Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Old Time Radio
Sound Effects
One day a few decades ago when dramas were still a regular part of the radio broadcast day, CBS sound effects man Ray Kemper checked the script of an upcoming broadcast and found a most unusual request.One scene required the sound of ten thousand drunk chickens.
Kemper and his noise making partner Bill James, like most of mainstream America, were unfamiliar with the sounds of inebriated poultry.
And they had another problem. Director William N. Robson had a reputation for being a little bit difficult to work with and the two sound men knew he would accept only top quality work.
"With Bill Robson, if the script called for the rattle of onion skin paper, you'd better damn well have onion skin paper there, because he'd jump all over you if you didn't," Kemper recalls. "He wanted sound effects exactly right."
What to do?
"We found a couple of (sound effects) records with hundreds and hundreds of clucking chickens," Kemper said, adding that they also had the option of using recording tape.
The two sound men recorded the records onto tape, then made a separate tape of the two of them alternately clucking and hiccuping. "Then we speeded our little hiccups and clucks up a little bit, and we overdubbed that onto the (tape of) hundreds and hundreds of clucking chickens," Kemper explained.
There was still the problem of contending with Bill Robson.
"You know, he's not going to believe this," Bill James told Kemper.
"I"ve got an idea," Kemper replied.
"We took the tape and went to the recording studio. We said to the engineer, 'transfer this to a 12 inch disc.' He did. Then he gave us a very official looking CBS label," Kemper continued. "I took that label and imprinted on it 'ten thousand drunk chickens.' Then I glued it onto the record."
During rehearsal, Kemper manned the sound effects turntables. When it came time for the unusual sound effect, they got the expected response from director Robson.
"He wanted to embarrass me so he hit the talkback so the whole world could hear," Kemper said.
"Ray, that's not ten thousand drunk chickens," Robson bellowed.
"I didn't say a word," Kemper explained. "I just took the record off the turntable. I walked over to the (director's) booth and I stuck the record up against the glass."
The point was clear.
"He didn't say another word for the whole show," Kemper reported.
Years later Kemper told Robson the story. "I remember that," Robson said. "I knew I'd been had but I didn't know how so I decided to keep quiet."
After doing some work as a stage actor in little theater productions, Kemper went to work in 1942 in the mail room at KHJ, the Mutual outlet in Los Angeles. Two weeks later he won an audition for an announcer's position at the station.
"They put me on the night shift because I was so bad," he said modestly.
He didn't stay long. He was drafted in February 1943 and spent three years in the service.
"After I got out in February of 1946, I went back to KHJ. An announcer's position was not open. There was a position available in sound effects," he said.
"There was a sound crew there, headed by Art Fulton, the supervisor of the sound effects department at KHJ. Tommy (Hanley) and Bill (James) had already been there when I came back (from the war). I learned a lot from them."
His other mentor/co-workers included Art Surrence, Norm Smith and Bob Turnbull, who later became a producer-director-writer for network radio.
"Sound effects were sometimes indicated in the script in detail, and sometimes not in detail. They were left up to our imagination as to what to do," he said.
The intervening years have washed many program titles away from the memory, but Kemper specifically recalls working on Red Ryder, Cisco Kid and Casebook of Gregory Hood. "I cut my teeth on the Cisco Kid and Red Ryder. I learned a lot on those two shows," he explained. "that's where I met Tom Hanley and Bill James. We became quite a triumvirate. We worked well together."
They also established a good reputation for themselves. "When Voyage of the Scarlet Queen came in, Elliott Lewis wanted Bill and me to do the show," he said. "It could just as easily have been Tommy (chosen) but he was doing something else."
Often the Scarlet Queen scripts for the show called for such complicated sound effects that Tom Hanley was hired as the third sound man on some shows, if he was available.
"Elliott was a marvelous, marvelous talent," Kemper reflected. "He was a brilliant person, a superb actor and a fine director. I have nothing but the greatest respect for him."
"I want the most realistic sounds you can give us," he said Lewis told them.
"He very seldom made suggestions to us," Kemper said. "He liked our work so well he did something that was unheard of in those days. He gave Bill and me a fee by writing in a little line occasionally (for us) and giving us an actor's check."
The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen was one of radio's top quality productions. It employed good writing, performances by Hollywood radio's most successful actors, and realistic sound effects.
"We used a lot of records for the winds," he said. "We experimented until we got what sounded like a creaking ship to us. Occasionally we built the smaller items ourselves because we were experimenting." Bigger items, such as a large platform, were constructed by the network's carpenter shop.
Another of the Mutual programs Kemper did sound effects for was Count of Monte Cristo. "Jaime del Valle was the producer'director on that show," he said.
Once during his days at KHJ-Mutual, Kemper was working a detective show with two other sound men one night when they needed to provide the sound of a knife going into a wall. Usually a sound man would hold a piece of wood in one outstretched hand and jab the block hard with a knife.
"He got a little piece of wood and put it in the palm of his hand," he said. "On the air, he missed and the knife went right into his hand and he fainted."
Kemper remembers well the work sound man Bill James had to do on Jimmy Scribner's radio show, on which the star portrayed all the characters. "Jimmy Scribner never had a script. He ad-libbed the entire show," he said.
"Bill James had to ad-lib every sound effect on the show. He just brought up a bunch of stuff and told Scribner what he had. He brought up a door and a footstep board," he continued. "If Jimmy wanted something specific, he'd say, "Bring a train whistle." But Bill was hanging out there trying to figure out where he was going and what was going to happen next. It worked out very well."
Steve Allen and Wendell Noble's Smile Time was another of radio's ad"lib shows. And Bill James was also the sound man for that program.
Cisco Kid writer Bill Gordon, too, provided many last minute surprises for the cast and crew of his shows. "Bill couldn't write unless he was under pressure. He had a heck of a time getting to a typewriter and making himself write," he said.
"You have no idea how many times we went on the air (live) with the Cisco Kid and Bill, while we were doing the first act, was typing on a stencil the second act and running it off on a mimeograph. Then he would run in with the last pages as we were going. Sweat was running down Jack Mather and Harry Lang's (foreheads). But he never missed a show," he added.
"Bill would tell us what was going to happen, so we set up (sound effects) for everything," he continued. "We had standard equipment -- footstep board, sand and gravel box for footsteps, triple turntable with all kinds of possible effects and records we might need. All of these things would be patched into the audio board and ready to go. But Bill would give us an outline of what was going to happen. He didn't leave us dry."
Kemper left Mutual to work for an advertising agency - a job he hated. In March 1951 he was hired to do sound effects for CBS Radio. He encouraged his superiors to hire Tom Hanley later that same year and a few months later they influenced CBS" decision to hire Bill James.
After his move to CBS, one of Kemper's best remembered assignments was to work sound effects on Gunsmoke.
"There was a lot of fear on the upper floor about doing a show of realism. They were afraid of it. And Norm (Macdonnell) and John Meston insisted on this being realistic," he said.
"This is going to be a realistic show, guys," he said Macdonnell told the sound men. "Let's do it right. We will take all the time necessary for sounds effects."
Macdonnell was true to his word, Kemper said.
"One time we walked Matt Dillon along the board walk, crossed the street, into the Longbranch. Then he had to come back out of the Longbranch and cross the street back to the boardwalk again," he recalled.
"Ray, when you come back across the street, cut that down to about seven steps," Macdonnell told him.
Kemper took his headsets off and walked up to the director. "Norm," he replied, "it took him 23 steps to across there. It's going to take him 23 steps to get back."
Macdonnell laughed, "damn you, you're right. Do it." Some dialog was cut instead. The realism remained intact.
Macdonnell's mandate for realism was taken so seriously that sound men Kemper, Hanley and James even used different sounds for the various drinks poured at the Longbranch.
"To pour the beer, we took a soda pop at room temperature and poured that into a glass. The bubbles formed by the soda pop gave it the soft sound that beer has. But (for) whiskey, we used plain water. It has a harder sound," he said.
At CBS, as had happened earlier at Mutual, Kemper and his comrades experimented with various ideas when they needed new sound effects. For a pot bellied stove needed on a Gunsmoke show they built a small wood frame and attached an old iron door.
"We just used our imaginations," Kemper explained. "A lot of times we tried many, many things before we found the right sound."
One of their many experiments provided the sound of a horse's saddle being mounted. They bound together cut up sections of old microphone cable. When the sound was needed, a sound man simply twisted the cable pieces near a microphone.
And once a rider had mounted his horse, it was time for Hanley, James or Kemper to grab the coconut shells so the horses could gallop away.
"We each had our own set of coconut shells that fit our hands just right," Kemper revealed. "Tommy had much smaller hands than I, so he used smaller coconut shells.
"We drilled holes on the side about half an inch from each hollowed out half coconut shell and attached a leather strap loosely on each side so it went over the top of that coconut shell. We could slip our fingers under that quickly," he added.
A wooden box filled with dirt provided the other necessary ingredient for the sound of horses racing to the rescue, but careful sound men like Kemper and his colleagues came prepared with a variety of surfaces.
"The 'hoof box' was about 18 inches square by about 4 inches deep. It was filled with a mixture of dirt, sand and very fine gravel," Kemper said. "Just before air time we'd sprinkle it down with water. It would give us a nice, clean dirt sound."
If a script called for a horse to travel from a dirt road to a wooden bridge, the edge of the "hoof box" provided the perfect sound for the occasion. "If we wanted to move to cement, like Straight Arrow used to do on Fury in the cave, we'd have a little slab of cement off to the side. It echoes and it sounds real big," he said.
A four foot long, 18 inch wide board supplied the realistic sound of a boardwalk on radio westerns. "We used a one inch (thick) piece of Marine plywood and around the edge of the bottom side was about a two inch strip of wood that was carpeted so it wouldn't rattle around," he added.
On Gunsmoke there was one basic door used for most home and Marshall's office door sounds. "The only different sound that we got from different offices or different places was the way we would open the door," Kemper revealed. "We would handle it a different way: snap it open or give it a little extra rattle or something like that. It might sound like a different door, but it was not."
A smaller, framed set of bat-winged doors was used every time someone entered or left the Longbranch. "We'd hold one (door) and slap the other back and forth. It gave us the little rush of air and it sounded exactly like big bat-winged doors being opened," he said.
Likewise, a miniature jail door was employed any time Matt or Chester escorted an outlaw to Dodge City's jail house. Rusty hinges helped add to the effect, too.
"My favorite producers and directors were Elliott (Lewis), Norm (Macdonnell), Tony Ellis and Jaime del Valle," Kemper said. "Until people like Elliott Lewis and Tony Ellis, Jaime (del Valle) and particularly Norm really took over and pointed a major direction for the industry, sound was kind of a bastard child'that was true not just of drama but of comedy. The far-seeing people realized there was a great value there that (others) were missing," he observed.
"Tony was a fine, fine talent. I first met him when he was an actor. He had this soft, British accent," he said. "then he began writing for The Count of Monte Cristo. He and Bill Gordon wrote for that show-but Tony was writing those shows like crazy. Then he sort of faded away from acting because he got busy writing."
He credits Elliott Lewis' 1947 productions of Voyage of the Scarlet Queen as the beginning of an era of true understanding of the importance of sound effects. "Elliott was very cognizant of that necessity and that need (for authentic sound)," he said.
Later he encountered Ellis at CBS when the latter was associated with Suspense, Romance and Escape. "He was a fine writer and a fine director," Kemper noted.
Kemper and several other CBS sound effects artists occasionally wrote radio scripts. About ten Have Gun, Will Travel scripts were penned by Kemper.
He wrote an episode of The Count of Monte Cristo when he still worked at Mutual. Jaime del Valle bought his script. 'that was the first script I wrote," he said. "I was 23 at the time and I was thrilled out of my skull."
Sound man Ross Murray wrote several Suspense, On Stage and Escape radio plays and Tom Hanley also wrote for some of the popular CBS dramas. 'tommy wrote quite a few Gunsmokes for both radio and television," he recalled. "He was quite an excellent writer. He wrote quite a few Suspense stories also and received a national award for best drama of the year for a Suspense he wrote. That story starred Bill Conrad."
Kemper credits the work of the radio engineers for part of the success of the sound effects teams. "It was important to have a good mixer"a good audio engineer who worked in concert with us," he said.
At CBS, Bob Chadwick was that engineer.
"He was an excellent mixer, very conscientious, and he always worked in concert with us," he said.
Looking back at the work he and his colleagues did, Kemper now views their efforts in artistic terms. "We were telling a story and painting a picture," he said. "sound effects was what painted the picture. The voices and the actors held the drama. That, in concert with the sound effects, painted the portrait."
This article is based on an interview recorded by John Gassman in 1991.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Collecting OTR
Tuning In Time
Collecting Old Time Radio Shows In Cyberspace
By DJ Johnson
I collected baseball cards when I was a kid. Come to think of it, I collected baseball cards when I was 30, as well. Let's face it, some of us are born collectors, driven by the notion of having everything available within certain perimeters, be it every 1972 Topps baseball card or every stamp England issued in 1950. You have to care about the thing you collect, of course, or... or what's the point?
The baseball cards are still here, neatly packed in long boxes with the dates written on them, gathering dust and hangin' 'round in hopes of gaining some kind of value someday, and once in a while they're fun to look at. That... is about it.
The only hobby I've ever had that has really made me happy, kept me interested, introduced me to a lot of great people and truly given my imagination a workout is OTR-collecting. OTR means Old Time Radio. Most people have seen cassettes sitting with the impulse items at department store checkout lines, usually The Shadow or Jack Benny--both good shows but just the tip of the tip of the iceberg--or, at the outside, Burns & Allen. These are recordings from the years before TV came along, and some from the era when radio was dying a sad death because of the aforementioned boob toob. Tragic. TV's advantages over radio are obvious, but what about radio's advantages over TV? The screen was in the listeners' minds--they weren't told what to visualize, and it wasn't painted out for them. It was theater of imagination. It still is, if you know where to look.
WHO CARES?
You might. Does history interest you? Do you find yourself watching The History or Discovery Channels? Or do you think the Germans won the Korean War and Groucho Marx was the father of communism? Okay, I figure you are one of the ones who care, or you'd be reading something else by now. People who have a fascination with times gone by seem to gravitate toward the OTR hobby because each show is a piece of history, a fragment of time that can transport any listener with enough imagination to make the trip. There are even newscasts to be found--many, in fact--that give you a first-hand feeling for the events that shaped our world. In short, there's a little of everything in the world of OTR, from variety shows to sci-fi to mysteries to anywhere else you want your imagination to go. So... what's good and what sucks?
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
It's just like music: totally subjective. The great thing is the vast array of choices. If you're just hearing about this world for the first time, you'll be surprised to know just how many shows there were, and how many have survived the ravages of time. Besides The Shadow and Jack Benny, there were detective shows like Phillip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, Rocky Jordan, Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Nightbeat, Dragnet and more than we have time to mention. Comedy? How about Lucille Ball in My Favorite Husband? Or The Life Of Riley, or Baby Snooks, or The Aldrich Family. There are more shows being unearthed every day and it's already more than I can list here.
John Dunning has written two fantastic reference books on the subject of OTR. The first, Tune In Yesterday, is now as rare as hen's teeth and fetches around $175 per copy. Two years ago Dunning produced an updated edition called On The Air. If you're serious about getting into OTR, this is the one indispensable book--800 pages of information on just about every radio show from the 20s through the end of the radio era. To give you an idea of how vast the pool is, Dunning's book doesn't even mention British programs (or Australian, or South African or anything other than American). The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) has an even richer radio tradition than we have because they have never STOPPED making radio mystery, drama, comedy and sci-fi programs.
So how do you sort all these shows out? Well, you get to decide what's good and what's garbage, and you will. Everybody ends up having their favorites. Personally, I'm bowled over by The Goon Show (a wacky 1950s BBC comedy starring Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Seacombe) and Damon Runyon Theater (think Guys & Dolls). I've run into people who only collect episodes of one show. In fact, I know one guy who basically only cares about programs featuring Vincent Price. Can't imagine, but as I say, it's all subjective. And he seems happy. As the prophet Simon once sang, "one man's ceiling is another man's floor."
WHO CAN AFFORD A HOBBY WITH THESE GAS PRICES!?
Got an Internet connection? Obviously, or you wouldn't be reading this. It's out there on the Net, my friends. There are websites, usenet newsgroups and FTP sites where these shows can be downloaded. What's more, most of the shows are in the public domain, so there's no (or very little) moral struggle over legalities. You know... like the struggle you or someone just like you has over snagging the latest Metallica song on Napster. Okay, calm down, maybe I was thinking of someone else.
If you have an IRC client, such as mIRC or Pirch, you can find other collectors hanging out together and talking shop, often trading shows in MP3 format right then and there. And if you have a CD burner, you can meet people who want to trade shows. It's a simple enough thing: you have some shows I want, I have some shows you want, so let's each make a CD and mail it to the other. Great system. And since a single CD can hold upwards of 100 half-hour shows, your collection grows quickly. Missing an episode of X Minus 1? Post a request on alt.binaries.sounds.radio.oldtime and chances are the show will be ready to download the next time you log on. Also a great system. (Note: there is another newsgroup with the same name, minus the "s" at the end of "sounds": alt.binaries.sound.radio.oldtime. It is also a very busy group with a lot of shows for you to snag. And check out alt.binaries.sounds.radio.misc.)
THE PERFECT HOBBY?
Despite this glowing love poem I'm writing to OTR here, there are some not-so-nice things about these great old shows, and some things that go far beyond "not-so-nice." Listening to these programs today, it's hard not to chuckle at the silliness of some of the stories, and impossible not to be dumbfounded by the sheer stupidity of much of the advertising. Those of us who weren't alive for the original broadcasts wonder, sometimes aloud, "Were people stupid enough to believe this garbage?" And the garbage was pushed at the public constantly, far more so than today. The sponsors managed to become part of the shows. Baby Snooks would be invited in to her neighbor's house for some Jell-O. Okay, that happens today, but in this case the neighbor was just the announcer doing his whole "Jell-O is good food" spiel. Jack Benny constantly worked his sponsors into his storylines. Just about everyone did. And some shows were one long commercial. Among the worst offenders was Benny Goodman's Camel Caravan, a music program in which half the songs suddenly became ads for Camel Cigarettes, with the vocalists changing from whatever the original lyrical topic was to something or other about American's demanding pure smoking satisfaction. Check out this silly commercial, one of the many that appeared between songs on Goodman's show.
Announcer: You'll find Camel smokers among the champions in most any sport. Take Leonard Spence, breaststroke champion of the world for five straight years. Here's what HE says about Camels.
Leonard Spence: When I feel tired, I light up a Camel and get a swell lift. Camels have a mellow, rich flavor that just strikes home with me. The tougher things get and the harder I train, the more I appreciate the fact that Camels don't frazzle my nerves. For sheer tastiness, give me Camels every time.
Yyyyyyeah. Unless they had the 14 and a half meter breaststroke back in those days, we can cast all the doubt we feel like casting at the notion of an endurance-sport athlete being big on Camels, or any other cigarettes. You make your own decisions here.
The absolute worst thing about radio in those days gone by was racism. Blacks were often depicted as stupid and subservient, and they weren't alone by any stretch of the imagination. Parodies and dialects that would mean instant boycotting today were commonplace, and no nationality was spared. Jack Benny would even tell his servant, Rochester, "Smile so I can see you" in a dark room. The audience howled, of course, and youngsters grew up thinking that was okay. To be fair, Benny was one of the greatest human beings to ever stand before a radio microphone, and he didn't have a racist bone in his body. It was just the way humor was in those times when nobody was complaining.
The secret to loving and collecting OTR is to remember that it was a naive time, that many people were ignorant and insensitive, that tobacco companies had a blank check and most sponsors had executive power over script-writers. Deal with that. If you're listening with kids in the room, use those offensive moments as object lessons. Turn it into something constructive.
The greatest thing about collecting OTR, for me, has been the discovery that my family enjoys it as well. Our 9-year-old daughter and I listen to Baby Snooks together and have a great time laughing, and I get together with our 12-year-old daughter for Chickenman episodes. My wife is a detective fan, and we love listening to Sherlock Holmes, The Saint and Nero Wolfe together. I imagine it's pretty much like it was 50 years ago as we sit near the computer (okay, that part is different) and listen to Snooks trying her daddy's patience. We're leaned back, eyes focused on nothing in particular because we're seeing with our imaginations. Old words and funny phrases start to creep in to our family vocabulary, and so far none of us have felt the urge for a Camel. I like this hobby.
Beginning next month, this discussion will continue as a monthly column. In future installments I'll share the secrets of collecting, including places to find rare shows, people to hook up with, books to pick up, and shows you might want to give a listen to. I'll be learning as I go, and I'd be happy to take you with me. We'll also learn a little bit of history about these programs and the people behind them. When it comes down to it, it's really all about history, whether we're hearing an actual newscast announcing the attack on Pearl Harbor or listening to our favorite comedy characters dealing with wartime food rationing. Until they invent the first time machine, this is a pretty fine way to travel.
(C) 2000 - DJ Johnson
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Boston Blackie
Boston Blackie first appeared in crime stories published in The American Magazine and Redbook written by former newspaperman turned confidence man Jack Boyle (whose stories were originally published under the byline "6006" (his prison number). "He had served three terms in prison - I believe in San Quentin, and one in Colorado - he was an opium addict (picked up while covering the Chinatown beat in his newspaper days), and a hard drinking man if ever there was one," recalled editor Ray Long. "But withal, one of the most entertaining men in the world, and so far as his dealings with me went, a square shooter ... He wrote, I should say, the best crook stories that were ever put on paper."
Boston Blackie was portrayed in silent films by Bert Lytell, Lionel Barrymore, David Powell, William Russell, Forest Stanley and Raymond Glenn before Chester Morris made the role his own in 14 Columbia films and in a 1944 NBC summer replacement series (with Richard Lane reprising his screen role as Inspector Farraday). Following Chester Morris' summer series, Richard Kollmar starred as Blackie (with Maurice Tarplin as Farraday and Lesley Woods and Jan Miner as Mary Wesley) in a syndicated series that aired from April 11, 1945 through September 25, 1950. Kent Taylor later portrayed Boston Blackie in a 1951-53 television series.
As time progressed from print to film to radio and then tv, Blackie's nature changed from hardened chriminal and addict to gentleman burglar to gentleman detective.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
War of the Worlds Panic
Orson Welles was a great artist and a grand showman in equal measure. His creativity has been compared to an open fire hydrant; it took his partnership with John Houseman to bring it into its best use. As much as he revered classical literature (from Shakespeare to Kafka), he also adored popular cultural forms like the magic show and genres like thrillers, horror tales and melodramas. Crucially, Welles never kept art and show business separate; he played everything both for sensational thrills and for poetic resonance. Although Welles can often seem like a prophet of the postmodern, few today are able to work on these dual levels in the way he did.
Orson Welles insisted on doing an adaptation of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds for his Halloween show even though his advisors thought that it would prove too boring for the radio audience. Originally Lorna Doone was to air but three weeks before the broadcast, Welles told producer, John Houseman and writer, Howard Koch of the change. Under Welles direction, Koch set the Martian invasion in modern America. To add impact, the first half of the drama was written and performed so it would sound like a news broadcast about an invasion from Mars. This was the first time that this technique had been used. Koch, fearing that the play would be a flop, went to bed early that night, missing the show.
What added the greatest impact to the show was the incredible timing. Welles directed the actors, sound effects, dialog, and music like it was a complex symphony. In all of the Mercury Theater’s work the use of George Herrmann's music is sparing and precise; Welles once said that he worked closely, note for note, with the composer. Equally sparing is Welles' use of sound effects. Also, keep in mind that in 1938, radio broadcasts were presented live.
As for the show itself, on Sunday evening, at 8 p.m. Eastern time, a voice on CBS said: "The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre of the Air in 'The War of the Worlds,' by H.G. Wells." The play itself started off in a quiet and somewhat boring way with a simulated radio program featuring dance music. As the play unfolded, the dance music was interrupted a number of times by fake news bulletins reporting that a "huge flaming object" had dropped on a farm near Grovers Mill, New Jersey. The bulletins started just over five minutes into the show. Just before this on another network, Edgar Bergen and Charley McCarthy show had just finished their opening skit and many people started the 1938 version of channel surfing and landed on the Mercury Theater’s news bulletins. For the next half hour the intensity of the news bulletins increased. The broadcast contained several explanations that it was all a radio play, but if members of the audience missed a brief explanation at the beginning, the next one didn't arrive until 40 minutes into the program.
At one point in the broadcast, an actor playing a newscaster in the field described the emergence of one of the aliens from its spacecraft. "Good heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake," he said, in a dramatic tone. "Now it's another one, and another. They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing's body. It's large as a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face. It... it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate.... The thing is raising up. The crowd falls back. They've seen enough. This is the most extraordinary experience. I can't find words. I'm pulling this microphone with me as I talk. I'll have to stop the description until I've taken a new position. Hold on, will you please, I'll be back in a minute." Later, we hear the reporter’s death and an ominous thud as the microphone hits the ground and then several seconds of silence.
Listening to the simulated newscasts, 1.2 million people concluded that they were hearing an actual news account of an invasion from Mars. People packed the roads, hid in cellars, loaded guns, and even wrapped their heads in wet towels as protection from Martian poison gas, in an attempt to defend themselves against aliens. One man ran out to his kennel of great danes and upon releasing them shouted “Fend for yourselves boys!” While there were no actual fatalities, one man arrived at home just in time to stop his wife from taking poison so she wouldn’t fall into Martian hands.
At the end of the broadcast, police raided the studio confiscating scripts and segregating the players. The cast was made to think that thousands died. Houseman thought that the ditches were choked with copses.
In a column, in the New York Tribune, Dorothy Thompson foresaw that the broadcast revealed the way politicians could use the power of mass communications to manipulate the public. "All unwittingly, Mr. Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater of the Air have made one of the most fascinating and important demonstrations of all time," she wrote. "They have proved that a few effective voices, accompanied by sound effects, can convince masses of people of a totally unreasonable, completely fantastic proposition as to create a nation-wide panic.
"They have demonstrated more potently than any argument, demonstrated beyond a question of a doubt, the appalling dangers and enormous effectiveness of popular and theatrical demagoguery....
"Hitler managed to scare all of Europe to its knees a month ago, but he at least had an army and an air force to back up his shrieking words.
"But Mr. Welles scared thousands into demoralization with nothing at all."
To understand how all this could happen, you must look at what was happening in the world. On March 11, 1938 Germany invaded Austria. May 20th, the “May Crisis” with Germany threatening war in Czechoslovakia. On May 28th, Hitler told his generals, "It is my unshakable will that Czechoslovakia shall be wiped off the map." He instructed them to develop a plan for completing this by October 1st. September 12th, Hitler makes his speech at the Nuremberg Rally. On Thursday, September 29th, the four powers, Germany, England, France and Italy met in Munich to decide the fate of Czechoslovakia and on October 1st Germany occupies the Sudeten German territory in Czechoslovakia. Also in October the Spanish Civil War raged. Over the Ebro front the Fascists operate up to 200 planes at the same time, a number never seen in any war on the world before. The Republican Army of the Ebro is bombed to pieces. On October 21st, the Spanish government pulls back the International Brigades. In other parts of the world, on October 21st Japan occupies Canton and other important Chinese cities. All of this was reported on the radio in a constant stream of news bulletins. They all knew a world war was coming, is it no wonder that they were ready to panic at the drop of a hat?
The OTR SIG will be presenting a recording of the original War of the Worlds broadcast on the SIG website http://otr.sytes.net beginning October 31st and continuing through November and late night at the RG.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Collecting Old Time Radio
There are many individuals who own copies of Old-Time Radio Programs on CD or audio cassettes. Most of these people have more than one cassette. They have private collections of radio programs. Many collections consist of one type of program (i.e. comedy, mystery, drama, adventure, detective, musical, and so forth). Some collections are more specific (i.e. Fibber McGee & Molly, Inner Sanctum, Suspense, Charlie McCarthy, etc.). In a few cases, an individual with a serious interest in a particular program or series will take great pains to "log" every program accurately. This usually requires extensive research in libraries and sponsors' old files. Collectors of this type are the true heroes of the hobby, as their logs become the "bibles" the rest of the collectors follow. Some collections are very general and consist of programs from almost every series.
Clubs have been formed that have libraries of various programs available to club members. Some clubs are devoted to a particular program or star. For instance, Jack Benny still has a "fan club". There are groups of collectors within clubs, or independent groups who borrow and swap programs among themselves. It's similar to collecting and trading stamps or coins. Let's go back to the beginning to learn how the collecting of OTR programs began.
The recording and collecting of Old-Time Radio Programs began almost simultaneously with the invention of sound recording equipment. The first thing we need to know is why these recordings were made. The vast majority of these programs were recorded by someone who was associated with the program being recorded. Usually it was the sponsor. Many sponsors wanted recordings of their "product", and kept these recordings for years. Stations, Networks, Stars, and Guests comprise the second large group who recorded radio programs for a variety of business and personal reasons. Most of these recordings were only played once by those who recorded them. These recordings were routinely destroyed after taking up space at various stations. Thankfully, some of them survived. The recordings themselves were usually sixteen-inch discs known as "Electrical Transcriptions". They were also simply called "Transcriptions" or ET's.
A smaller group of people who recorded programs were individuals who recorded radio programs off the air for any number of reasons. Many of these programs were kept by those who recorded them. It was these private, individual recordings that started the OTR Collecting hobby.
In the beginning, it seemed that radio and radio programs would be around forever, therefore only a few private individuals recorded programs off the air. Most people did not have home recording equipment in the early years, but there were consumer machines that recorded on disc, and there were "Dictaphone" machines that were sometimes used to capture a radio program now and then. In the late 1940s wire and tape recorders became available, and many individuals made a few recordings of their favorite programs.
By the 1960s it was evident that radio was changing drastically, and many programs had either left the air completely or moved to television. It was then that private collectors began to discover each other and started trading programs. Trades were generally in the form of copies. Suppose Trader "A" had a recording of a "Shadow" program that he recorded off the air. Suppose Trader "B" had a recording of "Gunsmoke" that he recorded. "A" and "B" would make copies of their show and exchange tapes. Now both "A" and "B" would have copies of both Shadow and Gunsmoke. Now, "A" and "B" could trade both programs with other traders for two different shows in the same manner, and before long many copies of the same shows would be circulating among traders.
These recordings were usually on reel-to-reel tape (cassettes had not yet been invented). There were various methods of recording on reels, and the accepted standard method would allow 12 programs to be recorded on a single tape. After a few years, the "veteran" traders would no longer trade individual shows. They traded entire reels for other reels. It would not be unusual for a person to have a collection of a thousand different programs on 120 reels.
The main problem with trading in this fashion is that every copy made was another generation away from the "master" recording. With each generation there was a loss of sound quality. Eventually the sound became so poor that the programs were difficult to understand. Something had to be done to get sound closer to the source.
Some avid collectors recognized the fact that many "transcription discs" might still exist, so they contacted the various sponsors, radio stations, stars, and guests from the old days. A great many discs were found in this manner. Collectors and clubs of collectors began transferring the material to tape. Some collectors actually formed companies and began to sell these higher sound quality recordings to other collectors. These recordings were usually on reels, but cassettes also began to appear on the scene.
As more and more discs were discovered, more and more cassettes were created. Reel-to-reel tape began to vanish, and CDs began to appear. Cassettes and CDs containing Old-Time Radio Programs were recognized by the general public. The average person on the street could purchase OTR programs at a reasonable price and begin to build a collection of radio programs with very good sound quality.
The availability of commercially recorded OTR did not put a stop to trading, however. People continued to trade copies of individual programs on cassette, but if someone wanted better sound quality, they could and did purchase the commercial cassette.
from: http://www.radiospirits.com/aboutotr/collecting.asp?source=
