August 20, 2009
Note: The attached pdf file contains racial stereotyping themes that may be offensive to some blog readers.
“Lone Wolf Tribe” was a juvenile series that ran on CBS for one or two seasons, circa 1932-33, three days a week. The show followed the adventures of Wolf Paw and his Indian tribe. I haven’t found out much about the program, except for a page on a collectors site that talks about premiums offered in conjunction with the program.
In this post, “The Tribe Book of the Lone Wolf”, a pdf file of a booklet offered to listeners of the show. It includes secret signs and picture writing you should only share with the members of your tribe, some info on Native American lore (at least the way that Madison Avenue imagined it), the Wolf Tribe credo, and, most importantly, a catalog of fine “Indian things” you can get by trading “wampum” (ie, Wrigley’s Chewing Gum wrappers).
Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any surviving episodes of the series. Anyone have additional info to offer about it?
The pdf file, linked on the ebook icon below the post, is about 1.8 MB and runs 28 pages.
July 24, 2009
“The Story Princess” was a series created by Alene Dalton for a local Salt Lake City radio station in the early 1950s. She left for New York in 1953 and the program appears to have been picked up by the ABC network. It’s shown as being carried on WABC in this program log. In digging around the web, I’ve run into some merchandising associated with the show, including one or more books with a “Story Princess” theme and toys associated with the program.
In this entry, program 2 in the “Story Princess” series as broadcast by the Armed Forces Radio and Television Network. In this previously lost program, the Story Princess performs “Snow White” and we also hear a Little Orley story where he gets himself a cricket. The show is dated July 25, 1958 in the matrix of the disc and was probably carried on ABC.
I warn you - this may be a previously undocumented old time radio series and that can be exciting, but the program itself is quite dreadful. Everything about is canned, prerecorded, and prepackaged, even down to the chatter of the kids. Perhaps earlier efforts by the Story Princess broadcast during radio’s better days had a little more life about them.
Any one else heard another episode of this show or seen anything else about the series?
The program was transferred from an original AFRTS vinyl microgroove transcription.
Update, 7/25/09 - See Jim B’s remarks in the comments section. He found an article from the Long Beach Independent dated October 4, 1958 where the show premiered on KABC. He also notes the last show on the station was March 5, 1960 and has some other information on Alene Dalton.
July 18, 2009
Here’s the last program I have in the popular cowboy adventure series, “Hopalong Cassidy”. Program 23 in the series is “Death Paints a Picture”, recorded November 16, 1948, according to otrsite.com. Hopalong investigates the mysterious disappearance of two men - an artist visiting a local rance and the foreman that went to look for him.
The show was digitized from an original red vinyl Commodore Productions and Artists, Inc transcription disc set, matrix numbers V-2164-23-1-R and V-2164-23-2-R.
A special tip of the hat to GL Mercer for his donation of the Hopalong Cassidy discs to my collection. Mercer puts together a “multimedia” Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio as a set of cds that includes information on series, such as logs and photos, and examples of programs in mp3 format. You can email him at goldenotrmp3@hotmail.com for more info on the set.
December 11, 2008
We come to the end of our collection of programs in the series “Falstaff’s Fables”, broadcast circa November 1950 on the ABC radio network and featuring Alan Reed.
Program 51 of the series is “The Tale of The Engine and the Pullman Car” and, as usual, includes Alan Reed, Jr. to help with the story. The show is sponsored by Milky Way candy bars.
The transfer was directly from an original ABC radio acetate.
December 6, 2008
Note: This program contains racial stereotyping themes that may be offensive to some listeners.
Continuing with our look at “Uncle Remus”, here’s program 2 in the series, “The Tar Baby”.
As we mentioned in the last post, this series was syndicated in late 1947 for the holidays and featured Jimmy Scribner, a Black-dialect actor and comedian, who played all the roles in the show (except the children, of course). The story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby is probably the most well-known of the Uncle Remus folk tales, forming one of the major animated sequences in Disney’s film adaptation of the stores, “Song of the South” released during the same time period as this radio series.
The show was transferred from an original Cardinal vinyl transcription, matrix number CAR-A-732.
Note: This program contains racial stereotyping themes that may be offensive to some listeners.
Today, we begin a series of posts devoted to holiday-themed old time radio programs that will go on the blog/podcast through the month of December.
First up, two very rare shows from the series “Uncle Remus”. The series was syndicated by Cardinal beginning with the 1947 Christmas season and was designed to be run five days a week through the holidays.
The program features Jimmy Scribner, a well known actor who created, scripted and acted all the parts in the Black-dialect soap opera, “The Johnson Family”. (You can hear a sample episode of “The Johnson Family” here.) Scribner even tried a trial run of the show on a Los Angeles television station in the 1940s.
In “Uncle Remus”, Scribner tackles the classic African-American Uncle Remus folk tales, playing all the roles in the show. Some programs in the series have a story with a holiday theme and others don’t, but all featured a framing device of children getting ready for Christmas and hearing Uncle Remus tell stories.
Documentation on the show is a bit slim - R.R. King on the otr mailing list dug up several newspaper ads from around the country when the show was first run. After the initial run, it appears that the show’s titled was changed to “Sleepy Joe” and these later programs show up at sites like archive.org, sometimes under the “Uncle Remus” name. The re-recording of the show and name change may have occurred because of Disney’s “South of the South”, which was playing in theaters in 1946-47, or due to other local or regional radio shows featuring the Remus stories, but that’s simply conjecture on my part. Scribner did a television version of “Sleepy Joe” around 1950.
“Mud Pies” was transferred from an acetate dub of one of the original transcription discs. The origins of this dub are obscure - perhaps it was created as a replacement for a disc that was lost or damaged by one of the stations that purchased the “Uncle Remus” package.
We’re almost at the end of our run of “Falstaff’s Fables”, a short five-minute program featuring Alan Reed as “Falstaff Openshaw”, a character originally created for Fred Allen’s program.
Originally broadcast in November 1950 on ABC radio, Program 50 in the series is the story of “The Brave Little Tailor”. As usual, the show is sponsored by Milky Way candy bars and also features Alan Reed, Jr.
The program was transferred from an original ABC radio acetate.
November 22, 2008
Continuing our look at “Falstaff’s Fables”, a short five minute program featuring the character Falstaff Openshaw that was created for the “Fred Allen Show”, we offer up program 49 in the series.
In this episode, Alan Reed as Falstaff, along with Alan Reed, Jr., tell us all about the origins of why we have turkey on Thanksgiving. The show was originally broadcast on ABC radio in November, 1950 and sponsored by Milky Way candy bars.
The transfer is direct from an ABC acetate of the program.
November 17, 2008
Once again, we visit poet Falstaff Openshaw with another edition of “Falstaff’s Fables, a series broadcast in 1950 on ABC sponsored by Milky Way candy bars and based on a character created for the Fred Allen Show.
In program 48 of the series, probably broadcast November 1950, Falstaff and Falstaff Jr (real life father and son Alan Reed and Alan Reed, Jr.) tell the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin.
The program was transferred from an original ABC radio acetate.
November 10, 2008
Here’s another episode of the previously lost five-minute series “Falstaff’s Fables”, a program featuring Alan Reed as poet Falstaff Openshaw, a character he portrayed on the “Fred Allen Show”.
Program 47 of the series, probably originally broadcast on ABC in November 1950, is “The Story of Pecos Percey” and, as usual, is sponsored by Milky Way candy bars.
The show was transferred from an original ABC radio acetate.
