Episodes
Saturday Mar 04, 2017
Fishing and Hunting Club - August 2, 1949 - Part 1
Saturday Mar 04, 2017
Saturday Mar 04, 2017
Here’s the final post I have from the obscure Mutual series “Your Fishing and Hunting Club”. You can read more about the program in my original post about the series.
In the episode of August 2, 1949, the panel takes on topics including methods for preparing fish, what kind of a fly line is best for casting a bass bug, differences between different kinds of shot, and how to break a hound from eating rabbits. The program was sponsored by Mail Pouch tobacco, who offered prizes to listeners that sent in questions used on the program. Featured on the program are author Dave Newell, Jim Hurley from the NY Daily News, hunter and fisherman Gail Borden, sportsman Jeff Bryant, and moderator Bill Slater.Your announcer is Bud Collier.
This mp3 was dubbed from an original 16” Audiodisc lacquer from WHBC in Canton, Ohio, probably created to time-shift the program on the station’s schedule. Only the first fifteen minutes survive of this previously lost program.
Wednesday Feb 22, 2017
Basketball - WHBC Lehman v Lincoln January 9, 1948 - excerpt
Wednesday Feb 22, 2017
Wednesday Feb 22, 2017
Here’s another rare local sports broadcast transferred from a set of “throw away” lacquers that originally came form WHBC in Canton, Ohio.
In this post, you’ll hear part one of a basketball game between Lehman and Lincoln High Schools in Canton, Ohio. (Both high schools, by the way, were turned into junior high schools in the mid-70s because of low enrollments.) Like the basketball game we heard in the blog last week, this broadcast is sponsored by Sugardale Meats.
This fifteen minute excerpt of the show was transferred direct from an original sixteen inch lacquer Audiodisc transcription. That’s the last of the local sports events I have from WHBC.
Thursday Feb 09, 2017
Basketball - Canton vs Central Catholic - January 1948 - excerpts
Thursday Feb 09, 2017
Thursday Feb 09, 2017
We continue our look at some rare local previously lost radio programming transferred from a set of “throw away” lacquers that originally came from WHBC in Canton, Ohio.
This post features a half-hour excerpt of a local high school basketball game between Canton Township Wildcats and Central Catholic. You’ll hear the opening of the game - part one of the set - and then part five, near the very end of the game. It was a very close match-up and, unfortunately, we don’t have part six with the last few minutes of the game to find out who won. Jim Monte Jim Muzzy does the play by play and the game is sponsored by Sugardale meats, which still doing business in Ohio.
Programming of this type is quite rare - I can’t recall another local high school basketball game floating around among old time radio collectors, but there may be some other excerpts that exist. I imagine that most local high school and college sports events were aired live - this one only survives because it was presented transcribed.
Our mp3 was transferred from two Audiodisc sixteen lacquers. The grease pencil writing on the disc is a little obscured - the date looks like sometime January 1948. Someone could probably track down the specific date and the final score in a local Canton newspaper archives.
Thursday Jan 26, 2017
Fishing and Hunting Club - July 7, 1949 - part two
Thursday Jan 26, 2017
Thursday Jan 26, 2017
We continue our look at the obscure Mutual series, “Your Fishing and Hunting Club of the Air” that was originally heard in the late 40s and early 50s. Our panelists once again answer questions from listeners about hunting and fishing and offer nifty prizes to listeners that have their questions read on the air.
This post features the second half of the program of July 7, 1949. Some of the questions answered by the panel include who owns the fish and game on private property or public lands, rechambering a Japanese gun for American ammunition, and whether bass in one lake prefer one type of lure over another. Once again, Bud Collyer handles the announcing duties and the Mail Pouch tobacco ads.
This excerpt was transferred directly from a 16” Audiodisc lacquer recorded at WHBC, Akron, Ohio from the network line, probably for time-shifting.
Thursday Jan 12, 2017
Fishing and Hunting Club - June 28, 1949
Thursday Jan 12, 2017
Thursday Jan 12, 2017
In this post, the first in a group of several network line checks from a radio station in Akron, Ohio, apparently recorded for time shifting purposes.
“Your Fishing and Hunting Club of the Air” is an obscure series that ran on Mutual in the late 40s and early 50s, sponsored by Mail Pouch tobacco. The idea behind the show is that listeners send in postcards with questions about hunting and fishing and, if they’re answered on the air by the panel of experts, the listener gets some prizes related to the sport.
This episode includes questions about casting fishing lines, the effect of wind on lead shot, and how large minnows grow. The panel includes Florida author Dave M. Newell, Jim Hurly of the "NY Daily Mirror", Gail(?) Borden, Jeff Bryant and the host, Bill Slater. The announcer for the show is Bud Collyer, apparently in between assignments from the “Daily Planet” in his role as radio’s Superman.
The show was transferred to mp3 direct from a 16” Audiodisc lacquer recorded at WHBC, Akron, Ohio. It includes the Mutual id at the end of the program.
I’ll have parts of more “Fishing and Hunting Club” episodes and other Mutual and ABC shows recorded by this station, as well as some local programming, in future posts.
Thursday May 03, 2012
Sheboygan Red Skins versus Oshkosh All-Stars - March 17, 1946 - excerpt
Thursday May 03, 2012
Thursday May 03, 2012
Next up on the blog, an aircheck of a National Basketball League game between the Sheboygan Red Skins and the Oshkosh All-Stars heard on March 17, 1946. The recording features the last ten minutes of the game recorded from WHBL, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and includes a commercial for Friendly Finance with various locations throughout Wisconsin. You can read an article about the game from the Milwaukee Sentinel here. The National Basketball League was formed in 1937 and would merge with the Basketball Association of America in 1949 to become the National Basketball Association. The NBL was concentrated in the midwest and the league featured corporate sponsored teams. The League is also notable for helping to break down racial barriers in sports, adding African-American players during the 1942-43 season. I've not researched otr era sports recordings in depth, but have an impression that recordings of professional basketball are fairly rare. This mp3 was dubbed directly from a home recorded 10" unlabeled lacquer that ran at 33.3 rpm. In the next post, we hear a little something from the other side of the disc.
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.
Friday Jan 22, 2010
Colgate Sports Newsreel - January 9, 1948
Friday Jan 22, 2010
Friday Jan 22, 2010
If you've ever seen the Woody Allen comedy "Radio Days", you've seen a great parody Bill Stern and his shtick - it's so great, in fact, that it's not far from the style of the actual Bill Stern. If you've never heard Bill Stern before, you're in for an old time radio treat.
Mixing pathos and ballyhoo in his nightly fifteen minute sports show, the "Colgate Sports Newsreel", Stern told dramatic sports-themed "Believe It or Not" stories dripping with irony and strange plot twists. Stern was a unique personality with a long career that started with local radio in the 1920s and extended into the television era - probably half of the sports commentators out there today are trying to emulate Stern's sense of on-air drama. In this post we hear the January 9, 1948 edition of the "Colgate Sports Newsreel" originally broadcast on NBC and sponsored by Colgate shaving cream. Stern tells the story of the writing of "On the Sunny Side of the Street" that has a connection to a famous sportsman. Composer Jimmy McHugh and entertainer Eddie Cantor drop by and talk about a Hollywood sports charity and the famous stars who have been athletes themselves. The show that week was broadcast from Hollywood. Our transcription is an original lacquer line check recorded by WHO in Des Moines, Iowa, and the master file was run through some click reduction software to improve the sound. Isn't that a neato custom label that WHO had for their transcriptions?
Friday Sep 25, 2009
Grantland Rice Story - Pgm GRS-1
Friday Sep 25, 2009
Friday Sep 25, 2009
Since it looks like "Grantland Rice Story" and "American Family Robinson" were fairly close in the poll, I'll be running episodes of both series each week in the blog.
I hope you like "The Grantland Rice Story" because it's going to be a long haul - I have all 52 episodes of the series. It might remind you a bit of "The Passing Parade", with its simple setup of a narrator guiding us through interesting personal and professional stories of the famous and not-so-famous. The program was syndicated by Thesaurus, a division of RCA that initially produced music library discs for stations then later expanded into syndicated programming. "The Grantland Rice Story" was one of eight series released for syndication the first week of May, 1955 by Thesaurus during their 20th anniversary (you can see a "Billboard" magazine article about the release here). My particular set came from a station in the southwest that started broadcasting the program weekly on September 17, 1955, noting the date of each broadcast inside the album box cover. Hosted by Jimmy Powers, the show focuses on the life of the "Dean of the Sportswriters", Grantland Rice, and was based on Rice's autobiography, "The Tumult and the Shouting". Powers reads from the autobiography and, on some shows, major sports and newspaper figures drop by to comment on the story or offer memories of Rice, who knew just about every major sports figure during his long career that extended from the 1920s until his death a few months before this series was recorded. Powers was a well-known sports writer in his own right, serving as the sports editor of the "Daily News". He was also the announcer for NBC's Friday night fights all through the 1950s. Program GRS-1 is titled "Beginning at the Beginning", where Jimmy tells us about the series and reads from sections of Granny Rice's autobiography on his early life and the start of his newspaper career. The show was transferred from an original RCA Thesaurus 12" vinyl transcription, matrix number F7-MR-5048-1. The matrix numbers used on the discs, beginning with "F" and "G" indicate the program was recorded and mastered in 1955 and 1956.Friday Jan 02, 2009
My Son Jeep - Pgm 7
Friday Jan 02, 2009
Friday Jan 02, 2009
This week, our next to last episode of the rare 1950s radio sitcom, "My Son Jeep". Program 7, as broadcast on the Armed Forces Radio Service, deals with Jeep seeing an ad for a physique building course, sort of like one of those Charles Atlas ads in the comic books, and deciding he's going to become a bodybuilder. The program was originally broadcast on NBC, probably around March, 1953; it appears to be a "lost" episode of the series.
The show is interesting for a look at the popular stereotypes of bodybuilders at the time, which associated them more with circus strongmen than the modern conception we have today of someone like Steve Reeves or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Our mp3 was transferred directly from an original set of vinyl AFRS transcriptions. I've got one more show in the series due up next week from an original NBC reference acetate.