Episodes
Saturday Mar 27, 2010
Down Our street - January 21, 1948
Saturday Mar 27, 2010
Saturday Mar 27, 2010
Well, here's another one of those local programs from 1947-48 I've been posting periodically over the past few months. They're from a set of lacquers that I think originated from a competition from that year for local radio programming.
"Down Our Street" is an entry from WXYZ, Detroit. The series featured "Gramps and Betty" telling stories "from life" of average folks in the Detroit area. This particular episode, dated January 21, 1948, dramatizes the story of a War hero, Audley Norton. Fred Foy is your announcer. The transfer is from original WXYZ, Detroit/American Broadcasting Company laquer transcription and the show appears to be previously lost/uncirculated.
Sunday Mar 21, 2010
WHB - Voices from the Air - 1925
Sunday Mar 21, 2010
Sunday Mar 21, 2010
Here's a little mystery disc I'm posting to the blog in the hope that someone can give us an idea of what we're listening to. I recently won the disc in an auction and the seller didn't offer any further information about it or its origins. The disc is a 10" 78 rpm one-sided lacquer with a label from WHB Kansas City. Typed on the label is "Voices from the Air "Re Recorded" - 1925".
The record, which has rather poor sound quality, includes various announcers giving station ids and sign offs. First, we hear Bill Hay, KFKX of Hastings, Nebraska; someone from WSB, owned by the Atlanta-Journal; WBAP, the Fort-Worth Star Telegram; and finally WHB, Kansas City. In the WHB id, they mention they're broadcasting from the "convention hall during the electrical and radio show" and that the regular programs of WHB and WDAF were originating from the convention that week, along with some information on tomorrow's program. Is this a genuine aircheck from a special broadcast in 1925, perhaps where there was a special multi-station hookup put in place? Is it a recording not recorded from the air, but from the convention, where announcers were giving the crowd and listeners on WHB an idea of what their station ids sounded like at the time? Or is it something else? If this is a genuine aircheck or a record from an early radio convention, it's certainly a unique bit of radio history. Elizabeth McLeod has a fascinating set of pages on "Documenting Early Radio", noting very few surviving airchecks or recordings of programs from that era. Most were experimental recordings of special events or tests done by Western Electric and Victor. I'm guessing this could be a dub, perhaps made in the 40s, from an original cylinder or disc recording made off the air or at the convention. Remote or off-air recording was cumbersome, but possible, in the 1920s; the material could have been captured on a home cylinder recording device or perhaps some equipment that was brought in specifically for the convention. Note the distance and primitive sound of the recording, which seems to have the ambiance of an event in a large hall, and how the information seems to be very specific to the event. Since the dub was found on an original WHB lacquer, it would make sense that the original recording was owned by the station or someone associated with the station, and would have had some significance to the station's history. And that does sound like Bill Hay. So, I think it's likely a genuine 20s era recording of the convention or broadcast and not a later recreation. I've done digging at the Google News archives, which includes items from the New York Times and ProQuest, but haven't found any article specifically mentioning a "radio and electrical show" from 1925 in Kansas. There were several exhibitions in different cities - Hartford in 1924 and Chicago and New York in different years in the 1920s. I did find some references to KFKX serving mid-West listeners with farm reports; it was moved to Chicago in 1927. Some simple networks and experiments with remote broadcasts were heard at the time, particularly the Democratic Convention and National Defense Day broadcasts in 1924 and the Cooledge inauguration in early 1925. I also found this curious little excerpt at archive.org of "The Rape of Radio", a book published in 1941 by Robert West, Director of the Radio Arts Guild of America:"Bill Hay, the perennial Amos 'n' Andy announcer, once taught piano and ran a radio store. For two years he read and announced his own program, with potato sacks for sound-proofing and open windows to admit the air on the now extinct KFKX of Hastings, Nebraska."Potato sacks for sound-proofing? That certainly sounds like early radio. Or a dot-com start-up company. So what do you think about the recording? Please feel free to leave your comments with your own ideas and any info you might run into. update, 03.21.2010 Elizabeth McLeod quickly wrote in on the disc, as she's familiar with it. The original is a New Flexo disc, a flexible celluliod record from the 1920s that was used for advertising.
"It's a dub of a souvenir recording made at the trade show -- all of those announcers were there in person and took their turns recreating their traditional station IDs. It was a gathering of mostly Southern and Western broadcasters of the sort that was very common in the mid-twenties. I don't have a specific date, but I imagine you'd find it mentioned in Radio Digest that summer. "The WSB announcer is Lamdin Kay, who was one of the most famous radio personalities in the country at the time, and the first to use chimes as a station id signal. The Texas station is WBAP in Fort Worth. "Bill Hay indeed started his radio career at KFKX, which was in the same building as the piano company where he'd worked as a salesman."Thanks Elizabeth!
Tuesday Mar 02, 2010
Night Court Quiz - January 21, 1948
Tuesday Mar 02, 2010
Tuesday Mar 02, 2010
Return with us now to those thrilling days ... of traffic court. I'm proud to present a previously unheard program from a forgotten local series with a famous voice you're sure to recognize. "Night Court Quiz" was a local show broadcast on WXYZ, Detroit. The producers of the program pulled people from night court and got them to participate in a quiz about traffic laws and safety to win money to pay off their traffic tickets. The program was mentioned briefly in a Billboard magazine article in 1947, noting that the show premiered April 26th and was produced in conjunction with the Detroit Free Press.
WXYZ, you may recall, was the home of some classic old time radio series such as "The Lone Ranger" and "The Green Hornet". Our host for "Night Court Quiz" is none other than announcer Fred Foy who provided the well-remembered signature opening lines of "The Lone Ranger" on radio and television. This episode of the series is dated January 21, 1948 and was transferred from an original American Broadcasting Company/WXYZ lacquer dub transcription. The program was previously lost/uncirculated. The disc came from a small group of local programs from various stations from December 1947 and January 1948 that, I believe, were involved in some type of awards competition. We previously heard "The Sandlotters" from WXYZ from this group; I'll be posting more in the coming weeks. By the way - anyone else notice all the radio shows and public service announcements about traffic and highway safety in the late 40s and early 50s, (like the episode of "Suspense" with James Cagney, which is one long traffic safety psa)? Returning GIs must have been hell on wheels when they got back from the War!
Friday Feb 05, 2010
Good Morning, It's Knight - Sales brochure
Friday Feb 05, 2010
Friday Feb 05, 2010
I have a few pieces of old time radio memorabilia in my collection, so here's another non-audio bit of otr for you to enjoy. This is a sales brochure for "Good Morning, It's Knight", a program originating at WJZ in New York. It tells an unusual story about a contest promotion on the show that has to do with Paul Whiteman, a rooster, and picketing women from the Hollywood Model School.
WJZ was the flagship station for the Blue Network of the National Broadcasting Company until the formation of ABC in the mid-1940s. WJZ changed its call sign to WABC in 1953. (WJZ is currently the name of a Baltimore radio station.) The brochure is undated, but is likely from around 1947 - the dates mentioned for the contest match up to a 1946 calendar.
Friday Feb 05, 2010
The Sandlotters - January 21, 1948
Friday Feb 05, 2010
Friday Feb 05, 2010
Periodically over the next few months, I'll be posting some curious local shows that came to me in a single group of laquers. These all date from December, 1947 and January, 1948 from different stations around the country, so I think they may have been entries in some type of competition for an award or connected with some other event. The first disc in this set, "Mystery Castle", a local kid's show from Ohio was posted last month on the blog.
In this post, we hear a curious little sports program from WXYZ, Detroit, "The Sandlotters". This episode was broadcast January 21, 1948; the show includes local scores and a short drama about a sportsman's unusual war experience. The show includes commercials for a Detroit-area lumber company. The show was transferred from an original American Broadcasting Company/WXYZ lacquer dub transcription. It appears to be a previously lost/uncircualted show.
Thursday Dec 24, 2009
Virginia War Memorial Carillon - December 25, 1949
Thursday Dec 24, 2009
Thursday Dec 24, 2009
Here's a rather unusual transcription produced by WRVA, Roanoke, Virginia. The disc features a quarter-hour program of holiday music played on the Virginia War Memorial Carillon, constructed as a memorial to Virginians that served in World War I.
The program appears to have been distributed to stations in Virginia for broadcast December 25, 1949. The flip side of the disc features a program of music for broadcast on November 11, 1949 for Veteran's Day. The show was transferred from an original WRVA red vinyl transcription. The sound has been run through click reduction software to improve the sound since the disc had been stored without a sleeve for many years. Thanks to Michael Utz for his donation of this unusual disc to my collection.
Thursday Dec 10, 2009
Mystery Castle - Pgm 9
Thursday Dec 10, 2009
Thursday Dec 10, 2009
And now a special piece of local old time radio history, previously unheard since it was originally broadcast. I posted to a couple of mailing lists about the show, but couldn't turn up any more info on it, so what I have here is based on the disc itself.
"Mystery Castle" was a local serial adventure show from WKBN in Youngstown, Ohio. Run during the holiday season, and probably inspired by the success of "The Cinnamon Bear", the program follows the adventures of a boy and girl in an enchanted forest as they try to figure out "mystery packages" hidden around the forest. The show was sponsored by a local department store, Stambaugh Thompsons, and if you were a young listener you were encouraged to have mom and dad take you down to the store to buy your own "Mystery Package" (for only 25 cents!) that you can open as you follow the program. The store also had displays featuring characters from the show. Episode 9 of the series has Happy and Ronny stealing a special key from Santa that they hope will open one of the mystery packages in the castle. It includes the original Stambaugh Thompsons commercials at the beginning and end of the program. The show was written by Ellamae Casteel, produced and directed by Chick Lynn and the sound effects were by Howard Rampus. There's no date on the label, but a sharp-eyed listener to the blog spotted entries for the show in the WKBN schedule listings in the Massilon, Ohio Evening Independent showing that the series ran in December 1947. Jay Hickerson noted that Clay Cole, host of an influential New York rock and roll tv show in the late 50s and early 60s, mentions in his autobiography being part of the cast of the program when he was a child. WKBN, according to Wikipedia, was founded in 1926 by Warren P. Williamson, Jr. and was Youngstown's first radio station. Early on, the station became an affiliate of the CBS radio network and remained so until the station was sold by the Williamson family in 1999. Currently, WKBN is one of many stations owned by Clear Channel Communications. Our program was transferred from an original lacquer transcription from WKBN, Youngstown, Ohio. The show is previously uncirculated among otr collectors and appears to be the only surviving episode of the series. Update: See the comments for detailed info on the show from readers of the blog. The local paper in Youngstown, the Vindicator, has made a post on their blog seeing if any locals remember the show and looking for more info.Thursday Oct 29, 2009
Hollywood Bowl - Pgm 78
Thursday Oct 29, 2009
Thursday Oct 29, 2009
Here's a rare treat with a Halloween theme - some music composed especially for the spooky season. It's a concert from the "Hollywood Bowl", distributed as Program 78 in the series when it was broadcast on the Armed Forces Radio Service. According to Jim Hiliker of Monterey, California on the OTR mailing list, KFI locally broadcast the Hollywood Bowl concerts in the 30s and 40s, so the show probably originated at KFI.
A Mario Lanza website dates this particular show to July 24, 1948. It's "MGM Night", so we hear various musicians and personalities under contract to the studio. The orchestra is conducted by Miklos Rozsa and we hear Mario Lanza, very early in his Hollywood career, and Kathryn Grayson doing the vocal duties. The program opens with the overture to the "Bartered Bride" and we hear works by Puccini and Victor Herbert. The highlight of the show is "The Halloween Suite" composed by none other than actor Lionel Barrymore, who also provides narration for the piece. This "Time" magazine article from 1944, notes that Barrymore had composed hundreds of works in the since the turn of the century, a side of the famous actor not as well known as his work on the screen. The show was transferred from an original undated AFRS vinyl transcription set and appears to be uncommon or uncirculated among old time radio enthusiasts. updated 11.3.2009: Corrected spelling of "Miklos Rozsa".
Friday Jul 31, 2009
WRAK Quiz Kids - October 12, 1948
Friday Jul 31, 2009
Friday Jul 31, 2009
The "Quiz Kids" was a popular NBC radio series that ran from 1940 to 1953 and featured a panelist of children with high IQs answering questions sent in by listeners . What you might not realize is that there was more than one "Quiz Kids" series on radio.
NBC ran promotions where local stations staged their own "Quiz Kids" programs, with winners on the local editions winning a chance to compete on the network series. In this post, the first program in the series "WRAK Quiz Kids", originally broadcast October 12, 1948. The station was located in Williamsport, Pennsylvania and the show is sponsored by the Lundey Paint Store. The program was transferred from an original vinyl transcription, possibly pressed as a demonstration disc for sponsors or for local stations as an example to follow in their own "Quiz Kids" promotions. Matrix numbers are matrix 8980A1 and 8981A1. I've based the date on some internal references in the show.
Wednesday Jul 01, 2009
KGW, Portland - Apple Picking Contest - circa late 1940s
Wednesday Jul 01, 2009
Wednesday Jul 01, 2009
What could be more American on July 4th than apple pie? In this post, we continue our peek into some local programming from NBC affiliate KGW, Portland with the Hood River Valley Apple Picking Contest. The show looks at a local apple picking contest staged at Vic Thompson's Orchards near Mount Hood, Oregon. The announcer describes the contest, which went on for a couple of days, and interviews some of the individuals participating as we listen in on the last few minutes of the contest and find out who won. We even get to hear the "snap" of the apples as they're picked off the vine. There's no label or date on the disc, but it would seem to be from the late 1940s or early 1950s since it mentions that the show is being brought to us via a wire recording. Now you can tell all your friends you heard an apple picking contest on the radio.