright 1997

The installation of the station in Oakland was completed in record time. Shaw desired to have the station on the air Christmas Day, and this gave the crew just over a week to complete the installation. The antenna was to be 135 feet long, suspended between two tall masts. However, Shaw's property was not big enough to accommodate both masts, so it was decided to put the other on a neighbor's property, directly up the hill. This property, it was found, was owned by a Santa Barbara man. Telegrams to Santa Barbara determined that the owner was on vacation and could not be reached. In desperation, Shaw sent Fred Anderson to Santa Barbara, where he learned the owner was vacationing in Los Angeles. Anderson drove on to Los Angeles the same day, found the man and had him sign an agreement for the use of the property. He returned December 18th and construction was begun the same day. The first test transmissions were made just four days later, and the station went on the air at midnight, Christmas Day, 1921. The initial program consisted of several hours of Christmas carols, and closed with an official announcement of the opening of the station.

KZY's facilities were quite elaborate, by 1921 standards. The radio room, which housed the DeForest transmitter and a receiver, opened onto a large music room where concerts of large groups could be held.KZY, the Rock Ridge Station, became one of the best-known coastal stations of the period. It had a large and loyal following in the Bay Area, and could be received clearly at night across all of the Western states. Live and recorded music programs were supplemented by news reports supplied by the "San Francisco Call" and the "Oakland Post-Enquirer".

On March 24, 1922, KZY made national history when the station's receiver picked up broadcasts from WGY, Schenectady, New York, marking the first time radio signals had been transmitted across the continent. The Rock Ridge station's programs continued for only about a year before the company lost interest in maintaining the station and it ceased operation. The City Council of Oakland considered the possibilities of obtaining the station and establishing an Oakland "municipal station". They had hoped to establish it as a publicity agent for the city, as well as to broadcast descriptions of criminals at large to police departments of other cities. But, the concept apparently never took hold, and KZY passed quietly into oblivion after a brief but colorful history.

Early Broadcasting in the Bay Area, Pt. 5

2009-04-02T16:24:00.000-05:00

Early Broadcasting in the Bay Area, Pt. 4

2009-04-01T16:23:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Early Broadcasting in the San Francisco Bay Area: Stations that Didn’t Survive, 1920-25
John F. Schneider
Seattle, Washington Copyright 1997

6XC/KZY
One of the most prominent early stations in the San Francisco area was 6XC, operated by the renowned radio inventory Lee DeForest. DeForest had been operating a pioneer experimental broadcast station in New York, known as 2XG. However, the radio inspector there shut the station down due to a technical infraction. So DeForest had the transmitter shipped to San Francisco, and it returned to the air in April of 1920 as 6XC.

DeForest installed his thousand watt transmitter at the California Theater, Fourth and Market Streets, and strung an antenna to a mast on top of the nearby Humboldt Bank Building. The equipment was located in a small concrete room in the "fly galleries". The station broadcast music by the theater organ, and by Hermann Heller's Symphony Orchestra live from the stage., DeForest installed receivers in several area hospitals to pick up the concerts.

The most prominent recollection of those who remember tuning in to 6XC is that it broadcast on an extremely low frequency. Early broadcasts were on 1450 meters, but this was soon changed to 1260 meters (238 kHz).

DeForest employed a full-time station operator to broadcast the concerts, Charles Logwood, who had been an assistant to the early San Francisco radio experimenter Francis McCarty in 1905. Logwood operated the transmitter and audio equipment during the frequent concerts. Weekdays there would be three half-hour concerts per day, plus the Heller Orchestra concerts every Sunday morning. To pick up the music of the orchestra, a microphone was attached to the end of a large loudspeaker horn, and the entire assembly was hung from the ceiling in the back of the theater.

Early Broadcasting in the Bay Area, Pt. 3

2009-03-31T16:21:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Early Broadcasting in the San Francisco Bay Area: Stations that Didn’t Survive, 1920-25
John F. Schneider
Seattle, Washington Copyright 1997

6UV/KYY
Perhaps the first station to broadcast in the San Francisco area after Doc Herrold's KQW, was 6UV, a tiny station operated by the Radio Telephone Shop at 175 Steuart Street, near the San Francisco waterfront. That section of Steuart Street was known as "radio row", because of the large number of radio parts stores located there. 6UV, later re-licensed KYY, was operated by the store's proprietor, A. F. Pendleton. He was on the air from 8 to 9 PM every Tuesday and Friday night on 425 meters. 6UV first went on the air about March or April, 1920, and operated only for about two years.

6XW/AG1
Another of the early broadcast operations was carried on by the U. S. Army. The Army Signal Corps at the Presidio Army base operated an amateur station to communicate with local amateurs and other Army bases, but it also broadcast music and information programs to the general public. Known first as 6XW and then later by the call letters AG1, this station was operated by Sgt. Richard C. Travers. In an article appearing in 1921 in Radio Magazine, Sgt. Travers described the purpose of the operation: The experimental work of the Signal Corps School, Presidio of San Francisco, California, was commenced about August 1, 1920, with the idea in view of determining the maximum efficiency of some Signal Corps equipment ... Another reason was to afford a means of educating new amateurs just coming into the game and at the same time advocate the C. W. transmission for the amateur with a view of lessening interference.

Considerable has been accomplished up to the present in both undertakings. In a recent test made by the school, it was shown that there are 320 that are actually interested in the educational matters and concerts transmitted by this station. And, from the same test report it was shown than an audience of about 5,000 people listen to the radiophone concerts. AG1 broadcast a concert of phonograph records every Sunday evening from 7 to 9 PM, and during this program Sgt. Travers answered questions put to him by his listeners. The Presidio continued its broadcast activities until mid-1923.

Upcoming Netcast, Pt. 2

2009-03-30T16:36:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Broadcasting On April 4 and 5

Kiss your sweetheart goodbye as you snuggle down to two full days of old-time radio shows. On April 4-5, Radio Out of the Past.org will be broadcasting shows from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Pacific or Noon to midnight Eastern. This time around we take a serious look at sidekicks or partners. No, they weren’t all western—there were a lot of shows that had sidekicks—what about I Love a Mystery or The Shadow? And there plenty of partners in the realms of comedy. And yes, Westerns. Cast your eye down the schedule listed below. You better lay in your favorite nibbles and beverages.

All you need to do is log into www.RadioOutofthePast.org. Once there, tab down to The Fred Bertelsen Old-time-radio Room. Enter the room by clicking or pressing enter. You might need to download the talking community software ahead of time. Then just sign in, without using a password. Door prizes are ready to be awarded, so you don’t want to miss this weekend.
April 4-5 Sidekick Marathon

Sunday 9 am John Beaulieu, Townsend, Mass.
Big Jon & Sparkie: No School Today: General Comet of the Universe
Ozzie & Harriet: Complaints 1949-03-27
Space Patrol: Queen of Space 1952-11-15
Wild Bill Hickok: Mixed Brands 1951-08-12

Sunday 12 noon Bob Acosta, Los Angeles, Cal.
Lone Ranger: Temple of the Sun 1943-03-31
Bergen& McCarthy: 1945-10-21
Meet Corliss Archer: Dexter thinks Corliss has another boyfriend
The Shadow: Blind beggar dies 1938-04-17
Dragnet: 1949-07-14

Sunday 3 pm Larry Gassman, Fullerton, Cal
I Love a Mystery: Grandma what big teeth you have 1945-05-21
Bold Venture: Treasure on Flamingo Cay 1951-04-23
Ellery Queen 1939-07-16
Lone Ranger: Billy Tilghman 1944-09-04
Nero Wolfe 1950-11-24

Sunday 6 pm John Gassman, Anaheim, Cal
Adventures by Morse: A coffin for the Lady (3 parts) 44-03-18. 44-03-25. 44-04-01
Bold Venture: Deadly Merchandise aka Gun Runners 51-03-26
Gunsmoke: Never Pester Chester 52-07-05

Upcoming Netcast, Pt. 1

2009-03-29T16:33:00.001-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Broadcasting On April 4 and 5

Kiss your sweetheart goodbye as you snuggle down to two full days of old-time radio shows. On April 4-5, Radio Out of the Past.org will be broadcasting shows from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Pacific or Noon to midnight Eastern. This time around we take a serious look at sidekicks or partners. No, they weren’t all western—there were a lot of shows that had sidekicks—what about I Love a Mystery or The Shadow? And there plenty of partners in the realms of comedy. And yes, Westerns. Cast your eye down the schedule listed below. You better lay in your favorite nibbles and beverages.

All you need to do is log into http://www.radiooutofthepast.org/. Once there, tab down to The Fred Bertelsen Old-time-radio Room. Enter the room by clicking or pressing enter. You might need to download the talking community software ahead of time. Then just sign in, without using a password. Door prizes are ready to be awarded, so you don’t want to miss this weekend.
April 4-5 Sidekick Marathon

Saturday 9 am Host: Devon Wilkins, Collingwood, Ontario (Canada)
Wayne and Shuster: The Ballet Jake and the kid: Elbow Room Feb. 1952
Roy Rogers Show: Rabies 1953-03-26
Adventures of Rin Tin Tin: The Ambassador 1955-11-13
Martin & Lewis: Hopalong Cassidy 1949-08-02

Saturday 12 noon Joy Jackson, Seattle, Washington
I Love a Mystery (ART production)
Tooth Fairy Inc (ART production)
Bright Star
Hashknife Hartley (ART production)
Vic and Sade (ART production)

Saturday 3 pm Kelly Sapergia, Moose Jaw, Sas. (Canada)
Burns and Allen: The Doctor
Amos and Andy: Andrew H Brown, actor
Gunsmoke: The Brothers
New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Tell-tale Pigeon Feathers
Green Hornet: The voice

Saturday 6 pm Rob Hancik, Bethlehem, Penn
Dragnet: The Sullivan kidnapping 49-09-10
Fibber McGee and Molly: Fishing Trip 53-06-30
Amos and Andy: Dummy found in rumble seat
Bergen and McCarthy 43-09-05 guest Humphrey Bogart
Ozzie and Harriet 1948-11-07 Ozzie in a rut
Vic and Sade39-07-05 Two tons of coal

Early Broadcasting in the Bay Area, Pt. 2

2009-03-28T16:20:00.001-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Early Broadcasting in the San Francisco Bay Area: Stations that Didn’t Survive, 1920-25
John F. Schneider
Seattle, Washington Copyright 1997

At first, radio broadcasting stations operated with an experimental amateur license, and with call signs such as 6XAJ. They could operate over a wide range of frequencies. However, new Department of Commerce regulations went into effect on December 1, 1921, which required all non-government broadcasting stations to obtain a “Limited Commercial” license. These new licenses came with new three- or four-letter call signs; thus 6XAJ became KZM. This new license also required all stations to broadcast on the single authorized frequency of 360 meters (833 kHz). Because the stations could not operate simultaneously on this channel without causing interference to each other, the owners of the stations met and agreed upon a time-sharing schedule. Each station would have exclusive use of the frequency for several hours each day. (The F.R.C. finally ended the sharing of this one frequency and assigned stations individual frequencies on May 15, 1923.)

To a listener of that time, radio was a new discovery. Again, programs didn't matter. It was the sheer enjoyment of listening to voices and music being pulled out of the air with a home-built crystal set. Within the course of two years, radio went from a means of point-to-point communications for commercial purposes, plus the activities of a small group of radio "hams", to everybody's hobby, and wire antennas stretched across the back yards of more and more households. Young boys found radio particularly exciting, and children across the country were winding wire around oatmeal boxes to build their own crystal radios. The San Francisco Examiner noted the sudden rise in radio's popularity when it reported in 1922, "Radio, the virulent malady which has swept the East, is rapidly spreading to the coast. Once bitten by the germ, there is no cure for the delighted victim."

Radio programs during this period consisted almost entirely of phonograph records, with only occasional news reports, crop reports or live music programs. Programs did not have the polished, produced sound of later years. For example, KUO, the Examiner station, announced its programs, "Hello; hello; this is the San Francisco Examiner's radio broadcasting station, KUO -- K - U - O. Receivers will kindly give us a check. Thank you, thank you."

Early Broadcasting in the Bay Area, Pt. 1

2009-03-27T21:59:00.001-05:00

Originally published in the March, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Early Broadcasting in the San Francisco Bay Area: Stations that Didn’t Survive, 1920-25
John F. Schneider
Seattle, Washington Copyright 1997

Radio broadcasting as an experimental concept had an early start in the San Francisco Bay area with the activities of Doc Herrold in San Jose. Herrold's station which started broadcasting on a regular basis in 1912. This pioneer station eventually became KQW and later KCBS.Apart from Doc Herrold and a few other pioneer efforts, however, regular broadcasting to the public did not commence until 1920. That was the year that some of the first serious broadcast stations appeared in different parts of the country, including KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There was a gradual growth in the public’s interest in radio for the next two years, and then suddenly an explosion of interest in 1922. In that year, the number of radio broadcasters in the country grew from a few dozen to more than 450. The explosive and sudden growth of radio in 1922 has parallels today in the sudden growth of the internet beginning about 1995.

In that early gestation period between 1920 and 1922, San Francisco led the country in the number of broadcast stations. At a time when most major cities in the U.S. had only one or two radio stations, the San Francisco area had seven: 6XC (KZY), 6XG (KDN), 6XAJ (KZM), 6XAC (KLP), 6XAG (KJJ), 6XAM (KLS), and AG1.

However, it’s hard to pin down the number of stations precisely, because that number was constantly changing, due to the fledgling nature of the field. Small stations would come on the air for several months, operated on a shoestring budget by young experimenters and then would suddenly go off the air, to be replaced as quickly by other short- lived stations. These radio stations stood with a foot in the new world of broadcasting and another foot entrenched in the world of amateur radio. The purpose of the station was often experimental, or to promote the activities of the business that operated it. The advertising revenue that provided stability for radio in its later years had yet to develop, and so there was no income to financially sustain the stations' activities. (The first recognized on-air advertisement took place on WBAY in New York on August 28, 1922). Equipment failures were frequent, and the programming itself was of secondary importance - what was important was just being on the air.

History of WMAQ Chapter 3, Pt. 2

2009-03-26T21:56:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of WMAQ Radio Chapter 3
Tom Gootee

There hal always been a question as to whether anyone actually hears that initial program from WGU. With the large building surrounding the decidedly inefficient transmitter and antenna, it was a miracle if the 360 meter signal ever crossed State Street. In fact, the program was not only the first broadcast, but also the last broadcast using the venerable De Forest transmitter. WGU was closed down the next day, and negotiations were soon begun to acquire newer and finer equipment, built especially for radio broadcasting. In spite of difficulties, there were a few optimistic persons at the new station who firmly believed in the possibilities of radio. Particularly, they were Miss Judith Waller and the Radio Editor of the Daily News, William Hedges. And with their help, the idea of continuing the station did not die down with the closing of WGU. The Daily News made arrangements to broadcast news bulletins and feature programs over the more successful KYW station, and an order was immediately placed with the Western Electric Company for new equipment.

But manufacturing processes were slow in 1922, due mainly to the increased demand for radio equipment, and it was several months until a new 500 watt transmitter was delivered to the station atop the Fair Building.In the meantime, other new stations came to Chicago. In May, 1922, a station was opened in the Palmer House using the call WAAF. Early in June, WDAP began operation in the Wrigley Building, and later in the same month Walter a Kuehl’s WQX went on the air. Other stations had applied for licenses to go on the air that fall, and the problem of allocating so many stations on two single wavelengths became an impossible feat. Finally, the Department of Commerce, under Secretary Herbert Hoover, reorganized the entire broadcast band. New and separate channels were set aside for different classes of stations, according to the operating power and according to geographical location. The old 360 meter channel had at last ceased to exist as a catch-as-catch-can boiling pot for all stations——and this meant that a new frequency would have to be assigned to the Fair-News station when it again went on the air.

This article was originally published at http://www.richsamuels.com/nbcmm/wmaq/history/ and reprinted in the Old Radio Times by permission.

History of WMAQ Chapter 3, Pt. 1

2009-03-25T21:53:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of WMAQ RadioChapter 3
Tom Gootee

A De Forest marine transmitter, of questionable age, was acquired and adapted for voice transmission. As a functioning piece of equipment it left much to be desired---but it was the only kind of radio equipment available and, as such, it served its purpose. One tube, type unknown but of De Forest make, comprised the entire tube complement. It was rated at 250 watts input, which probably accounted for the optimistic accounts of 250 watts for the entire transmitter. Actually only about 100 watts was fed to the antenna, a quantity which could only be estimated. The single tube was modulated by means of a transformer inserted into the grid circuit; the primary being coupled to a small telephone transmitter mounted on the end of an insulated handle. The insulation was necessary because part of the transmitter was “hot” with radio frequency energy, which fed back into the grid circuit.

The antenna was a typical ship installation, mounted on the roof of the Fair Building. It was a four-wire flat top suspended between the top of the water tank at the east end of the building and a brick chimney at the west end of the building.

The transmitter was installed on the fourth floor of the Fair Building and the studio was located directly under it, on the floor below. The station was assigned the call WGU, and licensed to operate on the common frequency of 360 meters (833 kilocycles). This measurement could only be approximated, as the only frequency meters that were then available consisted of a coil of wire, a condenser and a thermo-millameter calibrated against the Federal Radio Inspector’s wave-meter.

A trial program---actually the first broadcast---was put on the air the afternoon of April 12th, from 4:30 to 5:45 p.m., and all the equipment was checked and tested for the grand opening of WGU the following evening.

The first formal broadcast was put on the air the night of April 13thm 1922. It consisted of a musical program lasting about thirty minutes, from 7:00 to 7:30 p.m., and featured Sophie Braslau, Leon Sametini and a few other Chicago artists and musicians. The program was directed and announced by Miss Judith Waller, a name destined to be synonymous with the Daily News station for many years to come.

This article was originally published at http://www.richsamuels.com/nbcmm/wmaq/history/ and reprinted in the Old Radio Times by permission.

5 Steps to Enjoying OTR Anwhere in the House, Pt. 2

2009-03-24T21:52:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

5 Steps to Enjoying Your Audio Anywhere in Your House
Ned Norris

The wonderful thing about FM transmitters is it allows you to listen to all the MP3 files you have stored on your computer or one of the online music services, whilst at the same time giving you the freedom to move around your house.

Luckily, the price of FM transmitters has dropped overthe past few years and you should be able to pick up a decent FM transmitter that will work throughout a typical house for less than $100.

There are a few things worth looking out for when deciding which FM transmitter to buy. Most important of all is the distance the signal covers. If you live in a tiny apartment there's no need to spend the extra money on a powerful unit that will transmit 1000 feet, unless of course you want the whole neighborhood to be able to tune in to your broadcast. On the other hand, don't buy one that will only transmit 10 feet if you want to listen at the bottom of the garden which is 150 feet from your computer.

A second thing to look out for is a digital display. Some units have no digital display telling you what frequency you are tuned into and require you to turn a screw on the back to adjust the frequency. This can be quite time consuming as it requires quite a bit of experimentation. The end result is exactly the same, but with a digital display it is easy to set the FM transmitter to a specific frequency by reading the numbers on the display and then set the radio to exactly the same frequency.

Lastly, some units run on batteries whereas others will run from a power supply. If the unit you buy runs off batteries make sure that it has an auto-off facility that will allow you to set a period after which the unit will automatically turn itself off. If you don't have this you'll find yourself wasting a lot of batteries.

FM transmitters are ideal for transmitting around your house, but the same technology can also provide an ideal way of listening to your MP3 player in your car without having to invest in an in-car MP3 unit. Just plug a battery powered FM transmitter into your MP3 player and then tune your car stereo into the same frequency.

So, now you know just how easy it is to set-up your very own micro radio station for your very own listening pleasure. Whether you're a music fan, an audiobook lover, or an old time radio aficionado, this is one little gadget that can really add to the overall enjoyment.

Ned Norris is the webmaster of http://www.rusc.com/.

5 Steps to Enjoying OTR Anywhere in the House, Pt. 1

2009-03-23T21:46:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

5 Steps to Enjoying Your Audio Anywhere in Your House
Ned Norris

Imagine ...

You're lying on your favorite sun lounger in your garden.
There isn't a cloud in the sky.
You can feel the sun's rays on your skin and there is a gentle breeze blowing through your hair.
There is a wooden table to your right. On the table is a tall glass. Inside the glass is your favorite ice-cool drink.Next to the glass is a radio. From the radio you can hear your favorite music, old time radio shows, audiobooks, or whatever it is that tickles your fancy. When whatever you are listening to finishes another one of your favorites will start without you ever having to move a muscle.
Life is good!

Okay, you can stop imagining now and get back down to reality. The reason for me wanting you to imagine that scenario is I wanted you to feel just how good it is having a little gadget called an FM transmitter. Some of you reading this will know what I'm talking about, but for those who don't let me explain.

An FM transmitter is a rather clever gadget that allows you to transmit sound directly from your computer to any radio in your house. It's completely wireless and works just like a normal radio station, but on a much smaller scale.

Here's what happens. It's really easy.

Step 1 - You plug the device into your sound card.
Step 2 - You select a frequency on the device that you want to broadcast at. For example you might select 92.5 FM.
Step 3 - You pick a radio show you'd like to listen to and start it playing on your computer.
Step 4 - You go to any FM radio in your house and tune it in to 92.5 FM.
Step 5 - You sit down and enjoy

The radio needs to be within a certain range, which will vary between 50 feet and 300 feet depending on the strength of the FM transmitter you are using and the number of walls and other obstructions the signal need to pass through to get to you.

Ned Norris is the webmaster of www.rusc.com.

Charles Herrold, Pt. 4

2009-03-22T21:44:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Charles Herrold: A Father of Broadcasting
Barry Mishkind

Recognition elusive

So, with all this background, why is it that many books and historians ignore "Doc" Herrold and his achievements? Perhaps it was just a matter of timing. In April 1917, all non-governmental broadcasting was ordered off the air for the duration of the war. During that time, all radio patents were "pooled" in order to provide the best radios for the military. Electronic advances tied to De Forest's Audion tubes and others made the mechanical Arc Fone obsolete.

After the war, Herrold had to rebuild his station to conform with the new standard of broadcasting. In 1921, the Department of Commerce assigned KQW as the station identification. (The last change in calls was in 1949 and the station is known today as KCBS, San Francisco.)Unfortunately, Herrold had a hard time keeping his station going into the 1920s, and his dream began to unravel as he was forced to sell KQW in 1925. Sadly, the "handshake" arrangement he had with the 1st Baptist Church broke down and he was soon fired as the station engineer.

Over the years, Herrold tried various ways to stay near broadcasting. He was one of the first time brokers, buying time from stations, and then re-selling it to others. An effort to establish himself as The Father of Broadcasting failed to attract much attention from the broadcast community. The last years of his life were largely marked by a string of menial jobs, such as a security guard. A saddened Charles Herrold died at 73 on July 1, 1948.Was Charles "Doc" Herrold The Father of Broadcasting? Possibly. What is certain is that he was A Father of Broadcasting.

More information is available at http://www.charlesherrold.org

[A plea: if you or your station has a written history, or any information on the roots of broadcasting, please share them with me. I would appreciate anything that would illuminate the pioneer stations and the men who built them. Books, newspaper clippings, old licenses, ratecards, EKKO stamps, radio guides, even photocopies are of benefit. Send them to Barry Mishkind, 2033 S. Augusta Place, Tucson, AZ 85710.

- Barry Mishkind, aka RW's "Eclectic Engineer," can be reached at 520-296-3797, via the Internet. You can find his home page at http://www.broadcast.net/~barry/

Charles Herrold, Pt. 3

2009-03-21T21:42:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Charles Herrold: A Father of Broadcasting
Barry Mishkind

Broadcasting?

It may well be that the weekly "Little Ham Program," sent out every Wednesday evening at 9PM qualifies as the start of broadcasting, at least by the definition Herrold himself used. As the son of a farmer, the concept of "broadcasting" seed was well known to Herrold. He claimed to have been the first to adapt the term to the wireless, and particularly in relation to regularly scheduled entertainment programs.

The disk jockey on Herrold's station was noteworthy: the first woman to broadcast was his wife, Sybil. Playing records provided by the Sherman Clay music store, the Herrold's likely developed the first "trade-out!" Listeners from as far away as 900 miles called to request records during the program. Among the other techniques used by Herrold to cultivate interest in his station were weekly prizes awarded to regular listeners.

Aside from ads for his College and the trade-out ads for the records from Sherman Clay, Herrold had no commercials as we know them. However, he apparently had some ideas, and wrote the Department of Commerce to ask about using the station for paid advertising. It is reported the response was "Under the laws we can find nothing by which we can prevent your selling merchandise over the air, but by the Lord Harry we hope that somebody does."

By 1915, Herrold's station SJN was well known throughout the region by amateur radio enthusiasts. But it was during the World's Fair of that year that the new medium was given a real stress test. Lee de Forest had set up a transmitter and receiver at the Fair, but the transmitter failed to operate. The upshot? Herrold's Arc Fone transmitted from San Jose to the fairgrounds, some 50 miles, eight hours a day during the Fair.

The demonstration amazed the people, who listened to news about the Fair and music. We today can only imagine what it was like: one of Herrold's associates reported that people who came into the booth would often start looking under the table, or in the back. They just did not believe the voices and music were coming from 50 miles away!

- Barry Mishkind, aka RW's "Eclectic Engineer," can be reached at 520-296-3797, via the Internet. You can find his home page at http://www.broadcast.net/~barry/

Charles Herrold, Pt. 2

2009-03-20T10:21:00.001-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Charles Herrold: A Father of Broadcasting
Barry Mishkind

Charles "Doc" Herrold
A decade before Frank Conrad built the radio station that would become KDKA as part of a bet on the accuracy of his watch, Charles Herrold was experimenting in San Francisco. But it was the initiation of voice transmissions from his "Herrold College of Wireless and Engineering" at San Jose, CA in 1909 that made Charles "Doc" Herrold a true pioneer.

Herrold was born November 16, 1875 in Illinois. His father was both a farmer and inventor. With this sort of example, it was natural that Charles was also keenly interested in science and mechanics. Like his father, he was an inventor, developing new products in many fields, including dentistry and surgery, photography, and music.

As part of his early love of astronomy, he invented a clock driven telescope. However, it was the loss of his school's only astronomy professor that caused him to move to physics, and electricity and the wireless took over his life.

Eventually Herrold built a 15 watt spark gap transmitter. He wanted more, however, than just telegraphy. He wanted to transmit voice information. A carbon microphone was connected in series with the B+ high voltage supply to the spark transmitter. As much as 50 watts of output power could be developed this way.Early listeners begain to hear "This is the Herrold Station" or "San Jose Calling". The call letters "FN" were adopted for a while, as were 6XE, 6XF and SJN. However, transmission time was curtailed by the need to replace the carbon element every one or two hours. Improvements were made, leading to the invention of the "Arc Fone." The Arc Fone was essentially six arc lights in series which developed a high frequency arc carrier upon which voice could be carried. At first, the necessary 500 volts was tapped from the streetcar lines. A special water cooled microphone had to be built to prevent it from burning out. The Arc Fone was patented on December 21, 1915.

In the meantime, Herrold had decided one of the best uses for his invention was to feed the interest of experimenters with regular programs that would publicize his College. He set up a listening room with chairs and 24 sets of receivers at a local furniture store. Later he would set up another transmitter at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, becoming a pioneer "two way" broadcaster in 1912.

- Barry Mishkind, aka RW's "Eclectic Engineer," can be reached at 520-296-3797, via the Internet. You can find his home page at http://www.broadcast.net/~barry/

Charles Herrold, Pt. 1

2009-03-19T10:16:00.001-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Charles Herrold: A Father of Broadcasting
Barry Mishkind

Long before anyone even thought about the question of who was the first broadcaster, a long list of young men around the world were experimenting with the new technology that Marconi had brought forth, the wireless transmitter.

Fessenden, De Forest, Tesla, Hertz, Edison, Conrad, Herrold, Stubblefield, and many more were out there. When the Department of Commerce began issuing licenses in 1911, a number of amateurs applied for licenses to cover their experimental stations constructed over the previous five or six years. (By the way, the first license was issued to George Lewis of Cincinnati, OH.)In the main, Marconi, Fessenden, Hertz, Edison, even De Forest, came to be better known as scientists and inventors, rather than broadcasters. And, while KDKA truly has its place in history as the earliest of licensees with the word "commercial" attached (even though commercials as we know them, were still several years off), several stations trace their history before November 1920, and even before KDKA's predecessor 8XK. Hence, trying to specify "The Father of Broadcasting" may not be a reasonable assignment. For example, what about Charles D. Herrold?

- Barry Mishkind, aka RW's "Eclectic Engineer," can be reached at 520-296-3797, via the Internet. You can find his home page at http://www.broadcast.net/~barry/

Women's Magazine, Pt. 2

2009-03-18T10:11:00.001-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

1945 Woman's Magazine Featured Ads Dominated by Emphasis on WWII
Bob Cox

Balanced Pacific Sheets gave a lengthy plea: “Let’s pitch in and give the boys what they need to finish this war and give it in lavish abundance. Take a war job or hang on the one you have. Buy bonds … more and more and still more. Conserve your worldly goods: mend that old sheet; don’t throw it away. And when at last you must buy replacements, let them be (of course) superb Pacific Balanced Sheets.”

An article titled “My Country “Twas of Thee” warns returning servicemen that things would not be as they left them and they too must sacrifice until supplies catch up with demand.

Another article, “The High School Crowd Lends a Hand,” describes how volunteers were serving in the Junior Division of The American Women’s Hospitals Reserve Corps at Jamaica Hospital in Long Island, NY. The ladies worked one half day each week performing a variety of helpful tasks.

A notice on one page said: “The wartime burden on transportation facilities may cause delays in shipment of Woman’s Day Magazine to some stores. We regret any inconvenience you may be caused and ask that you not to blame your store manager.”

Another advertisement titled “Carry Victory in Your Basket” suggested numerous helpful hints for reducing paper needs: “Every time you go to the store and carry your purchases home unwrapped, you help bring victory so much nearer. Take along a basket, box, shopping bag or some permanent container that is roomy enough to carry your purchase home.”

The ad asserted how paper was used to wrap and protect more than 700,000 different war items including shell containers, bomb rings, parachutes, flares, blood plasma, vests and V-Mail envelopes. It ended with the words: “Remember – Paper is War Power."

(This article was first published in the Johnson City (Tenn) Press on June 26, 2008, and is reprinted with their kind permission and that of the author).

Women's Magazine, Pt. 1

2009-03-17T10:08:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

1945 Woman's Magazine Featured Ads Dominated by Emphasis on WWII
Bob Cox

I recently examined the contents of an April 1945 “Woman’s Day” magazine that carried a price tag of two cents. I was three years old when this publication hit the local magazine stands. What impressed me the most was the emphasis of World War II on advertisements and sacrifices made during the bitter conflict. For example:
Red Goose Shoes: “Help Uncle Sam save leather. Buy boys’ and girls’ shoes that wear longer. Invest in war bonds regularly.”
Texcel Tape: “Today most Texcel Tape that’s made is being used for war. Buy bonds and stamps until victory returns to your store."
Oakite Cleanser: “Buy war bonds and stamps.
Johnson’s Glo-Coat Floor Polisher: “Fibber McGee and Molly say, ‘Nurses are needed. All women can help. See the Red Cross or write the Surgeon General, U.S. Army, Washington, D.C.’”
SweetHeart Toilet Soap: “Don’t waste soap. It contains materials vital to the war effort.”
McCormick & Co.: “Serving the Armed Forces throughout the world.”
Swift’s Allsweet Vegetable Oleomargine: “Your first duty to your country - Buy war bonds.”
Waldorf Tissue: “The more war bonds you buy, the shorter the war.”
Beech-Nut Gum: “Until final victory, you may not always find this delicious gum at your (store). Our fighting men are now getting most of it.”
Fletcher’s Castoria (The Laxative made especially for children): The ad title was “I became an Army Nurse and solved a Navy Problem.” The problem was that her brother, a sailor, and his wife had a baby boy suffering from irregularity. The quandary was quickly eradicated with a bottle of Fletcher’s Castoria.
Speed Queen’s washing machine ad revealed the scarcity of appliances during the war. It showed a housewife running toward her husband and joyfully proclaiming, “I’ve got a priority. I stopped at Jones Appliance today and made arrangements to get one of the first Speed Queen washers they get in (after the war). All I had to do was register in a little book. We will be notified when the first shipment arrives.”

(This article was first published in the Johnson City (Tenn) Press on June 26, 2008, and is reprinted with their kind permission and that of the author).

Bob Emery, Pt. 11

2009-03-16T10:05:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

“Big Brother” Bob Emery ... a Legend in Children's Programming
Donna Halper

In the 1960s, WBZ began moving his show around, changing its day and time, shortening it, changing its name... Clubhouse 4, Big Brother and Flash, Big Brother's World... and finally limiting it to one day a week and asking him to tape it. While Bob did not feel that he was "too old" or out of touch with the audience, a number of the older announcers and performers were being encouraged to retire, as TV continued to change.

Finally, in early January of 1968, Bob did in fact retire, at the age of 70. Some of the surviving members of the Joy Spreaders were at his retirement party. To this day, many of us who grew up watching him have not forgottenhim. After he retired, he was still asked to make some personal appearances for charity, and he did. But he also had time to enjoy his hobbies - he liked to cook, he played golf, he did some acting in theatrical productions.

He and Katherine, his wife of 43 years were very close (she had produced some of his TV shows, in fact); they also had four grandchildren. Yet, although he seemed content that he no longer had the pressure of a daily performance, it still seems to me (based on interviews I have read from that time period) that, given his choice, he would have remained on the air in some capacity. Ultimately, it was a stroke that slowed him down; he died in July of 1982, at the age of 85.

I know of few performers whose careers ran from the era of crystal sets all the way to the era of satellites. The world changed so much, and so did the types of programming for kids. Yet Big Brother Bob Emery kept re-inventing himself decade after decade, appealing to entirely new generations of "small fry". I don't know if his style would work for today's kids - he certainly came from a more innocent, less contentious time. But then, I am sure he would say that some things are timeless, and if a show is honest and interesting, if it provides kids with a chance to get involved in a positive way, it will work no matter what year it is. I don't know if our post-literate society of video games and South Park has room for somebody like Big Brother, but I am certainly glad I was around in those formative years of TV, and I wish I could have heard him on the radio. Rest in peace, Big Brother - and thanks!!!

- Donna Halper is a lecturer and broadcast consultant based in Quincy, MA. Her love of radio history is evident in the way she captures the essence of her subjects.

Bob Emery, Pt. 10

2009-03-15T10:04:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

“Big Brother” Bob Emery ... a Legend in Children's Programming
Donna Halper

1963
While handling a studio audience of kids was probably no easy task, people I know who worked with him say he was a professional and knew how to run his show; he took great pride in his ability to relate to kids. (When WGI/AMRAD held a reunion in 1964, Bob was there, and said something very interesting - various of the AMRAD folks were lamenting how awful rock and roll was and how radio had deteriorated and how kids these days were uncontrollable. But Bob refused to agree. He said he liked some of the rock music - he especially enjoyed the Beatles - and said that kids today were no worse than kids of any other generation, if you didn't talk down to them and if you let them know what you expected of them. Given how bitter some of the old WGI announcers had become about what had happened to radio over the years, it was refreshing to hear somebody in his 60s saying positive things about the music and about the kids. While I am sure he had bad days like everyone else, Bob Emery never stopped believing in the fact that kids COULD be reached with intelligent children's programming, and he continued to provide it.)

Big Brother, even in his 60s, was a tireless fundraiser. When he went back on the air at Channel 4, he immediately aligned himself with various charities. During one campaign, he encouraged his young viewers to send in their pennies, nickels and dimes to help the Jimmy Fund, and the kids responded with nearly $11,000. This was actually very typical of what Bob could do. He made kids aware of those children who were less fortunate, and then created opportunities for his audience to help. And, to teach responsibility, he asked kids to EARN the money they were donating - by doing chores or baby-sitting or working around their neighborhood.

When storms and tornadoes devastated central Massachusetts in mid 1953, the members of the Small Fry Club helped him raise $18,000; the money went directly to agencies helping children whose families had lost their homes and their possessions. And as he had done during his radio days, Bob was also a frequent visitor to Children's Hospital, where he sang for the kids and entertained them. And he continued making appearances at venues all over eastern Massachusetts - for example, I have a clipping from May of 1958 that announces his visit to the "Kiddie Ranch" on route 1 in Saugus, and another from the spring of 1957 announcing a traffic safety campaign that was taking him to various schools in greater Boston. The idea of doing a good deed - Be Someone's Big Brother or Sister Every Day - was one he never abandoned.

- Donna Halper is a lecturer and broadcast consultant based in Quincy, MA. Her love of radio history is evident in the way she captures the essence of her subjects.

Bob Emery, Pt. 9

2009-03-14T09:57:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

“Big Brother” Bob Emery ... a Legend in Children's Programming
Donna Halper

I have never been able to find out what caused Shepard and Big Brother to part company - the Big Brother Club was just as popular a decade later as it had been when it first went on the air. Big Brother had famous guests, he put on state-wide spelling bees where schools could field teams and compete for prizes, and of course, he had "opportunity night" - this was a weekly talent show, with the winner having the opportunity to join the supporting cast that put on the Big Brother Club. Yet, despite the popularity of his show and the respect educators and the Boston media had for him, by mid-1933 he and his wife were back in New York.

This time, Bob went to work for WOR, where he developed a highly successful children's show called Rainbow House; during the early 40s, it began running on the Mutual Network. The mid-40s saw a renewed interest in television, and the Dumont station, WABD hired him to create a kids' program for TV. And so it was in 1946 that the Small Fry Club was born. It would run in New York till 1950; interestingly, when WNAC-TV, channel 7, came on the air in the summer of 1948, it began carrying some Dumont shows, including Big Brother's Small Fry Club. It must have brought back a few memories for people who had grown up hearing him on radio, and now here he was on TV.

By the early 50s, Bob was trying to find a way to get back to the city he had always loved, and finally, in November of 1952, he negotiated a contract with WBZ-TV and returned to Boston at last. The remainder of his TV career would take place at WBZ-TV. Although by now he was much older, to a new generation of kids, he was the kindly and informative man who kept them entertained while teaching them new things-- he was very proud of all the kids he taught the Pledge of Allegience, for example. Bob had always liked working with young people, but there is a certain story - attributed to Uncle Don, Big Brother, and various other hosts of children's shows - that claims he allegedly called the kids "little bastards" one day while not realising the mike was still open. I can assure you that this story is an urban legend. There is absolutely no evidence that Big Brother ever did such a thing, yet the story has circulated for years.

- Donna Halper is a lecturer and broadcast consultant based in Quincy, MA. Her love of radio history is evident in the way she captures the essence of her subjects.

Bob Emery, Pt. 8

2009-03-13T08:29:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

“Big Brother” Bob Emery ... a Legend in Children's Programming
Donna Halper

By 1928, Big Brother had formed a radio drama group, the "Radio Rascals", made up of club members who enjoyed performing. Some even wrote original plays or skits, which he put on the air. He also made numerous appearances for charity and encouraged his audience to dotheir part for their community. In fact, throughout the remainder of the 1920s, Bob Emery continued to find new and interesting ways to teach yet still entertain; one feature involved bringing in real people who had unusual jobs. Bob would create a "you are there" scenario, and through the magic of radio, kids could be taken to all sorts of places, such as a lighthouse or an expedition to the North Pole, and they could pretend they were doing the particular job along with the guest.

On 5 February 1930, something unique occurred - the Big Brother Club was televised, via the experimental station W1XAV, owned by Shortwave and Television Labs Inc. While not many people saw it, we can safely assume that the listeners of WEEI must have been somewhat puzzled when the announcer said tonight's show was not only being heard on radio but was also being televised. Bob Emery was certainly one of the first major radio personalities to do television, and it would be helpful to his career later on.

In the summer of 1930, the opportunity every local personality hoped for happened for him - he was called by NBC, which wanted him to do a once a week (Sunday night) children's show on the network. For a while, he commuted back and forth, working at WEEI and also for NBC. But by the fall, the traveling was too much, and he gave his notice at Edison, to concentrate on developing new children's shows for NBC Red. However, he still loved Boston, and by the summer of 1931, he had signed a contract to broadcast the Big Brother Club over the Yankee Network; owner John Shepard 3rd also made him educational director for the chain of stations.

- Donna Halper is a lecturer and broadcast consultant based in Quincy, MA. Her love of radio history is evident in the way she captures the essence of her subjects.

Bob Emery, Pt. 7

2009-03-12T08:27:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

“Big Brother” Bob Emery ... a Legend in Children's Programming
Donna Halper

By 1928, Big Brother had formed a radio drama group, the "Radio Rascals", made up of club members who enjoyed performing. Some even wrote original plays or skits, which he put on the air. He also made numerous appearances for charity and encouraged his audience to dotheir part for their community. In fact, throughout the remainder of the 1920s, Bob Emery continued to find new and interesting ways to teach yet still entertain; one feature involved bringing in real people who had unusual jobs. Bob would create a "you are there" scenario, and through the magic of radio, kids could be taken to all sorts of places, such as a lighthouse or an expedition to the North Pole, and they could pretend they were doing the particular job along with the guest.

On 5 February 1930, something unique occurred - the Big Brother Club was televised, via the experimental station W1XAV, owned by Shortwave and Television Labs Inc. While not many people saw it, we can safely assume that the listeners of WEEI must have been somewhat puzzled when the announcer said tonight's show was not only being heard on radio but was also being televised. Bob Emery was certainly one of the first major radio personalities to do television, and it would be helpful to his career later on.

In the summer of 1930, the opportunity every local personality hoped for happened for him - he was called by NBC, which wanted him to do a once a week (Sunday night) children's show on the network. For a while, he commuted back and forth, working at WEEI and also for NBC. But by the fall, the traveling was too much, and he gave his notice at Edison, to concentrate on developing new children's shows for NBC Red. However, he still loved Boston, and by the summer of 1931, he had signed a contract to broadcast the Big Brother Club over the Yankee Network; owner John Shepard 3rd also made him educational director for the chain of stations.

- Donna Halper is a lecturer and broadcast consultant based in Quincy, MA. Her love of radio history is evident in the way she captures the essence of her subjects.

Bob Emery, Pt. 6

2009-03-11T08:19:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

“Big Brother” Bob Emery ... a Legend in Children's Programming
Donna Halper

He had also started his own vocal group, the Joy Spreaders. Several members of this band had been listeners of his, while others were experienced young musicians from the Boston area. Big Brother and the Joy Spreaders would become regular performers at Keith's Theatre over the next several years, in fact. And for those who really couldn't get enough of Big Brother, in the fall of 1926, he and his band were asked to make their first record. They were signed to the Brunswick label, which evidently felt our area had a lot of talent because Brunswick also signed several other local radio performers, such as WTAG/ Worcester's singer/announcer Chester Gaylord, and Boston-area bandleader and former WGI alumnus Joe Rines. Big Brother and the Joy Spreaders recorded the Big Brother Club theme song (which included the call letters of WEEI) and did a re-enactment of a Big Brother Club meeting, complete with various songs and poems and letters from kids.

The session was called "Big Brother's Brunswick Record", and although I have never seen the actual 78, I do know it WAS released. (If anyone has a copy, I would truly love to hear it!) The record was sold in stores, and also given away as a prize to club members. Bob would also make at least one other record in 1929 for Speak-O-Phone Recording Studios. That one, I do have a copy of, and it is similar to the first one - a re-enactment of a show, with songs, contests, guests, etc. In 1929, he was not yet using "So Long Small Fry", but he WAS using "The Grass is Always Greener".

Thousands and thousands of kids from all over the eastern United States were now members of the Big Brother Club, and Edison, not wanting to miss an opportunity, encouraged Bob to do some very indirect selling - some shows about using home appliances (Edison appliances, of course) safely. He quickly became a very credible spokesperson, because kids trusted him. When a store wanted somebody to appear at an opening or promote a new product to kids, the management would call upon Bob Emery, knowing what a following he had. To Bob's credit, he did not seem to take every opportunity that came his way, but he did become a fairly frequent voice for Edison products, as might be expected given how Edison had supported his show.

- Donna Halper is a lecturer and broadcast consultant based in Quincy, MA. Her love of radio history is evident in the way she captures the essence of her subjects.

Bob Emery, Pt. 5

2009-03-10T08:18:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

“Big Brother” Bob Emery ... a Legend in Children's Programming
Donna Halper

The Edison Big Brother Club, as it was called, often reached out to its young listeners Bob would have a "day" for a particular town, and elementary or junior high school club members from that town were invited to watch the show as part of the studio audience. And as he had done at WGI, Bob Emery became a roving ambassador for WEEI.

He made appearances at various schools and organizations that catered to young people, such as the Boy Scouts; he would sing and play his ukulele, and talk to the kids about up-coming events on his show, while encouraging them to get involved in charitable projects in their community. Edison, which was a very promotion minded company, helped him to start a club magazine for the members. The company also helped to arrange "Big Brother Day" at various locations.

The first of these events was in early July of 1925, an outing for club members at an amusement park in Newton known as Norumbega Park. It drew so many young people and their parents that the newspapers ended up treating it as a news story rather than relegating it to the radio page-- the crowd was estimated as the largest in the history of the park, and one of the biggest children's outings in greater Boston. Big Brother's drawing power and his popularity among kids continued to grow. His musical talent and his ability to entertain kids earned him the opportunity to be the headliner at a show at the B.F. Keith theatre in the summer of 1926; soon, he was doing the Big Brother club live at various locations.

- Donna Halper is a lecturer and broadcast consultant based in Quincy, MA. Her love of radio history is evident in the way she captures the essence of her subjects.

Bob Emery, Pt. 4

2009-03-09T08:15:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

“Big Brother” Bob Emery ... a Legend in Children's Programming
Donna Halper

WEEI did its first broadcast in late September, and within only a few days, the Big Brother Club was back on the air, this time with a much bigger budget and a much better signal. 6 October 1924 was the first "club meeting", and the show was very well-received.

Bob began writing a monthly column for the Edison company publication, "Edison Life", wherein he kept everyone at Edison up to date with what the club was accomplishing. It was in an issue of "Edison Life" that he explained why he had chosen the name Big Brother. He explained how the show came to be - that he had felt it was time for a children's show that did more than just read bed-time stories, a show in which the kids could participate, and not just sit passively listening to the announcer. "[Next, I wanted to] create a character who would have a good influence on children. The Big Brother idea serves this purpose. We all remember we looked to our Big Brother for assistance, and if we had none, how we all wished we did."

Further, he stated that the show had no advertising purpose (this would soon change), and that its sole intent was to "...create good-will among its members, and also to instill into the minds of the children the meaning of a "Big Brother Act", and the significance of the club slogan - Be Somebody's Big Brother or Sister Every Day." (Edison Life, November 1924, p. 322) As part of the desire to have members participate, Bob also began writing a Sunday column in the Boston Herald; kids were asked an opinion question of the week, and the best letters to him were published in the newspaper. Imagine what a big deal that must have been for a child in the 1920s - not only being listened to by an adult, but having your opinion appear in a major newspaper!

- Donna Halper is a lecturer and broadcast consultant based in Quincy, MA. Her love of radio history is evident in the way she captures the essence of her subjects.

Bob Emery, Pt. 3

2009-03-08T08:13:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

“Big Brother” Bob Emery ... a Legend in Children's Programming
Donna Halper

Bob Emery at WGI in 1924
Bob's show on WGI was done with a very limited budget (AMRAD was in financial trouble by this time), but kids loved him, and he always managed to find interesting guests. Meanwhile, as AMRAD's money problems grew more serious, Bob Emery and several other WGI personnel quietly began seeking other options, in case their paychecks suddenly came to a halt.

Fortunately, a new station was going on the air in September of 1924 - run by the Edison Electric Illuminating Company. It had financial stability, it wanted to hire good people, and Bob decided to join them as their PD. This must have been a serious blow to WGI to lose the person who was their highest profile talent - Bob did lots of appearances and was a good will ambassador for the AMRAD station - but now, he took those talents to a new station, for which he requested the call letters WEEI. (Going with him as his assistant was Marjorie Drew, who had been in charge of women's programming at WGI. She would now do similar programming at WEEI, and also help to book the guests for the Big Brother Club.)

With its new studios at 39 Boylston Street, WEEI wasted no time making an impact. It stole several respected radio columnists away from their newspapers to be in upper management (Charlie Burton of the Boston Herald and Lewis Whitcomb of the Boston Post), hired several of AMRAD's engineers, and was ready to give WNAC - the other big station in Boston that could afford to pay its talent - some real competition. Thanks to its Edison connection, WEEI already had a number of experienced musical groups in house - as you may recall, companies in those days encouraged employees to perform at company functions - but WEEI's management was determined to hire the best people, even if that meant going outside of Edison. (Meanwhile, WBZ was still in Springfield and still working out technical problems with its Boston studio. Soon, WEEI would hire away one of WBZ's best known announcers too.)

- Donna Halper is a lecturer and broadcast consultant based in Quincy, MA. Her love of radio history is evident in the way she captures the essence of her subjects.

Bob Emery, Pt. 2

2009-03-07T08:10:00.002-06:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

“Big Brother” Bob Emery ... a Legend in Children's Programming
Donna Halper

Claire Robert Emery was born in Abington, Massachusetts, and he graduated from Abington High School. Much of his youth was spent on his grandfather's farm. He later moved to Hingham. Unsure of what he wanted to do with his life, he took a job at Gilchrist's Department Store in Boston, managing the shoe department. It was customary in those days for companies to have employee glee clubs or drama groups to entertain at company functions. Bob, who could play several instruments, joined a quartet at the store. It was 1921, and the local radio station, 1XE (later known as WGI) was constantly seeking volunteer talent to perform on the air. So the Gilchrist Quartet went to Medford Hillside to sing at 1XE, and even though they only knew a few songs, they got a good response.

The PD, Herb Miller, liked their harmonies and invited them back. He especially felt that Bob had potential as an entertainer, and during the Christmas season, he asked Bob to play Santa Claus on 1XE. Bob felt he was too young to be a credible Santa, so he created a character called "Big Brother" to read stories and answer kids' letters to Santa. He was ultimately hired full-time, with a salary of $35 a week. During 1922, he alternated with various of the AMRAD employees (including Bill Barrow-- or "Uncle Billy", Eunice Randall, and several others) handling the children's programming.

He also used his musical talent to sing with other Amradians, and sometimes he accompanied a vocalist. But it would be another year before he became the official host of a very successful kids' show - The Big Brother Club.

By late 1923/early 1924, Bob Emery (or C.R.E. when he was announcing - some announcers still used only initials, a tradition from the early days of ham radio) was the Program Director of WGI. He had also started the Big Brother Club, and it was rapidly becoming a very popular program. As its name suggested, it was a club - kids who listened could apply for membership. They would get amembership card and pin, and they had to promise to do good deeds and be good citizens.

- Donna Halper is a lecturer and broadcast consultant based in Quincy, MA. Her love of radio history is evident in the way she captures the essence of her subjects.

Bob Emery, Pt. 1

2009-03-06T10:38:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

“Big Brother” Bob Emery ... a Legend in Children's Programming
Donna Halper

If you grew up in greater Boston in the early 1950s, you remember seeing Big Brother on channel 4. By then, he was an older man, grandfatherly in appearance, but still quite energetic. I remember him with his ukulele, singing "Oh the grass is always greener in the other fella's yard/ the little row we had to hoe, oh boy that's hard...", or at least that's what it sounded like. I didn't fully understand the words, but I liked how he sang the song. His program taught values like good citizenship (remember the Toast to the President of the United States? There was President Eisenhower's photo, and Big Brother would hold up a glass of milk, while "Hail to the Chief" played in the background), while entertaining kids with songs and stories and even a contest or two. He referred to his young audience as "small fry", and his closing song was "So long small fry, it's time to say goodbye..."

Since I was only a kid in the early 50s, I had no idea that he had been doing the "Small Fry Club" in one form or another for the past 30 years. I also didn't know that the original version of his closing theme song had a line which said "Come back again tomorrow night and then/ we'll have more fun, there's some for everyone..."; in his radio days, the Big Brother Club was broadcast right after dinner, at 6:30 pm. But on television, the show had a weekday afternoons at 12:15 time slot, causing the lyrics to change to "come back again, tomorrow noon and then..."

Years later, when I had long since outgrown children's shows, I sometimes wondered whatever happened to the announcers and performers I grew up listening to and watching. When I became a broadcast historian, I started doing research on those great personalities from the 40s and 50s, and it was then that I finally learnt about Big Brother's many achievements. One article I found about him was especially interesting – it was written in 1968, just after he had retired, and in it, he told the interviewer that he was busy writing a book about his career in broadcasting. To my knowledge, that book never came out, which is a shame, because "Big Brother" Bob Emery certainly deserves to be remembered.

- Donna Halper is a lecturer and broadcast consultant based in Quincy, MA. Her love of radio history is evident in the way she captures the essence of her subjects.

Dark Fantasy, Pt. 4

2009-03-05T10:35:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Dark Fantasy: WKY’s Contribution to NBC Programming
Bret Jones
Copyright © 2008

The show continued to receive support from The Oklahoman with broadcast times published, as well as occasionally one paragraph blurbs over Friday night’s storyline. One such issue of the newspaper promoted the Friday the thirteenth episode from February 1942. According to the paper: “Who-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o is scared of Friday the thirteenth? Not the cast of ‘Dark Fantasy,’ that weird and grisly horror drama…” (Oklahoman, 2/13/42) The article continues:

When Author Scott Bishop and Producer John Prosser noticed they had to present the thirteenth in their series of blood-curlers on Friday the thirteenth, they determined to abandon caution entirely.

The episode’s title for this entry in the series was “W is for Werewolf.”

Unfortunately, the series didn’t capture a large enough audience and was cancelled by NBC in the early summer of 1942. This didn’t stop The Oklahoman from bragging about WKY’s achievement. In April 1944 the paper reminds readers of the twenty-six week run of Dark Fantasy. This is the last time that The Oklahoman wrote about the radio drama.

Although its run was short, Dark Fantasy is a solid program with interesting stories acted well and with high quality sound effects and music. The stories range in writing quality. Some of Bishop’s early yarns in the series are overly melodramatic and predictable. However, as the show progressed from week to week, so does the quality of the stories. The structure is tighter with unique plots, characters, and conflicts. For the horror connoisseur this is a good addition to the collection.

Dark Fantasy, Pt. 3

2009-03-04T10:33:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Dark Fantasy: WKY’s Contribution to NBC Programming
Bret Jones
Copyright © 2008

Each show opens with a fierce winding blowing underscored by a moody organ chord. A detached voice, almost devoid of life, announces the show: “Dark…Fantasy.” InnerSanctum’s Raymond or “the man in black” from Suspense had more personality. For just a moment it resembles the zombie-like voice from the beginning of Lights Out: “It … is … later … than … you … think.” With Raymond and “the man in black” there was at least a wink thrown at the audience, not so with Dark Fantasy. As soon as the dead voice announced the show, the title was given and the play began.Episodes from the series deal with dark imagery and interesting stories. For example, the first episode, “The Man Who Came Back,” a man returns from the dead to punish, and eventually drive an enemy to commit suicide. “I am the Thing from the Sea” has two beings from a legendary sea kingdom taking possession of humans to have a final confrontation, which destroys the island in the process. “The Demon Tree” incorporates English folklore dealing with a tree cursed to kill the descendants of a man who killed a witch.

The most unique show from the series is the fifth episode, “I am the Dweller in the House of Bread.” Scott Bishop narrates the story as he describes a dream he has of “a wise man” telling him to find the “house of bread.” During his journey, which takes on monumental spiritual proportions, he desperately searches for this “house of bread” that has been proclaimed as a place of comfort and peace. At the end of the tale Bishop finds himself in Bethlehem, which translated means “the house of bread.” The man in his dream is implied as Jesus Christ, whose name in the program is “Word.” This was Dark Fantasy’s Christmas show. Compared to other programs of the age, this one episode stands out as a unique offering on the airwaves.

Dark Fantasy, Pt. 2

2009-03-03T10:29:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Dark Fantasy: WKY’s Contribution to NBC Programming
Bret Jones
Copyright © 2008

Dark Fantasy was written, produced, and acted by WKY staff. Scott Bishop, who would go on to pen stories for Mysterious Traveler, was the writer for the anthology. The producer for the program was John Prosser and some of the actors included: Ben Morris and Eugene Francis, who were heard week after week taking on new roles. This is unprecedented during the “golden age” of radio broadcasting as audio theatre of the day was presented by professional actors and writing staff. This makes Dark Fantasy a unique entry in the history of the medium. The only well-known performer to appear on the show was Jane Wyatt, the three-time Emmy-winning actress. The parts she is remembered for is from Father Knows Best starring opposite Robert Young and as Mr. Spock’s mother from Star Trek. The Dark Fantasy episode she appeared in was “Debt from the Past.”

From its first episode the program was immediately compared to Lights Out, which was considered the pinnacle of audio horror. Also, being in the horror category helped determined its 11:30pm timeslot on Friday nights. The show in many ways resembled the melodramatic quality of Lights Out, Sealed Book, and Witches’ Tale, but possessed its own unique brand of eeriness.

Dark Fantasy, Pt. 1

2009-03-02T10:24:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Dark Fantasy: WKY’s Contribution to NBC Programming
Bret Jones
Copyright © 2008

During the height of radio drama broadcasts, shows originated from urban areas where technology, actors, writers, and production staff were the best available. For NBC, programming was carried by the network from New York, Chicago, and Hollywood. But for a one season run of twenty-six weeks, NBC broadcast the horror anthology series Dark Fantasy, which came from WKY in Oklahoma City.

WKY was started by two radio hobbyists, E.C. Hull and H.S. Richards, who started broadcasting under the call letters 5XT in the spring of 1921. The station’s location was in Hull’s garage at his house in Oklahoma City. The living room was converted into a “studio” and the duo started in the radio broadcasting business. As of 1921, WKY was among three commercial stations west of the Mississippi River; the other two were in Detroit and Kansas City. The station would eventually be purchased by The Oklahoma Publishing Company.

Within a short period of time WKY became Oklahoma’s premiere radio station with studios in the Skirvin Tower near downtown Oklahoma City. In 1941 WKY staff auditioned the horror series Dark Fantasy. According to The Oklahoman: “…WKY will demonstrate that it has reached full maturity by inaugurating a series of programs Friday on the NBC red network…”(Oklahoman, 11/13/41) The article professed: “Friday night it will become the first station outside of New York, Hollywood and Chicago from which a dramatic production has been originated for the national chain.” The show was presented over more than 125 stations.

Wistful Vistas for Dee

2009-03-02T07:31:00.003-06:00

Long time OTRR member and OTR-lover Dee DeTevis passed away. Mike Arendt posted this to the group's Yahoo page:

"Our 'Queen' has passed away. Dee DeTevis has passed away on 2-28-09, at 10:10am. At about 1-19-09 she went into the hospital, and found she had cancer. I found a email on 1-23-09 asking for my phone number to give me instructions on the groups. Always putting all her time to the groups. The Cancer hit her lungs and liver with small cell cancer, and if thatwasn't bad enough she had a legion in the brain too. She was the best penpal / friend I have ever had. When My dad went down hill, she called to check on me, helped me by mentally keeping me going, and then more after my dad's passing in August 2008! She was the best of the best! She is going to be deeply missed, and will never be matched in this world!"

Dee is the third active OTRR member and friend to pass since late 2008. The group sends prayers and best wishes to all her family and friends. For Dee, it's wistful vistas forever.

Rosa Rio, Pt. 6

2009-03-01T10:16:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Rosa Rio: the Music of the Air
Thomas P. Honsa

Some of Rio’s fondest memories are of the comedians she worked with. They provided her with humorous, yet often tense, moments. One such incident came thanks to the famous Jimmy Durante.

“One of the last times I was on with him I was to play the Hammond organ. Now, when he was younger he had been a bit of a piano player, but he just ruined the music. That was part of his personality. He did it to make people laugh. Well, I was scheduled to go on and he was running over. I kept looking at the clock. I was on in 15 minutes, then it was ten, then five. Next thing I know I was on in one minute and he was just finishing his routine. I was terrified to say anything. How do you go to a big star like Jimmy Durante and say ‘Sorry Mr. Durante, but I’m on next’? He finally looked over and saw me and called me out onto the stage. He met me over at the organ, laid that famous hat down and said ‘I’d give a million dollars to be able to play like you.’ Later his manager came and saw me and said, ‘You know, he meant every word of that.’”

As well as Rio got along well with her co-workers and employers, she continued to face the challenges of a working woman at the time. In his book on radio history The Great American Broadcast, Leonard Maltin relates announcer Jackson Beck’s story of the time Rio had to contend with the antics of fellow announcer/actor Dorian St. George. “She’s at the Hammond organ, and she’s a very attractive talented lady, great sense of humor. And he [St. George] went up and unbuttoned her blouse while she’s playing; she had a blouse with buttons down the back. He unbuttoned the whole thing and then he undid her bra. She can’t say anything, and there’s an audience up in the visitors’ booth at NBC watching this. She waits until his middle commercial comes up and she walks up, undoes his belt, unzips his fly and drops his pants.”

Rio says the incident really happened and notes how different life was for working women back then. “They did everything they could to tease me because I had the reputation of being a good sport. You see I was the only woman and that was really something. I must say they never showed me anything but great respect, but they did love to tease me.”

- Tom Honsa is an adjunct professor of History at Eckerd College and Manatee Community College in Florida. He recently interviewed Rosa Rio, who is still performing at the age (unofficially) of 105.

Rosa Rio, Pt. 5

2009-02-28T10:18:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Rosa Rio: the Music of the Air
Thomas P. Honsa

As a new broadcast era dawned, Rio left radio for television. Her TV credits include Appointment with Adventure, The Brighter Day, The Guiding Light and The Today Show. Her talents seemed particularly well-matched to daytime dramas (she hates the term “soap operas”), and the format welcomed her.

Remarriage and a move to Connecticut in 1960 hardly meant retirement for Rio. Her new home included a large music room and recording facility and she taught, recorded and published music from there. She arranged a command performance for United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. The IMDb says Rio recorded organ music for 375 silent films released on the Video Yesteryear label in the 1980s. She still performs near her home in Sun City, Florida. She’s especially well known for accompanying films at Tampa’s fully restored movie palace, The Tampa Theater.

But even after such a rich, full life in so many facets of the entertainment field, people today still associate Rio with the golden age of American radio. After all, she occupies a special place in its history. And those old shows are making a comeback, thanks to the internet and MP3 recordings. A Google search of “Old Time Radio” uncovers over 1,300,000 entries.

There is one final, fitting bit of biographical information people should know about Rio. She doesn’t like to talk about her age. For years, in fact, she sidestepped the issue with both interviewers and audiences. And so she should. Rio is, after all, representative of a radio past that still, like her, engages and delights audiences. That makes her story, like the stories she accompanied and like Rio’s legacy itself, timeless.

- Tom Honsa is an adjunct professor of History at Eckerd College and Manatee Community College in Florida. He recently interviewed Rosa Rio, who is still performing at the age (unofficially) of 105.

Rosa Rio, Pt. 4

2009-02-27T10:13:00.002-06:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Rosa Rio: the Music of the Air
Thomas P. Honsa

One thing Rio still remembers fondly about The Shadow is the professionalism exhibited by the stars and staff. Even then, she says, she could spot Welles’ genius.

“I remember Orson Welles had two microphones. He, of course, was two characters, the detective Lamont Cranston and the Shadow. He would run from the first microphone to the second to do the different voices. He was simply amazing and could completely change character in those three or four steps.”

Radio drama had an unpredictability that Rio had trained well for with her work in silent film. Often, she says, actors would rehearse a scene one way and then would broadcast it another, changing the tenor of the whole show. And she had to adjust on the go.

“I think I did that an awful lot unconsciously. You had to follow the actors, and the actors would read the script one way the first time and the next time it was a little different. They may change their entire character by the time we were on the air.”

This knack for what Rio calls “instant composing” was a source of her long success in the business, and she credits not only natural talent, but formal training as well.

“The people who employed me to do The Shadow were very impressed with my ability to do impromptu music. I could match the playing with the mood of the script. It seems something I was born with and I had for years done it in silent pictures. I did it right, too. A lot of the guys were faking when they tried to impromptu, but I never faked. I had a good musical background.”

That flexibility was not only a factor in her success, says Rio, but was critical to the success of radio drama as a whole. “In radio,” she says, “everybody listening has a different picture of what’s going on. The music creates the feeling for the situation, though. The music creates the mood while the mind creates the pictures… your audience imagines how you looked. You had only the voices and the listener was in their own little heaven.”

Rio’s success on The Shadow led to more work on other big-name shows such as Cavalcade of America and Town Hall Tonight. Along the way she had the opportunity to work with some of the biggest names in American entertainment. Kirk Douglas, she says, was especially impressive.

“We used to say Kirk Douglas was on stage all the time. From the moment he would pick up the script and start to rehearse he was already acting. He was remarkable...full of ‘hot vinegar’ as we used to say. It didn’t matter what the show was, he could be convincing on any story.”

- Tom Honsa is an adjunct professor of History at Eckerd College and Manatee Community College in Florida. He recently interviewed Rosa Rio, who is still performing at the age (unofficially) of 105.

Rosa Rio, Pt. 3

2009-02-26T10:09:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Rosa Rio: the Music of the Air
Thomas P. Honsa

Rio left New Orleans and began teaching. “That led to an audition for me at NBC in New York,” she says. But just as she had in silent cinema, she had to fight for her status as a woman in show business. “I auditioned for Leopold Spitalny [then head of NBC music]. I finished and he said, ‘That was excellent. You played that beautifully.’ So I asked, ‘Did I get the job?’ He sort of hemmed and hesitated and finally said, ‘Well, stay a week and we’ll see.’ That made me mad. I said, ‘Wait a minute, did your ad say you were looking for a male or female organist? It shouldn’t make a difference. Now, if I come in on Monday, I’m staying more than a week.’ He smiled at me and said, ‘Okay.’ And I was there for the next seven years…You see, he judged me by my work and not my sex.”

The year was 1938 and Rio was assigned to NBC’s The Shadow, starring a very young, and very mischievous, Orson Welles. Welles reportedly dropped his script once while standing at the microphone at the start of a live broadcast. Radio performers of the time regularly held the scripts before them throughout the shows and audiences at home, of course, could never tell. Now Welles, before his horrified colleagues, had strewn his lines across the studio floor. Just as his they began to scramble for the scattered pages, he calmly pulled an extra, hidden copy of his lines from his coat pocket, grinned and continued the show. Rio says that was vintage Welles.

“He loved to play tricks on people and constantly kept us in stitches. We always had to watch our laughter because we were on the air. He was so remarkable, though, and so talented that the producers never said a word to him about his antics. They were so taken with his artistry...he was absolutely perfect in his timing. But you never knew what he was going to do.”

- Tom Honsa is an adjunct professor of History at Eckerd College and Manatee Community College in Florida. He recently interviewed Rosa Rio, who is still performing at the age (unofficially) of 105.

Rosa Rio, Pt. 2

2009-02-25T18:11:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Rosa Rio: the Music of the Air
Thomas P. Honsa

Despite her enthusiasm, the attitudes of the time presented Rio with difficulties in her career. Being a woman, she faced special challenges, and she realized this when she audtitoned for the job at Loew’s theaters in the New York area.

“The reason I got the job at Loew’s was that nobody else wanted it. The manger had already interviewed five other organists and they all turned it down. I was there and he began to tell me about the hours and the pay and conditions. I nodded my head and said ‘Yes, sir.’ He was finished and looked at me and said, ‘You didn’t inquire about the organ… it’s an Austin and I’ve had some of the top organists refuse to play it.’ Well, I knew the Austin wasn’t a theater organ, it was a classical organ but I wasn’t afraid of it,” she remembers. “It made me angry that the only reason he was interviewing me was because other organists had already turned him down. That was my turning point. I realized that it was a man’s world and that I’d have to fight all the way.”

From New York it was on to Louisiana. According to Saengeramusements.com, by the late 1920s Rio was the featured musician at their New Orleans Strand and Saenger theaters and toured the chain’s other venues. She had recently married John Hammond, and southern theaters offered good money.

“They really wanted to get a big name for their chain, and especially a northerner. That was prestige with a capital P,” she says.

It was around that time, though, that a career change became necessary for all theater organists, thanks to Warner Brothers’ The Jazz Singer.

“When Al Jolson got down on one knee in 1927 and sang ‘Mammy’ that was the end for us,” she says. “There was nothing left to do but fulfill our union contracts. Actually, though, there were many break-downs [with the new sound equipment], so the theater owners were glad to have us to entertain the audience. But eventually they perfected it and we were through,” she remembers.

- Tom Honsa is an adjunct professor of History at Eckerd College and Manatee Community College in Florida. He recently interviewed Rosa Rio, who is still performing at the age (unofficially) of 105.

Rosa Rio, Pt. 1

2009-02-24T18:09:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the February, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Rosa Rio: the Music of the Air
Thomas P. Honsa

Rosa Rio is everything the golden age of radio ever hoped to be: a stately, entertaining, vivacious story teller. A conversation with her is illuminating and entertaining. It’s an opportunity to peer into a chapter of America’s past that was majestic and fascinating. Furthermore, for anyone who may think those golden days of radio are long gone, she reminds them they are sadly mistaken.

Rio earned fame as one of America’s great organists at a time when such performers were an essential part of American entertainment. She accompanied silent films and, later, radio and television dramas with an improvisational style that, whether they realize it or not, many Americans are still familiar with today. It was Rio who played Camille Saint-Saen’s famous Omphale’s Spinning Wheel that opened the radio classic The Shadow. It was she, too, who provided much of the mood music for The Guiding Light and other popular daytime dramas.

Music came early in Rio’s life. The Internet Movie Database says she began playing piano at age four and started formal lessons at eight. At the age of nine her father caught her accompanying a silent film on piano in a hometown theater. “Oh no, you don’t,” she remembers him saying as he pulled her from the chair and back home.

By then, though, it may have been too late. The theater was in Rio’s blood. She eventually studied music at Ohio’s Oberlin College and Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, but she repeatedly found her way to cinema work, especially in the Loew’s and Seanger theater chains.
Once she started, she says, she never looked back and “I never had a dull day in my life.”

- Tom Honsa is an adjunct professor of History at Eckerd College and Manatee Community College in Florida. He recently interviewed Rosa Rio, who is still performing at the age (unofficially) of 105.

History of WMAQ: Chapter 2, Pt. 2

2009-02-23T18:06:00.000-06:00

Reprinted in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.
(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of WMAQ Radio
Chapter 2
Tom Gootee

Early in the spring of 1922 the Chicago Daily News decided to investigate the possibilities of radio broadcasting, mainly as a means of news dissemination. At about the same time the Fair Department Store, in downtown Chicago, also became interested in broadcasting as a means of advertising their various wares. Late in March the Fair Store and the Chicago Daily News reached an agreement whereby the Fair Store would construct a transmitter and the completed station would be owned jointly by the two parties.

Accordingly, early in April the Fair Store and the Daily News drew up plans, applied for a Federal radio license, and proceeded to buy and install the necessary equipment. Donald A. Weller was hired as the new station’s first, and only, engineer.

- This article was originally published at http://www.richsamuels.com/nbcmm/wmaq/history/ and is reprinted by permission.

History of WMAQ: Chapter 2, Pt. 1

2009-02-22T18:04:00.001-06:00

Reprinted in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.
(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of WMAQ Radio
Chapter 2
Tom Gootee

The city of Chicago presented an ideal servicing area for broadcasting, due to the compact downtown business section, as opposed to New York and other cities. Consequently, the Westinghouse Company sent their engineers to the Windy City in the fall of 1921, and a site for the proposed station in the Commonwealth Edison Building was agreed upon. Much of the equipment was shipped from Pittsburgh, and the Department of Commerce issued a license for operation of the new station using the call KYW on the 360 meter wavelength. That wavelength, incidentally, was common to all broadcasting stations in the United States at that time, and radio communication was under the Federal jurisdiction of the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Navigation. It was not until almost a year later that a second wavelength, 420 meters, was allotted to radio broadcasting by the Department of Commerce.

KYW continued to operate through the Christmas season and well into the year 1922 before other parties became interested in the possibilities of also constructing and operating radio stations in the Chicago area. Throughout the winter there had been some agitation around City Hall and Federal Building for a city-owned radio station, and in February a “large” 100 watt ship transmitter was purchased by the City of Chicago. The equipment was overhauled and rebuilt, and put on the air with the call WBU. This station shared time with KYW, but the combined daily time of both stations seldom exceded two hours. WBU continued to operate for several years, but was finally abandoned as an expensive luxury of the City government.

- This article was originally published at http://www.richsamuels.com/nbcmm/wmaq/history/ and is reprinted by permission.

2009 Cincinnati Old Time Radio Convention

2009-02-21T17:25:00.000-06:00

Click on the picture to enlarge.

The Crosby-Clooney Show, Pt. 8

2009-02-20T19:48:00.000-06:00

Reprinted in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.
(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The Crosby-Clooney Show
Excerpts from Bing Crosby –– The Radio Directories (out of print)
compiled by Lionel Pairpoint
reprinted by permission

So, when Bing took on the Crosby-Clooney assignment, he was well-stocked with pre-taped program material. In addition, Rosemary Clooney had her own show on CBS, also using the Cole combo. Many of her tapes were spliced into the programs, since she and Bing shared the solos equally. Then Buddy and his group came in for some of the spotlight with instrumental numbers. Buddy made extensive use of his electric organ, which was a novelty at the time but has become dated. Wish Buddy had stuck with the piano!

Unfortunately, it is impossible to put dates on the taping of many of the tracks used on these shows. Some went back to the mid-fifties. Others were lifted from the Ford show - still more were re-taped and there were some new ones cut, as revealed by the tapes of recording sessions in the 60's. Sometimes Bing sang with the whole ensemble in the studio, but there were also tracks Bing made with a bell tone, the combo's music to be laid in later. Bing and Rosemary made a string of fine duets together, which were used over and over.

Everything had to come together on Murdo McKenzie's splicing table, where the elements were balanced and laced together with topical comments by Bing, Rosie, and Ken Carpenter. A truly professional job!

And now for the song titles. I wish I could say that the contents of every program on this series are known: unfortunately, about 18 percent of the shows, some 125 of the 675, have not been found. Until they come to light, we'll have to be content with the 210 titles on the following list. They include Bing's solos and his duets with Rosemary Clooney, no Clooney solos or Buddy Cole numbers. And none of the commercial LP's that Bing occasionally slipped into a show for a free plug. What, you say? Only 210 different titles out of 550 shows? Yep, that's right. Bing repeated his songs a number of times. So did Clooney, so did Cole. If you, fellow collector, have a few gems not on this list in your collection, won't you send me the details?

The Crosby-Clooney Show, Pt. 7

2009-02-19T19:46:00.001-06:00

Reprinted in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.
(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The Crosby-Clooney Show
Excerpts from Bing Crosby –– The Radio Directories (out of print)
compiled by Lionel Pairpoint
reprinted by permission

Uniquely, however, there were no guests, and all of the musical numbers were Bing-Buddy-Rosie creations, with a couple of exceptions. He and Rosie plugged their 1959 album “How The West Was Won” on a few shows, and their comic single “Isle of Capri” (1958) with Billy May's Orchestra was used several times.

Truly, the whole series was a monumental undertaking, but in character with a man who could, and did, cut 8 or 10 commercial recordings in a single day.

Part Two (as printed in BINGANG, December 1987)

"Only the magic of tape made possible the Crosby-Clooney Show, which was broadcast on CBS radio five days a week, Monday through Friday, for 135 weeks straight without a break from February 28, 1960 through September 28, 1962. Bing was a pioneer of broadcast tape, and up to 1960 had amassed a huge quantity of tape recordings from various radio programs, from the Philco, Chesterfield and General Electric series, then the 15-minute evening programs logged as The Bing Crosby Show, and into a curious little five-minute program which was half-and-half: one song and one commercial, called the Ford Road Shows. These programs started on the air September 2, 1957, and circulated for a couple of years, to be followed by the final effort, the Crosby-Clooney 20-minute daytime program.

"Following the conclusion of the General Electric shows in 1954, Bing retrenched. Radio could no longer support a lavish ensemble of 22 top musicians headed by John Scott Trotter, and Bing adamantly refused to consider a TV series, which would put him back on the live-show treadmill. So, starting with his album "A Musical Autobiography" in 1954 it was Bing with Buddy Cole at the piano; Nick Fatool, percussions; Perry Botkin [later replaced by Vince Terri], strings; and Don Whittaker, bass. This combo could sound a lot bigger than it was - they even took vocal choruses when the occasion called for it, and Fatool had a collection of bells, chimes, and other effects which were worked into the arrangements."

The Crosby-Clooney Show, Pt. 6

2009-02-18T19:42:00.001-06:00

Reprinted in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.
(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The Crosby-Clooney Show
Excerpts from Bing Crosby –– The Radio Directories (out of print)
compiled by Lionel Pairpoint
reprinted by permission

A typical program of the series began when the station break announcer said:"And now, the Crosby-Clooney Show! Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, with Buddy Cole and his music!"
BING: Hello, everybody! Hi, Rosie.
ROSIE: Hi, Bing.
BING: You care to commence the proceedings with a bit of song. Rosemary?(Opening song was always alternated with Rosie.)
ROSIE: I’ll just do that little thing.
KEN C: And what's the selection, Rosie?
ROSIE: (Song title and comment as Buddy Cole opens with organ or piano intro)

Following the first song was the first commercial, usually handled by Ken, but often with Bing or Rosie doing the concerning current events but as wide-ranging as cooking and restaurants or temperamental opera singers. This was followed by a second song, in this case Bing's solo. Then either a duet or an instrumental number by Buddy Cole and combo, followed by a commercial. The program concluded with solos by Bing and Rosie, the ending commercial, and into the closing theme song, "Side By Side," later changed to "Don’t Worry about Tomorrow." The ending often went like this:

BING: Time for us to move on out, Rosie.
ROSIE: Yes, gotta go now, but we'll be back at this same time tomorrow.
BING: That we will, hope you’ll be listening! Until then...
THEME: "Side By Side" comes up behind Carpenter.
KEN C: Tune in tomorrow at this time for another session with Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney. This program was produced in Hollywood by Bill Morrow and Murdo McKenzie. Ken Carpenter speaking.
THEME: Up and hold for timing.
BREAK ANNCR: The Columbia Broadcasting System.

What songs were used by Bing, Rosie and Co. on their programs? Some old, some new, middle-of-the-road tempo, and the kind you'd expect to attract the house-wife audience. Bing, of course, favored the old standards. Rosie’s were more current (but no rock or Presley lyrics) and Buddy Cole could get a little wild on his solos. A good example would be program 184, aired Thursday Nov 10, 1960. Here was the line-up:I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter - RosieGypsy in My Soul - BingTuxedo Junction - Buddy Cole and ComboWe Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye - Bing and Rosie duet I Wish I Were in Love Again - RosieGoodnight, Sweet Dreams, Mary Lou - Bing

Bing and Rosie met often at the studio, recording all the intros and dialogue as well as the duets. Some of Bing’s solos were borrowed from his nightly 15-minute show of 1954-56, The Bing Crosby Show (what else?). Other tapes came from the series The Ford Road Show, which came along in1957. Rosie”s songs were sometimes borrowed from her own daytime program, The Rosemary Clooney Show, which also used Buddy Cole and his boys.

And of course, Bing repeated. Oh, how he repeated! His solos and duets on these programs were repeated an average of only three times each, true, but this means that some were played ten times and others once. Rosie followed suit, but to a lesser degree. Even Buddy Cole repeated himself; his “Chloe” is found on a half-dozen of the shows.

The Crosby-Clooney Show, Pt. 5

2009-02-17T19:40:00.001-06:00

Reprinted in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.
(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The Crosby-Clooney Show
Excerpts from Bing Crosby –– The Radio Directories (out of print)
compiled by Lionel Pairpoint
reprinted by permission

The versatility of this little group made them sound much bigger. They worked fast, recording on tape almost 500 different songs, all of which required arrangements and rehearsals. The announcer? Who else but faithful Ken Carpenter, who came aboard with Bing on the Kraft show in the mid-thirties and was there for the final, 675th program of Bing's last radio series. But Ken was more than just the commercial announcer on this program. He, Bing, and Rosie shared between them the topical comments, the humor, the intros and asides, even the commercials, which were often laced with musical parodies and little skits as well as straight “sell”.

To make it all come together were the two production geniuses Bill Morrow and Murdo McKenzie, the same pair who handled production for Bing on his radio shows of the forties and fifties - Kraft, Philco, Chesterfield and General Electric. Bill developed the format and wrote copy where called for - there was a lot of ad lib in every program - and Murdo, with his scissors and editing spools, put all the pieces of music and dialogue together, snipping where necessary to make the timing come out "on the nose." Yes, through the magic of audio tape (not a word was spoken live on the air!) this brilliant bunch of pros came up with a daily network show that not only held its own in the ratings game but crowned the last great daytime radio line-up.

Preceding the Crosby-Clooney Show were three of the radio/TV biggies of the period; Arthur Godfrey, Art Linkletter, and Garry Moore. Our man was supposed to carry their audiences through to the CBS news and he did so with gusto. Bing was never more bubbly and up-beat than on this 20-minute stint.

The Crosby-Clooney Show, Pt. 4

2009-02-16T19:38:00.000-06:00

Reprinted in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.
(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The Crosby-Clooney Show
Excerpts from Bing Crosby –– The Radio Directories (out of print)
compiled by Lionel Pairpoint
reprinted by permission

The following LPs and CDs contain material used in these shows:Blue and Gold No.1 - “Bing Crosby - All The Way” Broadway Intermission BR -135 - “Crosbyana - Volume 5” Magic AWE 7 –– “Dark Moon” Jasmine JASCD318- “Hey Look Us Over”The Crosby –– Clooney Show –– Bing’s most prolific network radio programBy Russ Rullman (as printed in BINGANG, August 1987)

It was 11:40 A.M. on Monday February 28, 1960 - and the voice of Bing Crosby reached millions of listeners through the several hundred broadcast stations comprising the CBS Radio Network, as he introduced the first of a brand new series of music and commentary programs: The Crosby-Clooney Show. This was to be his last series on network radio. From the standpoint of numbers, it was also his most ambitious. A total of 675 Crosby-Clooney Shows were broadcast in the 135 weeks to follow!

Each program was approximately 20 minutes long, following the Garry Moore Show with Durward Kirby, and preceding the CBS Twelve O'clock News. Five shows a week, Monday through Friday, week after week without a break. And this kind of production from a star whose attendance of the Kraft shows was studded with "vacations." How was it done?

Bing's show budget - and hence his supporting cast and technical team - was minimal. He and Rosemary Clooney were co-stars; Bing was very scrupulous in dividing the singing chores exactly in two. Behind them was the group of regulars who worked with Bing for seven years following the end of the General Electric program in 1954: Buddy Cole and his combo, with Buddy Cole on the piano and electric organ, Nick Fatool on drums and a variety of other instruments/Perry Botkin [later replaced by Vince Terri] on guitar, banjo and other strings/ Don Whittaker on the bass.

The Crosby-Clooney Show, Pt. 3

2009-02-15T19:34:00.000-06:00

Reprinted in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.
(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The Crosby-Clooney Show
Excerpts from Bing Crosby –– The Radio Directories (out of print)
compiled by Lionel Pairpoint
reprinted by permission

Buddy Cole described his side of the shows in a taped message to ICC member Stan White in the early 1960s:

" ...Eventually the big bands faded out as you know and one day Bing called me and asked me to go to CBS with him and a small group. He said “just you, I won't do this unless you'll do it.” That's just about the way Bing put it and I was naturally just thrilled out of my skull! And so we started with Mr. Crosby recording all of these tunes. That was in 1954 and we've been on the air continually except for one period of 9 months and one period of a year some place along the way.
"I started with Rosemary Clooney in 1953. She was on another network (NBC) but eventually she came over to CBS and we put Crosby and Clooney together and that’s the way it is today. I’m so thankful for this Crosby show that got started and I would break my back to stay on it all of my life. I wish I could be assured of that, I might have a little more hair than I have right now - but it’s a wonderful show to do. I go into a studio to record a basic track with Bing, or with Rosemary or both if they are doing duets. Now what I mean by that is just the rhythm, just the bass, guitar and drums and I’ll play piano or celeste or as little as I have to put in to give them some background. We do maybe 4, 6, 8, 10 – I’ve done as many as 20 songs in a day with Bing. A lot of these were head arrangements, not written. I write every one that I possibly can, you have to for things that are concerted, because then we come back at our leisure the next day or two or three days later. We play these things back through a speaker or on a headset and then set about adding instruments and other sounds. We can add - we can multiple all the electric guitar, organ, kettle drums, shot guns, chimes, whatever you want to add, sometimes we even sing!

"That’s why we are able to maintain a pretty good balance on the show. I have a pretty good control over it. I don’t have anyone telling me this and telling me that. They take my suggestions and I’m a damned bug on sound to the point where I'm likely to upset a few people if I'm not careful. But anyway, that is the way we do the show and at this point I would say we have between 250 and 300 tunes in the can with Bing and about 200 odd with Rosemary plus about 40 duets. These can be drawn upon at any time and Murdo Mackenzie puts the shows together. He gets the dialogue, and every word that Bing has ever uttered into the tape recorder microphones is filed away where he knows right where to get it. If he needs a “Yes” or a “No” or a “Thank You” or a “Go to Hell”, he's got it catalogued. Then we'll tape these tunes other times and we'll edit them, make them one chorus or change the introduction or sometimes fill in a thing instrumentally or run underneath the dialogue. There's lots of things we can do and thank God I know about them because a lot of just plain musicians don't know what a microphone does on a piece of tape or what you can do. It's always been a hobby of mine. I've had a disc recorder ever since I can remember, one of the acetate disc things and then I had one of the first Ampex tape machines which came out (which Bing got for me) . . .

The Crosby-Clooney Show, Pt. 2

2009-02-14T07:47:00.004-06:00

Reprinted in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.
(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The Crosby-Clooney Show
Excerpts from Bing Crosby –– The Radio Directories (out of print)
compiled by Lionel Pairpoint
reprinted by permission

"Among the subjects elaborated upon by Rosemary and Bing for these shows have been:
- the eccentric behaviour of salmon after a still has overflowed into their stream;
- Is home-made apple pie on the wane?;
- the significance of the fact that men out-faint women three to one during Las Vegas marriages;
- cuffola (non payment) as a status symbol in dealing with British sailors;
- the exercise break instead of coffee during business hours.

"Wherever they are taping - and this work has been done in Palm Springs, Las Vegas, Carmel, San Francisco and Seattle - they dress in comfort. This day Rosemary was wearing a colourful pair of slacks and a summer blouse. Bing brightened the room with a pink sports shirt. “I think,” said Bing as he picked up his pile of scripts for the first time, “you might call this show flexible.” Rosemary, who had been furrowing her brow over commercials for one of the four sponsors, burst into hearty laughter. They do not see their scripts until shortly before each session and neither of them bother to look at the other’s lines. They try to grind out about a month’s supply of material at each meeting because they never know when they will be in the same city at the same time! It was agreed at this session that they would next cross tapes in London, and this they did.

"Under such conditions, slips are bound to occur, but they seem to give added freshness to the shows. During this session, Rosemary taunted Bing when he had difficulty in pronouncing ichthyologist. He bided his time, eventually caught her eye at an awkward moment, disconcerted her by quick mimicry so that she lost her place. She went through several sentences before the mistake was realised. As a result, the next three or four minutes were spent in crawling through the paper drifts, trying to locate the page she had discarded prematurely.

"Even the generally methodical Ken Carpenter is lured into false security by the general atmosphere of nonchalance. Once, certain that he had skipped a line, he and the others checked quickly through the script. It developed that a line had indeed been skipped. It was one of Bing’s. Each half hour or so, a roll of tape is filled and a fresh one loaded. This is an excuse for a general period of refreshment and a sense of awe fills the atmosphere as though another miracle has been worked. To add to the scene on this day, the children come running in from the swimming pool during these breaks. Sometimes during these breaks from recording, they postpone looking at their scripts for as long as possible, and swap information about experiences and personalities in show business. On this occasion the talk led to Marlene Dietrich. Rosemary reported that Miss Dietrich had spent much of her time slinking behind doorways and chairs. It had nothing to do with creating an exotic atmosphere. “I was fat” said Miss Dietrich.

"The present CBS show began in February 1960. There seems to be no intention of abandoning it as long as Rosemary and Bing can agree to meet somewhere for part of a day over some cool drinks and hot tape recorders."

The Crosby-Clooney Show, Pt. 1

2009-02-13T07:33:00.003-06:00

Reprinted in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.
(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The Crosby-Clooney Show
Excerpts from Bing Crosby –– The Radio Directories (out of print)
compiled by Lionel Pairpoint
reprinted by permission

The library of songs being recorded with Buddy Cole was still steadily expanding and was being used for other subsidiary assembled programmes such as “The Navy Swings” and “Stars for Defense”. It was raided again in 1960 when Bing and Rosemary Clooney teamed together in The Crosby - Clooney Show on CBS. This was a 20 minute show aimed at female listeners and was broadcast at 11:40 a.m. daily. Bing and Rosie would tape the dialogue weeks in advance and songs would be interpolated. The songs would usually feature Bing and Rosie singing solos and often a duet. Songs were repeated on many occasions. Murdo MacKenzie was again the producer. The shows commenced on February 29, 1960 and continued without a break until November 2, 1962 when Bing’s long association with radio in the USA effectively ended.

An article by Murray Schumach in the New York Times of 8th. October 1961 gave an almost eye -witness account of the dialogue recording sessions:

"Bing and Rosemary have worked out an almost foolproof system of parlaying work into fun and fun into money. Periodically they sit down in some pleasant environment and turn out material for some weeks of the 20 minute radio shows which are heard five days a week on the CBS network. The approach to these taping sessions is informal, just as it sounds on the air. There is a script, it is true. There are also numerous commercials which Rosemary usually rattles off whilst Bing grins smugly or stares stonily. By the time each of these meetings is ended, the floor is carpeted with pages of scripts and only the tape recorders know what is said.

" One of these Crosby - Clooney get-togethers was held recently in the Clooney home in Beverly Hills. While the engineer, Jack Lattig, tested tape recorders, amplifiers, mixers and microphones, Rosemary beguiled herself with a soft drink beneath a Vlaminck painting, leafing through her script. Comfortable sofas and easy chairs stressed the pleasant atmosphere of the spacious living room. Just before Bing arrived on this day, Bill Morrow who writes the scripts and hopes they will be followed within reason, explained what he tries to capture in the writing of the scripts. “We aim this at a lady’s audience” he said. “Men are allowed to listen. The tone of the conversation has to be light and we also toss in odd bits of information.” Murdo MacKenzie, the director of the show, tried to look solemn at this attempt to find logic in the Crosby - Clooney antics for radio."

5 Tips For Buying an MP3 Player For Listening to Old Time Radio, Pt. 5

2009-02-12T07:30:00.002-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

5 Tips For Buying an MP3 Player For Listening to Old Time Radio
Ned Norris

5. Sufficient space for all your audio files.
When buying a player it’s important to consider how much space you will need for files. It’s easy to think that the more space the better, but this isn’t always the best way to approach the matter.

For example, there’s no point getting a player with 60 gig of space if you’re only ever going to use one or two gig. Equally, it’s not wise to buy a player with only 1 gig of memory if you’re planning on copying your whole old-time radio show collection onto it.

Personally, I prefer a smaller sized player, such as the Creative Zen Plus, with 8 gig of memory than a larger sized player, in physical terms, with 50+ gig on it. From experience I know that I’m never going to fill more than 5 or 6 gig at any one time and so anything more would be a waste.

The easiest way to calculate how much space you need is to remember that a typical old time radio show is roughly seven megabytes and a typical music track is usually about five megabytes. So, on a 4 meg player you’d be able to store roughly 570 old time radio shows (that’s about 285 hours of listening) or 800 music tracks, which is about 80 full CDs. On an 8 meg player you’d get twice this amount, which for most people is more than enough.
Another benefit of the smaller players is the storage tends to be solid-state, rather than a mini hard drive, which means they’re a lot more resilient and are not as easily damaged if you happen to drop them.

In addition to the five key features mentioned above there are several other things that are worth considering when buying a player. You can download a free in-depth report by visiting www.rusc.com/free-mp3-player-report.html

Ned Norris is the webmaster of RUSC Old Time Radio

5 Tips For Buying an MP3 Player For Listening to Old Time Radio, Pt. 4

2009-02-11T05:58:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

5 Tips For Buying an MP3 Player For Listening to Old Time Radio
Ned Norris

4. An auto-off feature.
If you enjoy listening to old time radio shows in bed it’s well worth checking to make sure the player you are thinking about has an auto-off feature. Without such a feature it means the player will continue to play until the batteries run flat, which isn’t ideal.

Some players have a sleep facility that lets you set a specific time, after which the player will turn itself off automatically. Others, such as the creative, offer a permanent auto-off feature that will turn the player off if no buttons are pressed for a set period of time. This can be very useful as it means that even if you forget to set the sleep-timer the player will turn itself off after an hour, or whatever length of time you’ve set for the auto-off timer.

5 Tips For Buying an MP3 Player For Listening to Old Time Radio, Pt. 3

2009-02-10T05:54:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

5 Tips For Buying an MP3 Player For Listening to Old Time Radio
Ned Norris

3. Make sure your player remembers where you are.
Some players have a frustrating habit of returning you to the start of the file if you happen to switch the device off when you’re halfway through listening to a show. This can be frustrating as it means the next time you switch your player on you need to fast-forward to try to find the point that you were listening to.

It’s also worth checking to see if the player you are thinking about getting has a bookmarking feature. Many players will allow you to set a bookmark at any point in the recording so you can return to that point whenever you like. This is very useful if, for example, you want to break off listening to an old time radio show or audiobook and listen to some music for a while. If you’ve set a bookmark you can quickly return to the exact point you were at. This could be later the same day, a few days later or even many months later. It’s a neat feature that’s well worth having.

5 Tips For Buying an MP3 Player For Listening to Old Time Radio, Pt. 2

2009-02-09T05:53:00.005-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

5 Tips For Buying an MP3 Player For Listening to Old Time Radio
Ned Norris

2. Get a player that can act as a virtual hard drive.
Many players (not the iPod I’m afraid) will act as an additional hard drive when you plug them into your USB port. This is very convenient if you have many shows to copy over. All you need to do is copy the folders from your normal hard drive and then paste them straight onto your player. No need to mess around with third-party software such as iTunes or Windows Media Player. It makes it so quick and easy that you can copy hundreds of files in just a matter of minutes.

Unfortunately, if you have an iPod you pretty much have to put up with using iTunes all the time. For some people this is fine, but for most people it is much quicker and easier just to quickly select files from one folder and paste them into another folder. If you choose your player right you’ll be able to do exactly that.

5 Tips For Buying an MP3 Player For Listening to Old Time Radio, Pt. 1

2009-02-08T05:51:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

5 Tips For Buying an MP3 Player For Listening to Old Time Radio
Ned Norris

If you are looking to buy an MP3 player for listening to old time radio shows, or spoken word in general, there are several important factors that should concern you. These factors might not be at the top of the list if you’re buying one to listen just to music, but if you’re an old time radio fan they’re well worth remembering.

1. Look for a player that has a good graphic equalizer feature.
A graphic equalizer lets you fine tune the sound that you hear, much more than just a bass button or a treble selector. Instead of just being able to adjust the bass (deep sounds) or the treble (high frequency sounds) you have much more control.

Usually, there will be five or more sliders. The slider to the right will adjust the very high frequencies and the slider to the left will adjust the very low-level bass sounds. The three or more sliders in the middle will adjust various aspects of the midrange.

Imagine you were listening to an old time radio show that had a bit too much hiss. To get rid of this with a graphic equalizer all you would do as lower the slider on the right (that’s the high frequency one) and you’ll notice the hiss either vanishes completely or is greatly reduced.
The great thing with graphic equalizers is that they really can improve the listening experience, which is particularly useful with old radio shows. Rather than just settle for poor sound quality you can actually do something about it if you have a good graphic equalizer.

78-rpm Records Were Prized, Delicate Possessions, Pt. 2

2009-02-07T09:22:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)
78-rpm Records Were Prized, Delicate Possessions
Bob Cox

Many of the old record players had “changers” on them, allowing a stack of records to play automatically. A two-record set would have sides 1 and 4 located on the first record and 2 and 3 on the second. Side 1 would be placed on the changer spindle first, facing upward. In like fashion, side 2 would be placed on top of the first record. The unit’s stabilizing arm would then be placed over the top record. Once both records played, the listener would remove them from the changer, flip the stack over and place them back on the spindle, allowing sides 3 and 4 to play. Radio disc jockeys “cued” a record for instant play by placing it on the turntable, rotating it by hand until sound was detected at the needle and reversing it about a quarter turn.

As record formats changed, their producers began issuing records utilizing both formats. There was a time when 78s and 45s were manufactured for the same recording and artist; the same was true for 45s and multi-selection 33.3s. Unfortunately, some 78s ended up in carnival sideshows, where people threw balls at them to win prizes. Fortunately, many records survived by being stored in attics, basements, garages and closets. These records became a good source of history. Vernon Dalhart, in the early part of this century, regularly recorded tragedy songs ranging from the Titanic sinking in 1912 to Floyd Collins’ untimely death in a Kentucky coal mine in 1925.

A visit to an antique store often reveals these nearly extinct tube model record players sitting idly in a corner, not having been played for decades, missing a needle, often without power and seemingly begging to perform again. Sadly, these dusty relics of yesteryear have had their day in the big spotlight of progress. Except for a few avid collectors, their time has come and gone.

- This article was first published in the Johnson City (TN) Press on August 7, 2006 and is reprinted with their kind permission and that of its author.

78-rpm Records Were Prized, Delicate Possessions, Pt. 1

2009-02-06T09:20:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

78-rpm Records Were Prized, Delicate Possessions
Bob Cox

Youngsters who find an old record player at an antique store, auction or flea market may be puzzled to discover four turntable speeds: 16, 33.3, 45 and 78 revolutions per minute (rpm). Older folks will recall the awful day their favorite 78-rpm record was broken. My much-played non-replaceable disc, a long forgotten cowboy singer on the Coral label, met its demise when a neighborhood friend accidentally sat on it. I was so distraught I couldn’t sleep that night, realizing that “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men” could not put that delicate 10-inch record together again.

These old records were made of shellac, a natural resin secreted by the lac insect and had the consistency of a fragile china plate - thick, heavy and highly breakable. These delicate discs cracked and chipped easily. Most folks continued playing a favorite damaged record, even with its annoying pop that occurred with each revolution. Some records were played so frequently that the center hole became enlarged, causing the record to rotate on the turntable in a distorted jerky motion.

Record needles, resembling slightly refined nails, usually sold 25 to a pack for a quarter. Manufacturers suggested replacing them after about 12 plays, warning consumers that failure to do so could result in damage to their prized discs. I ignored such admonitions, opting instead to plop one in only when I detected a drop in audio quality.

- This article was first published in the Johnson City (TN) Press on August 7, 2006 and is reprinted with their kind permission and that of its author.

Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 Through 2007

2009-02-05T07:30:00.004-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 Through 2007, Vincent Terrace
Reviewed by Jim Cox

It will be a while before anybody tops Vincent Terrace’s latest volume on the TV industry. McFarland & Company has recently released a four-volume set under the topic Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2007. With 9,375 entries spread over 1,700 pages, its inclusiveness is truly mind-boggling. The four-column index of names alone is spread over another 139 pages. Let’s play “Can You Top This?” and see if anybody can!

Terrace most likely will be recalled by vintage radio connoisseurs as the author of a similar volume released a decade ago from the same publisher bearing the less glorified title Radio Programs, 1924-1984: A Catalog of Over 1800 Shows. That one became one of the standards in the treasury of “what’s out there”—a handful of tomes with comparable objectives that went about their far-reaching programming listings differently. If you liked that book, you’ll probably like the new softcover TV encyclopedia as both follow the same style.

The author of more than 30 volumes on broadcasting which lean heavily toward television, Terrace identifies each series by genre in the new release. He notes whether a series was on a network or in syndication, includes seasons on the air and names major cast members while providing a pithy synopsis of premise, plot or features. In lots of ways it’s a nostalgic return to “the good old days” when television actually entertained and informed, unlike its bent toward fill-time repetitiveness now. Many of the shows we have long forgotten are brought to life again in Terrace’s fact-filled, easy-to-read summations. And because there are so many, you can readily find stopping points. Or just turn to those you’re interested in. There is plenty here worth recalling.

Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2007, may be ordered at 800-253-2187 and http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/. While its $145 tab may seem steep for the four-volume set, that works out to about a penny-and-a-half per entry. That seems a bargain for that much detail, especially with the scholarship and time investment behind it. It’s recommended for researchers, media historians and nostalgia buffs, too.

Gilbert and Lionel on Radio, Pt. 3

2009-02-04T06:39:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Gilbert and Lionel on Radio
Jack French © 2009

The A.C. Gilbert Company sponsored Engineering Thrills which aired exciting stories involving all sorts of engineering projects. One of the first programs told the tale of two men rescued from a caisson below the surface of the Susquehanna River while working on the supports of the Camden Bridge. John Holbrook and Kelvin Keach were on this show, but it is not known which one "impersonated" A.C. Gilbert in the commercials. A youthful Walter Tetley apparently had occasional roles in this drama.

The second series was True Railroad Adventures and the Lionel Corporation paid the bills on this one. Lionel electric trains were very popular with kids in that era and the company encouraged sales and loyalty by giving a subscription to Lionel Magazine to every one who had a train set (or who wanted one.) The radio series was built around "Little Jimmy" a kid who'd climb into the train cab at the beginning of each episode where the engineer, "Mike Bolan," would begin telling a thrilling story, which would then be dramatized. Jimmy and Mike would return at the end of the story in time for the last Lionel commercial. Ben Grauer was the announcer on the show; Wilmer Walter played Mike while James McCallion was Jimmy.

We know very little more about these two programs. No audio copies have surfaced yet, nor have any scripts been found. Karl Schadow and I have recently taken an interest in attempting to uncover more data about these two series and researchers who can provide more data may reach me at <OTRpiano@verizon.net>

Gilbert and Lionel on Radio, Pt. 2

2009-02-03T06:38:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Gilbert and Lionel on Radio
Jack French © 2009

Some of the success of Gilbert’s company (as well as that of Lionel Trains) was due to the emergence of the American toy business in World War I. Prior to that international conflict, the U.S. imported most of its toys from Germany and England. The war disrupted the European toy industry, enabling Gilbert and Cowen to greatly increase their market share while the war efforts shackled their foreign competitors across the Atlantic.

Joshua Lionel Cohen (1877 -1965), a son of Jewish immigrants, grew up in Manhattan and was a tinker and inventor before his teens. He made toys of his own, improved on ones he found, and nearly blew up his mother’s kitchen while trying to ignite a tiny steam engine motor for a wooden train he had put together. A bright lad, he entered Columbia University at age 16 to study engineering, but dropped out to work on small appliances at the Acme Electric Lamp Company. There a fuse he invented for flash photography impressed the U.S. Navy who had him produce similar fuses to ignite mines. Cohen made $12,000 on that Navy contract, a very sizable sum in those days, and shortly thereafter changed his Jewish surname from “Cohen” to a neutral “Cowen.” He invented the first practical flashlight, but grew impatient over patent suits so he gave the rights to his partner, Conrad Hubert, who used it to found the EverReady Flashlight Company (and make millions.)

Cowen’s subsequent inventions included a small fan, powered by a battery. The device had little commercial appeal until he hit upon the idea of using its battery-motor to propel a toy electric train. His small firm, which bore his middle name, greatly improved the toy train. Instead of wires connected to a battery, Lionel electrified the tiny railroad tracks with a transformer that started and stopped the train. Cowen insisted on complete authenticity in all his engines and cars, including the correct color of paint and the number of rivets in the siding. Cowen sold his first toy train in 1901 and within a year, his line was the most popular toy train sold in the U.S. By the 1920s, no department store could fail to have a gigantic Christmas display involving an elaborate toy train setup, with several Lionel trains chugging around it.

In late 1933, NBC began airing two juvenile adventure programs, each 15 minutes long and sponsored by these two prominent toy companies. Both of these series were produced in Manhattan at Station WJZ.

Gilbert and Lionel on Radio, Pt. 1

2009-02-02T06:47:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Gilbert and Lionel on Radio
Jack French © 2009

A couple of American toy makers, A.C. Gilbert and Joshua Cowen, both of whom had risen to the top of their industry, took to the airwaves in 1933 to promote their wares in juvenile adventure radio shows. While these two broadcast series have largely been forgotten, and even the founders of both toy companies are fading in our memory, their principle products are still well recalled by most. Gilbert’s firm produced the Erector Sets and Cowen’s company made Lionel Electric Trains.

Alfred Carlton Gilbert (1884 -1961) in adult life was always called A. C. Gilbert. He was born in Salem, OR, but grew up in Idaho, where by the age of 9, he was obsessed with magic; it would eventually lead him to found a manufacturing company. After a few years at West Coast colleges, he transferred to Yale University where he financed his education working as a magician. Gilbert was also a superb athlete, breaking world records in the running long dive, consecutive chin-ups, and pole vaulting. In the latter, he tied for the gold medal in the 1908 Olympics in London.

Although Gilbert earned a degree in sports medicine, he did not pursue a career in that field, preferring to return to magic full time. However this time he would not be a stage magician, but a manufacturer of magic sets and individual tricks. In 1909, he and a New Haven partner, John Petrie, started their small company, the Mysto Manufacturing Company. While business was good (they sold $ 60,000 worth of magic items in 1911) Gilbert knew it was always be a marginal company, appealing to a select few. He wanted to market one product that would enable any youngster to make several toys and Gilbert found it when he invented the Erector Set. It came in a sturdy box which was filled with miniature steel girders, crossbeams, wheels, all assembled with nuts and bolts and even containing a tiny engine motor.

The set was an instant success and within two years of its debut, Mysto’s profits soared by 1800 per cent. By 1913 the firm changed its name to A. C. Gilbert Company and the vast bulk of its sales were the highly sought after Erector Sets. Later sets devoted to radio, chemistry, engineering, etc. would come out of the Gilbert factory, and while popular, none ever approached the Erector Set in sales volume.

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 13

2009-02-01T09:48:00.002-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

Changes at KFRC

These upheavals had a major impact on KFRC as a radio production center. The CBS network feeds from the East had reached the West Coast at San Francisco, and branched north and south from there. This had made KFRC the key CBS West Coast station. But the new Mutual hookup reached the coast in Los Angeles, and KHJ became the key station. In the shake-up that followed these changes, most KFRC performers were either moved to KHJ or departed for other stations or networks.

One of those greatly upset by the restructuring was Harrison Holliway, as Murray Bolen related:

"H. H. did not necessarily approve of the deal, and felt it a down-grade. But not only that, it meant that the "key" station of the West would be KHJ in Los Angeles, no longer KFRC ... and he would no longer be number one. Also, his biggest pet program, The Blue Monday Jamboree, was ordered to L. A. for origination and became The Shell Chateau (with Al Jolson). So, everything was kind of blowing up, and in 1935 he was offered the top of NBC's biggest station, KFI, and he took it. It all made good sense to move. He was ready for the "big time", and that was starting in L.A. He simply grew more and more, and brought KFI to the peak of popularity with programming and management. "

Earl Anthony, ever the rival of the Don Lee organization, had seen a chance to steal away one of its most valuable people, and he took advantage of it. Holliway became nationally known at KFI for some revolutionary management concepts. He continued there until 1942, when he died suddenly at the age of 42. Holliway's replacement at KFRC was Tom Brenneman, a KFRC performer. He was soon superceded by Fred Pabst, a big wheel in the Don Lee heirarchy. Pabst guided the station with stern reins into the fifties, and then made a name for himself in local television.

Following the shake-up at KFRC, and under the guidance of Fred Pabst, a new KFRC appeared. During the late 30's and 40's, it remained among San Francisco's very favorites. Meredith Willson had moved to NBC, and he was replaced by Claude Sweeton. His nightly orchestral broadcasts became a San Francisco tradition, as did the nightly broadcasts of Anson Weeks' Orchestra from the Peacock Court of the Mark Hopkins Hotel. Tommy Harris, a 14-year- old vocalist who had appeared on the old Happy Go Lucky Hour, was another KFRC favorite. He and Joaquin Garay were regulars on Feminine Fancies. (Harris later moved to NBC, as so many from KFRC had done before him, and for many years operated his own night club, 'Tommy's Joynt', on Van Ness Avenue.)

Another KFRC favorite during this period was the Hodge Podge Lodge with Bob Bence. Still later years saw the lasting popularity of Jack Kirkwood's Breakfast Club, which continued into the fifties as one of San Francisco's best offerings.

Post Script

RKO-General acquired KFRC from the Don Lee organization in 1949. It operated as a personality-based middle of the road music station into the mid 1960's, without great success. In the mid 1960's, KFRC changed to a Top 40 rock'n'roll format, and quickly became the dominant station in the region with that format through the 1970's, featuring the tight, carefully programmed sound developed by RKO-General's star programmer, Bill Drake.

With the decline of the Top 40 format by the end of the 70's, KFRC's programming was changed to feature a 1940's big band nostalgia format, known as "Magic 61".

In the 1990's, KFRC continued with a nostalgia format, but this time serving the next generation, and playing the rock hits of the 1960's and 70's, recreating the successful Bill Drake years.

References

Interview between author and Alan Cormack, former KFRC Chief Engineer.San Anselmo, California, December 1, 1970.
San Francisco Bulletin, Sept. 23, 1924
San Francisco Call, September 15, 1926
San Francisco Call and Post, July 6, 1927; August 20, 1927
San Francisco Chronicle, April 24, 1957; June 3, 1961; June 12, 1961
[1] Douglas, George H., The Early Days of Broadcasting, (McFarland & Co., Inc., 1987), page 140.[2] Broadcast Weekly Magazine, 8/24/29, page 18.
[3] Paper, Lewis J., Empire: William S. Paley & the Making of CBS, (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1987), page 35.
[4] 1935 Broadcasting Yearbook, Broadcasting Publications, Inc., Washington, D.C.
[5] "KFRC, KHJ To Join CBS", Broadcast Weekly Magazine, 8/24/29, page 18.
[6] Various clippings from the scrapbook of Harrison Holliway, former KFRC manager; unpublished; loaned to the author by Holliway's former associate, Murray Bolen.
[7] Letter to author by Murray Bolen, Hollywood, California, 4/14/71.
[8] KFRC Press Release, dated 10/14/70.
[9] Broadcasting Magazine, 9/15/34
[10] Broadcasting Magazine, 4/1/36
[11] Broadcasting Magazine, 5/1/38
[12] Broadcasting Magazine, 6/1/36
[13] Told to author by Art Gilmore, former CBS announcer, 6/2/90.
[14] Broadcasting Magazine, 12/15/36
[15] 1938 Broadcasting Yearbook, Broadcasting Publications, Inc., Washington, D.C.
[16] San Francisco Call and Post, 8/22/27, page 8
Interview between author and Arman Humburg, veteran KFRC engineer. San Francisco, California, October 9, 1970.
Untitled KFRC history summary. Unpublished; from KFRC's historical files.

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 12

2009-01-31T10:26:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

The Mutual-Don Lee Network

Don Lee died suddenly of heart failure on August 30, 1934, at the age of 53, and Lee's son Tommy became president of the network.[9] This presaged a series of events which completely restructured network broadcasting on the West Coast over the next three years. CBS was apparently becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the structure of its western network. The affiliation between CBS and Don Lee, which had been a convenient mechanism for Paley to add affiliates quickly in 1929, was becoming a source of friction as CBS sought more and more control over its affiliates and programming. Apparently this friction even preceded Lee's death.[9] In any event, it came to a head March 19, 1936, when CBS consummated its purchase of KNX in Los Angeles for $1.25 million. This was the highest price ever paid for a radio station to that time. The acquisition of KNX gave CBS a 50 KW clear channel network-owned facility in an increasingly important market. As mentioned previously, Hollywood-originated programs were becoming highly sought after by the radio public, and KNX would become the springboard for a major CBS West Coast program origination effort.[10] (The network's new studios, Columbia Square in Hollywood, were officially dedicated April 30, 1938.[11])

Of course, the acquisition of KNX by CBS completely destroyed any remaining relationship with the Don Lee network. The purchase meant that KNX would replace KHJ as the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles. KNX had been sharing a number of programs with KSFO in San Francisco, so it was natural as well for the CBS affiliation in the northern city to transfer from KFRC to KSFO. In fact, CBS soon announced it had leased KSFO with a later option to purchase the station outright.[12] (When that deal later fell through, CBS instead purchased KQW in San Jose, which became KCBS.) The entire structure of the Don Lee Network quickly collapsed. The McClatchy stations lost no time in joining with Hearst stations KYA San Francisco and KEHE Los Angeles to form the short-lived California Radio System.[14] The Northwest station group opted to remained with CBS.

As luck would have it, that same year a fledgling eastern network called the Quality Station Group had changed its name to the Mutual Broadcasting System and was rapidly seeking westward expansion. Tommy Lee contacted Mutual and lost no time in signing an agreement, and the Mutual-Don Lee Network was born. This was how Mutual became the fourth coast-to-coast network, and it also marked the beginning of a new West Coast chain that would continue operation into the fifties. The switch from CBS to Mutual was scheduled for December 29, 1936, the date which marked the expiration of the CBS/Don Lee contract. (In fact, for the last three months of the contract the CBS West Coast programs were produced at KNX and fed to KHJ for transmission to the network.[13] The stations on the new Mutual network were the four Don Lee-owned stations, plus KFXM San Bernardino, KDON Monterey, KXO El Centro, KPMC Bakersfield, KVOE Santa Ana, and KGDM Stockton.[15] Also joining the network via shortwave hookup were KGMB Honolulu and KHBC Hilo. (A number of Pacific Northwest stations were added the following year.)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 11

2009-01-30T10:24:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

Competition with Earl C. Anthony

One of the prevailing attitudes at all of the Don Lee stations was the fierce sense of competition between Don Lee and Earl C. Anthony. Like Lee, Anthony was the Packard distributor with locations in San Francisco and Los Angeles. And, he also invested in radio with his two Los Angeles stations, KFI and KECA. Of course, the feeling of competition wasn't as fierce in San Francisco asit was at KHJ, but it was still very much a factor. The most glaring reminder of Anthony's competition was his auto dealership, located almost directly across the street from the Don Lee Building, in an empressive edifice with marble columns. The competition was so intense that, because KFRC's antenna was atop the Don Lee Building, Anthony had to have one on top of HIS building! Thus, a giant radio antenna was constructed, and the letters "KFI" mounted on the towers. Of course, there was no station attached to the antenna, but it was a fine antenna.

Paul C. Smith, later a broadcast arts instructor at the California State University at San Francisco, told an interesting anecdote in connection with the dummy antenna. In his early teens he had become fascinated by radio, and had just finished a tour of the KFRC facility when he spotted the Anthony towers. He crossed the street to the showroom and asked to see the radio station that was attached to the towers. The salesman on the floor smiled and said, "I'll show you what's attached to those towers". He led Smith up the grand mezzanine staircase and to the back of the building. He showed Smith into an office where a wire protruded from the wall and led to the back of a little Remler Scotty radio. "But the sign says KFI", Smith protested. "Right", said the salesman, "and it picks up KFI really well!"

(The KFRC antenna was dismantled in 1958, when the transmitter was moved to Islais Creek. But, the KFI towers stayed until 1972. It was ironic that the last of the scores of old-style T-type antennas once scattered about San Francisco was the only one never actually used for broadcasting.)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 10

2009-01-29T06:53:00.002-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

The program was one of the first variety shows - a vaudeville production on the radio. During most of its existence, it claimed the vast majority of Bay Area radio dials. When KFRC was joined with KHJ, it was one of the first programs from San Francisco to be heard in Los Angeles, and its following in that city quickly equalled its northern counterpart. On June 7, 1930, the program made its debut on the entire Don Lee-Columbia Network, and by the end of the year, was being heard nationally on CBS. In California, the names Blue Monday Jamboree and Golden State Milk, the regional sponsor, became synonymous.

Holliway told a reporter in 1929 how the program was produced:

"Preparation for this program starts Tuesday morning, nearly a week before it will be presented. The staff begins to talk things over, making suggestions for comedy and discussing available music. They are searching for something out of the ordinary.

"They must provide episodes for Pedro, Frank Watanabe, Silas Solomon, Professor Hamburg and Simpy Fitts, all characters who participate on the broadcast. Suggestions and ideas come from all sides; a few do the actual assembling. In the matter of music, it is much the same. If it isn't a new number, the arranging department provides a new arrangement for it. Those in charge see to it that individual numbers fit into the program as a whole.

"Finally, the entire program -- announcements, "gags", musical numbers and continuity -- is typewritten and rehearsed. Nothing is done "ad lib". As a consequence, the listener hears a program which goes off smoothly, works up properly to climaxes, and has proper music to fit the occasion."

The Jamboree was literally Holliway's own program. He had devised the original concept, and wrote, directed and emceed the program, as well as playing frequent bit parts. Throughout his tenure at KFRC, the program remained his pet project.

One of the regulars on the Jamboree was a comedy team called Murray and Harris: Murray Bolen and Harris Brown. Bolen, later an executive with a Los Angeles advertising agency, told of his experiences with the program:

"As to Murray and Harris at KFRC -- we got there in 1929, and left seven years later after riding through a wonderful time for radio. Harris Brown and I had been to prep school together, went different ways through college, and met again six years later by accident. I was an announcer at KFI (1928) and Harris came into the station to perform in another musical act. He was astounded at our chance meeting, and influenced me to join him as a partner and leave the announcing biz. We rehearsed up an act and went on the road (vaudeville) and to KJR, Seattle, for a year. That went broke, and we came south to San Francisco via Orpheum vaudeville. There we re-met a friend, Meredith Willson, musical director, and he helped get Harrison Holliway to put us on KFRC's Jamboree and the Happy Go Lucky Hour. In 1929, we were a real great success, and radio was a big thing. We "personally appeared" all over the West, and generally whooped it up, along with the whole gang up there."

Personal appearances for the Jamboree were frequent. Not unusual was the week of May 31, 1929, when the entire troupe played 23 performances to audiences at the Pantages Theater in San Francisco.

Another popular follow-up to the Blue Monday Jamboree, called the Midnight Jamboree Revue, was a vaudeville variety program heard weekly from midnight to 2 AM. It was broadcast with the express purpose of reaching listeners in distant cities. The program was heard beginning May 7, 1928.

Still another interesting KFRC program was The Lady of the Clouds with Yvonne Peterson. On this program, Miss Peterson sang and played her ukulele from the passenger seat of an airplane as it flew over the city. A short-wave transmitter was used to relay the signal to the ground where it was re-broadcast. The show was first heard in 1928, but was short-lived.

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 9

2009-01-28T06:50:00.002-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

Blue Monday Jamboree

At KFRC, in addition to their own program, the Pearce Brothers were heard as regulars on another program, The Blue Monday Jamboree. This was the most popular West Coast program ever to come out of KFRC, if never as great a sensation nationally as Al Pearce. The Jambouree was Manager Harrison Holliway's own creation. It was a studio musical and comedy extravaganza first heard January 10, 1927. The program began as a fifteen minute feature heard Monday evenings at 8:00. Public acclaim was so sudden and overwhelming that by February 7, less than a month later, it had been expanded to two hours.

Here's how the Oakland Post-Enquirer described the Blue Monday Jamboree:

"The weekly frolic attracts more listeners probably than any other local program. Now an institution, the Jamboree each week parades the import personalities of the station before the microphone for two hours. The important factor that makes the Jamboree attractive is its spontaneity. Listeners never know what is coming next, and the surprise element adds auditors.

"It's a treat to watch the Jamboreeadors in action -- Frank Moss wearing his hat; stars standing behind a roped section waiting their turn to perform; Simpy Fitts playing a tune with a knife and fork on a plate borrowed from a nearby restaurant; Harrison Holliway wondering what Schnitzel or Eddie Holden, the Japanese, is going to ask him next; the Pearce Brothers, ever ready with an idea; Charles Bulotti, singing for the fun of it, leading a burlesque opera group; and some sixty or seventy people seated in the studio already crowded by a large orchestra, Mac's Gang and the artists."

Another newspaper, the Los Angeles Inside Facts, added:

"The studio itself is packed way out to the sidewalks on a Monday night, when an invited list of guests attend for a first-hand glimpse of their favorite entertainer, and are surprised to learn that Al Pearce, who sings "Barnacle Bill" in a high register, is a six footer; that Cotton Bond is not colored but white, and that Frank Watanabe is not a Japanese houseboy, but just Eddie Holden under another name."

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 8

2009-01-27T06:48:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

His guitar and songs had been strictly a hobby until the mid 1920's, when his real estate business suddenly failed. A KFRC executive saw he and his brother Cal performing a vaudeville sketch at a real estate convention, and they were immediately hired. Their program on KFRC, The Happy Go Lucky Hour, first debuted in 1929.

Alice Blue, KFRC staff organist, wrote of her recollections of Al Pearce's beginnings:

"The Gang was developed from a small program of three KFRC staffers, who had no idea what they had spawned -- Norman Neilsen, Monroe Upton and I. Norman sang ballads, Monroe emceed and I played the piano -- preceding Edna Fischer. We had a daily program -- no name -- in 1929 when we were all pretty much on our own without the regulations that came later. The small program grew and grew. Fan mail poured in and still we didn't really realize what we had. One day, Al Pearce walked in and said 'This is it.' He had an eye and an ear for show business. Soon our threesome had a cast that later included the original trio out. One time many years later I sat next to Al at a dinner and he drank a toast to the lost trio who started the ball rolling. It rolled far under Al's clever management."

The Happy Go Lucky Hour was a vaudeville-style variety show, featuring music and comedy skits with a cast of regular entertainers. There was singer Tommy Harris, Upton, who played the character "Lord Bilgewater", Harry "Mac" McClintock, Hazel Warner, Edna O'Keefe, Marjorie Lane Truesdale, Tony Romano, Abe Bloom, Cecil Wright and a host of others.

Al's most popular character was the bashful door-to-door salesman Elmer Blurt, whose knock on the door was always followed by the familiar line, "There's nobody to home today, I hope, I hope, I hope". Another was Miss Tizzie Lish, known for her bad recipes and good gags.

The popular program graduated from a West Coast offering to nationwide on CBS. It moved to NBC in 1933 and became Al Pearce and His Gang, a network staple until 1947. (Brother Cal never made the move to the networks, and returned to his previous career of real estate.)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 7

2009-01-26T06:46:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

Jack Benny's announcer Don Wilson also began his radio career at KFRC as a member of the "Piggly-Wiggly Trio". Manager Harrison Holliway was impressed with Wilson's voice, and asked him if he wanted to try his hand at announcing. He only snickered and mumbled something to the effect that he wasn't going to become a "cream puff". Ralph Edwards and Art Van Horn were also announcers; so was Mark Goodson, who had a knack for quiz shows. He had several on the Don Lee Network, such as The Quiz of Two Cities and Pop the Balloon before he left for New York and teamed up with Bill Todman. Art Linkletter was a staff member in KFRC's later years, and hosted a series of programs from the San Francisco Treasure Island World's Fair in 1939, as did announcer Mel Venter. Bea Benederet was San Francisco's famous lady announcer. Harold Peary and Morey Amsterdam both began their radio acting careers at 1000 Van Ness Avenue, and Juanita Tennyson and Merv Griffin were popular staff vocalists; John Nesbitt began his Passing Parade at KFRC. The list is endless.

One of the most successful performers to come out of KFRC was Al Pearce. Al, a native of San Jose, had always been a born entertainer, having first stepped before the microphone in 1916. The occasion was the Panama Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco, where radio pioneer Doc Herrold was operating an experimental radio broadcasting station (later to become KQW). As Al once told a reporter:

"In 1916 I sang on KQW. We were trying to demonstrate that radio could be heard overseas. I sang "Hello Hawaii, How Are Yuh?" (In those days, we pronounced Hawaii, "Huh-why-yuh".) The only thing that picked us up was the U.S.S. Sherman, fifty miles off shore! "

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 6

2009-01-25T06:44:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

In Paley's statement to the press announcing the new venture, he said:

"I know the new connection of the Columbia System on the Pacific Coast will react as a mutual benefit to the listeners in that territory and ourselves. These Pacific Coast stations have not been chosen to join the Columbia System on hearsay evidence, or on cold statistics alone. I personally toured the Coast during June and July of this year, and was convinced that through years of service to a faithful radio audience, the stations chosen are outstanding. It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce that they will be our western brothers in the world's largest regular radio network."

Don Lee's companion announcement stated:

"With the growth of public interest in radio, we believe the affiliation of these stations with the Columbia Broadcasting System will be welcomed by radio fans not only on the Pacific Coast, but throughout the United States as well. It will enable us to listen to the finest programs from the East, and will permit the Easterners to get the best of western programs."

The new chain began operations January 1, 1930, and was called the Don Lee-Columbia Network. Two more stations, KGB in San Diego and KDB, Santa Barbara, were purchased by Don Lee and became a part of the network. Also, Lee had been feeding programs to the McClatchy Newspaper station KMJ in Fresno since 1928, and that station became a CBS affiliate, along with the other McClatchy stations (KFBK Sacramento, KWG Stockton, and KERN Bakersfield). Additionally, four Pacific Northwest stations called the "Columbia Northwest Unit" were added (KOIN, Portland, KOL, Seattle, KVI, Tacoma, and KFPY Spokane).[4]

KFRC and KHJ originated numerous programs for the West Coast network. CBS programs were heard in the early dinner hours, and the Don Lee programs were fed after 8:00 when the eastern programs ceased.[5] For these later evening broadcasts, KFRC and KHJ alternated evenings in feeding their programs to the network. Additionally, several of the San Francisco and Los Angeles programs were broadcast nationally by CBS. Many of the most popular KFRC programs became network offerings in this way.

Perhaps one of the most notable aspects of KFRC and the Don Lee System during this period is the large number of people they graduated to national stardom. In 1929, Lee hired an unknown flutist to be KFRC's Music Director. The young man was a musical prodigy, having played with John Phillip Sousa's band at age 16, and he had been the lead flutist for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at twenty. Now, he was to get a chance to conduct the Don Lee Studio Orchestra in San Francisco. To Meredith Willson, "The Music Man", radio would be the springboard to big and better things.

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 5

2009-01-24T06:42:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

The old 50-watt KFRC transmitter saw use for a while as a short-wave relay of KFRC's AM programs. Harrison Holliway and Harold Peery rebuilt the unit to operate on 108 meters, and the station received the experimental call sign 6XD. Originally, their plan had been to use the new station to transmit details of the Dole fliers in their trans-Pacific flight from Oakland that year, a plan later abandoned. But the station was operated for a while and heard as far away as Juneau, Alaska. [16]

The following year (November 14, 1927), Don Lee bought KHJ in Los Angeles from the Los Angeles Times. The station was relocated to the Don Lee Cadillac Building at Seventh and Bixel Streets in that city, where a new radio facility was built and stocked with all the finest new equipment. There were three elaborate studios including a full pipe organ.

Being the owner of two of the Coast's most prestigious radio stations, Don Lee wasted no time in connecting the two stations by telephone line to establish the Don Lee Broadcasting System. Lee spared no expense to make his two stations among the finest in the nation, as a 1929 article from Broadcast Weekly attests:

"Both KHJ and KFRC have large complete staffs of artists, singers and entertainers, with each station having its own Don Lee Symphony Orchestra, dance band and organ, plus all of the musical instruments that can be used successful in broadcasting. It is no idle boast that either KHJ or KFRC could operate continuously without going outside their own staffs for talent, and yet give a variety with an appeal to every type of audience.[2] "

In 1929, the nation's second network, the Columbia Broadcasting System, still had no affiliates west of the Rockies, and this was making it difficult for the network to compete with its larger rival, NBC. CBS president William S. Paley was in need of West Coast affiliates, and he needed them fast. Thus it was that Paley travelled to Los Angeles that summer to convince Don Lee to sign a CBS affiliate agreement. Paley was a busy man, and he was frustrated by Lee's casual, time-consuming ways of doing business. Lee insisted that Paley spend a week with him on his yacht "The Invader" before any business could be discussed. After two lengthy sailings during which Lee had plenty of opportunity to evaluate Paley's moral fiber in the relaxed, informal atmosphere at sea, Lee agreed to sign an affiliate agreement which Paley was to dictate without any negotiation whatsoever. The agreement was signed on July 16, 1929, and the Don Lee stations became the vanguard of the CBS West Coast invasion. [3]

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 4

2009-01-23T17:52:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

The Don Lee Era

Perhaps it may be considered to be the re-birth of KFRC (it certainly marked a future of bigger and better things) when Don Lee, the California distributor for the Cadillac Motor Car Company, purchased the station in 1926. Lee had amassed a considerable fortune in his twenty years in the automobile business, and radio was to be an exciting and elaborate new venture for him. On an evening broadcast heard November 15, 1926, officials of the City of Paris formally turned over the station to Don Lee, and the audience was told of his plans for a great station to broadcast from new and elaborate studios he planned to build in the Cadillac building. He had a personal habit of doing everything in grand style, and this was to be his hallmark for the twenty five years he would own the station.

Temporary studios were soon built and installed in the Don Lee Building at 1000 Van Ness Avenue. The transmitter remained in its original location atop the Whitcomb Hotel, but plans were under way for an elaborate new studio complex and a 1,000 watt transmitter.

The new studios were completed and dedicated in a 28-hour marathon broadcast held July 6, 1927. The station was located on the mezzanine floor of the building, at the end of a large and ostentatious staircase leading up from the showroom floor. Two large studios had been decorated in a spanish motif, and they were said to be so acoustically perfect that a full orchestra could be on the air in one studio while a second group rehearsed in the adjoining one. The thousand-watt Western Electric transmitter on the top floor of the building fed a powerful new voice to the new antenna, strung between steel towers on the roof. As a higher power, Class "B" station, KFRC was authorized to move to the preferred frequency of 660 kc. (two years later, the station again moved, this time to its permanent home at 610 kc.) On its new frequency, KFRC was required to reduce its power to 500 watts after sunset.

(This 1,000 watt Western Electric transmitter is in the possession of the radio museum operated by the Perham Foundation in San Jose. The museum is temporarily closed, but plans are under way to reopen again at a new location.)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 3

2009-01-22T17:50:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

The City of Paris Years

It was less than a year later that Radio Art Studios was forced to relinquish KFRC for financial reasons. The station was transferred to the City of Paris department store on April 15, 1925, and the facilities were moved to the store on Union Square, where a studio had been constructed at street level, so passers-by could observe the operations through a large window. A year later they were moved again, this time to the eighth floor of the Sherman- Clay Building.

With the addition of City of Paris financial backing, KFRC's programs improved immediately. Frank Moss, a nationally-known pianist, was hired as the Musical Director and given the budget needed to round up first-class talent for a number of new programs. Several musical groups became KFRC regulars, most notably the Lorelei Mixed Quartet and soprano Flora Howell Bruner. KFRC was broadcasting almost exclusively serious music.

Another popular name associated with KFRC was Harry "Mac" McClintock, who hosted a daily children's program called "Mac and his Gang". Mac's homespun manners and cowboy ballads quickly became popular among the Bay Area's young crowd. His prior life best exemplified the kind of person he was: he had left his home in Tennessee as a boy and joined the circus. After fighting in the Spanish-American War, he headed for the Klondike and the Alaska gold rush. He had also worked as a railroad brakeman and as a miner in Idaho, Wyoming, and Nevada. From these experiences he drew upon a wealth of Western songs and stories that made him a favorite with adults as well as children, and his style was often compared to that of Will Rogers. Among the many other feathers in his wester cap, Mac wrote and popularized the song "Big Rock Candy Mountain". His comic western band, Mac and his Haywire Orchestry, was frequently heard on KFRC's variety programs.

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 2

2009-01-21T17:47:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

The Debut of KFRC

The summer of 1924 found Holliway working at a radio shop called the Radio Art Corporation, on Sutter Street at Powell. That was the same summer that a Western Electric salesman called on the owners of the store, Jim Threlkeld and Thomas Catton, and sold them on the idea of starting a new radio station (and of course, buying a Western Electric transmitter). And so, KFRC was born. Holliway couldn't resist the offer of the job of Station Manager, and never returned to Stanford. He and two other store employees, Harold Peery and Alan Cormack, began drawing up their plans for the station.

KFRC's first home was the Whitcomb Hotel in the Civic Center area. The studio was a converted hotel room on the second floor – a single room hung with "monk's cloth", decorated with a few shaded lamps, and with a lone microphone and a piano. The transmitter was located in a shack on the roof of the hotel, and an L-type antenna was suspended between two 100-foot ships' masts. KFRC's assigned frequency was 1120 kc. The transmitter itself was a fifty watt unit, the latest Western Electric design. The only other one like it was in St. Louis, where it was said to "pound into New York like a local. The relatively low-powered transmitter was said to be preferred by the station engineers because it would cause less interference and yet deliver almost equal signal strength because of its superior circuit design.

KFRC became the official station of the "San Francisco Bulletin", which supplied it with a news service and a radio column in exchange for the broadcast publicity. The station's on-air trademark was a fire siren, chosen because it had also been used by station KDN before it left the air, and when it had been associated with the Bulletin. KFRC's inaugural broadcast took place September 24, 1924, from 8:00 PM until midnight. The program opened with speeches by local dignitaries, and was followed by a concert and dance program by the Whitcomb Hotel concert, symphony and dance orchestras.

Almost immediately, it was noticed that KFRC had an exceptionally strong signal - much stronger than had been anticipated from only fifty watts. It was heard in all the distant places being reached by only the strongest stations: along the Atlantic Seacoast, in Alaska and Hawaii, and even New Zealand. This had San Francisco's best engineers dumbfounded. No one could understand why the signal was so powerful, and it was announced that "the KFRC managers ... are as astonished as anybody." A group of Western Electric engineers was called in to study the situation, and after several months could still not agree on an answer, except that perhaps the Whitcomb Hotel was located on an essentially "perfect" electrical ground.

KFRC's first year of radio activity was nothing exceptional. The station's owners, Catton and Threlkeld, had formed the Radio Art Studios as a subsidiary of the radio store, and it was entirely financed by the retail operation. Budgets were modest, and so were the programs. Perhaps the only noteworthy regular program heard at this time was a variety program hosted by Tom Catton and called the "Tom Cats".

Holliway, who in the first year of KFRC was Manager, announcer, janitor and mail clerk all rolled into one, later recalled some famous personalities of the time whom he interviewed during the early years. They included baseball great Roger Hornsby, and actors William S. Hart, John Barrymore and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Speaking of the French-Canadian heavyweight boxer Jack Renault, Holliway said:

"Renault came to the studios with his manager, the well-known Leo P. Flynn. He spoke very broken English, and at the same time developed a bad case of mike fright. Flynn did the French-Canadian dialect to perfection, so I introduced him as Renault. He made a fine speech, and no one ever knew that it wasn't Renault whom they heard. "

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks, Pt. 1

2009-01-20T17:40:00.002-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of KFRC, San Francisco, and the Don Lee Networks
John F. Schneider

The city of San Francisco had several stations that were among the finest in the nation during broadcasting's early years. Bay Area listeners could choose from a variety of fine programs, but one station they tuned to most frequently was KFRC.

Harrison Holliway
To tell the story of KFRC's first years is to tell the story of its Manager and Chief Announcer, Harrison Holliway. He was born November 3, 1900, the first son of a veteran San Francisco newspaperman, Captain W. C. "Cap" Holliway. Cap Holliway was well-known in San Francisco, and at one time had been the youngest newspaper editor in the state. He had since worked on news staffs at the Examiner, Call and Chronicle, and had been President of the San Francisco Press Club.

Young Harrison's first interest in radio appeared at the age of eleven, when he built a carborundum crystal receiver and first listened in on the airwaves. By 1920, he was operating his own amateur station, 6BN, and was very active in local ham circles. He was President of the Lowell High School Radio Club, and an officer in the San Francisco Radio Club. In 1920, he set a world amateur record for distance in voice transmission when he communicated with another ham in Vancouver, over 1,800 miles away. This brought him considerable local publicity. For a time, Harrison was on the air every day with 6BN, broadcasting record programs "for the sheer pleasure of it". He also worked as a part-time newspaper reporter, covering high school sporting news for the San Francisco Call.

The following fall saw Harrison Holliway enter Stanford University. He spent the next few years majoring in law during the winter months, and operating radio equipment on a trans-Pacific steamer during the summer. He took a leave of absence from Stanford in 1922, and, along with friend Harold Shaw, installed and operated KSL, the Emporium Department Store station. When that venture folded after less than a year, he went back to Stanford.

Eunice Randall, Pt. 3

2009-01-19T17:38:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Eunice Randall - Boston's First Female Announcer/Engineer
Donna Halper

In February of 1922, 1XE received its license from the Department of Commerce and was assigned the call letters WGI. Eunice remained in her dual roles of AMRAD factory draftsman and WGI announcer. When the factory needed her more, she spent more time there; when the radio station beckoned, she did that-- in fact, when a guest didn't show up, she and another of the engineers sang duets! The newspapers referred to her the "Radio Mother" because her bed-time stories were very popular with kids all over New England. (The idea of radio bed-time stories was still very new, as were most of the things WGI had been doing. Unfortunately, the station operated on a shoe-string, and seldom got the publicity it deserved.) She represented AMRAD at several radio shows, and it certainly must have encouraged other young women to see her demonstrating equipment and doing broadcasts.

As for the men who heard Eunice speak and saw some of her radio work, they included Hiram P. Maxim, whom she met when she demonstrated one of AMRAD's newest radio tubes at a convention in Portland, Maine in late 1921. (In the early 20s, she was one of a very few women who were licensed radio operators – some reports say she was the only one in New England.) Irv Vermilya, with whom she remained friends for many years, continued to write favourably in QST and elsewhere about her work; this certainly must have helped her to achieve even more credibility. Over the years, the two would sometimes attend hamfests together and compete in code-sending contests. (Eunice could even do 'foot-sending', and she was quite proficient at it!)

Unfortunately, Eunice Randall's radio career was cut short by the fact that WGI and its parent company AMRAD ultimately went bankrupt. The station left the air in the spring of 1925, never to return. Everyone who had worked so hard to keep the station up and running ended up in various other places. Some, like "Big Brother" Bob Emery, would become famous at another station and have a long radio career; others left radio and never went back to it-Eunice was one of those. She continued to work as one of the few women engineers, however, and she also continued her involvement with ham radio (her calls were 1CDP and later, W1MPP). During World War 2, she and a number of other amateurs did volunteer work as part of the WERS, and over the years, she taught many young amateurs what they needed to know to get their license. Eunice and her husband, Ken Thompson, a former AMRAD employee, moved up to Maine after she retired. She died in 1982.

Ever since I began researching the saga of 1XE/WGI and became familiar with this amazing woman, I have wanted to tell her story. My thanks to Barry Mishkind for giving me the opportunity.

- Donna Halper is a respected and experienced media historian, whose research has resulted in appearances on Chronicle (WCVB, Channel 5 in Boston), Voice of America, PBS/NewsHour, National Public Radio/Weekend America, New England Cable News, the History Channel, ABC Nightline, WBZ Radio, WNYC Radio, and elsewhere. Ms. Halper is the author of three books, the most recent of which is “Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting.” She is completing her fourth, “Icons of Talk,” a history of talk shows.

Eunice Randall, Pt. 2

2009-01-18T17:35:00.004-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Eunice Randall - Boston's First Female Announcer/Engineer
Donna Halper

And while some women worked as receptionists or confidential secretaries, Eunice Randall was not typical of her generation: not only was she an experienced ham radio operator but she now wanted to work with the men building radio receivers. Needless to say, she underwent considerable hazing in the factory-- what would today be called sexual harrassment-- but gradually she won everyone over, because her drafting work was very precise and she wasn't afraid to learn new jobs.

AMRAD had opened a broadcasting station in 1916; it was mainly operated by Tufts College students (AMRAD's founder, Harold J. Power, was a Tufts alumnus), but now that the AMRAD factory was expanding, some of the non-student workers also took their turn keeping the station on the air. Among them was Eunice Randall. All the amateur stations were taken off the air during World War 1, but as soon as it was legal to do so, the AMRAD station (known legally as 1XE, but referred to in the newspapers as "The Amrad station" or "the Medford Hillside station") resumed its broadcasts.

At some point in 1919, Eunice Randall became an announcer for the station, the first woman on air in greater Boston. By 1921, she was not only helping with the engineering, doing announcing, and at times sending out code so that any amateurs listening could get some code practise-- she had also gotten a sponsor and was now the "Story Lady". At least three nights a week, she read bed-time stories to the kids, sponsored by Little Folks Magazine. (In QST, and even in some of the newspapers, she was still referred to as the "OW of 1XE"-- "OW" being an affectionate term for a female amateur.)

- Donna Halper is a respected and experienced media historian, whose research has resulted in appearances on Chronicle (WCVB, Channel 5 in Boston), Voice of America, PBS/NewsHour, National Public Radio/Weekend America, New England Cable News, the History Channel, ABC Nightline, WBZ Radio, WNYC Radio, and elsewhere. Ms. Halper is the author of three books, the most recent of which is “Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting.” She is completing her fourth, “Icons of Talk,” a history of talk shows.

Eunice Randall, Pt. 1

2009-01-17T11:41:00.002-06:00

Originally published in the January, 2009, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Eunice Randall - Boston's First Female Announcer/Engineer
Donna Halper

If you had been around greater Boston during the 19-teens and early 20s, you might have heard Eunice Randall referred to as "ER," since radio announcers were not usually allowed to use their names on the air. To her ham radio friends, she was "the OW of 1XE," or "1CDP;" to some of her youngest fans, she was "the Story Lady." Eunice Randall was all of this and more-although she was born in an era when women's options were still extremely limited, she grew up to achieve a number of 'firsts' in the exciting new industry called radio broadcasting.

In the early 1900s, Mattapoisett (a town in southeastern Massachusetts) was still rural, and Eunice's father was a farmer, while one of her brothers ran a mill. As far as I have been able to ascertain, there were no 'radio bugs' in her family, and yet somehow she became fascinated by the rapidly-expanding world of ham radio. Her first station, which she built herself, was called "ER", and her technical skills impressed one of the men who received the code she was sending out – he was the regional director of the ARRL, Irv Vermilya, a man who was very influential in amateur radio.

Irv was surprised that a young woman could build her own station, but he was also immediately supportive; he was the first to write about her radio skills, in the ham magazine, QST.

Not content to stay on her family's farm, Eunice moved up to Boston, with the plan to study art. But she found that she was good at drafting, and when she heard that the American Radio and Research Company needed draftsmen, she applied; in 1918, she became the first woman AMRAD ever hired. I would be lying if I said everyone welcomed her with open arms – it was highly unusual for women to work in technical professions back then..

- Donna Halper is a respected and experienced media historian, whose research has resulted in appearances on Chronicle (WCVB, Channel 5 in Boston), Voice of America, PBS/NewsHour, National Public Radio/Weekend America, New England Cable News, the History Channel, ABC Nightline, WBZ Radio, WNYC Radio, and elsewhere. Ms. Halper is the author of three books, the most recent of which is “Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting.” She is completing her fourth, “Icons of Talk,” a history of talk shows.

History of WMAQ, Chapter 1, Pt. 3

2009-01-16T10:27:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the December, 2008, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of WMAQ Radio
By Tom Goatee
Reprinted with permission

Chapter 1

With the 1920 fall election approaching, the Westinghouse Electric Company conceived the idea of broadcasting the election returns. Accordingly, a large studio was built and equipped with the latest carbon microphones, and the original transmitter was overhauled, further adjusearer the studio. A new call was assigned to the station: KDKA, indicating that the transmitter was no longer considered experimental equipment. There was a line installed between the new studio and the offices of the Pittsburgh Post, and the election results were broadcast throughout the evening. The broadcasting idea was an instant success, and drew nationwide attention to KDKA. A new industry was rapidly in the making.

KDKA continued to operate on regular schedules of a few hours a day, and almost immediately the way was cleared for other radio stations, in other locations, to erect and operate broadcasting equipment. Radio patents held by the General Electric Company, the Western Electric Company, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and the newly formed Radio Corporation of America were pooled together, and arrangements were completed for the construction of radio tubes, radio equipment, and complete broadcast transmitters for sale to private individuals as well as to the government.

The Westinghouse Company itself was not slow to realize the immense possibilities of broadcasting, and got to work developing and constructing transmission equipment. In September, 1921, there was a grand total of four stations in the United States, and a fifth was put on the air in October. But it was not until November of that year that Chicago welcomed its first radio station.

History of WMAQ, Chapter 1, Pt. 2

2009-01-15T10:23:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the December, 2008, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of WMAQ Radio
By Tom Goatee
Reprinted with permission

Chapter 1

But in spite of these adverse conditions, manay amateurs went ahead with radio telephonic experimentation. The priceless "E" tubes, "OG" tubes and others were occasionally obtained by some amateurs---usually "from a friend in the Coast Guard", or other slightly illegal sources. The many difficulties blocking the paths of the early radio amateurs in their experimentation did little to shake their enthusiasm.

By the time the winter had arrived in 1919, there were many amateurs on the air "actually talking". And from that time Morse code was destined to take a back seat in radio, to be used principally for communication.

Not satisfied with merely talking to other local amateurs (and, incidentially not being "tied down" by any federal regulations) the hams son conceived the idea of broadcasting entertainment. And so, using their home-made "rigs" and makeshift equipment, they began transmitting programs to their friends---and to the public.

This condition was particularly so in the Chicago area, where a great many amateurs resided within a comparitively small radius. One of the largest of these stations was owned by Austin A. Edward, and influential "ham" who not only had the best equipment available but also constructed a small studio in his home. Other well known stations in this same vicinity were operated by Thorne Donnelly, Arthur Leonard, Jr. and even our own Larry Dutton (NBC, Chicago).

All through the sping of 1920 interest in amateur radio broadcasting continued on the gradual increase. "Hams" gladly built and sold small crystal receiving sets for their neighbors and friends, but there were relatively few people who knew---or even cared---about the possibilities of radio.

Then a remarkable thing happened. And radio underwent another radical change.

A Pittsburgh engineer, Frank Conrad, had spent most of the spring developing and perfecting a radio-telephone transmitter in the Westinghouse Laboratories at East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was assigned an experimental call by the government, and began transmitting speech and test programs late in the spring. Only a few amateurs with receiving sets heard his programs. Then others began to listen. Soon Dr. Conrad had an enthusiastic following of listeners, and he began a more-or-less regular experimental schedule.

Late in the spring of 1920, Pittsburgh department stores advertised and quickly sold “receiving apparatus for listening to Doctor Conrad’s radio programs”. The general public was finally becoming conscious of radio broadcasting. Every program, no matter how irregular, was assured of a large audience. And the Westinghouse Electric Company began to take an interest in the possibility of broadcasting.

History of WMAQ, Chapter 1, Pt. 1

2009-01-14T10:18:00.000-06:00

Originally published in the December, 2008, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

The History of WMAQ Radio
By Tom Goatee
Reprinted with permission

Chapter 1

The history of WMAQ, Chicago’’s first radio station, so clearly parallels the History of Radio Broadcasting that it reads like a chronicle of many trials, tribulations, failures and successes that beset the first broadcasters, who were unknowingly laying the foundation for a great new industry: radio.

It is a far cry from the Early Twenties to Present Day Broadcasting. No industry has ever moved so quickly, so efficiently, to the high state of perfection that Broadcasting enjoys today.

It is difficult for most of us, who have lived and worked through this change, to fully comprehend the historical and sociological significance of our progress. Yet all this happened within a span of less than twenty years, two amazing decades.It is hard to say exactly when broadcasting first began, Before the First World War there were a few thousand radio amateurs, most of them noys and young men, who tinkered occasionally with "spark" sets and established purely local telegraphic communication.

During the War, however, the radio art underwent the first of its many radical changes. The army became interested in radio as a means of field communication and experimentation began on a more important scale. The vacuum tube was developed and used with some fair success, and this opened the path for many new circuits never possible before. Many of the radio amateurs received further training from the Government and, in addition to serving their country both here and abroad, they gained a great deal of practical experience in radio communication.

After the War was over there were well over twenty thousand men in this country with a technical working knowledge of radio. Some of these found immediate employment as ship or land commercial operators. But a much greater number returned to their former employment, and looked upon radio, specifically amateur radio, as just an interesting hobby. The ban on amateur activity was lifted in the summer of 1919, and new "ham" stations using new equipment began to appear, various scattered from 50 to 250 meters. They were still primarily interested in radio telegraphy, because telephony was too new and much two expensive for experimentation. Vacuum tubes could neither be bought or manufactured, except by the Government, due to frozen patent rights held by competing companies.

Archives of the Airwaves: A Review

2009-01-13T10:11:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the December, 2008, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Archives of the Airwaves (7 Volumes)
By Roger C. Paulson
Publisher - BearManor Media
Price - $135.00
Reviewed by Jim Beshires

Archives of the Airwaves is a seven volume set of paperback books, with each book addressing radio programs and stars beginning with a particular letter of the alphabet. For instance, Volume One covers the letters ‘A thru C’, and is 323 pages long. There is no index, which makes it a bit difficult to locate subjects. After getting frustrated in looking in several books to find items, my solution to this problem was to tape a small piece of paper to each spine listing the letters the book covered.

According to the publisher, this set has been twenty years in the making, and proposes to be the most complete old-time radio encyclopedia ever written. It does have a good amount of both series and stars that I was not familiar with, and my career in old time radio goes back to the early 60s. I was glad to see this coverage of so many obscure shows.

In its format it’s very similar to Dunning’s ‘On The Air’, in that it attempts to give a synopsis of the series, network affiliation, broadcast dates and times. It also lists sponsors.

Most synopsis’ are short - a paragraph or two, three at the most, so it obviously does not go into the depth of descriptions as some other reference books do, and it does contain a fair amount of mis-information, most that only a serious researcher would catch, and I have heard from some highly respected OTR people on this subject of the errors. Some of them feel the set contains too many. But nearly all other reference books contain some errors, as reference sources are constantly being revised, updated, or new ones being discovered. Researching old time radio is not an easy job, and that’s why it’s very important to cross-check everything. The set boasts that it’s at least seven times the size of Dunning’s book, but this is a real exaggeration. It more likely is twice the size, but remember, Dunning’s book does not include bios of radio stars, and Archives does. The bios are fairly complete, with birth dates, death deaths, and credit lists included.

It is certainly the most comprehensive set ever attempted.

The set can be purchased from BearManor Media for $135.00, but also can be found in many major book stores and also online. Individual volumes can be purchased for around $21.95 each.

Should you purchase them? The price would deter most collectors, but I believe that it would be a good addition to any serious researcher’s reference set, despite some of its mistakes. Many libraries may be interested in having this set, so you might want to inquire into this possibility with your library.

Would I recommend it? Certainly I’m glad to have it to add to my reference library. It provides another tool when I’m researching a series, and we need all the help we can get. I’d also be very interested in hearing from others who’ve purchased this set as to what they think of it.

3D Movie Memories

2009-01-12T07:27:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the December, 2008, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

First 3D Movie Still Leaps from Memory
Bob Cox

In late 1952, my father and I drove to the Tennessee Theatre on West Main Street to experience the city’s first 3D movie, “Bwana Devil,” starring Robert Stack. The color film promo promised “A Lion in Your Lap - A Lover in Your Arms.” Being a young lad of ten, I was more fearful of the mushy lover than a ferocious lion, reasoning that I had a fighting chance with the wild beast. The simplistic plot involved two vicious lions, randomly dining on a crew of British railway workers in Kenya in 1898.

Upon entering the theatre lobby for the evening viewing, we were each handed a pair of cardboard “glasses,” containing red and blue lenses. After patronizing the refreshment counter, we chose seats about halfway down the center section, having been warned not to sit too close to the screen lest we be in harm’s way. As show time approached, growing tension could be sensed throughout the theatre.

When the movie finally commenced, the 3D effect was impressive without being unduly threatening. Suddenly, a variety of missiles were hurled at our faces, chests, and laps from an array of objects, ranging from ravenous lions to crude spears. Over the next 79 minutes, the audience blinked, ducked, flinched, squirmed, gasped and screamed, occasionally spilling their popcorn and soft drinks. A few hardy patrons kept their glasses on throughout the entire movie, savoring each exciting scene as it unfolded on the screen. The nervous crowd soon learned that closing their eyes or removing their glasses would immediately neutralize the 3D effect.

This unique film genre was being ushered in to combat the loss of income resulting from the intrusion of television into homes. This less than impressive technology had been around since 1915 with modest acceptance by the public. The 5000 participating U.S. theatres utilized two projectors to reproduce two images (left eye and right eye) through polarizers onto a screen, where it could be viewed using a pair of glasses with matching filters. The result was the illusion of depth as perceived by our brains.

These movies were not without problems. Projectionists had to continually monitor the picture quality; people occasionally left the theatre experiencing headaches and dizziness. By the conclusion of the film, the cardboard glasses had become very uncomfortable. Moviegoers soon became weary of lackluster plots and 3D gimmicks, forcing production crews to focus more on the story lines than on special effects. The 3D fad of yesteryear was coming to a finale, delivering only 46 films between late 1952 and early 1955.

I attended several 3D cinemas during this time, most playing at the Majestic Theatre. My favorites were “House of Wax” (1953 in stereo), “The Maze” (1953), “Hondo” (1953 with John Wayne) and “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” (1954).

As Dad and I exited the theatre and headed for our car in the direction of Fountain Square, I glanced up at the lights emitting from our slumbering tranquil town in all of its three-dimensional glory … and without the use of projectors, polarized images, or cardboard lenses. I had returned to the real 3D world.

If anyone has additional information about area 3D movies, please let me hear from you.

This article first appeared in the Johnson City (Tenn) Press, on July 11, 2005 boblcox@bcyesteryear.com. Mr. Cox submitted it for reprinting in the December, 2008, issue of the Old Radio Times.

Radio Aspects of the Lindbergh Kidnapping, Pt. 4

2009-01-11T19:38:00.002-06:00

Originally published in the November, 2008, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Radio Aspects of the Lindbergh Kidnapping
Jack French © 2008

The wall to wall radio coverage of the trial elevated several announcers and commentators to a higher level of fame that they previously had. But the radio personality that benefited most from the trial was a new announcer at WNEW who had just started at $20 a week. Hearing that WNEW would be broadcasting periodic reports from the Flemington court house and wanted something to fill the gaps between, Martin Block convinced station management that him playing musical records would be the best solution. He called his show Make Believe Ballroom, a title he borrowed from former associate, Al Jarvis, who used that same name for his west coast DJ show. Block’s show became very popular during the six weeks trial and when it was over, WNEW made it a permanent fixture in their programming, eventually making Block a millionaire.

Mutual Radio had a tradition in those years to air a year end summary each December of what they termed “The Top News Stories of the Year.” In 1935 the program was narrated by announcer Seymour Birkson. Although the Hauptmann trial was clearly the top story that year, Birkson bumped it down to number 2, right behind the Italian war in Ethiopia. Birkson summarizes the trial in a half dozen sentences. Copies of this program are in general circulation.
But it would be over a year before the execution, due to a series of long and complicated appeals, one of which went all the way to the Supreme Court. Hauptmann’s widow raised thousands of dollars, mostly from German audiences in the East and the Midwest, pleading “Help me get a new trial for the father of my poor baby.” Meanwhile the kidnapper was held at the state prison in Trenton, declining to confess in order to escape the death penalty, even after a personal visit by the governor. On the scheduled day of his execution in April 1936, he was asked what he wanted for his last meal. He declined, saying he was not hungry, but he did have a special request. When asked what it was, Hauptmann said he wanted to address the American people on the radio so he could convince them he was innocent. The request was denied.

After all appeals were exhausted, the execution was scheduled for April 3, 1936. Hundreds of press and radio reporters gathered outside the prison, not counting the 30 members of the media who were among the 55 official witnesses watching the room containing the electric chair. All had been frisked for cameras and microphones since the warden was aware that five years earlier a reporter with a camera hidden on his leg, photographed murderess Ruth Snyder when she was electrocuted.

Everyone had been told the execution would take place at 8 PM so Gabriel Heatter, who gained some publicity with his bulletins on the trial in Flemington, took his place outside the prison with about five minutes of material in case the execution was a few minutes late. However, the few minutes stretched to 45 minutes and Heatter ad-libbed without a break for the entire time, a feat that would push him to the top of radio commentators and insure his successful career on the air. Hauptmann was executed at 8:45 and the news was flashed around the world.

The grieving widow was given no peace from the media. She was staying in a room at the Stacy-Trent Hotel in Trenton with a few friends and defense attorneys. About five minutes after the execution, about a dozen camera men, newspaper and radio reporters burst into her room, taking photos and shouting questions at her. After about 15 minutes, her associates were able to push the media out of the room, leaving the widow sobbing on her bed.

But the case did not die with Bruno Hauptmann. Doubts about his guilt were expressed by Eleanor Roosevelt, NJ Governor Harold Hoffman, and other well-known figures who were apparently unfamiliar with the mountain of evidence of his guilt. Hauptmann’s widow embarked on a crusade to prove his innocence, a quest that she followed until the day she died in 1994 at the age of 96. To further complicate the case, about a dozen men sought the spotlight by claiming to be the Lindbergh baby, now grown up. While they may have been seeking an inheritance from the Lindbergh millions, at least three of them actually sued NJ for the records to prove their preposterous claims and one of them made a living on the lecture circuit with his claim.

A wise philosopher once pointed out “Nothing is as strong in human beings as the craving to believe in something that is obviously wrong.” So it was natural that Anna Hauptmann’s pleas would find sympathetic ears. The mutterings about Hauptmann’s innocence, which simmered for years, became more prominent in 1976 with the book “Scapegoat” by Anthony Scaduto which claimed the baby was not even killed but was still alive in the person of Harold Olsen (one of the dozen impostors.) Anna Hauptmann filed a series of multi-million dollar civil suits against NJ in the 1980s, and while she lost every case, the publicity encouraged the publication of more pro-Hauptmann books, including Noel Behn’s 1994 book, a TV documentary, and an HBO movie, all claiming that Hauptmann was not the kidnapper, he was an innocent victim of a law enforcement plot.

All these phony theories of Hauptmann’s innocence were crushed in the 1999 book, “The Ghosts of Hopewell” by Jim Fisher, a Lindbergh historian. I do not have time to summarize his compelling evidence but I urge you to read his book if you have slightest doubts about the case and the verdict.

Now over 75 years after the kidnapping, the case continues to fascinate many people. When the Union Hotel in Flemington, which had housed the jurors, several reporters, and many prominent spectators, was offered for sale three months ago, it made the front page of several Eastern papers. Today, across the street from the hotel, in the original court house, a live drama of the Trial of the Century is being performed every weekend in October. Actors portraying all the main characters of this drama are featured in this two and a half hour summary of the trial. Harry Kazman wrote and directs this play and you can find details at http://www.famoustrials.com/.

The pertinent sites of the ransom negotiation, the payoff, and the arrest of Hauptmann are all covered in a bus tour of the Bronx every year in May, usually the third Saturday. Richard Sloan, who created and manages this interesting tour, has been researching the case for years. You can email him for details at <emma1231@optonline.net>

Radio Aspects of the Lindbergh Kidnapping, Pt. 3

2009-01-10T19:36:00.002-06:00

Originally published in the November, 2008, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Radio Aspects of the Lindbergh Kidnapping
Jack French © 2008

Although most law officials thought the kidnapping was the work of a gang (as many kidnappings were in those days) Shoenfeld declared in November 1932 that the kidnapper was a lone amateur. He also concluded the kidnapper was a German alien with little formal education, recently settled in the Bronx, had been institutionalized, worked with wood, had low income, was approximately Lindbergh’s age, if married, was tyrannical at home, was methodical and very cautious, had supreme confidence in himself, and when arrested would not cooperate nor confess. While the profile was not specific enough to uncover the kidnapper, it was accurate in all respects, which the police would confirm after the arrest of the kidnapper in 1934.

The ransom bills continued to be turned in after the U.S. went off the Gold Standard on April 5, 1933 but now any that were gold certificates became more rare every day so they were more likely to arouse the suspicions of merchants and banks who accepted them. In addition, the kidnapper had used up most of the five dollar bills and was using the tens and twenties. Eventually a few of the recipients actually remembered the description of who had given them the bill. A pattern description emerged of a Caucasian male, mid-30s, medium build, felt hat, German accent . . . it was the same description Dr. Condon had provided of the man to whom he paid the ransom in a Bronx cemetery. But it brought the police no nearer to his capture.

Finally on September 15, 1934, the big break in the case occurred. Walter Lyle, a manager at a gas station at Lexington and 127th Street, got a ten dollar gold certificate from a man who was paying for 98 cents worth of gas. Lyons was afraid it might be counterfeit so before the man drove off in his 1930 Dodge, Lyon wrote down his license number on the ten dollar bill. Three days later the teller processing the gas station’s deposit found the ransom bill and phoned the authorities. Their interviews at the gas station confirmed that what had happened and a quick check of motor vehicle records determined that license plate was registered to Bruno Richard Hauptmann, 1279 E. 222nd Street in the Bronx.

A decision was made to arrest Hauptmann away from his residence so they could catch him with another ransom bill in his possession. They set up surveillance, including three cars, and when he left the next day, September 19, 1934, they followed him from his home to White Plains Avenue where they arrested him in his car. Among the twenty-nine dollars in his wallet, Hauptmann had a 20 dollar gold certificate which was part of the ransom package.

He was taken into custody and a search of his residence and garage discovered about $15,000 in the missing ransom money (carefully hidden), a tool set in which a chisel was missing (which matched the one found the night of the kidnapping), and Condon’s address and phone number written in a closet. Hauptmann was grilled for several days and never confessed to any wrong doing. He insisted the money found had been left to him by an associate, Isador Fisch, who had died in Germany a few months ago. Despite all the overwhelming evidence, he continued to protest his innocence and the October 5, 1934, The March of Time program summarized his interrogation for CBS radio,citing all the damning evidence against the kidnapper. (The program is in general circulation.) While there are no credits on this program, Hauptmann was probably voiced by Dwight Weiss, who did most of the roles on The March of Time which required a German accent.

After a grand jury indictment and extradition to New Jersey, the trial was to begin in the courthouse in Flemington, NJ, a town of less than 3,000 people, located an hour from New York City. Due to various motions, the trial was postponed a few times and finally began on January 2, 1935. The prosecution team was led by David Wilentz, the state’s AG, while the defense team was headed by Edward J. Reilly, a prominent Brooklyn defense attorney. The trial had attracted over 100 reporters from America and Europe, 25 radio and telegraph operators, and even a newsreel camera were used in the gallery. Walter Winchell and other well-known columnists were there, joined by prominent novelists also pressed into service: Edna Ferber, Alexander Woolcott, Fannie Hurst, and Damon Runyon. Sports stars, Broadway luminaries, and other show-biz personalities flocked to courtroom as spectators including Jack Benny.

Samuel Leibowitz, a prominent Brooklyn defense attorney, was hired by WHN Radio to broadcast regular trial updates on the air. They were done on transcription disks for subsequent airings and are apparently the only radio programs that survived, of the thousands of radio shows and bulletins that came out of the lengthy trial. Nearly five hours total of Leibowitz’s trial observations remain with us, but unfortunately they are all in the custody of the Museum of Television and Radio in Manhattan. That means that anyone can go there in person and listen to them, but no one can dub any copies of them. Here is an excerpt from one of Leibowtiz’s programs: “What difference does it make whether there was an accomplice, or two accomplices, or a whole army of accomplices? If (Hauptmann) had a hand in this kidnapping, whether he actually committed the kidnapping or not, he is just as much of a fiend, and is just as guilty as if he actually killed that innocent child.” The trial would last for six weeks with nearly 400 witnesses, dozens of evidence items introduced, and a variety of experts on handwriting, wood, and medicine testified. All of Hauptmann’s past history was revealed including his robberies in Germany, his escape from jail there, and entering the U.S. as an illegal alien. It was shown he had not worked a day after the ransom was paid and yet spent money lavishly for the next two years during the Great Depression. Jack Benny summed up the pitiful defense in a statement to the press: “Bruno needs a second act.” Near the end of the trial, Hauptmann’s attorney went on national radio and appealed for witnesses with any knowledge of the case to come forward. Only a few kooks responded. The jury convicted Hauptmann of murder on February 13, 1935, with no recommendation for mercy, thus requiring the death penalty.

Radio Aspects of the Lindbergh Kidnapping, Pt. 2

2009-01-09T19:33:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the November, 2008, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Radio Aspects of the Lindbergh Kidnapping
Jack French © 2008

The New Jersey State Police were officially in charge of the investigation which made their agency head, Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf the lead man on the case. His fame in this case would later catapult him into radio’s Gang Busters as the narrator and he was also the father of General Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, the hero of the first Gulf War. The first ransom note demanded $ 50,000 for the safe return of the child. It contained a unique symbol as a signature (two interlocking circles with three holes punched through the design) which turned out to be very valuable in separating the real notes from the kidnapper (there would be 13 more) from the hundreds of fake ones that poured into the case, claiming to be from the kidnappers.

The media, particularly the newspapers and radio stations, had their reporters surrounding the Lindbergh and Morrow estates as well as NJ police stations, waiting for news, and sometimes creating news if there was none. Everybody wanted to get into the act, even Al Capone. At that time, Capone was serving time for tax evasion in Chicago but promised if he was released he could find the kidnappers in a few weeks and would return the unharmed baby to his parents. Capone seemed insulted when his offer was declined by authorities.

A week after the kidnapping, a 72 year old retired school principal in the Bronx, Dr. John F. Condon, unknown to Lindbergh, injected himself into the case by sending a letter to a local newspaper, offering to act as intermediary in the ransom payoff. Astonishingly, the kidnapper responded to Condon and sent him a series of ransom notes with instructions for the payoff. (The amount had now risen to $ 70,000.)

Lindbergh and his advisors met with Condon several times and approved him making the ransom payoff. The kidnapper had specified a wooden box of certain dimensions be made and the money placed inside. All bills were to be unmarked and their serial numbers not recorded. Lindbergh, fearful of his son’s life, insisted the police follow the kidnapper’s demands, despite the police protests it would make the solution even more difficult. Not only was Lindbergh overruled by the police (they recorded every serial number) but also at the demand of Treasury investigator Elmer Irey, the majority of the bills were gold certificates. Irey had surmised accurately, that the U.S. would be going off the gold standard shortly and thus gold certificates would be easier to identify, locate and trace. While no one knew it at the time, his plan would eventually result in the arrest of the kidnapper. The actual payoff was made on April 2, 1932 in the Bronx by Condon to the kidnapper, who called himself John. Since only $50,000 would fit in the wooden box, Condon left the other $20,000 in the car when he made the payoff, telling the kidnapper that was all Lindbergh could raise. The lesser amount was accepted and Condon was given instructions to find the baby on a boat near Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. It was a cruel hoax; neither the boat nor the baby was found after days of searching. The ransom money began appearing in business deposits in the New York City area that very week. One at a time, they trickled in but no one could be located who remembered the customer who had spent the bill in their establishment. None of the merchants had the numbers of the ransom bills so it was up to bank tellers to find them in the incoming cash deposits, a daunting task. Meanwhile Condon and Lindbergh’s aids tried to recontact the kidnapper to obtain better information on where to locate the baby.

On May 12, 1932 a truck driver parked his vehicle on a muddy road near Hopewell and walked into the woods to relieve himself. About 75 feet from the road, he found the body of a child, partially decomposed, under the branch of a tree. He immediately alerted the police who determined it was the body of the Lindbergh baby. It had been found two miles from the Lindbergh estate. The baby had been killed by a blow to the skull and apparently had been dead since the night of the kidnapping.

The case, which was being covered widely by all the news media, increased greatly with the tragedy of the dead victim. A reporter and cameraman actually slipped into the office at night where the body was being examined and took photos of the partially decomposed corpse and then sold copies of the photo for five dollars on the street. (Note: Regrettably, these photos are still being sold today on EBay by a Canadian dealer.)

Law enforcement authorities, no longer fearful of putting the child at risk redoubled their efforts throughout the Eastern U.S., where the ransom bills continued to find their way back to banks, primarily in the New York City boroughs. They even were the recipient of one of the first, effective examples of criminal profiling. While this technique is relatively common nowadays, in the mid 1930s it was virtually unknown. A 39 year old psychiatrist in NYC, Dr. Dudley Shoenfeld, was permitted to examine all the physical evidence, including all 14 ransom notes.

Radio Aspects of the Lindbergh Kidnapping, Pt. 1

2009-01-08T19:29:00.001-06:00

Originally published in the November, 2008, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Radio Aspects of the Lindbergh Kidnapping
Jack French © 2008

NOTE: This topic was presented orally on October 24, 2008 at the Friends of Old Time Radio convention in Newark, NJ, but this is the first time it has appeared in print.

OTR researcher Derek Tague has often, and correctly, declared that the three most newsworthy events in the 1930s all happened in New Jersey: the Hindenburg disaster at Lakehurst, the Martians landing at Grovers Mills, and the Lindbergh Kidnapping in Hopewell. Since the first two events have been discussed several times at OTR conventions, but never the Lindbergh Kidnapping, I felt compelled to correct that omission.

The kidnapping of Lindbergh’s baby in 1932 has been accurately termed “The Crime of the Century” based upon its impact on the national and international scene. This startling crime, which involved not only the kidnapping but the murder of a small boy, generated more shock among the citizens of North American and Europe than a presidential assassination. And this crime, and subsequent trial, certainly resulted in more news stories, radio summaries, and magazine articles over a five year period than any other criminal event, before or since.

The story actually begins in May 1927 when Charles A. Lindbergh, an obscure mail pilot, became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, landing in France. The feat electrified the world and brought him immediate honors, riches, and fame. He was accorded the Congressional Medal of Honor and President Coolidge dispatched a Navy ship to return him and his plane back to the U.S. The National Archives has released, under their audio file entitled “Sounds of History” the audio exchange of Coolidge and Lindbergh as it aired over the major networks in 1927.

Lindbergh’s face was on the cover of every U.S. and European magazine, there was a dance named for him, and he was truly the best-known personality on either side of the Atlantic. In May 1929 he married Anne Morrow, the daughter of a multi-millionaire banker and ambassador to Mexico. In June 1930 their first son was born at the Morrow estate in Englewood, NJ, but they had already purchased 390 acres near Hopewell, NJ, to build their own mansion. It was completed in late 1931 and the Lindberghs alternated between the two residences. They were in their Hopewell residence on March 1, 1932 when a kidnapper placed a ladder under the second story nursery about 9 PM, took the child without a sound, left a ransom note in the bedroom, and escaped to a nearby car without being heard by the family or staff. In addition to abandoning the home-made, collapsible ladder, the kidnapper also left a chisel at the scene.

The baby’s nurse discovered him missing about 10 PM and alerted the Lindberghs who found the ransom note. Local and state police were notified and the most extensive law enforcement investigation began; it would go non-stop for two and a half years until the perpetrator was arrested in September 1934. At that time, kidnapping was not a federal offense so the FBI and Dept. of Treasury had no jurisdiction. However the public outcry forced the White House to direct all federal agencies to render any possible assistance tolocal authorities. The Coast Guard searched the shores for the missing baby and the Commerce Dept. did the same at airports and train stations. Immigration authorities examined every vehicle coming to or from Mexico and Canada, trying to find the baby.

This Day in Network Radio: A Review

2009-01-07T07:43:00.004-06:00

Originally published in the December, 2008, Old Radio Times.(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

This Day in Network Radio
By Jim Cox
A Review by Ryan Ellett

Jim Cox’s latest book, This Day in Network Radio, hits the market just in time for Christmas and let me assure you this book is a perfect stocking stuffer for the old time radio fan in your life.

This Day is a step out of line with Mr. Cox’s other works which focus on a single series (Mr. Keen), a single genre (like his previous book Sold on Radio), or a single aspect (Frank and Anne Hummert’s Radio Factory) of old time radio. Instead the book gives the reader day-by-day old time radio highlights including births, deaths, debuts, and cancellations.

This effort is a fun compilation of so much information that Mr. Cox has given us in past works and other new information that surely was compiled during his research but did not sneak into those works. As we’ve come to expect from the jovial pen-weilder, Mr. Cox focuses not only on the well-known actors, actresses, and series of radio’s Golden Age but he delves into the nooks and crannies of the field, spotlighting the lesser-known series and behind-the-scenes men and women who made the industry hum.

The first question that comes to mind in reviewing the book is why didn’t somebody do this earlier?

At $50 it’s a bit pricey, especially for a paperback and one that checks in at 235 pages, short by Mr. Cox’s standards. If one is still missing some of the author’s previous works I would recommend sinking the money into one of those as they only sell for an extra five or ten dollars. If your lucky and have a complete Jim Cox library you won’t regret adding this volume to your shelf.

I plan to leave this book on a shelf in my water closet and read daily entries during my morning visits. The next best thing to starting one’s day with an OTR recording is starting one’s day by reading about OTR.

This Day in Network Radio is published by Mcfarland (http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/) and can be ordered by calling 1-800-253-2187. It is likely available at Amazon.com and other online book sources.

Bing Crosby on Radio, Pt. 9

2009-01-06T07:34:00.002-06:00

Reprinted in the October, 2008, Old Radio Times.
(http://www.otrr.org/pg07_times.htm)

Bing Crosby – The Radio Directories
(out of print)
compiled by Lionel Pairpoint

For twenty years, Bing Crosby had run the gamut of radio sponsors, from tobacco, through soap, cheese, radio sets, back to tobacco again and after three years with Chesterfield Cigarettes, the fall of 1952 found him extolling the virtues of refrigerators, on behalf of the General Electric Company. However, the famous overweight lady was waiting in the wings, loosening her larynx for the swan song of the radio series in this particular format. One by one favourite shows were vanishing from the air, engulfed by the tsunami of television which had rolled over the network schedules. The huge numbers of radio receivers that Bing had helped to sell for Philco had now become slightly passé, surrendering their place as the focal point in the living room to the “magic fish tank.”

Between the end of World War II and 1955, the number of major prime-time variety programmes fell by a staggering 1,000%, and by 1954 Bing would find himself having come full circle back to where he had begun, providing 15 minute gap fillers. Network executives, who may have been contemplating the locked room and a loaded revolver, found a degree of comfort with this format and the benefit of lower production costs. The decline is only too apparent in the GE programmes. Gone was the roll call of big name guests. James Stewart wandered in twice and Frank Sinatra was heard on two shows. Jack Benny guested once and, surprisingly, Bob Hope managed only a single appearance for the annual broadcast from Fort Ord. The remainder could be classed as “friends and family,” represented by frequent visits from Rosemary Clooney and Gary and Lindsay Crosby.

Apart from Miss Clooney, a miscellany of female vocalists was pressed into service to lend a hand with the chores. Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee (yet to become legends), Kay Starr, Jane Morgan, Helen O’Connell and a dozen others took a turn at the microphone. Long time associate, violinist Joe Venuti capitalised on his inimitable catchphrase (“Is dis der place?”) and made himself available to provide regular light comedy for the first season and together with Lindsay Crosby, was in attendance for all seven of the so -called “French” programmes.

To the public, the transcribed programme was now a normality but there may still have been some questions regarding an “assembled” show. Tape recording had, by this time, reached some degree of expertise and skilful editing could produce a conversation between two parties who were miles or even days apart without any noticeable “joins.” Chunks of dialogue could be shuffled, applause added or deleted and even the most devoted listener would have been hard pressed to recognise that the song that they were hearing was the same rendition that had been broadcast two weeks previously. There is little doubt that an extensive library was built of songs by Bing, which in many cases were sold on to Decca for re -mastering as commercial issues.

In spite of shortcomings in the guest star department, the first season of General Electric kept pretty much to the formula which had sustained the Philco and Chesterfield programmes but from the September of 1953 quite sweeping changes were made. If only we could have been privy to the discussions which set out the ground rules for these shows. Did the man who fought for “Where The Blue Of The Night” in 1933 weakly succumb to the unknown piece of music that was to introduce his show? The songs and the patter hung on but the commercials were abandoned in favour of several minutes of fatuous “discussion” between Bing and Ken Carpenter, on such heavyweight subjects as Government, Communism, and Collectivism. The cry will be that this was the era of McCarthyism but the pompous cant of these creepy “seminars,” surely had no place in a light radio show. Other “discussions” included a resumé of the most recent General Electric Annual General Meeting and GE’s 75th Anniversary Share Presentation to employees’ new babies, subjects that would have had most of the radio audience reaching for a good book.

A few eyebrows were raised when Bing kicked off the opening show of his new series with Bob Merrill’s, “Feet Up (Pat Him On The Po-Po).” Since the latter part of the 19th Century, the history of the popular music has reserved a niche for so-called novelty numbers. From “Bunk-A-Doodle I Do,” through “Mairzy Doats,” to Sparky’s Magic Piano, belting out “Chopin’s Revolutionary Aytood” and there was no need to be alarmed because, as the index reveals, the seventy-five programmes demonstrated more than a hundred other songs designed to please the more discerning.