OTR In School

At the end of January this year , I had the pleasure of giving an Old Time Radio presentation to the students at Fremont Middle School.

Of course, the picture above is not a picture of them, it just sits well on a blog about OTR. If you guys send me a picture of your classes, I'll be glad to put it up here.

Their teacher, Mrs Begg, wanted something to "get the students excited about Old Time Radio", as she was planning on using OTR in the classroom. OTR can, of course, encompass history, science, speech, acting, music, literature, even shop (hey, somebody's got to build those prop doors and stuff, right?).

So I brought a huge assortment of our sound effects equipment (which is always a crowd-pleaser), a giant 16" transcription disc, an old Zenith table radio, and a few pictures of TOTM and Orson Welles...what do you mean, that doesn't sound exciting?!?

We went over the War Of The Worlds broadcast, which almost none of them had heard of. War Of The Worlds equals Tom Cruise, these days (argh!). I think that maybe they thought I was putting them on - that so many people believed the show was real, but once I pointed out that there were very few avenues for 1938 listeners to do any fact-checking, it seemed a bit more likely.

*sigh* Even the rotary-dial telephone on the sound effects prop table seemed like a device from another planet to some of them.

I also brought a set of scripts for a TOTM comedy ad, "Fancy That! Home Hair Waving System By LyeCo", all pre-highlighted for the kids to do a (dreaded) "COLD READ". They weren't the least bit phased by a cold (totally unprepared) read, as evidenced by this recording:



Some of them are ready to go pro right now!

I did leave them with a bit of mystery too, discussing the famous Lights Out show "The Dark", in which is heard the horrific sound of BODIES BEING TURNED INSIDE OUT. I mentioned how, when I started in the hobby, I had heard of the show and the awful sound effect. And when I went to a Chicago nostalgia store to purchase the tape, the saleslady lit up, "Oh, yes, this is the famous one with the bodies turned inside out. Did you know that they used ______________________ to get that sound effect?"...which, of course, had ruined it for me - every time I heard the show, I didn't hear bodies being turned inside out, I heard the actual sound effect, which was a pretty goofy thing if you knew what it was. "What was it?" "Yeah, how did they do that effect?"..."Come on, if I told you, then I'd ruin the show for you, too. I don't want to do that." I heard a few kids talking to one another after the class, saying they had to find that "Inside Out" show. Cool.

This was great fun for me - I think that the kids really enjoyed learning about this nearly-lost artform. Mrs Begg says she'd like another presentation for her summer school classes in June...it would be our pleasure!

Arch Oboler's "Cat Wife"

From the February 1939 issue of "Radio Mirror" magazine, an adaptation of "Cat Wife" from Arch Oboler's horror series "Lights Out":


...same opening warning as the radio show (though geared for readers, rather than listeners) - if you scare easily, don't read this story!




"Ironized Yeast" was the sponsor for "Lights Out"...I think I've listened to all of the episodes, but I don't recall ever hearing that the yeast tablets could miraculously grow breasts!




Sometimes a salute is just a salute.

The Man On The Radio Told Me To Save My Fat

Some cool wartime stuff, generally completely forgotten by today's generation. Look! Right there at 2:06 - Mickey's prepared to kill some nasty Nazis, with the help of Minnie's leftover bacon grease. Today the grease only kills by clogging our arteries...oh, well.

Last Calendar THIS YEAR...

Here's your nifty-keen super-spiffy tongue-in-cheek smoking-Santa December calendar! Who else but TOTM would give away such pop-culture two-for-one American Social Icons as Santa Claus and Lucky Strike in such a thought-provoking non-revisionist manner as this handsome useful calendar?

That thoughtful card reads: "A gift of pleasure. My spirit - the spirit of Christmas giving - is abroad in the land. A gift that expresses that spirit, and brings pleasure to every home, both great and small, is rare indeed. Such a gift, my friends, is Lucky Strike. (signed) Santa Claus"
A carton of smokes makes the perfect Christmas gift for anyone!

As Bender's old man said in "The Breakfast Club":

"HEY, SMOKE UP, JOHNNY!"

Tip 'O' The Fedora

And a nice big tip-of-the-hat to William Spears who just added TOTM (that's us!) to his blog, "Lit Between The Ears". In addition to scores of links to other audio drama groups and other information, the site also offers books of scripts of audio adaptations of the classics - much of which is there to read...also an interesting section on "Definitions And Usage", interesting terminology used in radio/audio drama production.

Here's a nice 1930-something ad for the "Buck Rogers" radio show: voted most popular radio program - something that we'd ALL like for our own shows, I'm sure...but where would you go to vote?

Mmmmm...Chesterfield!

Click here for this wonderful audio download - a crisp, refreshing 1940's ad for Chesterfield cigarettes. Gosh, they make them sound so APPEALING! And then there's this cutie in the magazine ad waving that checkered flag with her un-ciggied free hand...it makes me want to RACE down to the corner stand to buy some Chesterfields! What ingeniously insidious, iniquitously interesting, and interminably intoxicating marketing. But we're much too sophisticated to fall for that type of advertising in this day and age, right? RIGHT?!? Yeah, right.

Some Audio

Okay, now I'm cooking with gas - I've got a little tasty TOTM audio tidbit for you all! One of our short original ads from one of our shows at the Jack Benny Center For The Arts in Waukegan...done in (*gasp*) 2006! This one has Christopher Wild as the announcer, and stars versatile Virginia Fitzgerald (she plays live keyboard AND acts up a storm) as "Mom" and Laura Jansen (my sister who also acts up a storm, and writes up a few nice cloudbursts) as "Dottie". I'm even in there at the end for a quick line as "Dad".

Click Here for LyeCo Ad

Enjoy!

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