Gale Gordon as rich Texas oilman on Burns and Allen

Well howdy ya'll. You know, I'm 100% Texan.

And I've recently run into Gale Gordon (surprisingly) playing the part of a millionaire Texan/oil man/cattle man on Burns and Allen in the late 1940's - right yonder before they went on the television.

I like his character a lot!

EXCEPT, I cannot stand his tagline: "Ma'am I like your sense of humor!" When he utters this ridiculous phrase in his ridiculous manner, you'd think he was trying to do a bad Marlin Hurt impression.

A real Texan MIGHT say it like that ONE time. The rest of the time, a real Texas is too busy lookin' for Tacos and doin' Texas stuff than act like a goober.

Another look at Our Miss Brooks

For the last 2 months, I have daily been listening to the radio show, Our Miss Brooks.  This is my second time to listen to the series.

First, let me get off my chest all of the stuff I don't like about the show.

In my first review of the program, I made it known I am not a fan of Mrs. Davis, Connie Books' landlord, played by radio veteran, Jane Morgan.  This still is the case but for some reason, she is not nearly as hard to stomach this time around.  It's probably that I knew she'd be there messing up my enjoyment of every show and I just went ahead and prepared myself for this.

Another complaint is Mrs. Davis' cat, Minerva, who is obviously played by an overpaid voice actor.  There are only a few episodes where the cat is prominent and I have toughed those out.  And another animal is Mr. Boyton's frog.  Boyton, who is Connie's "love interest" - is much more interested in animals than he is in Connie it seems.  His noisy frog is annoying to me.  [Treating animals as part of the cast in otr is a dumb idea anyway, in my opinion.  This just doesn't work well.]

My biggest complaint, however,  is something I somehow overlooked during the first listen.  The misuse of the boom microphone by the crew.  Many times, almost a half of a sentence will be almost lost into the ether because the guy running the boom mike has the mike off somewhere else.  If you haven't noticed it, listen closely to the show next time and see if I am not right.

There are some good things about the show, most of them named Gale Gordon, who plays Mr. Conklin, the principal of the school.  He usually has a quick temper but sometimes he has a slow burn.  Either way, he's terrific.  If he weren't on the show, the show would be totally a stinker and not worth listening to at all.  You can imagined a Joseph Kerns-type playing the part as well but Gordon is just perfect for the role and deserves credit as being the one thing that almost makes the show work.

Eve Arden, of course, plays Connie and while I don't have anything bad to say about her and her constant dry sarcasm, I really don't have anything good to say about her either.  She's a mostly positive cog in the wheel of the show but she's more or less vanilla as far as what I hear.

Richard Crenna, who plays the constant-student-thorn is  Walter Denton.  He plays the part of an older juvenile well and he's definitely not vanilla.  He seems like he's in every scene and that's mostly a positive.  Although, his cracking voice after a while is annoying as well.

Leonard Smith, who plays Stretch Snodgrass, the school's star player of all sports, is stereotypically stupid.  And since Miss Brooks teaches English, he is prone to mangle his grammar on every other line.  This is a strong plus to the show, especially over Crenna's cracking voice .  While he's not funny, exactly, he is more than a fill-in while you listen patiently, waiting for Walter or Miss Brooks to goof up something that will excite Mr. Conklin so we can hear him blow up like a covered steam pot.

To me, the show is just a filler.  I look at this way: there are shows I want to listen to.  If I listen to them all 'now' then I will be stuck with stuff like Our Miss Brooks the rest of my life.

That's not something I would be looking forward to.

Random photo goodness

Mr. and Mrs. Blandings - a review

Cary Grant and Betsy Drake were married and shortly after, had a radio show that was based on a couple of books and an earlier movie Grant had made, Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House.

The premise was a simple one: Blandings (Grant) would take his life savings and build his family a house in which they could be proud.  Of course, Murphy's Law takes over on day one and never lets up.

When the show centers it's attention on the house (which is about half of the time), I find it predictable and not much fun.  Let's face it, we already know that whatever it is that involves the house will either break down or never work to begin with.  Even the property itself has a future highway running through it!

But when the show strays to a different subject, like the Blandings' two charming daughters or anything not house-related, the show seems to do fine.  Is it funny?  No.  It's mere entertainment or perhaps just a curious time killer.

There are a few bright spots, mainly Charlie Weaver who shows up now and then in a couple of parts.  Gale Gordon also is on hand now and again.

Still, I can find little to say in this show's favor.  It's basically a one joke comedy.  1 ½ stars.

Interview about the Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show (w/Toby)

The OTR Buffet once again welcomes "Toby" to the interview room.  You might remember that he turned out a wonderful interview for the Vic and Sade series.

This time, he tackles the funny Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show.


OTR BUFFET: Toby, glad to have you back on the OTR Buffet! I'm happy you have joined me to do an interview about the Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show.

TOBY: I'm happy to share my thoughts on one of the greatest shows in Old Time Radio.

OTR BUFFET: Phil Harris and Alice Faye were illegally married and there was a big PR disaster during the beginning of their whirlwind romance. I think it's kind of ironic that they wound up having their own radio show.

TOBY: I think that you are overstating the importance of the "illegal" marriage.  The fact that they had a marriage ceremony before Phil's divorce became final was a gossip column item among many that sank like a stone as it became apparent that their marriage was going to last. It happened five years before The Phil Harris/Alice Faye show started.

OTR BUFFET: What are your overall thoughts about the Phil-Harris/Alice Faye Show?

TOBY: It was as well written as the Jack Benny show, which is really saying something. The actors were fabulous as well.

OTR BUFFET: Was Alice Faye really that important to the show? Wouldn't a comedic actress have been better in the part - or is it that the fact that this was a real husband and wife team... was this what was important?

TOBY: Actually, Alice Faye was a bigger star than Phil Harris at that time. She made her last movie in 1945 at the peak of her popularity and the following year the radio show began.

OTR BUFFET: What do you think the key to the show was?

TOBY: Phil Harris's personality.  He had been on the Jack Benny show for ten years as the band leader, gradually working himself up to one of the important components of the comedic ensemble cast that made Jack Benny's show a perennial favorite. Benny's writers made a big deal out of Phil's marriage. His character was originally written as a lady's man, and they very effectively changed it to devoted husband and father. The writers for the Phil Harris show took Benny's writers' ideas and ran with them.

OTR BUFFET: The show featured 4 really good actors; Phil Harris, Elliott Lewis, Gale Gordon and Walter Tetley. Lewis really wasn't a comedian but he was moderately funny in the show. Would you talk a little about the 4 of them and comedy?

TOBY: Well, Gale Gordon was only on during the Rexall seasons of the show. He was not an integral part, in my opinion.  And I think Phil Harris was really more of an entertainer than actor. If you listen to the band before and after Harris on the Benny show and then listen to the band Phil led, I think you will be startled by how much better the Harris band performed. He really swung.  And his songs that he sand and recorded were tremendously successful.

As for Elliott Lewis, the man was simply a genius. Besides acting, he was a preeminent writer, director and producer of an amazing number of shows.  Old Time Radio would have been a much diminished source of entertainment without him.  And to think that the only comedic role he took on was that of Frank Remley on the Phil Harris/Alice Faye show! His timing was incredible. They say that Benny was a master of timing. Elliot Lewis was just about as good at knowing just how long to pause before delivering a great line of comedy.

And beside the wonderful Walter Tetley we need to mention Robert North who had so many funny moments in the role of Alice Faye's very prim and proper brother William. I haven't been able to find anything out about him. He doesn't appear to have been on other radio shows and such a common name makes it tough to research him.

I’d also like to mention Alice Faye’s acting ability.  Although she was already a movie star, she started out quite tentatively on the Phil Harris/Alice Faye show.  I’d say it took her a full season before she hit her stride. After that, she was just as funny as the others on the show.

OTR BUFFET: Do you think Tetley was funnier on the Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show or on The Great Gildersleeve? Can you detect any major differences in his comedy between the two shows?

TOBY: No comparison. Julius Abruzio on the Phil Harris/Alice Faye show was his greatest role.  He played the obnoxious lower class kid to perfection.  His role as the youngest member of the middle class Gildersleeve household was pale in comparison, yet he actually played that wonderfully as well. He had a much wider range of emotions to project on Gildersleeve.  For the Phil Harris/Alice Faye show it was strictly comedy.

OTR BUFFET: Do you have a favorite episode or two in this series and what makes them classic?

TOBY: Really there are too many to mention. But one that sticks out in my mind is the one in which Alice buys wallpaper for the house. Phil and Frankie decide to do the job themselves and take the wallpaper meant for the children's room and cover the living room (including windows and doors) with the wallpaper picturing various animals. Only after they are done do they notice that all of the animals are upside down!

Also there was a series of shows during the Rexall years in which Remley was fired and moved in with Phil, driving Alice nuts.  Phil tried everything to get Remley another job. In the beginning of March 1949, Phil and Elliott guest starred on a different NBC show every night of the week trying to get Remley a job on each show. Of course all attempts failed. Remley eventually won his job back by pretending to rescue a baby from a kidnapper in a Rexall store.

OTR BUFFET: Early on, Phil was doing the Benny show and his own show. How often did actors play two major parts on multiple shows at the same time?

TOBY: I don't know.  But I do know that radio required a lot less time commitment than TV or movies and so actors were able to participate in a great many shows at the same time. There are lots of stories of actors and actresses rushing from a live broadcast in one studio to another many blocks away and getting there just in time for the start of the show.

OTR BUFFET: Do you know the story about how Elliott Lewis landed the part of Remley on the Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show?

TOBY: Lewis has told the story in several interviews.  He was an occasional player on the Jack Benny show, where Remley worked as a guitarist in the band. Jack would often refer to Remley as an incompetent sot.  When the writers for The Phil Harris show decided to make Remley a central character, they offered the part to him. But Remley quickly found he was no radio actor, so he called Elliot Lewis and asked him to audition in his place. What a fortunate turn of events!

OTR BUFFET: Did Phil and Alice's real children ever play the part of their daughters on the show?

TOBY: No. Actresses were first used as daughters in the Benny program and the Harris show continued this practice.

OTR BUFFET: Anything else you like to add?

TOBY: We haven't mentioned the music at all. I first heard of Phil Harris when I was a kid because my parents had an album of Phil Harris songs. I loved that album, and I even memorized all the lyrics to "The Thing!"  Phil had a very good singing voice and Alice's was even better. Their repertoire wasn't that extensive and they sang the same song on several shows, but the material was first rate.

Five things off the top of my head that changed radio

5. Comedians Who Used Silence as Humor - Comedians such as Jack Benny and Gale Gordon used silence as a comedy tool, unlike the machine gun repartee  of Burns and Allen and Milton Berle, Benny's pauses brought just as much laughter to audiences as a joke would.

4. The Rise of the Drama and Comedy over Music - Thanks to shows like Lux Radio Theatre, the drama changed radio by 1935 - from a news and music medium to a drama/comedy medium. 

3.  The Rise of the Kiddie Adventure - Crime fighters and adventures-seekers come in all shapes and sizes and a lot of them were geared at the child.  By the late 1930's, these shows were all over the dial.

2. The Rise of the Soap Opera - Lonely women, whose husbands and boyfriends were off fighting  on foreign soil, became captivated by the "soap opera" - radio melodrama whose commercials were geared at the woman (soap, breakfast cereals, hair products, etc.)

1. The Mercury Theater Presents The War of the Worlds  - No fault of their own, Orson Welles, Agnes Moorehead and company create panic on Halloween night in 1938, giving people a whole new understanding about the power of radio.

©Jimbo 2010/2011

Podcast for April 1, 2011

Check out today's podcast.  It lasts just 8:13 and it's about Gale Gordon.

©Jimbo 2010/2011

Fibber and Molly photo dump/March 26th

Fibber McGee and Molly photo dump (+cast photo 1948 w/ Gale Gordon and Arthur Q Bryan!!)

This photo is well worth the attention - please click to enlarge

What the heck?

My review: Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police

This morning makes the first time I have listened to every episode of a serial all the way through - 178 episodes, total: the 1937 juvenile series, Speed Gibson and the International Secret Police.

Howard McNear as Clint Barlow

Speed Gibson (who some say is played by Elliott Lewis - while others say it is unknown who played the part) is a 15 year-old boy who is smart, strong and loves adventure.  His uncle, Clint Barlow (played by Howard McNear in a non-sniveling voice) is a member of the Secret Police - a law enforcement agency that is involved in trying to render useless a character known as the "Octopus" and his ruthless gang of Asian henchmen.  Barlow is a master at disguises and a great believer in the use of make-up - and he and the Secret Police use it often to secrete themselves in the Asian and Arabian populations.

After young Speed konks a member of the Octopus' gang, his uncle swears him into the Secret Police. And though he's only 15, he's a very capable member of the force.  Speed will prove time and time again to be a very valuable addition to the crime-busting organization, despite the fears some have about skills and wisdom of a 15 year-old.

Also helping the Secret Police is Barney Dunlap (veteran radio actor John Gibson) - who is prone to saying, "Suffering wangdoodles!' - unfortunately, this get old after about 10 episodes.  Still, Gibson plays the same part he's played his entire life - the outside wheel that doesn't quite roll straight.

Dunlap and Barlow are both expert pilots and airplanes are used for a lot of the scenes in the radio show.

Gale Gordon in the early 1930's

The Octopus, played by Gale Gordon, is not just out to avoid the Secret Police but to do away with them forever. The Octopus is an investor of sophisticated weaponry and some other-worldy psychological machines and he will stop at nothing in his quest to rule the world.  Violence, kidnapping, smuggling and murder are all on his evil agenda.

There are two different parts of the series.  The first 100 episodes are really pretty good and deal with Speed Gibson in the Pacific -- as I have stated before, I'd put those right behind the Adventures of Superman as far as juvenile radio shows are concerned - but the next 79 episodes pale in comparison. The Secret Police are in the jungles of Africa and I don't know, it's just not the same.

For one thing, John Gibson is missing for an extended period of time (explained in the show that his character was ill in the hospital.)  He does show up again about halfway through the second series, but there is constant changeover in characters taking his place. It's sort of confusing.

Also, the Octopus is not on the show as much in the second series.

Still, a fun show, although after finishing the series now, I would rank it much lower than I have it in my original Top 75 list. Originally I had it at #30 - I'm honestly thinking now that it should go to about #55 or #56 - I'll have a revised list sometime in the future.

Awesome photos: part one

Agnes Moorehead

Art Carney

Fanny Brice doing Baby Snooks

Cast of Dr. Christian; the man in the upper-left is Gale Gordon

Gene Autry, early 1930's

Judy Canova; a beautiful girl behind that country front

Mary Livingstone and Phil Harris

Ed Gardner

Mixed-up LaTrivia [#07]

Still on the road to getting there but not quite there yet...

Mixed-up LaTrivia [#06]

The mixing up of Mayor LaTrivia (Fibber McGee and Molly) continues.  While still not classic McGee-LaTrivia, you can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This episode is about Frank Lloyd Wright:

Review: My Favorite Husband

My Favorite Husband is another of the long line of old-time radio comedies that doesn't hold up so well today.  It's not that it's a bad show (most of the scripts were later turned into scripts for the I Love Lucy television show) or has bad acting (the show is blessed with Lucille Ball, Richard Denning, Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet) nor is it loaded down with unbearable musical numbers every 10 minutes (ala A Day in the Life of Dennis Day) - this show has no musical numbers at all.

Everything is in place for this to be a classic radio show - but instead, what we get is a soggy version of The Lucy Show.

In my mind, there's not one episode of the show that I can pick out and say, "You know, that was a great episode."  The only thing that makes the show memorable is the endless comparisons that are made with I Love Lucy and perhaps that is the show's curse?  It wasn't Desi Arnez or the Mertz's who made I Love Lucy work - it was the writing and Lucy herself.

This is where we came in.  This show has both of those things: the scripts of Jess Oppenheimer (the I Love Lucy creator and writer) and a younger, more virile version of Lucille Ball.

But for some reason, it just doesn't work.  One thing that would have made the show better is to flip husbands.  Make Denning the husband of Benederet and Gordon the husband of Lucy.

There's a good chance that this would have turned the show into a hopped-up version of The Bickersons (which is not a good show at all) but a souped-up version with Lucy and Gordon as a married couple might have provided hours of entertainment.

Gordon was one of Lucy's favorite actors and she really wanted him to be Fred Mertz in I Love Lucy.  Gordon never played Lucy's husband in all of the shows they did together; why not?

At any rate, Denning is boring.  He's not horrible but like Alice Faye on the Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, Denning is simply a piece of living room furniture.  And really, why would you want him to be anything else?

The blame for the lack of fun in this show then lands squarely on Lucy.  I have no idea what the deal was, I just know that the show is just like most of the others (actually, slightly less fun) during that time frame.  The situations may have been a little more outlandish than say, Our Miss Brooks - but I dare say, Our Miss Brooks is a better show on radio.

If I were rating the show on a 5 star system, I'd have to give the show 2 stars - maybe 2 and a half on a good day.

Mixed-up LaTriva [#05]

The topic of the day is "lit." This may be the weakest of the 5 posts so far (I promise, it gets much better.)

Also, this is hampered by about a minute of very bad sound quality. I fixed what I could but I can only do so much:

Mixed-up LaTrivia [#04]

Still not into full swing, here is the 4th time that Fibber, Molly and Mayor LaTrivia get into a mixed-up quarrel.  This is about a parade route:

Mixed-up Latrivia [#03]

Somehow, this one ends up with the McGee's having an argument!

Mixed-up LaTrivia [#02]

Mayor LaTrivia getting mixed-up (or is it the McGees who are mixed up?) when he begins talking about the "Kentucky Darby." Still not at their best but you can tell how they are progressing towards greatness:

Mixed-up LaTrivia [#01]

Gale Gordon didn't become Mayor LaTrvia on the Fibber McGee and Molly Show until 1942 - this was after Harold Peary left for the Great Gildersleeve show.

We all remember Mayor LaTrivia as the person the McGees would love to mix up.  But they didn't start mixing him up until well into the 1942-1943 season - actually some seven months after he became Mayor LaTrivia.

Personally, I love those mixups - as a matter of fact, I think they are the best gags on the whole show.

I thought it would be fun to chronicle each and every LaTrivia mix-up, complete with audio.

As time goes along, they get funnier. The first one here really isn't that funny.

This is the first: 430324 Fibber Writes a Song:

Review: Our Miss Brooks

Richard Crenna

Our Miss Brooks is usually a fun show. I enjoy very much the characters of Mr. Conklin (played so well by Gale Gordon as the slow-burn school prinicpal) and Richard Crenna as student Walter Denton, who is, I think, very typical of a teen in the 1950's rather than the 1940's.

Eve Arden holds down the spot as the show's anchor and star as she plays English teacher Connie Brooks. I don't dislike her but neither do I like her. I don't feel one way or another about her - and I am actually kind of ambivalent about the entire show, sans the Conklin part.

There are some annoying things about the show, mainly goofy Mrs. Davis, Miss Brooks' landlady (who seems to have the early stages of dementia) and her even more annoying cat, Minerva -- and the feline's lusty meow gets on my minervas.

Eve Arden (left) and Jane Morgan (as Mrs. Davis)

All the other characters are fine, none of them really stand out. Phillip Boynton, the science teacher, is always the frightened prey of Miss Brooks and the show's sound effects man must have had a field day coming up with all of the animal sounds when Boynton was on there. The frog sound, for instance, is just ridiculously too loud and annoying for my tastes.

The show was geared to the 1940's teen so why should I be complaining? I'm not really, as "Our Miss Brooks" is a show I listen to regularly and enjoy somewhat. It's not my favorite but it's not bad either. The sound quality, by in large, is pretty good, so no complaints there either.