November 18, 2009
In this post, a bit of a mystery - an unnumbered and undated episode of the Armed Forces Radio series “Mail Call”.
The host of the program is Jane Nye. The King Sisters kick off the show with “Candy”. Betty Grable, Bob Hope, Humphrey Bogart and Bing Crosby appear in a sketch that parodies “The Princess and the Pirate”. The program also includes appearances by Dick Haymes, Ken Murray, Marilyn Maxell. It sounds like it’s probably an “assembled” show, with Nye’s segments recorded to introduce segments from other Armed Forces Radio programming.
The show was transferred from a unusual 14″ microgroove lacquer that sounds like a dub of an original AFRS disc and appears to date from the 1960s. Christopher McPherson donated the disc to the blog and, believe it or not, the disc came from the estate of Mae West.
Goldin lists his particular “Mail Call” episode, but I couldn’t find any other references to the show. Is the original vinyl disc still out there somewhere?
October 8, 2009
Now let’s turn back the clock to World War II with another entry in the Armed Forces Radio Network variety series, “Mail Call”, that brought the top stars from movies and radio to perform for the troops.
This is a pretty amazing little half-hour program. Program 93 features hostess Paulette Goddard introducing W.C. Fields, Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd with Edgar Bergen, Virginia O’Brien, Borrah Minnevitch and the Harmonica Rascals and the King Sisters. The announcer for the show is Don Wilson.
The program is dedicated to armed forces personnel from the State of Kentucky, so there’s something of a Kentucky Derby theme going on, at least in the program’s opening and first number by the orchestra, “Kentucky”. The King Sisters sing the War themed tune, “Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet” and the Harmonica Rascals do a wonderful arrangement of “Brazil”. (I’m a fan of the Harmonicats, so this was a real treat.)
The highlight of the show is the sketch with W.C. Fields and Edgar Bergen. They’re in rare form, with Fields and Bergen tossing in adlibs as Fields gets lost in the script.
The show was transferred from an original AFRS vinyl transcription. According to the log of the series at otrsite.com, it was recorded May 24, 1944.
By the way - do you recognize the theme the orchestra plays after the intro of Paulette Goddard? It would turn up years later as a main theme used on “The Big Show“. Was this some kind of stock cue in the music score library at NBC?
August 27, 2009
I’m in a rather lighthearted mood this week, so here’s some more comedy, this time with a World War II theme.
“Mail Call” was one of the comedy-variety series produced by Armed Forces Radio and featuring some of the top talent from Hollywood and radio. Program 58 in the series, recorded September 30, 1943 and released in November of that year, is hosted by actor Lionel Barrymore and features Harlow Wilcox with the announcing duties, taking a break from shilling Johnson’s Wax on “Fibber McGee and Molly”. Skinnay Ennis and the OTC Band kick off the show with “This is the Army, Mr. Jones” and Georgia Gibbs sings “Shoo Shoo Baby”. Dennis Day offers a seldom-heard War-themed tune and then we hear Fanny Brice and Hanley Stafford in a “Baby Snooks” sketch.
The program was transferred from an original War Department Armed Forces Radio vinyl transcription. Apologies for the digital artifacts in the file - the click reduction had to work overtime on this very scratched disc.
August 7, 2009
For you Lum and Abner fans out there, here’s a bit of an oddity.
“Melody Round-Up” was a fifteen minute country music series that took different forms in its run on the Armed Forces Radio Network. Some programs in the series were reduced versions of regional country music programs or shows by personalities like Gene Autry. Others, such as the one you’re about to hear, were more like dee-jay shows.
Program 533 in the series is hosted by Chester Lauck and Norris Goff, radio’s “Lum n’ Abner”, spinning tunes by the Riders of the Purple Sage and reading dedications to Armed Forces personnel. The first song on the show is “Following the Sun All Day”.
This previously lost episode of the series was transferred from an original AFRS vinyl transcription.
Again, my thanks to listener Michael Utz for his donation of the disc to my collection!
May 9, 2009
May 8th marks the anniversary of VE Day (or Victory in Europe Day) when the Allies accepted the surrender of the armed forces of Germany. Obviously, Armed Forces Radio had to prepare for various stages of the War and the eventual victory, so this was a special celebratory program prepared in advance of the actual end of the War in Europe.
To commemorate the event, AFRS assembled a cast of stars for song and reflection about the War and the battles still to come to end the War in the Pacific. Heard in the show are Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, The Ken Darby Singers, Frances Langford, Dinah Shore, Ginny Simms, Johnny Mercer, Judy Garland, Loretta Young, Charles Boyer, Lin Yutang, Herbert Marshall, and Bishop Fulton Sheen. Highlights of the show include Francis Langford singing “This is the Army”, Bing crooning “Praise the Lord (And Pass the Ammunition)” and Judy Garland with a bizarre medley of songs including “We’re Off to See the Wizard” with the lyrics altered to disparage Hitler(!).
The show was transferred to mp3 format from one of the more unusual AFRS discs I’ve seen. The show is part of their “Basic Information Library, and is marked as Program No. 5 in the BIL and “Information Special #2″. The disc is also marked to indicate that it is “to be retained by station after original broadcast as part of Basic Information Library”. I’m not sure how they would have reused the show unless individual stations could use extracts from it in later programming about the War.
Stay tuned to the blog for a special AFRS program commemorating VJ Day in August.
April 11, 2009
We continue our look at the work of Bing Crosby this week with what may be the most famous program on AFRS that he appeared in. It’s program 162 in the series “Command Performance”, the comic strip operetta, “Dick Tracy in B Flat”.
The once-in-a-lifetime cast includes Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, Jimmy Durante, Judy Garland, Cass Daley, Frank Sinatra, Frank Morgan, Bob Hope, Jerry Colonna, the Andrews Sisters and announcer Harry Von Zell.
There are several unusual aspects to this episode of “Command Performance”. The show was usually a half-hour and it’s not clear why they expanded it to an hour for this show that was distributed at that particular time. In fact, if you listen closely, it sounds like it may have been originally recorded as a “two-parter”, since there’s a break in the middle telling you to tune in next week. This reference falls a couple of minutes into side three of the transcription set, so I don’t think it’s there to give the local stations flexibility in programming it on their schedule.
I’d also like to know how the show originated - who came up with the idea and if it was the work primarly of one or more writers on the “Command Peformance” staff.
Our digital file was recorded directly from an original vinyl AFRS transcription set. This may be an upgrade for your collection, since at least one popular version of the recording that’s floating around in mp3 format sounds as though it was transferred from a second generation tape and was dubbed too slow, making the cast sound like they have a bad cold.
February 22, 2009
“GI Journal” was one of several shows, like “Command Performance”, recorded especially for our fighting troops during World War II. There’s the usual mix of fast paced comedy and music, but “GI Journal” loosely uses the format of the host editing a newspaper.
Program 12 in the series from October 9, 1943 features host Bing Crosby with announcer Harry Mitchell, Ish Kabibble offering poems and Arthur Q. Bryan with advice to the lovelorn, along with comedy Jerry Collonna, songs from Georgia Carroll, and John Scott Trotter and His Orchestra. Bing kicks off the show with “Thank Your Lucky Stars”. Mel Blanc plays a GI trying out for a position as a Supply Sergeant and the Mad Russian and Bing do a routine about a salvage operation.
Our mp3 was dubbed directly from an original AFRS vinyl transcription.
December 20, 2008
Originally heard on the CBS network, we offer in this post a special Christmas edition of the “Kate Smith Hour” as broadcast on AFRS, December 25, 1944.
In the show, Kate sings “When My Ship Comes In” and then we hear a sketch by the cast of “The Aldrich Family”. A highlight of the show is a stand-up routine by up and coming comic Jackie Gleason, who impersonates personalities such as Charles Laughton, Petter Lorre and Jimmy Durante and does a routine about falling in love with a jukebox. Kate wraps things up with “Ave Maria”.
Goldin lists this as “possibly” an assembled show. AFRS distributed programs to their stations on vinyl discs that had to be prepared weeks in advance, so this show may have been a mix of material from other Kate Smith programs or a previous Christmas program in the series or some type of rehearsal.
The show was transferred directly from an original AFRS vinyl transcription.
By the way, do you recognize our Santa Claus on the label? He turns up on other AFRS Christmas issues and, more recently, on the label of one of the Uncle Remus discs featured in the blog last week. It’s an early example of “clip art”, I suppose.
December 6, 2008
Continuing our look at the rare early 50s sitcom, “My Son Jeep”, we offer in this post episode 2 of the series as broadcast on AFRTS, probably originally heard on NBC on February 1, 1953. Jeep has the measles and plots a way he can still play with his friends while being cooped up in the house. The show stars Donald Cook and Martin Houston.
The program, which appears to have been previously lost and not in circulation, was transferred directly from an AFRTS vinyl transcription.
November 22, 2008
“My Son Jeep” appears to be a “lost” series with perhaps only one episode floating around old time radio circles. I hope to correct that with a half-dozen examples of the program in coming weeks.
The show is a lighthearted family comedy in the vein of radio’s “Father Knows Best” about a widow, Doctor Robert Allison or “Pop”, his mischievous ten year old son, “Jeep”, and his 13 year old daughter, Peggy. The series was originally broadcast on NBC radio and television in 1953 as a half-hour sitcom; it would return to radio on CBS in 1955-56 in a 15 minute format. Donald Cook plays “Pop” and Martin Houston stars as “Jeep”.
This week, we present the first program of the series, originally broadcast January 25, 1953 on NBC. In this episode, Jeep is smitten with a new substitute teacher at school, Mrs. Miller, eventually convincing Pop to hire her as an assistant in his office. Of course, with Jeep things are never really that simple and Pop has to straighten out a mess before the happy ending. The series is a good example of the 1950s trend towards more “Americana”, “slice of life” comedy on radio and television and away from the “one liner” topical urban humor of shows like Jack Benny or Fred Allen.
One distinctive feature of this disc is the collection of music cues at the end. Often, AFRS would use a specially recorded version of the series theme song to fill out time at then of the show since the commercials were deleted. “My Son Jeep” seems to have used a collection of library music cues rather than a specially recorded music, so AFRS just edited the cues together to fill out the time. (Trust me, if you listen to all six shows I’ll be posting, you’ll get very familiar with them.)
The show was transferred from a set of vinyl AFRS transcription in near mint condition.
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