A daily almanac of events and people I admire and appreciate. All things, and the people who did things, that were WORTH DOING! Songs and Cartoons and near-insane ramblings by me, too.
Showing posts with label Audiophile Audio File Friday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Audiophile Audio File Friday. Show all posts
Sit back, relax and laugh with your ears wide open...it's OTR Friday!
Disgruntled people dealing with the obligations of family members seems to be the theme in this weeks offering of shows from Paul Rhymer. July 5, 1939 finds Sade prodding Vic and Rush off of their keisters to fetch a parting gift left by the Donahues in their cellar for the Gooks. Two tons of coal no less.
Here we hear Rush trying to dodge the labor and wanting to take part instead to one of his favorite passtimes "watching the fat businessment play handball down at the YM(CA)". This actually sounds fun to me.
The genius of Rhymers understatement again as Sade lays out the logic for fetching 2 tons of coal from one cellar to the next in the dog days of August, and the men of the households rebuttle is often no more than "Mmmm.". You've no idea how hard that is to write. Genius.
August 30, 1939 has Rush in a dour funk over his mother (Sade) picking out his school clothes. Imagine, a big grown almost a man hgih schooler like him and his mother shopping for his clothes like he was a babe. Ooh the travesty. Oooooh the indignation.
Vic's observance of how Rush must feel is worth every minute. "A man with a breakin' heart. I suppose his spirit is just as agonized as over this as that of a great businessman beset by difficulties. The intensity of the suffering from a persons troubles is the same whether the person is young or old. The infant who's denied the rattle it desires is no more or no less distressed than the desperate banker who finds shortages in his accounts. And the 14 year old boy who isn't permitted to select his own clothes, endures the same misery as the..." Beautiful.
Vic's plan to rob a bank with Sade and escape over the Missouri state line while Rush provides a false scent is pretty funny too.
Enjoy.
More cast members come forward in this weeks Jack Benny Program spotlight. More behind the scenes insights into one of the longest running and possibly THE best radio program of all time.
This week we hear from Frank Nelson who played any number of ascerbic doormen, floorwalkers, doctors...you know...the "Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeesssss?!?" guy...
Also more from Don Wilson on one of his most famous flubs.
And even the great...let me repeat that...GREAT Mel Blanc. Still sorely missed.
Here's "Speaking of Radio: The Jack Benny Program" part 4
Time to make your ears smile again with some rock solid samples of comedy from radio's golden age.
Our first episode of Vic & Sade is a master-ful tale of confusion that has me mesmeried each and ever time I listen to it. Once again, Paul Rhymer uses just two speaking characters, one simply explaining to the other a telephone message and suddenly a cast as rich and full as you can imagine fill your ears. With just the voices of Vic and Rush, we hear the afternoons goings on of Sade, Y.Y. Flirtch, Mis' Harris, Fred and Ruthie Stembottom, Hank Gutstop, Mr. Sludge (one of Mis' Harris' boarders) and a Mr. Yop, Gop or Fop.
The action covers Vic's place of business (The Consolidated Kitchen Wares Co.), the train station, the foundery where Fred stembottom works, Miss' Harris' boarding house and The Lazy Hours Pool Room...yet Vic and Rush never leave their living room.
Genius.
My favorite Vic-ism: "When I greeted you joyously, your rejoinder was sluggish and preoccupied."
Words you can languish in. Here it is from June 5, 1939.
Show two comes from June 13, 1939. A lazy evening with Vic and Sade playing Rummy and waiting to go to bed when Rush rushes in to tell the tale of "The greatest night of Rotton Davis' en-tire career".
There's not much I can add that wouldn't take away from the charm and humor Rhymer hammers out of this one...enjoy!
This weeks portion of "Speaking of Radio - The Jack Benny Program" gets a little more into the personality of Jack himself and begins to introduce the cast. Maybe the greatest assemblage of talent EVER, pictured below left to right are Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Dennis Day, Phil Harris, Mary Livingstone, Jack Benny, Don Wilson and Mel Blanc.
First up, a prolonged exerpt from the program gives a stilted life history of Jack and how he assembled the cast, all narrated by the great comedian George Jessel
Then we hear some of the cast giving contemporary interviews with great insight into Jack's generosity...something we never hear on the show. First up Don Wilson, Jack's announcer for almost the entire run of the show...
Then Dennis Day. Originally the replacement boy tenor when Kenny Baker left the show, Dennis became an important comedic ingredient, providing many impressions and dialects over the years.
Jell-O, it's time to smile again with two of the richest and funniest shows of all time...and I ain't just counting radio...stage, screen and television have nothing on these folks.
First a visit with radio's "Home Folks" from May 11, 1939. Rush finds himself in a tight spot, as Sade is off on a car trip to Carbury and Vic having spent the evening at the lodge (The Drowsy Venus chapter of The Sacred Stars of the Milky Way), he gets corralled into offering boarding to a good piece of the Davis familyw without his parents permission.
My favorite Vic-ism from this episode. While Rooster, Rotten and Roper Davis slumber upstairs and Vic is told the news he has been displaced, "The Midnight bells will chime in a few minutes and here I stand in my brilliantly lighted Livin' Room."
The news nearly has Vic swallowing his shoes and screaming like a panther...aw heck, let Rooster, Rotten and Roper sleep their heads off...
From June 1, 1939 is an example of an every summer running gag that shows Paul Rhymer's intricate knowledge of the workings of mid-western life, one that would never have occured to any other writer that wasn't steeped in the culture themselves. The perrenial holiday happening of friends, family and neighbors selling mail order Christmas cards in the balmy days of June, July and August.
That in itself is all the vein Rhymer needs for his rich mining of character comic gold. Just listen in on Grandpa Snyder's sly selling technique and Rush's reading of the Christmas card slogans...true earmarks of the genius of Rhymer's words.
Moving on to that blue-eyed man from Waukegan...
Jack Benny (maybe more than anyone) knew the power of his writers and supporting cast.
Someone once asked him why he didn't get more of the punchlines for himself. His answer was, "It doesn't matter who gets the laughs, Monday morning people still talk about 'The Jack Benny Program'!"
Here in "Speaking of Radio: The Jack Benny Program" part 2, the spotlight falls first on Jack's core writer's Sam Perrin, Milt Josefsberg, John Tackaberry and George Balzer (pictured top to bottom below), as well as...
...two marvelous character actors, Sarah Berner and Bea Benederet (below) who played the switchboard operators on the program.
The true secret to Jack's longevity is, he held these contributers talents high above the value of his own.
And I don't believe any of it was lip service.
Jack Benny was the biggest fan of comedy there was. Enjoy!
"Jello again!" it's "Time to smile again." with my two favorite radio series of all time, Vic & Sade and Jack Benny.
When I hear either of these programs, I sit back and I swear, every part of my body must be smiling. I don't think my condition is contageous, but I sure wish it was...I could hip the whole of the English speaking world to some really good stuff.
First up, our continuing appreciation of Vic & Sade, the midwestern family who seemed to be all of us...
You're right if you noticed that the teen-aged boy in the above picture was NOT Billy "Rush Gook" Idelson alongside our heroes Art "Vic" Van Harvey and Bernadine "Sade" Flynn...but that's a story for muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch later in the series. I only chose the pic for today because there is a serious lacking of Vic & Sade cast images out there.
Show #1 for today is from April 25, 1939. Rotten Davis (one of Rush's school chums...albeit a few years advanced at 19 years old...actually the older brother of Rooster Davis) has found himself in the steady company of a young lady. The issue being, Rotten's allowance doesn't allow him to take a lady friend on the town every day of the week, so he's begun to impose on the company of the couple half way up in the next block, Vic and Sade Gook.
The niceties of social interactions and the dilema of how Vic & Sade can entertain Rotten and his lady friend while expecting Fred and Ruthie Stembottom for a game of 500 are rich comedy fodder in Paul Rhymer's hands.
Such a pedestrian situation is pure comedy gold here...
From April 26, 1939 this episode has Sade full appreciation for human generosity as she fawns over the new luggage that was given her by Mr. and Mis' Donahue.
The opening is rich with wonderful language as Rush recounts almost-a-fight between Leroy Snow and Milton Welch over at the vacant lot while Vic makes it through his routine in his signature humor. "Proceed me to the living room. We'll look over the pile of important letters,telegrams and trans-oceanic cables that have arrived in our absence." I wish Vic would narrate the drudgery of my life sometimes.
This may be a good time to point out the obvious that is sometimes NOT. With all the interactions we've heard with Fred and Ruthie Stembottom, Mr. and Mis' Donahue, Aunt Bess, Mr. Erickson, Mr. Gumpoc, Blue-Tooth Johson, Rooster Davis, Rotten Davis, and the rest...please note that there are only 3 speaking rolls (later 4) in the entire show.
In this wonderful audio-only medium, Paul Rhymer lets your imagination participate even more, by never letting you hear any of the characters speak. All you think you know about all these perephery characters (the sounds of their voices, their attitudes, their actions) is supplied simply through conversations by Vic, Sade and Rush.
Oh...and they never leave their house on the show either.
Enjoy...
Jack Benny. That's all I have to say to make me start to giggle.
Jack Benny broke into radio in 1932 as a guest on Ed Sullivan's program. At the time Sulivan was doing a sports themed show (as Jack recalls in an interview) and had Jack on as a guest. Jack Benny was probably well known to Sullivan as a vaudevilly comedian appearing on Broadway and in and around New York frequently. The sponsors of Sullivan's show (The Canada Dry Company) liked Benny so much, they signed him onto a show of his own almost immediately. From Canada Dry Jack went to The American Tire Company and then to General Foods who had Jack barking for Jello gelatine and Grape Nuts cereal for over a decade, from there he jumped to the American Tobacco Co. and pitched Lucky Strikes for well over the next decade.
From 1932 to 1952, Jack hosted a show every Sunday night for 20 years for 39 weeks a year. The show was in repeats till 1955, but by 1950 Jack had been double timing it on television, and after a few years there did specials and guest appearance right up to his death in the 1970's.
Doing what he loved from the 1920's to the 1970's. I'm very jealous.
There was a retrospective of the Jack Benny Program produced for radio, from what sounds like the 1970's under the title "Speaking of Radio". The show is a 6 hour crash course into all things Benny and features interviews with Jack and every major player on the show. Today I'd like to bring you the first half hour in the 12 part series. It's enjoyable on it's own merits with said interviews and clips from the show showing hints of the creativity and just solid entertainment of the show...I hope you take the time to listen in...it may be the best 30 minutes of your day. ...Not counting the 30 minutes of Vic & Sade above.
This first entry in the series, not only features Jack Benny himself telling the tale of his radio career, but also Sheldon Leonard (above). Leonard you will remember from the many gangster rolls he played in TV and movies for many years (including Harry the Horse in "Guys and Dolls"), not to mention Nick the Bartender in "It's a Wonderful Life" and others. There's also no ignoring the wide swath he cut as a producer for early television. "I Spy", "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "The Danny Thomas Show", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Damon Runyan Theatre", "The Real McCoys" and on and on have the Leonard stamp. It's no wonder that writer/producer/creator Chuck Lorre named his two main characters on "The Big Bang Theory" after this guy.
Well, to make a short story long, Leonard often appeared on the Jack Benny Program as "The Tout"
Enjoy "Speaking of Radio: The Jack Benny Program" part 1 of 12
More to come next week...this is just plain good stuff
A little bonus reading candy...from 1949 Action Comics #138, a two page article about Jack's history BEFORE radio...
Special bonus show: The VERY first Jack Benny program from March 2, 1932. This was Jack's first M.C.ing gig and it's a far cry from what the show would eventually become. Quaint I suppose is what you could call it, but historically significant to be sure.
The show is sponsored by Canada Dry Ginger Ale, if you have some in your fridge, enjoy a glass while listening...sometimes I buy some special just for these shows, and is as much starring band leader George Olsen as Jack. Jack is in full nervous mode for this one...I guess a better term would be "unnatural" than nervous. He'd been a performer and headliner in vaudeville for so long, that performing here for the microphone, he seems much out of his element. Ethel Shutta is the vocalist for the band as the upstart show makes a lively turn at a half hour of music and one-liners.
This is just 7 years into the advent of radio as a commercial medium and it's mind-boggling to think of how Jack would transform it in just a few short years, from a pack of one-line joke segues between musical numbers into a full fledged show full of characters and the humor derived from them.
It's time to smile again with radio's "home folks", Vic and Sade!
It's a glorious thing, this Interwebs technology. People often think of me as an old fashioned kind of guy and stuck in the past, never wanting what's new. I beg to differ. I say I just like what's GOOD and am not affected by what era it might be from.
I latched on to all the present digital technology like a shot, not because I was infatuated with trendy little gadgets, but because of what it could allow me to research and see and own copies of of things I already like. My music collection has never been more organized and compact OR more listened to, as these handy dandy little mp3's allow. Stacks and stacks of books (and comic books) scanned down to a device the size of a pack of cigarettes, instead of mouldering and decaying in dank boxes. As recently as the 1970's, only the wealthy could have a film library or could afford a home projection room to view them. Now I have these slick little digital video discs...and a screen size which rivals that of the smallest in the local multi-plex.
And, ohhhhhhh that wonderful medium of radio. So relegated to the passing ether of the past except in warbly cassette tapes traded or sold by collectors...never enough time or space or finances to listen to cohesive chunks of this entertainment giant.
Now it's like I have my own ticket to sit in the audience.
Glorious!
Our first Vic & Sade show is from March 8, 1939. This one has some muted qualities to the sound, but with this show it's always worth the extra effort to adjust your ears. This show mentions Mr. Gumpoc the trash man in passing and a couple of hilarious telephone calls between Rush and Blue-Tooth (digital-era enough for ya?) Johnson but mainly highlights a discussion Sade has had with their landlord, Mr. Erickson.
This one has a sprinkling of the "Vic&Sadiesms" (my own word?) which make this show come alive for me. I can very much hear my parents or older relatives from my childhood using expressions like Sades, "When I tell you what he (Mr. Erickson) had up his sleeve, you'll sell your Grandmother's shoes!". I think younger listeners may think these things are catch phrases of the day, but this is Paul Rhymer fleshing out these people with a nimble hand.
The other phrase that caught my ear in this episode was one of which Rhymer used many variations. When Rush pleads to go off to the Bijou (pronounced by'-joo) with Blue-Tooth Johnson, Sade's remark is, "You'd think this family had enough 15 centses to choke Billy Patterson." In other episodes the twist is, when something is remarkable "You'd think it was the thing that choked Billy Patterson" or is something being discussed is large "It's big enough to choke Billy Patterson.".
I'm going to start working this into my own conversations.
Enough of me yammering...enjoy!
The second half of our Vic & Sade double feature today is from April 3, 1939. This one has a wonderful double plot line which twist and turn through each other in the dialogue. In one storyline, Rush is vexed by his arch rival Nicer Scott's accounting of the number of speaking acquaintances he enjoys and Rush takes pen to paper to itemize his own. Meanwhile Sade is flabbergasted to find that two of her closest friends, Ruthie Stembottom and Miss Harris have never met. And Vic is funny just listening to them both and parrying the conversation back and forth.
Favorite "Vic&Sadeisms" (I like it...maybe I've heard someone use it before?) in this episode...there's a bunch:
Sade asking if Vic wants to hear something amazing..."Want to hear something that'll make your shoes jump off and hit the ceiling?", "You want your undershirt to explode into a million pieces?" and "You want to hear something that'll make your Sunday hat turn green?"
Sade remarking at her own astonishment at the news..."You could've run over my big toe with a coal wagon!", "You could've chopped off my nose with a pound of butter!", "You could've taken a dish mop and elected me 'King of Peoria'!" and "You could've put my leg in the tea kettle!"
I've never heard any of these phrases in my life outside of this show and probably no one else did either, but Rhymer pegged the kinds of things I did hear with every one of them! Satire at it's finest. Poking fun at the eccentricities of these people of the Midwest (of which I consider myself one) while never making them the butt of the joke.
Sade does utter one that I heard my father use the meaning of plenty. Sternly warning Rush to not ignore his homework with foolishness and remarking on the folly of his list of "speaking acquaintances" she warns him, "You're going to enjoy a speaking acquaintance with something you don't like if that report card don't show better marks next time!".
I hear ya Dad.
I'll have more Vic & Sade here next week, but now let's jump to the juvenile afternoon adventure serials. With the success of pulp based shows like "The Green Hornet" and comic strip adventures from the likes of "Little Orphan Annie", comic books were making their mark in radio with "Superman" and "The Blue Beetle". There were of course other attempts at these cross overs, and one came from MLJ comics. Most readers of the day know MLJ as their later incarnation as "Archie Comics" and the typical American teen-ager whose everyday adventures are chronicled there, but when the company first began in the 1940's, they were a super hero churning out house like all the others.
Their character "The Black Hood" made the jump to radio on the Mutual Broadcasting Network as a sustaining program for about a year before it went the way of the dodo. "Sustaining Program" meant a network or station would produce a show themselves without sponsorship, hoping to find an audience and then would sell that audience and the show to an advertiser. Vic & Sade started this way in 1934 and ran for almost 2 years until Crisco picked them up.
The Black Hood was not as fortunate, and after a year of being sustained by the network, no sponsor was found. There are no existing shows from the first year, only this pilot episode was preserved on disc to be listened to and enjoyed by you here today.
Man. Even the failed shows are good to hear. I was born too late.
Or maybe just in time, to hear them all with Interwebs technology!
Whew!...after a week of modem troubles, we're back on track with our weekly appreciation of OldTime Radio, more specifically a "big picture" look at Vic & Sade and little forays to the land of afternoon juvenile adventure serials.
The more I listen to Vic & Sade the more amazed I am to think that these were all (5 days a week for 12 years) written single-handedly by one man, Paul Rhymer.
The solidity of the characters, represented by individual characteristics in speech and personalities is incredible. Just take a listen to this batch of episodes from 1939 and see if you don't agree. The naturalness of the dialogue is also outstanding, if it weren't for the irony hidden subtlety behind every phrase, you'd swear this real-life-like dialogue was the real-life banality we all listen to every day in the real world. Such a light touch to bring laugh-out loud moments.
From January 2, 1939, we hear a stern Vic in a tight situation. He is short on time to get to a lodge meeting and finds his lodge regalia has been lent out all over town. His real consternation is in that, Sade and Rush fail to see the dire seriousness of all things lodge. Vic knows the importance of his family and his job...but when it comes to the pomp and circumstance of his lodge or proper parade etiquette, well THAT's important!
From January 16, 1939, a bursting with pride Sade boasts of the compliments she's earned in her gardening. That could be all you'd need to describe the plot of this episode and most episodes can be described in a single banal line like that, but the rich interaction between Vic, Sade and Rush over the most trivial of things is thick and meaty as it plays out on your listening pallet.
Bonus OTR time!
Last time we heard the pilot for the "Superman" radio show. While Supey's stalwart costumed buddy Batman and his boy sidekick Robin made plenty of guest appearances on Superman's show, the dynamic duo never graduated to a radio show of their own.
Batman and Robin did make it to the big screen in a couple of Columbia serials and eventually they found home entertainment ground with the 1966 television series (not to mention innumerable animated shows from the 1970's to the present) but never a regular place on the airwaves of radio.
But NOT for lack of trying. In 1955, long into televisions stranglehold on the life of radio, a pilot was made for a proposed Batman radio show. The show was never picked up for network or syndication, besides the kiddie set was tuned into "Howdy Doody", "Time for Beany" and their like and staring at the radio for their after school entertainment was a thing of the past, but the pilot lives on with us.
Take a listen. Every incarnation of a character like Batman who survives decades of fictional daring-do and crosses media barriers, has a unique spin on them. This radio trial is no different. Enjoy the Batman Mystery Club as the solve the mystery of "The Monster or Dumphry Hall"!
Mmmmmmmm the crackle of ozone as the tubes heat up and the speeding up of our hearts as magical adventure comes through the thin air into our living rooms...God I love radio!
Warm up the Philco, Ma....it's "Oldtime Radio Friday Morning"!
First let's check in with the little house 1/2 way up in the next block...
In the interest of sorting through all the existing Vic & Sade shows in which the circulating files often are duplicates with different names, today brings us to 1938. What a shame that all the shows from 1932 to 1937 seem to be lost to the ether. The few that remain (260?out of 3500?) are some real meaty golden comedy gems. I can only imagine what we're missing.
I'm happy we have something, nonetheless.
The first of the 2 shows that I'm posting today, is actually one I posted two weeks ago to give the uninitiated a taste of the show. Like all these shows though, multiple listenings just seem to make them richer and funnier though. I encourage you to take another ear-full as Rush tells Vic all the better plans he has for their up-coming party that would make it memorable, in opposition to the run-of-the-mill everyday party that Sade has planned.
Wonderful turns of phrase, genius in it's rhythmic repeating patterns (which are never done in a technical way, but rather as part of the speaking characters personality) and imagery that fills your mind's eye. 5 minutes in and you forget it's not a movie...you can see it all.
From March 3, 1938:
The second show really gives you a funny glimpse into each character, and the way they each attend to their personal agenda vibrates with how real conversations happen.
Vic needs a new hat and Sade plans to take him shopping so that he buys a sensible smart businessman's model, and not a garish wide-brimmed floppy wild west Pennsylvania cowboy model, he would prefer. On the side-lines, Rush tries to regale the room with the tale of Smelly Clark's Uncle Strap's intent to escort his lady friend to Peoria for the purpose of enjoying a fish dinner. All the while, life moves forward as the household readies themselves for Fred & Ruthie Stembottom to visit for a game of 500.
From November 30, 1938. Glorious!
I really want to hear the end of Rush's story. And I want to see Vic in a wide brimmed hat and being dashing. And I want Sade to be in charge of my finances.
More Vic & Sade next week, but now something for you afternoon adventure serial radio fans!
Superman was on the radio air waves for 11 years from 1940-1951.
A few innovations in the character first happened here and not in the comic book. The first meeting between Superman and Batman for example, and even the introduction of Kryptonite are from the radio version and later integrated into the comic.
I'm not really a huge fan of the "Adventures of Superman" TV show from the 1950's. It seems pedestrian in comparison to the comic for it's limitations of putting this fantastic character into the real world...but this radio show really soared. Anything seems possible with the listeners imagination and the imagery of pure audio story-telling.
Many of you have heard episodes of this show before...maybe mostly out of curiosity...but they really are some fine stuff.
Here's the not-so-often-heard pilot made to sell the show. Note that the commercial announcements "brought to you by 'Blank'"!
I've always been a little frustrated in my attempts to salute my musical heroes here on the blog, as I could never find a way to post audio files. Searching YouTube and other video sites was OK, but I was limited to find the versions of the songs I wanted to share with you, also I was frustrated with bad video/audio quality from the flip-phone videos or whatever source material that was available.
Now there's a solution (might have been one for a while, but I'm slow on the uptake) and here's a couple songs and stories you should hear...
"The Drink Hole Amphitheatre", right here in the cerebral cortex of "Jeff Overturf's Head" proudly features the songwriting and story telling talents of Todd Snider!
You've heard me speak of him in the past on these posts, but you really ought to hear and appreciate even more. I'm slapping up two of Todd's songs here from unreleased live shows done about 8 years or so ago. Both feature Todd's wry and witty storytelling before the wry, witty and inspirational songs. The first story takes place about 17 years into his career and the song he had up his sleeve that saved his sanity at a music festival, and the second story tells a little about how he got where he is in the first place.
Enjoy!
Todd Snider - "Vinyl Records" and the story of his heroes and priorities:
Todd Snider - "The Ballad of the Devil's Backbone Tavern" accompanied with "The Story of the Ballad of the Devil's Backbone Tavern". Sit back and enjoy, you WON'T be sorry:
Here's "Speaking of Radio: The Jack Benny Program" part 4
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