rand’s esoteric otr

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?

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I recently obtained a few rare episodes of this rare comedy-variety series with the Incomprable Hildegarde.  In this post, we give a spin to program 17 in the series as it was heard on the Armed Forces Radio Network.  The show was originally broadcast as “The Raleigh Room” on May 15, 1945 on NBC.

Hildegarde’s first song on the show is “Who?”.  Patsy Kelly tries to get a date with Xavier Cugat and Clifton Webb gives her some advice, putting in a few plugs for his new movie, “Laura”.  Hildegarde and Cugat sing “Take It Easy”, with lyrics making fun of Patsy’s man-chasing.  In the cast are Hildegarde, Patsy Kelly, guests Xavier Cugat and Clifton Webb, and Harry Sosnik and His Orchestra.

The show was transferred from original AFRS vinyl transcription, matrix numbers HD5-MM-7476-1 and HD5-MM-7477-1, probably pressed by RCA.  Date is also on the transcription matrix.

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Note:  This program contains racial stereotyping themes that may be offensive to some listeners.

This week, I’m starting a series of posts of “Pick and Pat”, a rare variety show featuring two blackface performers.  These programs, unheard since they were originally broadcast, come from a series of aircheck lacquers I recently obtained.  Except for one program, the shows are incomplete.  I’m still working on transferring and restoring the discs, so I’m not sure how many I will be able to offer here since the discs are in bad shape and starting to deteriorate.

The episode of May 31, 1937 includes routines where Pat plays the harmonica and the pair do a sketch playing Indians selling the island of Manhattan.  The latter includes some jokes about the stock market crash and Depression and, with two Irish vaudeville comedians in Blackface playing Native Americans, considerable cognitive dissonance about race that might make your head explode if you try to analyze it too much.  The show features music by vocalist Edward Roecker and an orchestra led by Benny Krueger, including “That Old Gang of Mine” with a recitation.  The series was sponsored by the U.S. Tobacco Company to promote Model and Dill’s Best pipe tobaccos.

According to Dunning’s “Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio”, Pick Padgett and Pat Malone were Irishmen who teamed up in 1929 as Molasses and January and worked regularly under that name on the “Maxell House Show Boat” program.  They were heard on radio in their own series on NBC from 1934-35, CBS from 1935-39, Mutual in 1944 and ABC in 1945.  You can see a picture of Pick and Pat and read an interview with Pick Padget from the St. Petersburg, Florida Evening Independent of June 16, 1933.

These discs were made for the producer of the program, Frank MacMahon, and each show was recorded on 16″ lacquers in three parts.  In the case of this particular episode, the second disc is missing, so you’ll hear a fade-out in the middle of the show before we continue with the third part.  The discs also preserved a bit of the shows on the air that evening before and after “Pick and Pat”; this set includes the last minute or so of the “Ted Weems” show, a special announcement by the WABC announcer on how to get tickets for the program, and, at the end, the WABC station id and opening of “Lux Radio Theater”.

The show was transferred directly from an original WABC lacquer aircheck made by the National Recording Company, New York.  The file has been run through click reduction software to improve the sound.  Note that the sound levels vary during the show.

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The last great hurrah of big scale old time radio variety programs was NBC’s “The Big Show“.  No expense was spared as a parade of big stars were brought before the microphone each week for ninety minutes of music, comedy and dramatic sketches hosted by Tallulah Bankhead.  It couldn’t compete with television and NBC sunk a bundle of cash into the show, but it was an amazing listen while it lasted.

There are several episodes missing from the series and this week we hear at least part of one of those lost programs.  Armed Forces Radio carried “The Big Show” in a thirty minute condensed version, a kind of “Reader’s Digest” approach to the show.  Program 31 in the series as carried by AFRS and originally broadcast by NBC on October 28, 1951 includes guests Jimmy Durante, Jack Carson and James and Pamela Mason.  Jack Carson chats with Tallulah about all the Broadway shows that he missed chances to star in.  James and Pamela Mason appear in a dramatic sketch, “Revenge” and Tallulah, Durante and Carson stage their own version of it.  Otrsite notes that the full program also featured The Ink Spots, Ed Gardner, and Dorothy Sarnoff.

The program was transferred directly from an original AFRS vinyl transcription.  The file has been run through some click reduction software to take away some of the ravages of time, a kind of audio facelift that Tallulah might crack some good jokes about.

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This week, we start a brief run of a comedy variety series, “Hollywood’s Open House” that I’ll be featuring in the blog on occasion in coming weeks.  Hosted by Jim Ameche, the program might remind you a bit of “The Big Show” - a mix of comedy, music and dramatic sketches.

Program 30 in the series features guests Jan Murray, Phil Regan and Adele Astaire.  Regan and Astaire are heard in a little drama called “Interlude in Central Park”.

There’s a log of the series at otrsite.com that notes it was syndicated by NBC in 1947 and 48.  However, I’ve found discs for series on NBC/RCA’s Orthacoustic label and, like this example, on the Columbia label.  Our episode was transferred from an original vinyl Kermit Raymond Corporation syndication transcription pressed by Columbia, matrix numbers YTNY-5895 and YTNY-5896.

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It’s been awhile seen we heard from singer, comedian and “Jack Benny Show” cast member Dennis Day on the blog.  Here, we offer up another rare example of a comedy variety show featuring Dennis that was broadcast in the mid-1950s, probably on NBC (according to Goldin).

The program was likely heard September 18, 1955 (the date on the AFRTS transcription vinyl trail-off) and was distributed as program 198 in the “Dennis Day” series.  Dennis starts off the show with a rendition of “April Showers” and Mel Blanc, a regular guest on the series, performs “The Pussy Cat Parade”.  Also, guest Anna Maria Alberghetti gives us “The Italian Street Song” and the troop performs a comedy sketch that’s a Western done as an opera.

The show was transferred from an original AFRTS vinyl transcription set.

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Here’s a rarity that took a bit of detective work to figure out.  It’s “The Chase and Sanborn Program” from June 17, 1945, originally broadcast on NBC.  The series was a replacement for “The Pepsodent Show” when Bob Hope went on a USO tour.  It sounds more like it’s hosted by Francis Langford, rather than Spike Jones, but it was distributed by the Armed Forces Radio Servce as program 3 in the “Spike Jones” series.  (You can see other examples of the program at the RadioGOLDindex.)

This episode is  a remote from a military hospital in Santa Barbara, California.  Francis Langford opens the show with “I’m Beginning to See the Light”; Spike Jones and company do “Choo Choo Polka”, “Laura” and “You Always Hurt the One You Love”, a parody of the Ink Spots.  The program features Frances Langford, Spike Jones, Ken Carpenter and guest Garry Moore.

The sound can be a little rough at times, but the original vinyl AFRS disc of this previously lost program was in atrocious condition.  I ran the file through some declicker software I found online to see if it would make the program at least listenable.  The date is taken from the disc vinyl trail-off area.

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Here’s another radio show that appears to be “lost”.

Originally broadcast January 31, 1946 on NBC, it’s “Birdseye Open House” (aka “Dinah Shore’s Open House”), and distributed as Program 94 in the “Dinah Shore” series on AFRS.  In this episode, the guest is Groucho Marx.  The cast does a sketch about a gambler (Groucho) on a riverboat and Groucho sings “Hooray for Captain Spaulding”.  The site radiogoldindex.com lists the network version of the show, but only the last fifteen minutes survive of that recording.

“Bird’s Eye Open House” was a well-done musical variety series with Dinah Shore as hostess and Harry Von Zell announcing.  It was broadcast in the mid-40s, originating at KFI in Los Angeles, and is best remembered for Groucho’s frequent appearances.  The movie careers of the Marx Brothers were in decline at the time and Groucho was seeking out a great deal of radio work; he can be heard as a guest on several shows from the period including programs such as “Command Performance”, just a few years before his rapier wit would be tapped for “You Bet Your Life”.

The show was transferred from an original vinyl AFRS transcription.

Updated 2/3/09 - Corrected “Birdseye” name.

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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.

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Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg were hosts of an early light entertainment morning program that mixed chat with interesting guests with music, much in the manner of television’s “Regis and Kathy Lee”.

This program, from September 3, 1947, is from a summer replacement run of the series that was aired in evening primetime on NBC.  The episode features Broadway star Nancy Walker very early in her career; tennis star Jack Kramer; and a Russian actress and singer, Kirov Petroskiva, who was a sniper during World War II and was hoping to make a career in the States.  The show was sponsored by Ipana Toothpaste and Ingram Shaving Cream.

Jinx Falkenberg was a model and actress and, with her journalist and public relations specialist husband Tex McCrary, started their popular morning show in 1946 and published columns in the New York Herald Tribune.  You might remember Nancy Walker from her work in 1970s sitcoms, but I like to recall her only directorial credit, helming the film “Can’t Stop the Music, a major studio flop that was a vehicle for the Village People.

The segment with Kirov Petroskiva is quite interesting; she talks about entertainment and life in the Soviet Union in the early days of what we’d later call the Cold War.  Petroskiva was one of a handful to Russian women who married GI’s during the War that were being allowed citizenship in this country.  One wonders what happened to her after she immigrated to the US.

The program was transferred from an original line check Audiodisc acetate recorded at an unknown local NBC affiliate.

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