An interview with PQ Ribber about OTR, Vic and Sade and "entertainiam"

Here's the guy we all love (or should; his Quaquaversal Satellite podcast is awesome, as are all of the podcasts over at the Overnightscape Underground). PQ has a love for not just old-time radio and Vic and Sade but for all things "entertainiam".  He's had a big influence in my life, thanks to his open talk, his wonderful insights on pop culture and his love for music, Vic and Sade and all the other stuff I enjoy! I was lucky enough to get him to do an interview with me and though it's done "transcription style" it worked out quite well, thanks to his editing. {{{ HEAR THE PQ RIBBER INTERVIEW }}}

An interview with Sarah Cole about Vic and Sade

Fans of my Crazy World of Vic and Sade will no doubt recognize the name, Sarah Cole.

I "met" Mis' Sarah on Twitter and she's such a big fan of Vic and Sade that I want to marry her! Well, at least do an interview with her, which I haven't done yet. She has provided many of her thoughts to the website (which I am very grateful for) and her insight is so valuable and precious to me. I enjoy her ideas and work very much and I am so privileged that she devotes so much of her time to The Crazy World of Vic and Sade.

Without further ado, here's an interview I did with her:


Tell me about your website and what your mission is there.

I'd hesitate to call "Old Zorah's Pew" a proper website. It's mostly a chance to 1.) Vent, 2.) Post information or insights I haven't seen anyone else address. Its purpose is mainly 1.) To keep me from wandering about muttering to myself, and , 2.) To put the ideas in a place where they can be shared at appropriate times via social media. I'm as sporadic a blog-poster as I am a letter-poster, so it's a wonder any one notices the blog at all. But, if someone makes a remark about Jesus Christ being born in April or September, I can whip out this and remark, "Scripturally, you know, there's good evidence that He was born in December;" or if someone lavishes eloquent praise on John Williams for his originality in creating "Yoda's Theme." I can shoot back, "Ahem. I believe that particular melody dates from 1942," and pass on this URL.   Or, I can keep quiet and keep my friends. 

(One of these days, I'll have to post the story of how I came to become a church lady, as compared to a Christian woman who attends church. It might be good for laughs.) 　 

Which one of the real characters do you enjoy the most and why?

Probably Rush or Uncle Fletcher. Youthful exuberance is always bracing; and Uncle Fletcher is so enveloped in his own world that any conversation with him is bound to seem like a travelogue.

Which of the pre-1945 imagined characters do you like to think about the most? Why? What do they look and sound like to you?

The actual character varies, but, at the moment, I'm thinking about Aunt Bess. I picture her as looking and sounding like a gentler version of Sade, not as tall, and with brown hair (for some reason, Sade sounds like she's bigger than Bess, and blonde.)

What do you think about Uncle Fletcher? Is he crazy, hard of hearing, selective hearing, senile... what gives?

Uncle Fletcher is an artist, a poet, a dreamer. Therefore, he can't see the prosaic world around him. Instead, it is one of continual glamour and excitement, peopled by fascinating personalities. To digress briefly, in the old fairy stories, one theme that regularly came up was of mortals not being able to see the fairies, but, when their eyes were treated with a special ointment, they could see all the magnificence that, to everyone else, looked like rank shabbiness. Uncle Fletcher's eyes have been anointed; and, through him, we can see the fairies.

Is Vic and Sade your favorite radio show or is it just one of the better shows you listen to?

That's like asking what's my favorite movie: it depends on my mood. Vic and Sade is definitely one of my most favorite programs, though The Halls of Ivy, or Jack Benny, or Bob and Ray, or Fred Allen are all right up there.

Finish this sentence. "When I think about the show, Vic and Sade, the first thing I think about is _____"

"Absurdity." If we watch ourselves, and those around us, we would be either shocked, or vastly amused, at the silly things we say or do, that don't' seem silly at the time.

What do you feel is the most interesting premise to the show?

Vic as Exalted Big Dipper of the local fraternal organization. My grandmother was a staunch Rebekah for years, and understood and taught the ritual. Although the Rebekah ritual actually makes sense, hearing Vic recite the gibberish of the Sacred Stars of the Milky Way makes me think of my grandmother.

And in all her days, she never tore the buttons off of the coat, vest, shirt, and underwear of any member!

Since Proctor and Gamble destroyed so many disks and we are left with only 1/10th of the episodes, tell me, have you ever imagined what happened in some of those shows? Tell me some of the things you have wondered about?

I've been so taken by the things that happened in the shows that are extant, and in the scripts Mrs. Rhymer published later, that I've never given much thought to what might have been lost. It may be that our imagination makes the missing better than they acutely were. For instance, I like the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Many of them originally included additional songs. Out of all those songs, I can only think of two that are memorable; and even they are better as novelties. While musically interesting, they drag on the plot without adding anything to it. If something were really good, somebody would have preserved it. The fact that no one did suggest that what we have is the very best of the series..

Anything else you'd like to say about the show?

Vic and Sade still goes on today. Look around at your friends and family and you'll hear episodes every day.

My grandparents didn't seem to care for Vic and Sade. In fact, the only radio program I recall them ever talking about was the Paul Gibson show (a Chicago area talk-show host). My grandfather liked to listen to him in the morning, my grandmother couldn't stand him. When she gave the ultimatum that my grandfather could either breakfast with Gibson or her, but not both, he chose Gibson. (This disagreement was not fatal to their marriage, however: when they died last year, aged 99 and 94, Grandpa was as much in love with Grandma as he was before he had ever heard of Paul Gibson.)

The thing about Vic and Sade is its seemingly unconscious wacky naturalness. Real people may use different phrases, but they are just as prone to malapropisms as Sade. Youth still plan impossible plots without recognizing their limitations. And men still take pride in their exploits with their comrades, whether they're following a sports team or building computer networks. The program may be set in the 1930s-40's, but Paul Rhymer has captured the timeless elements of human behavior. It takes time, a sense of humor, and self-awareness, to recognize the humor, but, once a listener catches on to it, he or she will begin to hear it everywhere.

©Jimbo, 2012

I interview a husband and wife about their fascination with Vic and Sade

Recently, I was sent an email from a female fan of Vic and Sade. 

Eventually, this turned into me finding out that not only was she a fan of Vic and Sade but so were her husband (who runs a blog called "Miscellany") and their children!

This provided the impetus to ask them both for an interview.  This will be the first time I have interviewed a husband and wife team about the show.  They gave some great answers...


OTR Buffet: Thank you so much for joining me for this interview. Please tell us a little something about yourself.

Yaakov: Happy to have the chance to talk to Vic and Sade fans, thanks for the opportunity. Radio has always been a great interest of mine. I was fortunate enough to grow up in the 1970's in the coverage area of WOR in New York City, so as a young teen I listened to Bob and Ray every afternoon and Jean Shepherd each evening. On weekends I heard reruns of Dimension X, X Minus One, and Inner Sanctum. I learned to love radio as something more than music and news.

I also learned to love the insides of radios and became a ham radio operator. So, I've been very "radioactive".

Shoshana: Like Sade, I am a Midwestern housewife. But instead of the daily little love story or Glory Golden movies, OTR is a big source of entertainment for me.

OTR Buffet: Do you remember when and how you first heard about Vic and Sade and what you first thought of the series?

Yaakov: I sure do. My wife an I are both OTR fans and we were trolling around in archive.org's fantastic collection. We listened for a few minutes to an episode but it failed to resonate and we moved on. Later, my wife told me she'd listened to more and I had to listen. After a few episodes, we were both hooked.

Shoshana: Yes! OTR used to be an expensive hobby, because the only way to acquire recordings was to buy records or cassette tapes at about $10 a pop (at least when I was buying them in the 70s and 80s). So my husband and I were like kids in the proverbial candy shop once all the free recordings began to appear on archive.org. We had exhausted most of the episodes of the better-known programs and were searching around for something "new" to listen to. We tried a few minutes of Vic's New Hat, not really knowing what to expect or understanding how to interpret this very different format. With no audience, no live band, no hilarious ad spokesman, no raucous jokes, and few sound effects--just a small family having a conversation in their living room--we must have thought it was a slow-moving, light drama. We decided to try something else.

But the next day, I wanted to listen to OTR while doing dishes, so I downloaded a number of episodes onto my mp3 player. Listening all the way through, with my full attention, I found myself charmed and entranced by the unique and off-beat humor of Vic and Sade. I encouraged my husband to listen with me after that and he very quickly came to appreciate Vic and Sade as much as I did. Since then we have spend countless hours not just listening to Vic and Sade, but also discussing it with each other and with our six kids. 

OTR Buffet: Which one of the family do you enjoy listening to the most and why?

Yaakov: That's a tough question. I think it really depends on the episode. Some are better vehicles for one character or another. I do enjoy the Rush/Uncle Fletcher duo in things like Souvenirs and Mementos; and Washrag Collection, and the Vic/Sade duo in anything to do with Vic's naïve and repeated attempts to tell Sade about anything to do with Lolita Di Rienzi.

When Rush and Uncle Fletcher interact, we get to see just how patient and good-natured Rush is (it seems that only Nicer Scott and Sade's clothing plans can really get him upset). He takes all that Uncle Fletcher can throw at him and remains respectful and sincerely interested. He really enjoys Uncle Fletcher. With the pressure off—no Vic or Sade to get exasperated—Uncle Fletcher can be his full-blown crazy self without having to make a pest of himself (as he does when trying to get attention among others). He can tell his crazy stories without the tension. The closest Rush gets to being upset with Uncle Fletcher's stories is the "chamois bush" in Washrag Collection.

Vic seems to be in charge, but when Vic and Sade are having a one-on-one, as in Heart-shaped Face or any Lolita story, we see a reversal with Vic as the gullible one and Sade completely in charge. Sade's jealousy should make Vic happy, she clearly feels proprietary, but he feels small just when he was feeling a bit puffed up. Vic gets to be the one in charge when it comes to math or "science" (even though he doesn't have much actual knowledge) in things like the Sade and Ruthie shopping money episodes, and in Don't Scrape off the Watts. In either case, they work well together in these pairings.

If I had to pick just one, it would be probably be Uncle Fletcher, because it is pretty consistent that if you have Uncle Fletcher in an episode it will be a good one. But, that's artificial, you'd have to ask me about each episode to get the real answer.

Shoshana: While each of them is a treasure and I love the way they all work together and play off each other, I most enjoy listening to Rush, because of his easy-going attitude. He seems to take everything in stride; he acquiesces to demands, laughs off inconsistencies, and even accepts disregard for himself with a fairly tolerant attitude. He doesn't get out bent of shape over small stuff, and when it comes to the point where he really must assert himself, he does it calmly and appropriately. So he's my role model. :-)

OTR Buffet: Outside of the Gooks and Uncle Fletcher, who is the most intriguing character on the show to you and why?

Yaakov: Again, to pick just one is a kind of lying. There are so many great characters to choose from. I won't go through them all but maybe I can break it down a bit. First, for characters that are never actually heard, I would probably pick another pair: Lolita di Rienzi and Pom Pom Cordova. They are mysterious and doing unusual things in a little town in the 1930s. They get Sade pretty riled up. I suppose I would also pick Miss Neagle, because of her historical value as the first woman to single-handedly tear up a city street. OK, I will stop picking characters. But I don't want to.

Later, when we hear more voices (an innovation that I am not fond of), the most interesting ones were really very one-dimensional. People like Jimmy Custard, the city callestalker, because of his great iron-bound notebook and his inability to hold on to it providing one of the few sound effects and a great impact; Orville Weeny who really doesn't care about anything but raising a pompadour so he can say just what he thinks, and Mr. Sprall with his baby bonnet, shawl, and demented belief that he was born in every city that is mentioned. I like these because they couldn't have been done without the voice, while others, like Mis Harris, don't add to the ensemble, in my opinion. They are good actors, but they seem "bolted on".

Shoshana: It's hard to give an answer to that, because they all seem so strange, other than Mis' Harris. But probably the one with the most "intriguing" background is that prince of good fellows, L. Vogel Drum.

OTR Buffet: Do you have a favorite episode and why?

Yaakov: I don't. I have a list. There is no one single reason other than that they represent the best of Rhymer. He has the form down, and is at his most musical. A "good" Vic and Sade episode is like a musical piece. It starts out with the statement of a theme, there is tension as it moves away from the "tonic" and various dynamics, then eventually, it resolves by restating the theme. There are many, but not all episodes are "perfect" like these.

Shoshana: I have many favorites. Vic's New Hat, which we initially rejected, eventually became a favorite, because it demonstrates the foibles of the characters in one of their perennial conflicts. Forty Pounds of Golf Clubs in another, because in spite of the sheer madness of the premise the family seriously considers logistics of the situation. Souvenirs and Mementos is great because of the opportunity for Uncle Fletcher to tell a number of weird stories, and for Rush and Uncle Fletcher to list off the states. I could go on with probably another 5 or 10 actual favorites, but I'll try to be like Mis' Keller and leave it go at that.

OTR Buffet: What is the most interesting/funniest/strangest premise in the show to you and why?

Yaakov: It's not fair to ask for one. But, if I am going to try to pick out one, I would say, the Forty Pounds of Golf Clubs premise could be it. It is right in character, though for Mr. Buller who pulled his own tooth with a ticket punch "without turning a hair". The insult-to-injury was "and I am counting on your ability as a catcher because it is a new and expensive one and I wouldn't want to get it scratched"*. It's good that Vic was willing to stand up to Buller at least this once.

* I quoted this from memory, just as Vic does in the episode, but I think I can just about do that.

Shoshana: Well, as mentioned above, I think Forty Pounds of Golf Clubs is over the top. Vic has often been subjected to indignities in his quest for honor (ironically), but this is the only case I can remember in which his life was actually placed at risk. 

Of course, a few episodes near the end were pretty strange (people detouring through the house because the road was closed, for instance), but so extreme that I don't appreciate them as much. Sort of "jumping the shark".

OTR Buffet: Choose one - Uncle Fletcher is senile, crazy or hard of hearing? Does he use the 'hard of hearing' act to deflect things he doesn't want to talk about?

Yaakov: I don't think that Uncle Fletcher is senile or crazy. I think he is simply self-involved. He wants to be the center of attention and uses "important" and "unusual" things to try and be it. Of course he has "selective" hearing, and if it's not intentional, it is subconsciously managed. He's demonstrated he has no problem hearing things he wants to hear.

The one real mystery about Uncle Fletcher is his time in Boone, Iowa.

Shoshana: I think he actually is hard of hearing, by the way he reacts to comments and how he doesn't even hear conversations that are held in hushed tones. But I also think he plays it up as a device for dramatic effect. I don't think he's senile or even crazy, but I do think his thinking is a bit muddled a lot of the time. But none of his impairments seem to bother him as long as he is able to cultivate a sense of importance in his circle of friends and family.

OTR Buffet: Rush or Russell?

Yaakov: Well, here's one I can answer without equivocation: Rush. I don't even enjoy listening to Russell episodes very much. He is just a mini-Vic, with a bad attitude. Rush's unflappability is so important to the ensemble that Russell's negative energy just upsets the whole balance for me.

Shoshana: Rush, hands down. Where Rush has tolerant good humor and makes clever observations, Russell whines and doesn't add much substance. It seems, from what we've read, that Paul Rhymer also preferred Rush, and sometimes I wonder if he may have started deliberately writing Russell to be more annoying because he didn't care for him!

OTR Buffet: Which talked-about character would you like to know more about?

Yaakov: I think it would be Mr. Buller. He's a very dynamic guy who seems to live life to its fullest.

Shoshana: I have always wondered about Mr. Donahue and why he commands so much respect and consideration from Sade. It sometimes seems she is more concerned for his comfort than for that of her own family. He is always going against the norm, whether by having his days and nights reversed so that he can't even enjoy his vacations or by stepping down from a promotion that he had wanted. And then, of course, there is that issue with Donahue's attic. . .

OTR Buffet: What question should I have asked you but didn't and what's your answer?

Yaakov: I suppose it would be, "Of all the OTR out there, why is Vic and Sade the one show you listen to almost every day?"

I think it is the music-like quality. There is rhythm, dynamics, and flow to Vic and Sade. You can anticipate the dialogue, just as you would familiar and favorite music. It's always amusing, and seems to fill a need to step away from real life to a simpler one.

Shoshana: Maybe: "In what way do you find the humor of Vic and Sade characteristically Midwestern?"

My answer: Being from Indiana, one of the things that first appealed to me about Vic and Sade was that the characters and the humor were familiar in a way that no other programs I had seen or listened to were. Sade's accent, for instance, is just about identical to that of my grandmother, who grew up in a tiny town in Illinois. Uncle Fletcher's repertoire of "startlin" stories, and his cadence--such as the way he repeats a phrase and pauses dramatically before delivering some amazing bit of information--reminds me of my grandfather. The way Vic spontaneously recites bits of verse and plays with the sounds of words is something people in my family have always done (and I do, myself), yet I don't ever recall a character in a popular TV or radio program with that habit. In my experience, having lived both in Indiana and up and down the East Coast, these are Midwestern peculiarities. I was delighted to finally hear a representation of this segment of the population that I know and love!

OTR Buffet: Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions!

Yaakov: Thanks for asking them!

Shoshana: It's a real pleasure to be able to discuss Vic and Sade with people who understand! 


©Jimbo 2012

Interview with Bob Stepno about Journalism OTR

Bob Stepno  is a former journalist for the Hartford Courant and is now a professor at Radford University in Virginia.

He's practically one the first people ever on the internet and is a computer geek from way back (a compliment!)

OTR BUFFET: Could you tell me a little about your background in journalism and about your earliest memories of old-time radio?

Bob Stepno - I was more a "first TV-generation" kid in the fifties, but I do remember still enjoying The Shadow and Johnny Dollar when I was in junior high, c. 1960.

My even earlier radio memories are of my grandmother's soap operas on the kitchen radio, before I was old enough for school. I only remember the names -- Helen Trent, Guiding Light, Love of Life. I had a 45 rpm record of The Lone Ranger's "How he found Silver" episode, which I played over and over, driving my parents crazy.

In high school, I became a shortwave listener and collected QSL cards. While taking high school Spanish, I translated Radio Madrid program guide articles to run in my high school Spanish club newspaper -- my first byline!

At UConn I wrote for school newspapers and did some newspaper-history research the old-fashioned way: microfilm archives and big dusty volumes of bound papers. After graduation, I went to work for The Hartford Courant ("the nation's oldest continuously published newspaper") as a copy editor, bureau reporter, bureau chief, education editor and feature writer, in about that order. Eleven years went by fast. When the L.A. Times bought The Courant, I took my stock in the company and left for grad school. I wound up with a master's in anthropology and ethnomusicology, and the computer I'd bought to write my thesis. It led to a job with a software company, more graduate courses, another thesis (about hypertext -- in 1988) and a couple of magazine-writing gigs before I went for a Ph.D. at UNC Chapel Hill.

Back to radio: Through the '70s and '80s, one of my local radio stations was WTIC, home of Dick Bertel's Golden Age of Radio programs. In the 1980s, another local station rebroadcast The Shadow and other old-time programs after midnight. While in grad school, I bought a Zenith radio/cassette recorder that had a built-in clock timer so that I could time-shift those already time-shifted programs. (Unfortunately, I recycled the tapes -- I was a "listener," not a "collector.")

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OTR BUFFET: Tell me about your various websites?

Bob Stepno - There are too many of them, mostly "demos" of different software systems. :-) My "hub" is http://stepno.com and it will fill in the gaps for anyone who really wants to know. At UNC, I took one of the first courses about the Web and worked for one of the first Web newspapers NandO.net.

In my first teaching job (at Emerson College in 1999), I taught journalism and Web production with raw HTML, but also started using Radio Userland, Manila and Blogger, and got to be part of a blogging discussion group, which got me yet another blog address in August 2003, http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/stepno/

Answering this question made me so nostalgic that I logged in at the Harvard site for the first time in a year to write some "memory lane" stuff about being on hand for the dawn of podcasting at Harvard. Short version: Having witnessed that early podcast buzz, I started listening to a lot of podcasts, including old time radio podcasts like Jim Widner's Radio Detective Story Hour (http://www.otr.com/blog/), which included some of those detective-reporters you mentioned.

Having been a reporter around the time of "All the President's Men" and "Lou Grant," I had always been fascinated by "newspaper movies" -- but the idea that radio had fictional newspaper reporters too was news to me. The "Freedom of the Press is a flaming sword..." speech at the start of "Big Town" was especially impressive -- even if the series was more crime/detective than newspaper-reporting.

When I found myself teaching in a small town without a lot of big newspapers or Web news sites to visit and interview people for the kind of research I'd done in my dissertation (finished in 2003), I decided to see what I could do with a "Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture -- Radio Dramatic Series" theme. (For research on the image of journalists in pop culture in general, see Joe Saltzman's project http://ijpc.org at USC's Annenberg School.)

With luck, my http://jheroes.com blog will evolve into a series of articles and maybe a book. I'm using the blog posts to think about individual episodes and a menu of "Pages" to gradually write longer essays on whole series or topics. I password protect the "Page" items until they're fairly respectable, or when I'm using them for class discussions.

I mostly use Internet Archive/OTRR collections of MP3 files to give readers examples of the shows I'm talking about. I wish I could be Randy Riddle and track down original, long-unheard transcription discs, but I see my role more one of listening to the shows and trying to figure out what those fictional or dramatized journalists were /doing/ there -- being good role models for future journalists? Giving audiences false impressions of journalists as crime-fighters? Helping kids who wanted to be Superman settle for being Clark Kent? Or just helping mild-mannered script writers tell interesting stories?

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OTR BUFFET: Out of all the old-time radio that feature journalists, which one do you feel has the most authenticity and which one is the most ridiculous? Also, do you have a favorite among this "genre?"

Bob Stepno - There are so many that I can't pick one! How about six, each for a slightly different reason? "Night Beat," "Frontier Gentleman," "Rogers of the Gazette," "Soldiers of the Press," "Superman" and "The Green Hornet."

On the "ridiculous" end, I'd put "Bright Star."

I also don't confine myself to whole series -- DuPont Cavalcade and all of the Hollywood anthologies (Lux, Theater Guild, Screen Guild, etc.) -- included plenty of stories about newspaper or magazine journalists. Most of the old "newspaper movies" are there, transformed to fit the half-hour or hour formats, and some of Cavalcade's historical profiles are great fun.

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OTR BUFFET: Speaking of genre, there seems to be an element in almost all of the newspaper shows that seems to turn them into sleuths? If these aren't deemed detective show, what exactly should we call them?

Bob Stepno - In real-life, reporters can be sleuths part of the time. But there are plenty of stories where "detecting" or "solving a mystery" isn't really the point. "Night Beat," "Frontier Gentleman" and "Rogers of the Gazette" fit those categories. The best episodes are about capturing the drama of someone's life. The best journalists are observers, witnesses, interpreters and explainers. Having such a "story teller" as a main or secondary character certainly gives a screenplay or script-writer something to work with! The fact that a reporter is "an outsider" also gives the audience a natural point of view. And sometimes, you can't be sure whether that "outsider" is the good guy or not.

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OTR BUFFET: I've always felt that Edward G. Robinson's portrayal of editor Steve Wilson (most specifically in the late 1930's as opposed to his portrayal in the early 1940's) on Big Town had an incredible power behind it and is very reminisicent of some power-packed, fast-moving Warner Brothers films of the same era (I believe he even played an editor in one film, much like Steve Wilson.) What is your opinion of those late 1930's episodes I refer to?

Bob Stepno - You're right on the mark. Robinson starred in "Five Star Final," about a guilt-ridden tabloid editor. He lets his circulation-mad publisher push him to do a story that ultimately leads to a double-suicide and brings a third victim into his office gunning for him. (That's what he gets for sending out Boris Karloff as reporter!)

"Big Town" begins with a similar editor doing an expose that hurts a woman (Pittsburgh Lil), who actually does shoot Wilson. He writes his own obituary, but survives -- and reforms. I wish more episodes were available to show his whole transition from scandal-monger to public-servant, which is pretty solidly established by the half-dozen Robinson episodes I've heard. He literally carries the canaries into a coal mine in one episode. The "safe driving" episodes are a good hint that stories about "public service journalism" might not be as dramatic as life-and-death crime shows. That kind of preachiness was probably hard to sell to sponsors.

I get the impression that during the Robinson-to-Pawley transition the producers decided that "crime drama" with the words "fatal" or "death" in almost every title was the way to go. Here's an interesting research question: How many of those Pawley-years episodes mention a newspaper story getting written?

Incidentally, "Five Star Final" was based on a play by a former newspaperman who was (briefly) editor of the New York Evening Graphic, which I've done research on off-and-on for years. (http://stepno.com/unc/graphic)

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OTR BUFFET: I've always felt that one of the most underrated shows was "Soldiers of the Press", which takes real stories from the journalists from WWII and made a 15 minute drama out of each one. What are your feeling about the show?

Bob Stepno - I wish someone from United Press had written a history of that program. I've looked at UPI staff autobiographies and searched online sites, but haven't found much. I'd love to spend a month or three shoveling through scripts, business files and correspondence about the show. If anyone can point me to that kind of material, please do.

I've listened to about 40 episodes and some of them are excellent. I've tracked down stories by some of the reporters, as well as biographical information about them, but I haven't posted any of my notes yet. Judging by the sound effects and music, I get the feeling the budget for the series slipped over the years, but some episodes are excellent.

Some of the OTR pages online are under the misconception that the voices heard are the actual reporters, but those were clearly radio actors stateside re-creating episodes from the lives of the wire-service reporters overseas. I talked to J.David Goldin about the show a couple of years ago and he rattled off specific actors' voices that he recognized. Wish I had his ear!

NPR interviewed Walter Cronkite, who mentioned how strange it was to hear an actor saying "This is Walter Cronkite..." in the Soldiers of the Press episodes about him. He had been a "print" reporter for United Press; the broadcasting came later.

The syndicate, which became UPI, was in serious competition with the Associated Press, and I assume having a dramatic series about U.P. reporters was partly an attempt to promote the wire service to new customers -- newspaper publishers and radio stations, as both UPI and AP got into the radio-news business. (I remember reading about AP having a series dramatizing reporters' stories, but I haven't heard it.)

Did stations pay for "Soldiers of the Press" or was it entirely "sponsored" by United Press? Did it have any government support as a wartime public service? Did U.P. bundle it with news services? I have more questions than answers about the series. I hope to get back to it this summer... or after I retire.

Similarly, I'm fascinated by the dramatized biographies of reporters, editors or publishers on "The Big Story," "Cavalcade of America," "Captains of Industry" and series like that. Even "You Are There" and "March of Time" fit this "dramatizing the news" model. I've gone looking for the actual newspaper stories behind some of the "March of Time" episodes after I noticed that Time magazine didn't just use the series to promote its own reporters.

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OTR BUFFET: One thing you don't seem to cover on your web site that deals with old-time radio are the newscasters of the Golden Age. How important do you think they were in molding the journalists of the time since then? Do the modern day news journalists even know who these pioneers were?

Bob Stepno - Yes, that was a conscious decision. My "project" has to do mostly with the dramatic portrayals of newspaper, magazine and wire-service journalists. I started with fictional ones, then decided to add "dramatized" lives of non-fictional journalists.

I'm not going to get into the actual working radio journalists like Kaltenborn, Murrow, Shirer, Sevareid and everyone between. (Well, I do mention Douglas Edwards when I get to "Wendy Warren" -- strange concept, combining a real newscast with the intro to a soap opera about a fictional reporter.)

I figured the real-life broadcast journalists already had a secure place in the "media history" textbooks and research journals. Also, many of them went on to write books, do TV, and anchor their reputations as journalists in forms than their radio broadcasts.

However, the fact that radio told the big stories *first* influenced many print journalists to think more about telling the "why?" stories or going into more depth -- at least to be aware of the differences. And maybe radio inspired newspapers to take a more personal approach to reporting; I don't know for sure. Did the practice of running photos next to columnists' opinion pieces start because radio had made news reporting more personal? Or was it just because of improvements in photography and layout? And of course radio also beat print on capturing the immediacy of news. Newspapers moved away from the many-editions-per-day "Extra!" model that they'd followed for decades. (Interesting that the Web and Twitter are putting us all in the "Extra!" business again.) Some also went into more visual elements -- photos and charts -- and more "depth" or "interpretive" reporting, to give you something radio couldn't do.

As for remembering the pioneers... My guess is that the folks at NPR have their antennas out for the history of their own profession the way I do for newspaper history. For instance, long-time NPR host Bob Edwards wrote book a few years ago about Murrow and the history radio news.

I suspect that most TV news folks only look back as far as Murrow and Cronkite, but I could be wrong. Maybe some of them trace their roots to "March of Time" newsreels and radio news.

---

OTR BUFFET: When I first discovered old-time radio in the mid-1970's, I found that Nightbeat was my favorite show. I found it had a feel about it that the other shows didn't have. I've kind of lost my love for the show these days. Tell me what you like or don't like about Randy Stone and Nightbeat?

Bob Stepno - It's definitely a different kind of series, and some episodes are better than others. It reminds me of the TV shows "The Fugitive" or "Route 66" -- the same central character thrown into "someone else's life" each week. In some episodes Stone's process of "getting material for the column" is more realistic than others. Sometimes the "noir" writing style sounds dated or cute. Sometimes the coincidences are too contrived, or the characters a bit schmaltzy for my taste.

In a few, he's just a stand-in for a "man of action" detective, but that doesn't happen to him regularly -- he's not "Crime Photographer" or Steve Wilson.

The episodes I like best are the one where he's more realistically a reporter looking for "human interest" stories and getting lucky at least once in a while (I wonder if that's why "Lucky Stone" was his name for one episode?) On the best episodes, I really can imagine him banging out his copy before deadline, then heading over to Billy Goat's for a beer with Mike Royko.

Some endings are darker than others, and some "morals" at the end fall a little flat. I've gotten a little distracted playing a game of "Who is Bill Conrad going to be this week?" He's Stone's editor in a Christmas episode, a dying reporter in another, a punch-drunk boxer in another, an old gangster in one -- and probably more. As I write about these, I'll mostly focus on the ones with more "journalism process" involved.

I'm especially intrigued by a couple of episodes in which real reporters are either guests at the end of the show or are mentioned in tribute. Did journalism students or working reporters in the 1950s tune-in to "Night Beat" the way my generation tuned in to "Lou Grant" looking for role models -- or something to criticize? I suspect so. But I haven't seen anyone mention it in a memoir the way they do Lois Lane and Clark Kent.

---

OTR BUFFET: What show that features reporters should we be listening to that we probably aren't and why?

Bob Stepno - I wish there were more episodes of "Shorty Bell," "San Francisco Final," "Deadline Mystery," "Jane Endicott" and "Douglas of the World" to listen to.

If I had more time, health and research-travel money, I'd go to some university archives that have the personal papers of script writers on some of these programs. I've found a couple of them, but for some reason none are in my neighborhood in rural western Virginia, alas.

Since your readers are already OTR fans, what I really wish they'd do is keep their ears open for reporters and editors in /other/ kinds of series -- and drop me a line!

For instance, I've already found the Lone Ranger rescuing Horace Greeley in one episode. The Cisco Kid helped some folk defrauded by a printer's fake land-deal newspaper. A friendly local editor took an interest in Little Orphan Annie (was his headline "Orphan Gets Valuable Birthstone Ring as Gift," and did he include Ovaltine coupons?).

A student newspaper makes waves in "Halls of Ivy." Matt Dillon is faced with a woman journalist, a scandal-seeking male reporter and a visiting photographer in various Gunsmoke episodes. Indian-war correspondents come to cover the frontier in other Western series. "Vic & Sade" entertain themselves by riffing off the local news in their paper. "Lum & Abner" get their names in the paper, if not spelled right. "Our Miss Brooks," "Blondie" and some other family-comedy series had school-newspaper or similar episodes. And there are episodes of Suspense and other anthology series where the reporter is hero, victim or villain. (Trent's Last Case, The Hands of Mr. Ottermole, etc.)

And I've barely started on the soaps with some newspaper themes or subplots. Randy Riddle turned me on to the newspaper as anti-Roosevelt propaganda tool in "American Family Robinson," and I have episodes of Front Page Farrell, Betty & Bob (I'm podcasting it on Wednesdays), Big Sister, Mary Foster and Wendy Warren -- even corresponded with a real-life journalist by that name who had never heard of her esteemed predecessor.

But there are huge gaps in my listening. For example, I've seen posters for a Henry Aldritch movie in which he's a school paper editor, but I don't know if that was a theme in the radio series.

But you asked what to listen to. If anyone has missed it, I'd recommend "Frontier Gentleman" for some fun stories, historical connections and good writing and production. Andy Griffith fans shouldn't miss "Rogers of the Gazette." Other folks might also be amused to give Superman or The Green Hornet another listen, paying attention to just how much "reporting" the reporters do, how the "public service journalism" sometimes shapes the plot -- and whether the reporters and editors make ethical decisions or fake stuff.

In the "dramatized non-fiction" zone, I also want to spend more time with "The Big Story," especially because its tobacco sponsorship means that plenty of scripts are in the tobacco-papers archive at UCLA.

---

OTR BUFFET: Thank you, Professor, so much for your time in doing this with me!

Bob Stepno - You're welcome. Writing this has reminded me of a lot of things I've wanted to get to.... "Eventually" seems to be stretching out before me like a promised land...

---

©Jimbo 2010/2011

An interterview with Barry about Welles-era 'The Shadow'

The Shadow was an exciting show.  I've always enjoyed the Orson Welles - Agnes Moorehead teaming, the best.

I asked Barry ( Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride blog) back to talk about this era of the show and he came through with some terrific insight!

OTR BUFFET - Thanks Barry, for doing yet another interview with me. You are one of the few to do two interviews on the OTRr Buffet...

Barry - I'm very honored. There have been some very interesting and knowledgeable people interviewed here. I'm happy to be among them.
OTR BUFFET - You and I agreed in advance to talk about The Shadow and more generally, the Orson Welles years as the Shadow. Talk about how Welles carried out the characters of Lamont Cranston/The Shadow and how you feel it was different than the others who played the part.

Barry - Welles embodied the wealthy young man about town role better than anyone who came after. He had a patrician voice, slightly bored, and he simply sounded like the kind of disaffected playboy who would have traveled the world and studied strange secrets in the Orient. Bill Johnstone, who followed him, sounded more like the average man. Later Lamont Cranstons were sometimes henpecked by Margot. She'd drag Lamont to the opera or he'd follow her around on shopping trips, carrying her bags. Orson Welles' Lamont was too good for that.

His Lamont usually sounded like he knew more than he was telling. There was something in Orson's voice that simply sounded mysterious. And that carried over to the Shadow. A lot of the time the story would open and Lamont was already embroiled in the case, as in The Mine Hunters. Other times, like when a madman was disrupting shipping by torpedoing ships from a secret submarine (Death from the Deep) the authorities were powerless but The Shadow simply announced that he was on the job and went to work.

OTR BUFFET - I have only just come to the conclusion that listeners have taken for granted how lucky we were to have the Welles-Agnes Moorehead (as Margo Lane) team doing The Shadow in the late 1930's. If you think about what kind of careers both had and how noted each are for their acting abilities it's quite rare to have them teamed up in a production where we really got to hear them stretch themselves in something that wasn't serious acting. Can you talk about that team and the advantages they had working together as opposed to the other Cranston/Lane teams?

Barry - I think you have to appreciate Agnes Moorehead. She starred in one of the most famous OTR stories, Sorry, Wrong Number by Suspense. It was a one-woman tour de force. And while there were many talented actresses to play Margot Lane, Agnes Moorehead may have gone on to the most acclaim.

Orson Welles’ career is noted for the ownership he took over his roles and his productions, but The Shadow was just a job for him. He was such a busy man that often he'd rush into the studio a few minutes before the broadcast and the first time he'd see the script was when he was reading it. He had the great ability to scan only a couple of lines ahead on the page but still imbue the lines with the proper inflection, depth, and meaning. Playing opposite someone as talented as Agnes Moorehead must have made it that much easier for him.

It is no surprise that they both went on to the Mercury Theater on the Air. Orson assembled some great talent there, like Joseph Cotton, Hans Conreid, and Vincent Price, among others.

OTR BUFFET - Is there a favorite episode you have and why?

Barry - I have a few from Orson's era. They are all very different and each has a very unique feel.

Aboard The Steamship Amazon. The Shadow stops explosive smugglers aboard a luxury liner.

The White God. A madman enslaves the natives of a Pacific island and sets himself up as a god. He uses a giant magnet inside a volcano to cause airplanes to crash.

The Tenor with the Broken Voice. A crazed opera singer who lost his voice kills the singers who replaced him while they sing onstage.

Just by coincidence, these are all from the syndicated Goodrich-sponsored 1938 summer season. The Shadow would get involved in the commercials, intoning how Goodrich tires kept you from swerving off the road in bad weather. The Shadow almost never got involved in other commercials.

OTR BUFFET - There are many episodes in the series that are very hard to listen to because of horrible sound. Do you skip those or do you try and listen to them anyway?

Barry - It takes a lot to make me skip an episode of any show, but I'll put up with more for a show I really enjoy like The Shadow. I prefer it when OTR is not pristine. A little hiss and some crackle add to the enjoyment. In my mind, especially the farther back you go, a great many people heard OTR that way. The technology just wasn’t that good yet. It may or may not be true, but I feel it is more authentic that way. Perfectly crisp and clean OTR sounds too new for my taste. The only way I give up on an episode is if it is simply unlistenable.

OTR BUFFET - Can you think of any performances on radio, TV or film that seem to have been inspired by Welles' portrayal of the Cranston/The Shadow combo?

Barry - The Avenger was a very thinly disguised knock-off of The Shadow, virtually a copy. It only ran for 26 episodes. It wasn’t a bad show, but because it sounds so much like The Shadow it just comes across like a poor imitation.

The Green Hornet is similar to The Shadow in that Britt Reid was cut from the same cloth as Cranston, a kind of wealthy playboy. The only difference was that he had a job running a newspaper, but even so, he was the young, single, rich owner. Even Batman, with his dark cape and penchant for staying the shadows owes a debt here as well. There is an issue of Batman from the 1970’s (#253) when DC owned the rights to The Shadow where the two characters met. Batman and said that The Shadow was one of his inspirations to become a crime fighter. Batman comics from the 1970’s are very much like the mysterious Shadow of the Orson Welles era, very dark and mysterious, often with a gothic feel and a seemingly supernatural menace.

 

I'm sure there are a whole slew of slouch hat-wearing mystery men who owe something to The Shadow.

OTR BUFFET - How do you rank Welles and Moorehead as far as radio/film actors go?

Barry - I believe that one of the problems with actors today is that they didn't work in radio. Radio forces actors to emote and use their voices in ways that they don't need to in movies or television. I think that working in radio helps you understand acting differently. Of course that doesn't mean that radio actors make the best movie stars. Visually, there are tons of non-verbal acting dynamics to master as well. And of course in radio you get to hold the script while you work!

Take Agnes Moorehead in The Twilight Zone episode The Invaders. Now take everything I said about radio acting and forget it. She is entirely silent throughout the episode. Clearly she has mastered the art of acting from every angle.  People who only know her as Endora in Bewitched need to see her in The Magnificent Ambersons or Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte. She had four Oscar nominations in her career.

And as for Orson Welles, better people than I have written about his talent. Simply imagine Citizen Kane if Welles had stayed behind the camera and let someone else star.

 
OTR BUFFET - Why do you think the Shadow is so often categorized as "horror?" And what genre would you put it in? Superhero? Detective?

Barry - I tend to put it in horror too, but it is hard show to categorize because while it would often do straight detective stories with gangsters or bank robbers, try to imagine Sam Spade in The Curse of Shiva, or Phillip Marlowe freeing mind-controlled slaves. Johnny Dollar never fought werewolves.

Many horror writers worked on the show, like Alonzo Dean Cole of The Witch's Tale and Arch Obler. Sci-fi writer Alfred Bester wrote for The Shadow.

Superhero doesn't quite fit either, because that genre is, in my mind, defined by over-the-top do-gooders like Superman or Spider-Man. The Shadow is more of an old-fashioned mystery man, a guy who is relatively powerless and more likely to punch-out the bad guy than use X-ray vision, True, Lamont Cranston had mental powers, but as every show opening pointed out, we could have them too if we'd travel to the Orient and study under a mystic for a good part of our lives.

OTR BUFFET - Thanks again Barry for your time and knowledge spent in answering these for the OTRr Buffet!

Barry - Thanks for asking me! I enjoyed doing this and I hope the readers enjoy it too.

©Jimbo 2010/2011

Guest Sarah Cole answers all sorts of OTR questions

I first "met" Sarah Cole via Twitter.  I instinctively knew she was someone who appreciated old-time radio and someone from whom I would benefit from "following" on Twitter.   Turns out I was correct.

I'm very happy to have her join me in this interview.   I'll be  you will agree as she explores many various topics dealing with old-time radio.


OTR BUFFET: I'm not going to ask your age but can you tell me how you first got involved in listening to what we now call, "old time radio?"

Sarah Cole: My parents, who were educators, grew up during the Depression, and had many fond associations with dramatic radio broadcasts.  In the early 1970s, that venerable powerhouse of the airwaves WGN was broadcasting some short programs of "old time radio" – though the oldest of the programs was barely in its thirties: hardly "old!" – and my family enjoyed them. Later, we bought a number of LPs of the programs, which were just coming out in that format.  Finally, in the mid-1980s, we discovered, on one of the local stations, the weekly broadcasts of Radio Hall of Famer Chuck Schaden, which featured four hours of those wonderful programs, along with commentary from him, his guests, and his constant friend and aide, the lovely Ken Alexander – Oops!  Just make that Ken Alexander!

From then on, I've been hooked, and an amateur collector of those radio programs.

It occurs to me, though, that my inclination toward audio drama started even earlier.  Back before Disney began selling video recordings of its animated features, they sold albums of the films' songs, connected with narration.  I think I wore out three Cinderellas, and at least one Finocchio.  My brother and I just loved them.  (In fact, as far as Cinderella goes, I think I preferred the album to the film!)  The point is that I don't recall a time when we DIDN'T have non-visual, audio drama available.  So, in a way, a fondness for audio drama was my destiny.

OTR BUFFET: Which real character on Vic and Sade is the most-interesting to you and why? And out of all of the unheard characters, which one do you think is the most intriguing and why?

Sarah Cole: (You may laugh, but when I first read the question, I thought you meant which of the actors interested me the most.  That question is harder to answer than the one you are asking: all of the original cast members have surprising twists to their personal and professional lives.  Of the actors, I suppose Billy Idleson interested me the most, because of his dramatic intelligence, and his later career in broadcast writing and performing.)  As far as the main characters go, it will probably come as no surprise that Rush Gook is the one I look forward to the most.  His striving for the respect due the adult he was becoming, his idealistic whimsey in the ways he would try to do it, yet his patience with the status quo is very funny, yet very touching.  In one episode, the young man is in a rage at the neighbor boy, who has passed the word among his friends that Rush eats with a baby knife and fork.  As it turns out, Rush DOES eat with baby silverware, because that's what Sade has always put by his plate, and he didn't want to make a fuss about it.  His struggle is the struggle we all face, or that remind us of what our children are confronting.

As for the unheard characters: pick any of Uncle Fletcher's acquaintances.  There's a collection of intriguing people!  The funny thing is that the listener DOES know the unheard characters pretty well, after hearing a few of the broadcasts.  Well, Rooster and Rotten Davis are an interesting pair.  The episode in which a two-story porch falls off a house, and Rotten pretends he tore down the house himself, is strikingly funny, because of the pair's whimsical response to a public nuisance.  Rush's Sunday School teacher, who is beefy enough to take the place of a whole road crew, intrigues me, too.

And one does wonder about anyone named Robert and Slobert Hink!

OTR BUFFET: In 2001 I was fortunate enough to be able to read every Damon Runyon story. I feel that the Damon Runyon Theater is one the most-overlooked shows in old-time radio. Have you read Damon Runyon and would you tell me your feelings about the show?

Sarah Cole: I have read many Damon Runyon stories, and just love them!  They describe a magnificent, barbaric world, in plain sight, yet virtually unrecognized by the civilized world whose space it shares.  The (then) modern adventures are told with a cool directness that force the readers to exercise their imagination to fill in details, and, in doing so, brings them into the stories.  Then, when the stories end with a surprise, the readers are knocked free of that fantasy world, yet, because of the splendid shock, not likely to forget that place.

The radio version of the stories are reasonably faithful to Runyon's text.  They lack the narrative's directness, which is to be expected when in a drama with multiple characters, but "Broadway" the narrator's stilted grammar and dispassionate observations, help restore the feel of the written stories.

They aren't all happy, but they're memorable.  A couple of my favorite episodes are "Lillian" and "A Neat Strip." Oddly enough, one of my favorite Damon Runyon radio plays WASN'T on The Damon Runyon Theater.  One Christmas, the series The Whistler dramatized the story "Three Wise Guys."  John Brown appeared as the narrating character in that episode, and, later, created the role of "Broadway." While I don't know for sure, I suspect that episode was the inspiration for The Damon Runyon Theater.

OTR BUFFET: Until I found the joys of Vic and Sade, The Six Shooter was easily my favorite show. It's different than any Western on radio (even the so-called 'Kiddie Westerns')
because the show almost always tries to be non-violent. It's even less violent than Frontier Gentleman! Tell me your feelings about the show?

Sarah Cole: I have enjoyed both The Six Shooter and Frontier Gentleman (though, for whatever reason, find myself preferring Have Gun, Will Travel).  The Six Shooter, like Gunsmoke, was a "new" Western, in the vein of High Noon.  It didn't glamorize violence, though it didn't flee it, either. It wasn't above humor, such as the episode in which Britt Ponset is forced to be judge in a preserve-making contest between two sisters, which has divided their town.  (His approach to this problem was inspired!)  But the neuroses of the settlers does get a little wearing, so, although a Six Shooter episode or two every so often is always rewarding, a marathon can prove tiresome.

OTR BUFFET: Imagine you were the producer of The Six Shooter and Jimmy Stewart was unable to play the part. You have an unlimited budget and everyone but Stewart is available to you. Who would you cast as The Six Shooter?

Sarah Cole: One of the interesting things about the Six Shooter was that, though the scripts had been written for Stewart, and he was the main draw for listeners, the stories themselves don't rely on any of Stewart's vocal or personal characteristics.  Any actor, whose voice was not particularly distinctive and could sound uncluttered, and whose manner was reassuring , could play that part.  It doesn't require a big name.  Everett Sloan or Ben Wright might give interesting performances.

OTR BUFFET: I haven't listened to much of Henry Morgan, but anyone who knows you from Twitter knows you are a big Henry Morgan Show fan. Tell us what you like about the show and what we are missing?

Sarah Cole: (Between us, I'm not THAT big a Henry Morgan fan, but I do enjoy his radio performances; even the one on Suspense – a real hair-raiser!)  I was once told that I have a tendency to look at things sideways: to look at things in a way no one else does.  Henry Morgan's humor is that way.  In his first broadcast, he featured a demonstration of how a BBC broadcaster unfamiliar with the game might describe a baseball game, and a visit to modern New York as if it were an archaeological expedition.

Another episode made fun of Readers Digest, people who read Readers Digest, the contents of the magazine, the types of features that were condensed, the politics of Georgia, Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado, and the whole process of condensation itself!  Henry Morgan didn't let convention and social protocols get in the way of pointing out often uncomfortable truth.  But because the truth was presented in a funny way, the listener need not take offense.  As W.S. Gilbert said through the inimitable Jack Point, "When they're offered to the world in merry guise, Unpleasant truths are swallowed with a will; For he who'd make his fellow creatures wise Should always gild the philosophic pill!"  (The Yeomen of the Guard) Some of Morgan's inspiration may have been bitter, but his humor was always golden.

OTR BUFFET: Where do rank Henry Morgan as far as old-time radio comedians?

Sarah Cole: I don't know.  As a humorist of his time, he may not rank high.  As a comedian and satirist, period, I'd say he was in the top fifty of the 20th century.

OTR BUFFET: Do you think Jack Benny is special because he's Jack Benny or because he had great casts?

Sarah Cole: Jack Benny's program was special because Jack had wonderful comic sense, and some of the most insightful writers available.  He could have been just as funny with a different cast, though it would have funny in different ways.  What made the Benny program funny was how well the characters were able to fit with each other, and because their material suited them so perfectly.  It is theoretically possible to have done the same with a different cast, but it would have led to a differently-situated program. 

OTR BUFFET: Can you tell me why the jack Benny Show is so special to you?

Sarah Cole: At the end of 1945, the program held a contest: "Why I Can't Stand Jack Benny." (A very funny sequence, by the way).  In fifty words or less, contestants had to state why they couldn't stand Jack.  The winning entry was probably the most deserving winner to any contest of this nature I have ever seen.  I have to agree with winner Carroll P. Craig, who wrote: He fills the air with boasts and brags, and obsolete obnoxious gags. The way he plays his violin is music's most obnoxious sin. His cowardice alone, indeed, is matched by his obnoxious greed, And all the things that he portrays show up my own obnoxious ways.

OTR BUFFET: Everyone seems to like Fibber McGee and Molly. Tell me why they are so special to you?

Sarah Cole: The combination of crazy comedy, witty patter, clever music, exaggerated but familiar neighborhood characters, and genuine domestic affection is what made Fibber McGee and Molly the beloved program it is.  It, and The Halls of Ivy are the two most romantic radio programs ever written.  Anyone in a durable intimate relationship will tell you that love isn't adventure and wild passion: it's having your life partner get sick, and being able to clean up after him or her with a smile.  As Molly responds when Fibber expresses surprise that she doesn't tell him everything she thinks, it's because she HASN'T always told him what she thought that they are still married.

OTR BUFFET: Arch Oboler was famous for his horror stories but there was another side of Arch Oboler that was prolific in anti-war and pacifist stories and also strange and humorous fantasy. What do you think of when you think of Arch Oboler?

Sarah Cole: Arch Oboler was the best radio writer the United States ever produced.  Carlton E. Morse and Norman Corwin are fine WRITERS – they write well in multiple genres – but Oboler's greatest skill was in writing in innovative ways for audio drama.  His script "This Lonely Heart," about the relationship between Tchaikovsky and his patroness, is the finest one I've ever read.

It's odd you should describe him as a pacifist writer.  His pre-war, and World War II dramas are exposés of fascism in general, and Nazism in particular.  I believe the play is This Precious Freedom (in http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/396573 ), about a man who comes back from a camping trip to find the United States taken over by the Nazis.  It is brilliant, and terrifying.  Another fine play, set in postwar Europe, features an American family going to one of the military cemeteries to being their son home (I think it might be "V Day").  Oboler was not a saber-rattler, but he clearly loved liberty, and understood that there are things, liberty in particular, worth dying for.

OTR BUFFET: When I first tried listening to the Halls of Ivy, I really didn't like it. Then a friend prodded me into listening again (months later) and I found that Halls of Ivy was a very special show that had a deep, rich meaning - probably a far deeper meaning than any show I had ever come across. I love the show now. What are your feelings on the show?

Sarah Cole: The Halls of Ivy is what you get when you mix Goodbye, Mr. Chips with Fibber McGee and Molly.  Don Quinn, one of the writers for Fibber McGee, wrote, then later oversaw, the scripts. The stories use the witty wordplay and distinctive characters of Fibber McGee (though, in this case, the characters are not so exaggerated), to explore the significance of issues that arise among young adults; and to showcase another genuinely affectionate couple (President Hall and Victoria Cromwell-Hall/Ronald Colman and Benito Hume-Colman).  Its topics range from the humorous (getting out of a board meeting) to the serious (students afraid of the Draft), but they are approached in a gentle, straightforward, yet non-threatening way.  It also used dramatic techniques that only work in audio drama, and integrated them beautifully: flashbacks of President Hall's earlier life were used regularly to explain or illuminate the situation the Halls currently faced.  It is the finest comic-drama program of the Golden Age of Radio.

OTR BUFFET: Who do you think are the 5 most important old-time radio figures and why?

Sarah Cole: That question will take a lot of thinking, partly because the important people aren't going to be the 3 [most] famous people.  They would be the people who enabled radio drama to become great, and I don't know (or remember) enough about the history of radio to know who they are.  Some of the names I think of at this moment are the head of WXYZ, who enabled The Green Hornet, The Lone Ranger, and The Challenge of the Yukon to be produced, Charles Atlas, who oversaw all the work that was done at WGN, General Sarnoff, who understood the progress of broadcasting; and others like them.

Two of the most important were Ed Wynn, who introduced the live audience, and Bing Crosby who normalized pre-recorded programming.

OTR BUFFET: What are your 5 most favorite shows? Which show brings you the most pleasure?

Sarah Cole: A lot depends on how I feel at the time I'm asked, but, at the moment, my favorites are: Jack Benny, The Halls of Ivy,  Fred Allen, Vic and Sade and it surprises me to say it, but I think the fifth is Bob and Ray.

The Halls of Ivy is the most satisfying "listen", Jack Benny makes me laugh the most, Fred Allen is the cleverest program, and Vic and Sade and Bob and Ray share a genial absurdity that is refreshing and reassuring.  If you ask me again sometime, I may have a different answer; but, at the moment, these are my favorites.

OTR BUFFET: In 20 years, will people still be listening to old time radio?

Sarah Cole: I'm not sure whether they will or not, though it won't be because they aren't listening to narrated art.  Podcasts, audiobooks, and recorded speech are more popular now than ever, because people are too busy or impatient to read a lot of text.  One problem with vintage radio is the topicality: some of the jokes about events and personalities that were important at that moment are lost on modern listeners.

On the other hand, those references are part of what make the broadcasts valuable.  About a year ago, heard someone complaining how we don't know what it was like to live through World War II.  We DO know what it was like, because we can hear how the characters in radio serials and series "made do" in those days.  We also have the "non-fiction" programs of advice and such, which give more details about what daily life involved.  Vintage radio is a time capsule: it brings into the present the lives of the past.   To appreciate it as such requires research; but enough of the material speaks to the general human condition that listeners can still enjoy most of it, even without completely understanding the context.

OTR BUFFET: Sarah, I could easily ask you 10 more questions but I don't want to burden you and take up all of your time. Would you join me in the near-future again for another interview?

Sarah Cole: Certainly!  It's always delightful to talk about vintage radio!  Thank you for the opportunity!

OTR BUFFET: Thanks for answering my questions. I really had fun coming up with things to ask you!

Sarah Cole: My pleasure.

©Jimbo 2010/2011

Reverend Robert Neily answers questions about his OTR habits and memories

Reverend Neily and I have conversed quite a number of times over the past month or so.  As you will see, he is a fan from way back, is an avid collector of OTR books and magazines and still has lots of his childhood promotional memorabilia.

There aren't many collectors and fans left from the earlier days of Golden Age of Radio, so I feel quite privileged that he would take the time to answer these questions and share his memories.


OTR BUFFET: Can you give us a little background on how you were first introduced to OTR?

REV. ROBERT NEILY: I've been a pastor for for nearly fifty years and an OTR hobbyist even longer. I'm now in my mid-70's, so was introduced to OTR in real time. We had only one radio in our home, often tuned to shows such as Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, Tom Breneman's Breakfast in Hollywood, Jack Benny, Bergen and McCarthy, Baby Snooks, Truth or Consequences or People Are Funny. As a boy I spent many daytime hours in my grandmother's kitchen where the two of us listened to THE SOAPS!!! With WWII restrictions on travel, those soap towns of Elmwood, Beechwood, Hartville, Simpsonville and Rushville Center became more real to me than the communities in my home state. I was more familiar with Ma Perkins, Lorenzo Jones, Stella Dallas, Just Plain Bill, Young Widder Brown and Front Page Farrell, and the members of Pepper Young's Family and One Man's Family than with my own relatives! Grandma had TWO radios in her small flat, so I had her living room floor model all to myself for my favorite afternoon heroes - Hop, Terry, Dick, Chick, Superman, Midnight, Armstrong and Mix. In 1946 my grandmother began giving me 25¢ each month to buy “us” Radio Mirror so I could “see” my radio friends! So I guess I could say I had my start in collecting OTR 65 years ago! … But it was between November 25, 1960 when Ma Perkins, The Right to Happiness, Young Dr. Malone and The Second Mrs. Burton ended and September 30, 1962 when Suspense and Johnny Dollar left the air I became a serious collector. I hit the used book stores throughout California and bought up all their old radio magazines (usually for only a nickel or a dime apiece!) accumulating more than 200 in the process. In 1962 Jim Harmon and I began our friendship of nearly fifty years. Neither of us had many recordings at that time, only fond memories. I lived in San Jose, Jim in Los Angeles. We corresponded, exchanged occasional tapes, traded premiums, attended a few Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters events together, and I contributed a few of my cartoons and an article on soaps operas to his Radio Hero fanzine. Jim was a gentle and generous man who kindly acknowledged me as his soap opera advisor in each edition of The Great Radio Heroes. Jim, along with Richard Gulla (an announcer and actor in Chicago during OTR's last days) and Roger Rittner (writer, producer, director of multiple series on NPR and other venues) provided the bulk of my early OTR recordings. A parishioner, Bernice Berwin (Mrs. Brooks Berlin) who played Hazel Barbour on One Man's Family for 27 years, introduced me to Carleton E. Morse who loaned me several tapes of I Love A Mystery. And while doing some on-air work at a San Jose radio station (Religion in the News, Sunday mornings at 6 a.m.!!!), I discovered some old transcription discs (Alan Prescott the Wife Saver, The Mark of the Eagle, Night Cap Yarns, MGM Theatre of the Air: Lee Bowman and Colleen Gray in “I Love You Again” with Howard Dietz as Host, an RCA recording of Sam 'n' Henry and a 1934 promo record for Harold Teen). The station engineer transferred these to tape for me (thus providing me with more trading material). In 1999 I became acquainted with Ted Davenport of Radio Memories who converted my many deteriorating reels of tape to cassettes and CD's. Ted also filled in some of the “holes” in my collection and provided me with long runs of several favorite shows. Certainly none of us back in the '60's would have believed that SO MUCH OTR would be at our fingertips fifty years later on something called the Internet! Bud Collyer (Clark Kent/Superman) died in 1969, but in a letter to me in 1963 he wrote: “Sometime ago, I realized to my horror that I didn't possess one single recording of the old Superman series. I began inquiring around and to date have not found anyone who has one.” Wouldn't he be amazed at all the Superman episodes now in existence and readily available to any and all who care to listen!

OTR BUFFET: What are some shows you liked when you first found radio and what you like and listen to now?

REV. ROBERT NEILY: Early on I was thrilled to hear ANY old-time favorite, regardless of genre. But now with so many listening choices available, I lean toward series with long runs: Dragnet, The Saint, The Six Shooter, Harris and Faye, Benny, Fibber and Molly, Gildersleeve, Nightbeat, Broadway Is My Beat, Frank Merriwell, Let George Do It, Johnny Dollar, Nick Carter, Nero Wolfe, The Shadow – and even an occasional soap: Perry Mason, Ma Perkins, Young Widder Brown, One Man's Family, or Backstage Wife.

OTR BUFFET: How many hours of OTR would you say you listen to a week?

REV. ROBERT NEILY: On average, 8-10 hours, usually in my car. I don't listen on the Internet unless I'm doing some research on a particular show or shows.

OTR BUFFET: Do you have a favorite show(s) and who are your favorite actors and actresses?

REV. ROBERT NEILY: I still enjoy my boyhood favorites, especially Tom Mix, The Lone Ranger and I Love A Mystery, and never tire of listening to Jack Benny, Fibber and Molly, Gunsmoke or Johnny Dollar (with O'Brien, Bailey or Kramer as Dollar). Among my favorite actors and actresses are those with very interesting (or easily identifiable) voices, such as Peggy Webber, Lesley Woods, Mercedes McCambridge, Lurene Tuttle, June Foray, Shirley Mitchell, Eleanor Audley, Gale Gordon, Bob Dryden, Harry Bartell, Frank Lovejoy, Santos Ortega, Sheldon Leonard, Ed Maxx, John Gibson – and Charles “Chuck” Webster (a special favorite of mine who's often confused with another radio actor named Charles Webster!) Throughout the early '40's, Chuck was heard almost daily on one or more of Detroit's WXYZ trio of shows. Later he moved to New York where he was Tom Bryson on Backstage Wife, Paul Drake on Perry Mason, and heard on other shows such as The Mysterious Traveler, Gangbusters, Cloak and Dagger and Squad Room. His voice is very distinctive.) So many of these names could “play” their voices like a fine musical instrument!

OTR BUFFET: What is your favorite genre of radio and why?

REV. ROBERT NEILY: While I prefer listening to detectives, mysteries and comedies (not necessarily in that order), I still have a special fondness for any and all soap operas and kid shows because they remind me of all the pleasurable hours spent with my grandmother who spoiled me rotten, and my grandfather who helped me eat boxes of Ralston (Hot, Instant, and Shredded) and drank all the Ovaltine (which I couldn't stand!) so I could send off box tops, labels or inner seals for rings and badges and code-o-graphs. (When my grandmother died in 1972 and I flew East to officiate at her funeral I found she had saved a shoe box full of my radio premiums, PEP comic pins, etc., which I still have today!)

OTR BUFFET: Has listening to radio ever created any special moments that you won't ever forget?

REV. ROBERT NEILY: Specific radio moments included Arthur Godfrey describing FDR's funeral procession in April 1945, the wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Philip Mountbatten in 1947, the Mr./Mrs./Miss Hush and Walking Man contests on Truth or Consequences, and annual World Series games. I was confined to bed for several months in 1949, as was Jim Harmon the very same year. Radio was a constant companion during that time. Daily I tuned in to Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, Arthur Godfrey Time, Tommy Bartlett's Welcome Travelers, two dozen daily soap operas, comedies, adventure shows, detectives and mysteries (especially the second incarnation of I Love A Mystery which returned to the air that year!) - and baseball broadcasts (both “live” and “re-creations”). As a gift, I received a bedside radio which certainly made those long months much more bearable.

OTR BUFFET: How do you listen to OTR? (Mp3 player, car stereo, etc?)

REV. ROBERT NEILY: Most often I listen in my car. My vehicle has nearly 150,000 miles on it, but I won't buy a new one until either the car collapses or the combination tape deck and CD player gives out!

OTR BUFFET: Do others in your family enjoy OTR? (explain either way)

REV. ROBERT NEILY: My wife (who was more a child of TV than radio) patiently lets me share with her my enjoyment and memories of OTR. When my youngest daughter (now in her mid-40's) was a teenager she enjoyed my tapes of ILAM and Let's Pretend and asked me for copies.

OTR BUFFET: You and I have corresponded some lately and you told me you have a large OTR book collection. Would you mind telling us something about that and some of the favorite books that you own?

REV. ROBERT NEILY: I currently have more than 150 books or booklets connected with OTR. Among them are the “usual suspects.” ALL of Jim Harmon's books, John Dunning's two amazing volumes, my college classmate Gerald Nachman's Raised on Radio, Leonard Maltin's The Great American Broadcast, Buxton and Owen's The Big Broadcast and also their initial effort, Radio's Golden Age (my copy is all dog-eared, marked up with notes, additions and corrections, and stuffed with cast lists clipped from copies of Radio Mirror, Radio Best, Radio Album, Movie & Radio Guide, etc.). Jim Cox's batch of books are “must haves.” (My four favorites are The Great Radio Soap Operas, Frank and Anne Hummert's Radio Factory and Say Goodnight, Gracie: The Last Years of Network Radio and The Great Audience Participation Shows. I continually marvel at the output of books by Martin Grams, Jr. (I often wonder if he, like you Jimbo, ever sleeps!) Of course, my favorite is his I Love A Mystery Companion! Another excellent resource is Radio Stars: An Illustrated Biographical Dictionary of 953 Performers by Thomas A. DeLong, McFarland 1996)). Raymond William Stedman's The Serials: Suspense and Drama by Installment (1971) explores serial drama on radio, in film and comic books. But half this book's 500 pages deal specifically with radio: Chapters 6-18 (220 pages) and Appendix A (35 pages) which is an extensive bibliography of books, pamphlets, periodicals, and newspapers. Five primarily pictorial volumes include Irving Settel's A Pictorial History of Radio (1960, 1967), containing the short oft-mentioned “A Lament for Old-time Radio” by Brock Brower, The Old-Time Radio Book ((1976) edited by Ted Sennet, The Great Radio Personalities in Historic Photographs (1982) by Anthony Slide, Blast From The Past: A Pictorial History of Radio's First 75 Years (1996) by B. Eric Rhoads, and Radio's Golden Years: A Visual Guide to the Shows and the Stars (1998) created by Frank Bresee and artist Bobb Lynes. Also several vintage volumes not always easy to locate, but often found in the stacks of public libraries: three volumes about Fred Allen (the original hardcover edition of Treadmill to Oblivion: My Days in Radio by Allen himself (1954), Fred Allen: His Life and Wit by Robert Taylor (1989), and Fred Allen's Radio Comedy by Alan Havig (1990), The Mystery of the Masked Man's Music: A Search for the Music Used on “The Lone Ranger” Radio Program, 1933-1954 by Reginald M. Jones, Jr., 1987 (the title is self-explanatory!). Three personal favorites include a 28-page booklet (with photos and related articles) from The North American Radio Archives First Annual Tribute Dinner of June 2nd, 1973 honoring Carlton E. Morse, also The One Man's Family Album: An Inside Look at Radio's Longest Running Show (1988) by Carlton E. Morse, (and what was REALLY radio's longest running show, 35 years!!!) Don McNeill and His Breakfast Club by John Doolittle (2001) which includes a CD with Breakfast Club excerpts. Seven books providing “insider” views of radio days include Before Television: The Radio Years by Glenhall Taylor writer, producer, director of shows including Burns and Allen, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and Blondie (1979), Tune in Tomorrow or How I Found The Right to Happiness with Our Gal Sunday, Stella Dallas, John's Other Wife and Other Sudsy Serials by Mary Jane Higby (1968), This Was Radio (1975) by Joseph Julian? (whose career of over 40 years in radio drama also included appearances on over a dozen soap operas and who became an innocent victim of the “Red Channels” madness during the McCarthy era), The Quality of Mercy by Mercedes McCambridge (1981) who had one of the most recognizable radio voices, and It Only Hurts When I Laugh, by Stan Freberg (1988). (Jimbo, if you're not familiar with this one already, I know you'd like it. Stan whose father was a Baptist minister writes that “a lot of my sense of humor was shaped not only by Fred Allen, but by Vic and Sade” (pp. 24-25). WYXIE Wonderland (An Unauthorized 50 Year Diary Of WXYZ Detroit) by Dick Osgood (1981) is a biography of the Detroit radio station where The Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet and Challenge of the Yukon (Sergeant Preston) came to life. Let's Pretend (A History of Radio's Best Loved Children's Show) is by longtime cast member Arthur Anderson? (1994) and a special favorite because Let's Pretend was a part of my childhood on Saturday mornings throughout the 1940's. I can't remember not listening to it – or singing along with the cast it's Cream of Wheat theme song. Faster than a Speeding Bullet: An Informal History and Quiz of Radio's Golden Age by Stuart Silver and Isidore Haiblum (1980) is a 240 page paperback which is not only informative but will tickle the nostalgia glands of any OTR fan. I'll end with three sentimental favorites: 200,000 for Breakfast with Tom Breneman (1943), with plenty of photos and belonged to my grandmother, also my own personal copy of The Breakfast Club 1949 Yearbook and Thou Shalt Not Fear (1962) which contains four sermons in verse written by Bud Collyer (announcer, actor on several soap operas - and radio's Clark Kent/Superman). Unknown to many, Bud was also a Sunday School teacher and lay preacher at his Presbyterian church in Greenwich, Connecticut. Jimbo, I hope there's something here that's of interest to you and your readers.

OTR BUFFET: Thanks so much for answering these for me! I appreciate your time.

REV. ROBERT NEILY: Thank YOU! I enjoyed doing it. Brought back many fond memories!