rand's esoteric otr

The Adventures of Jungle Jim - Pgm 63

Last week we heard an episode of “Front Page Drama”.  Now, we flip the disc over to check out what’s going on with “The Adventures of Jungle Jim”.

Program 63 was syndicated for airing January 10, 1937 and produced by Langlois & Wentworth, 420 Madison Avenue, New York City.  Jungle Jim is in searching for Peter Hawkins’s son in Mandalay.  Meanwhile, Shanghai Lil is on Jim’s trail.

The program was transferred from an original 16” Hearst Newspapers transcription disc pressed by RCA on Victrolac, matrix number 03670.

I know this series is available in excellent condition, but it happens to be a favorite and I’ve always like these great sounding 1930s RCA pressings.

Jungle Jim - Pgm 37

I recently got a whole stack of one of my favorite 30's programs, "The Adventures of Jungle Jim", syndicated by Hearst Newspapers to promote their Sunday comics supplement.

Here's an early entry in the series, program 37 from the week of July 11, 1936.  Jim tries to sneak past the Mongols as Lynn Chalmers is interrogated by Shanghai Lil.  The show was transferred from an original Langlois & Wentworth, NYC/Hearst Newspapers Victrolac transcription pressed by RCA, matrix number MS 102174-1. A good chunck of the discs I obtained are from a run of the series over several weeks; I'll probably run them in sequence in the blog in a few months.

Jungle Jim, Pgm 18 - February 29, 1936

This program contains racial stereotyping themes that may be offensive to some listeners. We come to the end of our brief run of "The Adventures of Jungle Jim", originally broadcast in early 1936 and syndicated by Hearst Newspapers to promote their Sunday comics supplement.

In program 18, run February 29, 1936, Jungle Jim and Reverend Chalmers continue their battle with the nefarious Bat Woman.  Chalmers's daughter interrogates one of the Bat Woman's henchmen as Jim and the Reverend work on the Bat Woman's right hand man of uncertain nationality, Jacques Lebatt. The show was transferred directly from an original RCA Victrolac pressing, matrix number MS 98995.

Jungle Jim, Pgm 16 - February 16, 1936

Continuing our brief run of "The Adventures of Jungle Jim", we drop in on our intrepid explorer in program 16, originally broadcast February 16, 1936.

In this episode, Jungle Jim and Reverend Chalmers attempt to escape from the clutches of the Bat Woman, who is plotting to force the Reverend to marry her to Jungle Jim.  "With you as my husband, we can rule this island!" she tells Jim. The show, syndicated by Hearst Newspapers to promote their Sunday color funny papers, was transferred directly from an original RCA Victrolac pressing, matrix number MS 98920.  I have one more program from the series that will go up next week.

Jungle Jim - Pgm 13 - January 25, 1936

Note:  This program contains racial stereotyping themes that may be offensive to some listeners. Continuing with our short run of episodes from the adventure series, "Jungle Jim", we take a listen to program 13 in the series, originally broadcast January 25, 1936 and syndicated by Hearst newspapers to promote their Sunday funny pages.

In this episode, Jim continues battling with the nefarious Bat Woman.  Hoping to convince her to free Rev. Chalmers, Jim gives himself up to the Bat Woman.  She seems to be enjoying the scene with her assistant and the bullwhip a bit too much... The show was transferred from an original Victrolac transcription pressed by RCA, matrix number MS 98709.

Jungle Jim - Pgm 12 - January 18, 1936

Note:  This program contains racial stereotypes that may be offensive to some listeners. In this post, we start a short run of four programs in the series "Jungle Jim" from early 1936.  The program was based on an adventure comic first published in 1934 in Hearst newspapers.  The radio show was an early attempt at "cross promotion", with each week's radio episode reflecting the content of the Sunday comic running in the newspaper.

In the storyline, Jungle Jim goes up against the nefarious "Bat Woman" who has captured the Reverend Chalmers.  Will Jim rescue the Reverand from the evil clutches of the Bat Woman?  Will Chalmers be able to withstand the Bat Woman's methods of torture?  Will the Reverend's daughter find more ways to give us exposition about the story?  Listen and find out... I purchased these four discs from an antiques dealer.  They were found in the attic of an old hardware store, still in the original shipping packages where they were sent by railroad to a station in Arizona.  One even included the special "Shadowgraph" needle used to play these early vinyl discs. Program 12 in the series was released for broadcast on January 18, 1936.  The show was transferred from original RCA Victrolac transcription, matrix MS98584.