Category: Golden Age Article

How I’ve Learned About Classic Radio

When I mentioned listening to You Bet Your Life, a  friend on Facebook was curious about my interest and asked,  “How did you even HEAR about these folks?”

There are two stages where I learned about old radio shows:

1) Growing Up

My dad talked about listening to the radio growing up, but the first time we actually got to hear any old time radio was when I was about 12 or 13.  We were at a Salvation Army and saw an old set of Old Time Radio comedy cassette tapes. My dad bought them cheap and we took them home and listened to them.

I found some shows I liked immediately (Fibber McGee and Molly, Burns and Allen, Abbott and Costello) and a couple that I didn’t care for.

However, I had no conception that there were old radio clubs. Indeed, when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, Old Time Radio was limited to distribution on expensive Cassettes or CDs, or on old time radio replay shows that I never knew were on.

This doesn’t mean that I had no exposure to the classics. My dad was a huge Abbott and Costello fan, so I got to see dozens of these adventures. When I was a kid, there was nothing quite exciting as a new Abbott and Costello movie.*

For a homeschooling convention, my brother and I performed, “Who’s on First?” with me playing the straight man part that Bud Abbott did. We weren’t the only homeschooled family with old time radio exposure. At another convention, a home schooled family did a Fibber McGee and Molly old time radio play with a 13-year old boy trying to replicate Harold Peary’s Gildersleeve laugh and doing quite well.

2) 21st Century Exposure

It all started with Dragnet, and you can read about that over at the Old Time Dragnet site. After Dragnet, my curiosity remained somewhat limited. I found out that Superman had a radio show. As the Dragnet show had been pretty successful in first ten months, I launched the Old Time Radio Superman podcast.

I owe a burgeoning interest in radio to fans of the Dragnet show who shared some of their programs and the Antioch Radio Network, a station I listened to on a lark as I was feeling like listening to something to relax and I heard Let George Do It and was amazed at how good the show was.

This sent me researching, listening to a wide variety of different detective shows and led to the launch of The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio and then the app. For the app, I wanted to obtain our detective actors in other sorts of roles. To do that, I had to research their radiography to find shows they appeared in and find which might be entertaining. Through this process, I’ve come to really enjoy shows like Cavalcade of America and Mayor of the Town.

I became a fan of Life with Luigi because of an ad that appeared in an episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar that made me curious enough to listen to the show.

I’ve also rediscovered some childhood favorites in Burns and Allen  and Abbott and Costello.

Other shows I learned of because others were excited about the same show. Lum and Abner for example was a show that I was led to by die-hard fans who had created a wonderful collection of their radio adventures and made available for donwload.

And there are different stories for different shows, but they’re mostly in this vein.

Old Time Radio Music: A Final Round Up

I’ve taken a look at shows that feature Jazz and Country-Western Music. Now to look at the rest of the music out there beginning with shows that while not music shows feature regular music. :

Music, It’s Part of the Show:

Detective Shows

Pete Kelly’s Blues: Jack Webb, while continuing to produce Dragnet, also made a 1951 mid-summer replacement, Pete Kelly’s Blues which starred Jack Webb as a speakeasy coronet player who was always getting into trouble during the roaring twenties. Each episode would also include around three sets from Kelley’s band. Occassionally, a heavy will wait for the band to play its number before going after Pete.

Richard Diamond was Dick Powell’s greatest detective vehicle and somewhat unusual. Richard Diamond’s adventures were some of radio’s most violent. However, the show was at its most unusual, when after three or four corpses had been cleared away, Richard Diamond began to sing. In some ways, the show represented a union of Powell’s two stage personas. His earlier, light comedic leading man and his middle aged hardboiled characterization. Of course, while Powell sang a lot of typical crooner songs, he also would mix it up with a cowboy lullaby, a Hawaiian Christmas song, and once he even sang in Yiddish. The singing was usually only a minute or so, but it preserved the image of Powell as a versatile entertainer. One fan has created a zipped collection with all the singing interludes in Richard Diamond.

One show, you might expect to have music in it doesn’t. While Frank Sinatra was Rocky Fortune, he never broke out into song

Sitcoms

While Comedy Variety shows had lots of music (more on that later), sitcoms had much less use. Shows like Life of Riley, My Favorite Husband, and Life with Luigi had little use for music other than as themes.

Harold Peary’s sitcoms stand out from this trend. On numerous episodes of the Great Gildersleeve from 1941-50, Peary would sing a beautiful song in his crooning voice. This could occur any time in the program.  Reportedly, it was the lack of singing opportunities that led Peary to quit and create the Harold Peary Show where he sang much more frequently. Unfortunately, the singing was great, but the Harold Peary Show ended after one season and Peary was relegated to character actor status for the rest of his career. He was a good singer, but comedy was his bread and butter.

A 1942 episode of The Great Gildersleeve which features Peary singing

The Audition show for The Harold Peary Show features a song  from Peary.

Westerns

Roy Rogers hit the air as host and star of a Western Variety show. Over time, the show morphed into having an actual plot, but would always including plenty of cowboy music too.

The Comedy Variety Shows

In the pre-War and World War II era, most of the famous comedians on radio led Comedy variety shows that included comedy sketches along with the singing of the show’s regular singer, and usually a piece performed by an orchestra. This formula was used by too many shows to count. Abbott and Costello, with Freddy Rich and his orchestra. Bob Hope had Frances Langford singing, as well as Skinnay Ennis, and Ozzy Nelson, at one point sang for Red Skelton’s show in the early 40s. The swingy and always fun to listen to Connie Haines was a fixture on early Abbott and Costello shows. A sampling of the songs of Haines, which have a very distinctive rhythm was collected at the Internet Archive and is available within the great episodes of the show themselves. Her “Trolley Song” is a classic.

In the late 1940s and early 50s, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis’ comedy show usually featured a song from Martin.

Musicals:

Shows that did plays like Theater Guild on the Air that adapted plays or Lux Radio Theater, which adapted movies would adapt musicals to the radio, however there were two series that actually regularly performed full-blwon musicals for the radio. The Railroad Hour adapted a wide variety of Broadway-style and Hollywood musicals. All-star Western Theater did more Western musicals.

Other Music Shows

The Bell Telephone Hour provided regular concerns to Americans over the radio from 1940-58. The Shell Chateau was an hour long musical variety show from 1935-37 that was at one time hosted by Al Jolson and featured a variety of different music styles and musicians. Music Depreciation features classic music with a humorous introductions.

Your Hit Parade was the original top 15 countdown show, lasting an hour.  Alka Seltzer Time was a regular daily 15 minute radio show featuring up-beat music. Before legendary guitarist Les Paul made his way to television for a long-run, he had his own 15 minute radio show.

The Squibb Show is perhaps the best 15 minute show I’ve heard with its use of a variety of beautiful music and style.

Finally, Moon River was a radio show sponsored by a mattress company featuring the reading of poetry to soft music. A nice way to go to sleep to be sure.

Of course, we’ve barely scratched the surface of the many and varied old time radio shows out there, and there’s quite a bit that’s not available on the Internet Archives, but I hope that lead some music lovers to a little bit of listening pleasure.

Old Time Country Music

Last week, I took a look at the available jazz old time radio out there. Now, for old time country and Western fans, this post is for you.

1) Hank Williams

Hank Williams, Sr. had two seperate radio shows. The first was his “Health and Happiness Show” from 1949, of which there are four episodes available on the Internet Archive, and his Mother’s Best Flour Show which ran in 1950-51, which the Old Time Radio Researchers has released as a certified set with 67 episodes.

2) Gene Autry

The singing cowboy has a wide variety of his Melody Ranch Recordings available at the Internet Archive.

3) Johnny Cash

The one recording of the Johnny Cash show available provides an interesting glimpse of an American legend in the making. The recording comes from 1954, the year before Cash’s first record hit the market. A 22-year old Cash was hosting his very broadcast and sounded quite a bit nervous. It’s a very different Johnny Cash who would sing songs like “Ring of Fire” and “Boy Named Sue” with such gusto and confidence. Worth a listen for a different look at the man in Black.

4) Grand Ole Opry

If you think of country music, the first place you think of is the Grand Ole Opry.  The archive has 30 recordings with such stars as Minnie Pearl, Roy Acuff, and Red Foley. Speaking of Foley, eight episodes of his show are available as well.

5) Pat O’Daniel and His Hillbilly Boys

The OTRR has a good collection this interesting 1930s radio show from Texas. It also includes a fascinating story of how Pat O’Daniel used the radio show to build a political career that include  stints as Governor of Texas and U.S. Senator.

6) Pinto Pete and His Ranch Hands:

Anothers 1930s show featuring 15 minutes of Cowboy music.

7) Armed Forces Radio Programs

Just like with jazz, Soldiers who loved country music were entertained with some of their favorites. First was Melody Roundup which was hosted by many stars that would be fans of country and cowboy and music such as Lum and Abner, Roy Rogers, and Bill Boyd (best known for playing Hopalong Cassidy on the radio). A later show sponsored by the Navy and Airforce was Country Music Time.

8) 10-2-4 Ranch

Sponsored by Dr. Pepper which urged people to Dr. Pepper at 10, 2, and 4 to help with energy sags in the middle of the day, this 15 minute show featured good country music.

In our third part, we’ll look at some of the shows that featured music as a matter of course, along with some classical music, and other miscellaneous music shows.

All that Jazz

As I’ve listened to old time radio, I’ve acquired a taste for classic Jazz, particularly the instrumentals.

However, old time radio music can be hard to find unless you know what you’re looking for.  Over the next three weeks, we’ll be sharing some great sources for finding classic music, and we’ll start with some Jazzy Stuff.

The Big Band Remotes:

The Internet Archive features two seperate sets of Big Band Remotes featuring greats such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louie Armstrong, and much more. This is a treasure trove of great Jazz:

Band Remotes

Bind Band Remotes

AFRS Jive:

When Americans went overseas to fight World War II, the Armed Forces Radio Services played a critical role in maintaining morale, as they shared radio programs and music programs from back home. The Jazz program for the AFRS was, “GI Jive.” A nice collection of these recordings is available here along with other AFRS programs such as, “Mail Call.”  Two smaller but slightly better quality versions of twenty GI Jive are available here and here.

1920s Jazz Collection:

Not actually old time rado, but rather some very early Jazz 78 records.  Still, this collection of truly Golden oldies aged to 80-95 years old is worth a listen, thought not all of the 120 + songs would be qualified as jazz.

Bing Crosby:

Bing Crosby was an American institution for decades, and he made a lot of radio appearances and hosted many radio show. The Internet Archive has two Bing Crosby collections. The first is an eclectic selection of Crosby radio shows from the 30s, 40s, and 50s.  Many of these are of lower 24kbps quality, but there are some good recordings in there as well.  The second collection is the Old Time Radio Researchers set of the Bing Crosby-Rosemany Clooney show that ran from 1960-62 . Between these two collection, there’s more than 400 episodes of Bing Crosby radio available.

Al Jolson:

Jolson was one of the most noted entertainers in Vaudeville and early films, including the classic, The Jazz Singer. The Al Jolson collection includes guest appearances on Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Eddie Cantor’s show, along with episodes he hosted for the Kraft Music Hall and the Shell Chateau.

Next week, we’ll take a look at some great country and folk music available. If you’ve got a program you’d like to share, let me know about it in the comments.

The Best of Box 13

After 52 episodes, the last Podcast of Box 13 will be released. It’s been a good run with some of the best writing and acting in radio. While there were a few clunkers such as, “Actor’s Alibi” this was the exception rather than rule.

Holiday’s plan to find mystery plots by receiving letters sent to Box 13 at the Star Times has paid off. It’s attracted all kinds: damsels in distress, criminals looking for unwitting accomplices, and people who were just plain crazy. Below are five of my favorites:

5) Book of Poems

A great mystery where Dan tries to find out what a disabled young man who can’t talk meant by sending him a book of poems by Sir Walter Raleigh. Features Ladd’s fantastic reading voice.

4) Hare and Hounds

This is a very tense and suspenseful story as Holiday finds himself framed for murder, with the local police hunting for him, along with the real killer. His job is to stay alive. It’s one of Holiday’s cleverest adventures.

3) The Philanthropist

Dan Holiday answers a letter from a homeless man, and goes undercover as an indigent as he tries to find out who’s behind the disappearance of several homeless men. The answer is shocking.

2) Find Me, Find Death

Dan Holiday got plenty of crazy letters, but this one took the cake. The letter writer informed Holiday that he would kill him in 4 days and that if he went to the police, he’d kill Holiday sooner.  Holiday’s challenge is to find the madman–without finding death.

1) The Treasure of Hang Li

Dan Holidays follows the instructions in a letter to purchase “the Hang Li” piece. The shop owner gives it to Holiday and insists he not pay for it.  It’s a very surprising story, and perhaps the most profound of the series.

And there are many other great episodes, all of which are available on our Box 13 page.

Green Acres on the Radio

PlayPlay

Green Acres

If you mention Green Acres, people think of the 1965-71 Sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. But fifteen years before Green Acres came to TV,  it came to radio.

CBS broadcast Granby’s Green Acres as a Summer replacement series. Granby’s Green Acres told the story of John Granby, a Banker who got fed up with city life and took his wife and family to relocate to a farm.

Sound familiar?

The radio Green Acres were written by a 33-year old writer, who would go on to write 150 of the 170 TV episodes of Green Acres.

There were quite a few similarities between the radio and TV versions of Green Acres. Both featured a scatter-brained Mr. Kimball (although the radio Mr. Kimball ran the county store rather than being the County Agent.) Granby also had a farm hand named Eb. The radio show had some good bits that Sommers would dust off for early TV episodes.

An early Green Acres TV episode where Oliver can’t decide what to plant has its basis in the radio episode, “Mr. Granby Plants a Crop.”

And this great little bit of dialogue also came from the radio show originally:

Oliver: I’d take a seed, a tiny little seed, I’d plant it in the ground, I’d put some dirt on it, I’d water it, and pretty soon, do you know what I would have?
Lisa: A dirty little wet seed.

At the end of the radio run. John Granby (Gale Gordon) told listeners to send letters in to their local CBS station with their thoughts on Granby’s Green Acres.  The show never returned to the air.

There were many reasons the show didn’t make it in 1950. One big one might be that Granby’s Green Acres was not a show that audiences were ready for. Americans had migrated in large numbers to cities like New York and Los Angeles in search of economic opportunities. Granby’s desire to move to the country seemed absurd. When Green Acres appeared on TV, it was a very different world with violence and unrest, crime on the rise, and social unrest. Moving to Hooterville sounded a lot less crazy and made us more sympathetic with Mr. Douglas.

The biggest problem with Granby’s Green Acres may have been that it just wasn’t ready for prime time. Granby is too much of a cantankerous blowhard.  The radio version gives you an appreciation of the talent with which Eddie Albert played the role of Oliver Wendell Douglas, as a complex mix of bombast, idealism, practicality, and romance that made the character a joy to watch.

In the radio version, Sommers only had given real airtime to Mr. Kimball from the store, and a know it all County Agent who always ate Granby’s supper.  Pretty thin gruel.

Not continuing Granby’s Green Acres was a smart decision. Even with great comics like Burns and Allen leaving radio for television, radio comedy was still undergoing a golden age and Sommers creation simply was not in the same league as shows like Our Miss Brooks,  Life of Riley, and Life with Luigi. 

It also had a nice aftermath. Sommers continued to develop as a writer and work the world of television, writing on such shows as Amos and Andy, Dennis the Menace, and Petticoat Junction.  When Green Acres came back, it became one of television’s best sitcoms.

It featured Pat Buttram turning in the role Mr. Haney who was always trying to sell Mr. Douglas something, Eva Gabor as the sweet but often confusing Hungarian Princess Lisa Douglas,  and the Ziffels who treat their pig like he’s their son, and much more.

While the radio show didn’t have these elements, it serves as a rough draft of Green Acres, which makes it an interesting listen.

Related:

IMDB has the first five season of Green Acres available for instant watch.

50 Years of Yabba Dabba Do

It’s rare for a TV show that turns 50 years old to be remembered, yet alone to make the front page on Google, but that’s what happened to the Flinstones.

The show began in 1960 on ABC and has spawned numerous TV spinoffs, movies, and one-shot TV specials. Some of these efforts have been of dubious quality, but what keeps the remakes and spinoffs coming is that the show has so many fans that anything with the Flinstones in it will have an instant appeal.

The 1960-66 original TV run remains the bedrock (pun intended) for the Flinstones franchise. The show is in the same style of other classic “everyman” sitcoms such as The Life of Riley and The Honeymooners.  The show was lead by veteran radio and cartoon actors Alan Reed and Mel Blanc. It was strengthened by good writing that took advantage of the show’s fantastic setting and the opportunities presented by cartoon physics.

What has made the show so popular for so long?

The first key is animation. Parents introduce their kids to cartoons such as Looney Tunes and Disney’s gigantic cartoon collection.  They’re the type of shows that parents have no problem introducing their kids to. And the grown up nature of the Flintstones helps to keep kids fans after they’ve grown up, even if they don’t advertise it. They just buy the DVDs for the kids.

The second thing is the fantastic stone age setting. With pet dinosaurs instead of pet dogs, cars that move by the passengers and driver running, stone-age Television, and all the conveniences of living in Bedrock make the setting timeless, and help make the show as enjoyable and accessible today as when it first aired.

The Jetsons, which launched two years after the Flintstones, has endured, but with far fewer spin-offs and less prominence. The reason The Jetsons has enjoyed a lesser success is that it’s set in the future and its vision of the future often seems dated. After all,  2062 is only 50 years away and its unlikely to be the world the creators of the Jetsons imagined.

The other advantage that The Flintstones has is the relationship between the Rubbles and the Flintstones. The friendship and love between the classic characters makes the show speak to every generation.   

Shows about the present and the future become dated far more easily than shows about a fantastic past, and shows that feature great friendships will last the longest of all.

Links:

Watch the Flinstones at AOL Video.

The Overlooked Mrs. North

In the discussion of great female detectives of the golden radio era, one name is invariably left out of the discussion: Pamela North.

Part of the challenge may be that Mrs. North was a part of a detective team and a husband-wife team at that. There are at least four Couple Detective teams with a substantial number of episodes surviving including the Thin Man, the Abbots, It’s a Crime, Mr. Collins, and of course, the Norths. In most of the shows, the wife is the sidekick to the husband. In all three other shows, the husband is a licensed private investigator.

Pamela North is different. She and her husband, Jerry are both amateurs in the field of detection. Pam is a housewife and Jerry is a successful publisher. To stumble into one murder would be improbable, to stumble into 500 as they did in the era of Alice Frost and Joseph Curtain requires a suspension of disbelief to say the least.

On the radio, the Norths were often equally matched . Jerry was most helpful when there was obviously foul play afoot. If they were kidnapped by two mugs, this was right up Jerry North’s alley. However, cases that required more use of intuition and outside the box thinking were ones were Pam North thrived. Given the dearth of female detectives in radio, it’s hard to ignore Mrs. North.

The show hit the radio in 1943 with Joseph Curtain and Alice Frost in the title roles. Richard Denning and Barbara Britton from the TV version would take over on the radio in June, 1953 and stay with the show until April, 1955. The series began as a blend of comedy and mystery. A great many of the exemplars surviving from the war years are from the Armed Forces Radio Service’s Mystery Playhouse, which brought one mystery show a week to America’s servicemen around the world. The number of appearances by the Norths attest to their appeal to American servicemen. The charming Norths with their light mysteries and cute romance were good medicine for men thousands of miles from home and missing their own loved ones.

The show evolved over the time. In the middle-40s, it became a so more serious mystery show and towards the end of its run, it took what I view as an unfortunate turn towards crime melodrama. The vast majority of the episodes featured overacting by guest actors behaving badly for the great majority of the show, and Pamela and Jerry North showing up for a few minutes to solve a painfully obvious mystery.

Barbara BritonWhile the radio show was declining, CBS was bringing the North’s to Television with Richard Denning and Barbara Britton in the title roles. This version of the North’s would be quite different. In the premiere episode, The Weekend Murder, Pam solves the murder case while Jerry is sleeping. This was an indicator of how the series would go. Jerry North was the sidekick.

 Jerry had always been the more level-headed of the two, but on television, he was completely incurious and practical. 90% of the time, he either just wants to relax or is obsessing about the latest manuscript to come across his desk. Pam’s curiosity pulls the Norths into mystery after mystery and proceeds to solve them. In the episodes I’ve seen, Pam can also hold her own in a fight with another woman, though Jerry will usually rush in to save Pam when a dangerous man is about to kill her.

Pam North prepares to jump into action.

Britton’s portrayal combined this curiosity, quick thinking, and toughness with sweetness, feminity, and charm that made the TV version of Mrs. North a joy to watch. The TV episodes succeeded in recapturing the fun and charm of the original radio series.

CBS had a good idea in bringing Denning and Britton to radio to replace Curtain and Frost, as having the same actors on TV and Radio promotes both versions. But the quality of the radio show didn’t improve as the Norths continued through a series of dreary crime melodramas that Denning and Britton could only do so much with.

Mr. and Mrs. North was one of four shows that CBS tried as a five-day-a-week serial before opting to do Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, but the serial version only lasted for a few weeks in 195

Married Couples detective shows made comebacks in the 1970s and 80s with McMillan and Wife and Hart to Hart, however the subgenre seems to have waned in popular media in the 21st century. This may be the result of changes in society and society’s view of marriage. However, to the fan of good mysteries, there’s no question of the values of Mrs. North on television as well as in the 1940s radio version.

Additional resources:

Public Domain TV episodes of Mr. and Mrs. North

Old Time Radio Mr. and Mrs. North

It’s Another Case for Nick Carter or Nick Carter and the Case of the Missing Serials

There were few radio detectives with more endurance than Nick Carter as played by Lon Clark. It’s first airing was April 11, 1943 in the middle of World War II and it went off the air on September 25, 1955, 5 days after Dragnet aired its last episode. Clark made more than 722 appearances as Nick Carter, a detective character who predated Sherlock Holmes by 1 year.

Nick Carter’s radio adventures are usually some of the most cleverly written detective stories on the radio, with excitement, thrills, and taut cleverly written mysteries.

Carter, like many other radio detectives has a lot of lost episodes. However, unlike the Rathbone-Bruce Sherlock Holmes episodes, missing Nick Carter stories aren’t mostly or entirely from the World War II era. Given the rare World War II episodes of Sherlock Holmes, The Thin Man, and Mr. and Mrs. North, Nick Carter has to have done well during World War II. About 50 World War II episodes of Nick Carter are floating about. These generally feature one of radio’s most distinctive openings:

(Pounding on the Door)

Woman: What is it? What is it?

Man: It’s another case for Nick Carter, Master Detective.

There are some missing war episodes and among the most curious are those from a 20-week period where Nick Carter went to a five day a week 15-minute serial format from April to September 1944. Outside of the 56 Yours Truly Johnny Dollar serials, the only intact radio detective serial stories are a 1936 Charlie Chan story and a 1954 Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Person story. The rest exist only in fragment and none of the Carter serials are in circulation.

However, it’s the post World War II shows that are in much shorter supply.  Particularly those shows after 1948. After episode 366, “A Clue Called X”, 354 of the next 356 episodes are missing including the last 312, with no Carter episode from the 1950s in circulation.

The number of Carter radio plays is circulation is somewhere between 85 and 135 episodes depending on whose set you’re looking at. There are a lot of duplicates and mislabeled shows, so it’s tough to say for sure. This is why Lon Clark as Nick Carter didn’t make my 100 club list  as I haven’t verified the episodes and there hasn’t been a clear independent audit of the Carter shows. That leaves near to 600 episodes missing from general circulation. The good news of this?

Many of these episodes may not be lost forever, but may only be out of circulation. The Radio Goldindex of radio shows usually tracks pretty closely to what’s in circulation, but on Nick Carter, Goldin has far more Carter episodes than are currently circulation. He catalogs 358 episodes or nearly triple what’s in circulation. Among the episodes Goldin lists are several of the Nick Carter serials which are either complete or complete enough to listen to. In addition there are more than 100 episodes from 1949-50 that Goldin has listed that aren’t in general circulation. This gives hope that the shows exist within collecting circles and will eventually become available to fans of the master detective.

The Immortal Detectives

Listening to vintage radio, you get a sense of how fleeting fame and popularity can be. There was a time when names such as Michael Shayne, John J. Malone, Philo Vance, Nick Carter, and Mr. and Mrs. North held a spot in the public imagination. Yet, today these names would be mostly unknown except to diehard fans of old mysteries.

On the other hand, if you mention Sherlock Holmes the recognition is universal. Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, ditto. So which detectives have been with us a long time and have come out from beneath the rubbles of historyfor their stories and characters to find new generations on a mass level.

The list of “immortal detectives” is short:

Sherlock Holmes

Father Brown

Nero Wolfe

The Hardy Boys

Nancy Drew

Poirot

 Miss Marple

Sam Spade

Philip Marlowe

Mike Hammer

Sherlock Holmes has survived so long because he’s definitively iconic reperesentative of what a detective is. He captures the imagination of writers who come up with new plots for him long after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stopped. And let’s not forget that the original stories were solid entertainment in their own right with no requirement of updating.

Father Brown survives because of the intellectual strength  of the puzzles, as well as the many devotees of Chesterton among Catholics and other traditionalists.

Nero Wolfe survives through the fact that Stout, like Agatha Christie wrote his books over the course of several decades, allowing them to seep into the culture. Both the character of Wolfe and Archie, as well as the original mysteries written by Stout arrest the public’s imagination. The most recent Nero Wolfe TV series ended in 2002, and I don’t expect we’ve seen the last of Wolfe. Of course, Wolfe may inspire writers andproducers more than it does a mass popularity.  There’ve been five Nero Wolfe radio shows, two movies, and two TV series, and the most successful version was the latest TV series.

The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew continue to be introduced to boys and girls at a young age. While the characters have changed quite a bit since they were introduced in 1927 and 1930 respectively,  the never-ending supply of new books assures them a long life, and that movies and TV shows will emerge from time to time.

Poirot and Marple are the most enduring characters of the late Agatha Christie, and that has translated into numerous television adaptations that have been shown on PBS. Though, there have been other adaptations as well. Agatha Christie’s Great Detectives Poirot and Marple was a Manga and Anime adaption of the two characters’ adventures.

As to Sam Spade, he lives on as the prototype of hard boiled fiction. While there haven’t been any Spade movies since the Maltese Falcon and only one novel and a collection of short stories written by Dashiel Hammett, the character continues to live on through that film, a recent BBC radio production, and an even an authorized prequel novel, Spade and Archer. One big reason for Spade’s survival is that the Maltese Falcon is often read for its literary value in events such as The Big Read where a library group will read through the same book.

Philip Marlowe has inspired numerous film and television productions, the latest occurring in 1998 when James Caan took the role for Poodle Springs. The movies, the influence of Chandler, and the nature of Philip Marlowe as a “knight in tarnished armor” helps to keep him in circulation.

Mike Hammer’s survival is due to a combination of books, movies, TV shows, and the 1980s Television version which updated and iconisized Hammer for a new generation of fans. The success of doing that was in the longevity of Mickey Spillane, who was able to keep the character fresh through many years of change.

These ten have made it through at least 50 years of existence. Of course, it’s an open question as to how many of these will remain popular in 2060, and whether such detectives as Columbo, The Rockford Files, and Monk will still be remembered by the general public, or like so many other once-popular sleuths, be only remembered by the mystery superfans.

Better Living Through Radio

How effective can radio advertising be? Could a radio ad sell a product 75 years after it aired? The answer is a surprising yes.

Vintage radio ads often vary between enduring brands that exist to this day and continue to be brand name staples  such as Chevron Gasoline, Wrigley Gum, Camel Cigarettes, or Pepsodent to the brands you can’t find anywhere. There’s nowhere you can buy Petri Wine (at least not the Petri Wine by the original Petri family) and good luck finding a Clipper Craft suit anywhere.

Most radio ads are of value only for a nostalgic value, a recapturing of the values of the era in which it was produced, the music, the phrases, the culture. No one listening to an episode of Richard Diamond today is going to be more likely to find their way to a Rexhall Drugs. And of course, it should be noted that its quite easy for some radio ads to wear on listeners. Hearing about how its wise to smoke Fatimas week after week can be irritating and repetitive.

However, one radio ad was so effective, it sold me on trying on the product.

As I’ve written before, I’ve become quite the fan of Lum and Abner. One of the show’s early sponsors was Horlicks, a maker of malted milk. They sponsored Lum and Abner five days a week, and they did radio sponsorship right. Unlike other shows that would repeat the same messages, they included original ads in each episode, so no two ads were the same.

The announcer, Carlton Brickert would read an a testimonial, or occasionally, there’d be a little drama performed to illustrate the point. Some of the more powerful segments included testimonials from parents with sickly children who had given their children Horlicks.

In some ways, there seemed to be some contadictory claims in Horlicks in ads. The sponsors said that Horlicks could help the obese lose weight, while helping sickly babies gain weight, and sickly adults gain it. It said it could increase your energy in the daytime, while helping you sleep better at night.

While, Petri Wines may merit a passing curiosity, I had to learn more about Horlicks, and what I learned about it was that Horlicks is no longer sold in mass quantities in the United States. It was acquired by a British company and it was more popular in the developing world than anywhere else. However, I actually went to the trouble to find a bottle of Horlicks for sale on Amazon and I bought a copy.

I did find that Horlicks had changed since its radio days. They’d boasted that Horlicks was made from whole milk, not skim milk as other “inferior brands” were. But 21st Century Horlicks is made with skim milk.

Beyond that, I tried Horlicks and found it to be good tasting. The one claim I can confirm is that it will help you get to sleep. The first night I had some Horlicks before bed and I was out like a light and I’m not usually the sound-sleeping sort. Of course, I’m told there’s not a scientific basis for the conclusion, however I think perhaps science hasn’t explained it.

I finished my experiment with Horlicks and found I’d learned a little, but not a whole lot. It’s really hard to tell from a 300 mg container. I’d need to order more, but was reluctant. My wife asked if we were going to get more. She enjoyed the malted milk. I didn’t tell her about the Horlicks Order I’d put in and she picked up some Nesquick brand. Following the advice of the Horlicks ads, I teased my wife about having bought a lesser brand.

Of course, whether we contine the Horlicks experiment really depends. Even if it’s good, it’s still expensive to ship and to buy. I could be getting “inferior brands” for some time. Still, I have to tip my hats to the folks who made the Horlicks commercials. It takes talent to come up with an ad that makes your listeners curious enough to buy…seventy-five years  after the fact.

And Now, Let’s See What’s Happening Down in Pine Ridge…

Imagine an old time radio show that spawns an annual festival, led to the renaming of a town, and 55 years after its first airdate, keeps a small town grocery store in business.

You needn’t imagine. The show is called Lum and Abner, radio’s two-man show featuring Chester Lauck and Lum Edwards and Norris Goff played Abner Peabody. The two managed the Jot ’em Down Store.  The town had several other residents such as Dick Huddleston, who owned a competing general store, Squire Skimp, an unscrupulous lawyer, Cedric Weehunt, their hired hand, and Grandpappy Spears. All of these parts, plus a few others were played by Lauck and Goff, showing great flexibility as actors.  The show’s 24-year run with a variety of networks and sponsors was impressive, but what makes its so impressive is how well its endured.

A 2-day festival is held every June in Mena, Arkansas in their honor, and the show is still run in reruns over radio stations in Mena and Chicago. Two proprietors run the Jot-Em-Down Store and the Lum ‘N Abner Museum in the unincorporated community of Pine Ridge, where the stories were based. The store draws visitors from around the U.S. and even around the World.

What got me interested in the show was a series of high quality audio downloads posted at the archive.org known as the Pine Ridge Project. They amounted to a series of 34 seperate entries in the Archive, each featuring a whole MP3 CD’s worth of Lum and Abner in High Quality Audio, as well as one with some extra Lum and Abner clips.  I was curious about why the show would have such devoted fans and began listening.

Lum and Abner’s strength comes in its simple conversational nature. Unlike many radio shows of the era such as Burns and Allen, Lum and Abner weren’t doing radio vaudeville. It was an easy going style of comedy that still got into some amazingly zany places. (Ex: When Lum receives a chain letter asking everyone to send a dime to the person at the top of the list, they have the idea to write a chainletter that has everyone send hogs rather than dimes.)

The show’s serial format also gives the show a continuity lacking in other old time radio comedy shows with their sketch mentality. Actions have consequences for Lum and Abner. 

The comedy was well done with Lum, Abner, and friends coming up with some of the most fascinating dialogues in old time radio.  (For an example, see the family tree discussion on this page.)

The show  did have some heart.  Lum and Abner’s friendship was often tested and tried made their way through business, but they invariably made up after each row. The show also did a good job of teaching good rules of business and financial conduct through negative examples.

The show gives a peak into the world of Rural America of the 1930s.  And it has an air of authenticity from the fact that it was based on a real life town in West Arkansas that was called Waters, and many of its citizens. For example,  Dick Huddleston was not only a character on the show, but the real life owner of the only general store in town.

As the town was unincorporated, Huddleston got permission from the Post Office to rename the community to Pine Ridge in1936.  The one unrealistic thing about the fictional Pine Ridge was there there were too many people. Currently, Pine Ridge has 21 inhabitants, only slightly less than it had back in the age of Lum and Abner, so the cast of hundreds that showed up as Pine Ridge residents wasn’t realistic. However, then again, a community the size of the real Pine Ridge couldn’t support two grocery stores either.

While, I’ve only been listening to Lum and Abner for a few weeks, they’re already like old friends. Their 15 minute length makes them perfect for short little pick me ups or can leave a smile on my face before bed.  Nealry 80 years  after they started, the laughter continues.

Further Reading:

The Pine Ridge Project (All 35 Parts)

The Road to Pine Ridge

The National Lum and Abner Society

Remaking Jim Rockford and Pat Novak

There are some things you don’t do.  Some forces you don’t mess with. Earlier this year, NBC had the idea to re-make  The Rockford Files. John Nolte at Big Hollywood had a simple message. “Forget about it.”

Here’s the message: You can’t remake “The Rockford Files.” You can call a television show “The Rockford Files…” you can call your parakeet “The Rockford Files,” but that doesn’t mean it’s “The Rockford Files.”

That show was James Garner, and if you’ve recently watched any of the episodes you know that the thirty-years that have passed since the program went off the air in 1980 have only served to cement its timelessness and status as a true classic. Sure, the sports coats might be a little loud and the sideburns too long, but Mike Post’s iconic theme, that awesome gold Pontiac Firebird and some of the best writing ever seen on television have kept the series as entertaining, compelling and fresh as anything produced today. 

Someone at NBC agreed and the remake was shelved. What’s another tough act to follow? How about Pat Novak, Jack Webb’s pre-Dragnet cult Classic? A theatre in Seattle will try just that. On July 6, Pat Novak opened for a four week run of four of the original episodes every Tuesday in the month of July. Instead of Webb, actor Matt Fulbright will be taking on the lead role of our favorite waterfront patsy.

The plans by the folks at Stage Right theater is for local writers to create new chapters in the Pat Novak story. Can they really pick up right where Webb and writer Richard Breen left off sixty-one years ago? It’ll be interesting to see them  try and the effort takes some guts.

Of course, the last time someone tried to play Novak on a regular basis, it was 1947. Jack Webb had played in the local transcriptions in San Francisco of Pat Novak, but he and Richard Breen they ran quick, like a politician trying to get away from the press outside a grand jury.

Ben Morris became the new Pat Novak and the show remained on the air. But as Michael Hayde reports in his book, My Name’s Friday, letters poured into KGO disapproving the change and demanding the return of Webb. Webb started his copycat show, Johnny Madero and Pat Novak left the air at the end of 1947 until it was resurrected for its national run, with the only man who could play the role in the lead-Jack Webb

What time and experience suggests is that when a lead character is created on television or the radio, it’s very hard to replace them with someone else. This isn’t the case with characters whose origins trace back to literature. Countless men have played Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, Philip Marlowe, Nero Wolfe, Father Brown, etc. A character whose origin lies in literature gives the audience a basis for the image of the character that doesn’t depend on the actor. On the other hand, if a character is created on television or in Novak’s case, on the radio, the actor’s unique characterization of the character becomes definitive and its hard to shake. That’s not to say it hasn’t been tried, but from the 2005 remake of Kojak to a variety of Classic TV made into crummy movies, audiences aren’t interested.

 Of course, the Stage Right theater has an advantage on those remaking more recent works. Characters like Jim Rockford, Kojak, Adrian Monk, and Lieutenant Columbo have a gigantic body of work that’s got a wide-range of availability. However, with the exception of Old Time radio stations, and a few albums, and websites, Pat Novak has been little heard of in the past sixty-one years. If you find one person in 200 who knows who Pat Novak is, you’re doing good. Rather than trying to remake the widely  known, they’re introducing a new generation to a character they’ve never heard of before. So,  they don’t have a ton of expectations or preconceived notions to battle with.

I’ve not been to the show, as I don’t live in Seattle.  But if Ilved in Seattle, I would check it out and I’d also be there for when they start to do new episodes. Can they capture the magic of Academy Award Winner Richard Breen and create memorable adventures that ring true to the character? If they can, then Pat Novak could be running for quite a while. One thing I’ve learned from doing this show is that if people like Pat Novak, they will want more of it. I wish them all the best.

Nostalgic for Art

I don’t view myself as a Nostalgia show host. I love old radio detective shows because of their quality, rarely touched in modern attempts, either in the fiber of the characters, or in the quality of the stories. They don’t make them like that anymore.

However, there are some shows that fill me with a nostalgic sense, and a great example of this is the radio and later TV hit, People are Funny. After the recent death of Mr. Art Linkletter, who I’d only seen from archive footage from his House Party days, I put five episodes of his game show where he gave out cash and prizes while challenging his audience to do stunts. People went along with the gag for the fun of it, more than for the prizes.

The show had something very gentle about its humor. While the idea of paying people money to do stunts isn’t unusual, today such stunts often involve doing things that are immoral or dangerous (see Temptation Island), and creating artificial hatreds and tensions with greed as a fuel for treachery (Survivor), as well as exploiting people’s real emotions, dreams, and feelings for high ratings (too many shows to list.)

Art Linkletter’s game show thought people were funny, but it also showed a respect for people. The stunts might cause some temporary embarassment like when Linkletter dispatached a man to sell Goat’s Milk door to door in a ritzy hotel, but they weren’t really going to hurt people in the long run. There was no attempt to gain ratings by exploiting people. There was a sense that the show was all in good fun, and audience, host, and guests were laughing together.

Of course, this isn’t to say that all was perfect in America during the 1950s. I’ll be the first to admit that the country was far from perfect back then (as the world always was), and these shows will have reminders of things we were better off leaving behind.

However,one part of the 1950s I am nostalgic about is the grace and class of Art Linkletter. Sadly, they don’t make many like that anymore.

TV Detectives Locked in Copyright Jail

Recently, I got the Best of TV Detectives (affiliate link), a 150 episode collection of TV Detective shows. Despite the fact that not all of them were detective shows. (Two public domain episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and a few crime dramas) it’s been quite a treat to catch some of these shows for the first time.

There was Front Page Detective with David Chase which called to mind some of the great radio detectives in its characterization. Racket Squad, Public Defender, Code 3, and the Court of Last Resort played off of Dragnet in their mix of entertainment and education about various aspects of law enforcement and crime. The set has further spurred my interest in other TV Detective shows, long forgotten to see what can be found.

The shows can be divided into the following categories:

1) Mostly/Completely in the Public Domain: TV shows made before 1964 were given a 28 year copyright term, renewable for another 28 years.  Those shows that didn’t renew entered the public domain. Each episode had to be renewed individually. That’s why you’ll find episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show (an otherwise copyrighted show) in dollar DVD bins. However, some shows simply didn’t renew at all. Some had a very good reason. Their network had gone belly up. The DuMont TV network produced several early television shows, but within 28 years, they were out of business, and whoever had been assigned Dumont’s Copyrights let them lapse. Other shows just lapsed for whatever reasons, perhaps official inattention as the shows weren’t being syndicated.

Just because a show has lapsed into the public domain doesn’t mean the public can actually see it. If there’s no film left, it might as well not exist.

Shows that have lapsed completely or mostly into the public domain tend to have a variable nature about the number of shows available, usually a sparse few episodes claimed from a TV station that had paid to syndicate the show one at point. The economics is simple. There’s no one with an economic incentive to care for the show or care if its episodes survive. The results: spotty prints, few prints, and many adventures lost.

2) Shows with few episodes in the Public Domain:

This category of shows was mostly renewed, but a few episodes slipped into the public domain. Examples of this include one episode of the 1960s TV show Burke’s Law that lapsed into the public domain, as well as two episodes of the very cool Peter Gunn. Next to actually being released commercially on to DVD, this could be the best possible situation for a TV Detective. An episode or two in the public domain. Fans are teased by the cheap public domain episode and made curious about other episodes, which can lead to the release of a full box set. Those who knew 1960s Detective Series Checkmate has only been available on bootleg DVDs, but the popularity of public domain episodes spurred a release of the Best of Season One and the The Best of Seasons Two. Now a complete set of all 70 episodes is set for release this year.

Copryighted And Actively Available: This is a good state for the show be in. Those shows that have been fully copyrighted and are fully available are available to watch. Shows like Perry Mason and the Rockford Files are easily accessible to mystery fans on TV and DVD, and in many cases online. Copyright preservation helps to ensure quality condition (usually) of prints, while some public domain shows can be of variable quality.

However, there is a downside to continued copyright protection when a series remains under protection but is completely unavailable.  Unlike, the public domain series, no third party can come in and make episodes available. I found quite a few interesting sounding detective serials that I’d love to see, if only they would release a DVD. Here are a few detective shows from the 1950s I’d love to see, if the respective owners would release them:

1) Johnny Midnight:

In Copyright Jail until: 2056

Edmond O’Brien, eight years after leaving Yours Truly Johnny Dollar returned to the serial gumshoe role as Broadway Star turned private detective named Johnny Midnight.  You can’t really go wrong with Edmond O’Brien as a detective. (see DOA and the Killers for more proof.) So this sounds like an interesting series.

2) Johnny Staccato:

In Copyright Jail until 2055

John Cassavetes stars as Johnny Staccato, a Jazz musician who is a private detective. It makes me think of a  mix of Pete Kelly’s Blues and Man with a Camera. I haven’t seen much with Cassevettes. He was a television pioneer who spent much of his career behind the camera, but he was very good in a 1972 Columbo movie, Etude in Black. Rated 8.7 out of 10 by IMDB users.

3) The Line Up

In Copyright Jail: Until 2055

The Line-up was based on an old time radio show of the same name and was one of the string of police procedurals that came out after Dragnet. It was set in San Francisco and ran in syndication for many years as San Francisco Beat.  Doing a copyright search, some episodes of this show have fallen into the public domain but the public domain shows haven’t come into any type of circulation. IMBD.com user rating: 6.9

4) Felony Squad:

In Copyright Jail: Until 2064 

This is a show that’s a fascinating must for fans of Old Time Radio.  It stars Sam Spade’s Howard Duff  as Detective Sam Stone, who works in a major crimes unit in a Western City. The show also featured Ben Alexander of Dragnet as Desk Seargent Dan Briggs. Rated an 8.7 on IMDB. It should be noted that this show at one point, had a few episodes released on VHS, but not released on DVD.

It’s interesting to read about the show, however it would be even more interesting to watch it.  Hopefully, copyright owners will take note and begin to release legal authorized versions of these shows on websites like Hulu or DVD, so that a new generation of fans will enjoy them.

It should be noted that Hollywood can make some bizarre decisions with these DVD releases. (There are more official seasons of Bonanza available to watch in Germany than in the United States.) If you think these shows belong on DVD, or there are other shows not currently on DVD that you’d like to see, you can go to TVshowsonDVD.com and let your voice be heard by voting for your favorites.