OTRaoke - "The Voice Of Death"

So - what is "OTRaoke"?

Well, of course, "OTR" is an acronym for Old Time Radio.

"Karaoke" is a portmanteau of Japanese kara "empty", and okesutora "orchestra" - a form of interactive entertainment in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. It is also a term used by recording engineers translated as "empty track" meaning there is no vocal track.

The acronymical-portmanteau "OTRaoke" means an entire Old Time Radio show (including music and sound effects) recorded without the star. Performers read the role of the star from a script, and their performance is superimposed on the recording, creating a show in which THEY ARE THE STAR. They take home a recording of their performance on cd, play it for friends and family, and become stars themselves! And for whatever reason, I thought that OTRaoke had a better ring to it than KaraOTR...

The Theatre Of The Mindless group has made up a handful of OTRaoke shows, which will be featured at this year's Cincinnati Old Time Radio Convention. Here is an excerpt from one of those shows - you can give it a try right now! Simply play the audio file, and read the lines labeled "Blanche". Blanche has been killing people at a ski resort (even though Blanche is evil, she's the star...and who doesn't like to play the villain?), and now she is feeling menaced by the ghost of one of her victims! You may want to right click and choose "Open In New Tab" or "Open In New Window" so this page remains active (so you can read the script below!)...

Link to file: Sample-VoiceOfDeath

You can stream directly from the player at the link, or download the file from the spot just below the player. If you download it, and open up the file info, you will see that the lines of the script are embedded within the mp3 file.

Here is the script for the sample:

**************************

DR WEIRD:
When the fifth day dawned bright and clear, Dan suggested a long ski run, and Blanche eagerly agreed. After skiing a few minutes, she called out...

BLANCHE:
(nervous) Dan! Dan, we - we aren't going through the canyon, are we?!?

DAN:
Why, of course we are.


BLANCHE:
D - Dan, let's go around it this time.

DAN:
That's three miles further on! What's wrong with going through the canyon? Oh, uh, is it because that's where Gerald died?

BLANCHE:
Yes, I - I can't do it Dan.

DAN:
Now, look, I - I hope you aren't brooding about Gerald's death, Blanche. You mustn't brood.

BLANCHE:
I - I - I'm not brooding, but I – Dan, have you heard a voice calling outside the house the last few nights?

DAN:
A voice?

BLANCHE:
Yes! I've waked up several times thinking I heard Gerald's voice, calling out in the storm!

DAN:
Oh, Blanche, look - you - you heard the wind howling. Now come on, will you? We've got to get through the canyon, that's the only way to counter your nerves.

MUSIC:
(Transition)

DAN:
That a girl! Now only another couple of hundred yards and we'll be out of the canyon.

BLANCHE:
Oh, let's hurry Dan! This is where it happened.

DAN:
Come on along, then, if you want to hurry.

GERALD:
(Ghost voice) Blanche...Blanche!

BLANCHE:
It's Gerald...it's Gerald's voice!

DAN:
(a little distant) Blanche, come on.

GERALD:
(ghost voice) Blanche...Blanche...this is where you killed me!

BLANCHE:
Oh no! No!

DAN:
(further distant) Blanche, why have you stopped? Come on!

GERALD:
(ghost voice) I'm dead, Blanche...you killed me!

************************

Please be aware that this version of OTRaoke at the convention is to be headphones-only: no P.A. speakers, no audience. Your performance will be recorded to cd, and you get the cd. Maybe in the future it will turn into more of a real karaoke style event, where an audience can listen and cheer and jeer (fun, right?).

So there you have it - a mixture of mid-century entertainment with 21st-century technology! Hopefully, it will be an interesting addition to the convention! Please drop by the booth, say "Hi!", and give it a try!

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.

Some OTR Samples

Here is a zip file of a few short OTR samples, recorded at different bitrates and frequencies (just paste the link into your address bar and download, then unzip):

http://www.humyo.com/F/3468529-986584877

All are MONO, of course. I think that my favorite is 80kbts/22hhz. You listen and decide.

FEEL FREE TO LEAVE COMMENTS!

Thank you!

A Neat Find!

Okay, plenty of OTR buffs have a few 16-inch transcription discs...Theatre Of The Mindless puts several up for the audience to see, when we put on a show. I am in no way a TD collector - especially since I don't even own a transcription turntable to play them, I just have a short stack of mediocre shows with a few cool labels.

But just the other day, while I was going through the discs, pulling them out of their protective manila sleeves and checking them out, I noticed THIS disc. An AFRS recording: "Boston Symphony Part 5" on side 1, and on side 2 - this neat etched/pressed/bas-relief which includes big 3-inch letters "RCA Victor", the RCA logo, and the Nipper dog listening to his master's voice. The background is a network of circular spiderwebs.

It took several tries to get it to photograph well, as it is just molded into the disc surface, but I think this view shows it off very well (click the picture for a bigger version).

This disc isn't going back into the sleeve, it's going up on the wall!

New Member Of Cap's Flight Patrol

I am now a card-carrying (okay, medal-carrying) member of Captain Midnight's 1940 Flight Patrol! This nice bronze medallion originally went to listeners of the radio show for nothing more than a quick visit to the local Skelly Oil service station. Nowadays, it's a quick visit to the nearest internet auction site, and about ten dollars.

It's a nice spinner - place the front side down (the center of the propellor is a nub on which the coin spins freely) and give a twist. The back has a clock face at the midnight position,...whoever the hands point at when the coin stops spinning is "it"!

And what's that "?COBRALHOFA?" mean? Well, from Jim Widner's Captain Midnight Page:

Some of the premiums were a part of the show: the propeller spinning medal had the secret word "COBRALHOFA" on it. The word was not so secret, however, as it was regularly announced on the series, though never spelled. During the time that Chuck was captured in some 1940 episodes, he would send out messages to the Captain which were coded messages. By taking a message and selecting every tenth word, the messages could be translated. Why ten? Because the COBRALHOFA was equal to ten letters. For example, one message was:

"Hello, Captain Midnight and everybody. It sure seems a long time since I have seen you and the old home at Black Gulch. I am feeling fine. This is on my word of honor. Do as Ivan Shark asks, flying to any point he says as swiftly as an arrow. Ivan Shark is a snake, a Cobra but..."

The second message was almost the same as the first in that the code words were repeated. Captain Midnight discovered that every tenth word in both messages were the same. He also knew that the coded words corresponded to the last five letters of the secret password, COBRALHOFA and that it was intentional for Chuck to use the word Cobra:

"Hello, Captain Midnight and everybody. Please do not delay long. Fly where Ivan Shark says. I will not be home again if you refuse. To do all these things on my account is a lot, I know. Remember that flying to Ivan Shark's direction as straight as an arrow is essential..."

Captain Midnight figured that Chuck would send a third message using the first part of the secret password which he alluded to in the earliest message. And a third arrived:

"Hello Captain Midnight. This is your last chance to come to an agreement with Ivan Shark. Please think it over. If you do not aggree, this will be the bridge that will separate us forever. You should do the right thing. The thing that will surely bring us together at last..."

Once all the messages were placed in the order of the secret word, the message gave away Ivan Shark's hiding place:

COBRALHOFA
Come Over Bridge Right At Long Home On Flying Arrow

*************************************************

Visit Mr Widner's page for a whole bunch more interesting information on Captain Midnight.

Made Me Laugh

From the introduction of Suspense, November 2nd, 1944 - "The Singing Walls": this snippet of lead-in about star Van Johnson made me laugh. Oh, I'm probably the only person in the world that caught it and thought it was funny.

Radio Blooper

In a newly-restored episode of "The Sealed Book", July 4th 1945, titled "Death Brings Down The Curtain", the evil actress rants:

"Be quiet, you fool! They can't prove a thing! No jury in the world would believe them...I'm too great an actress to be convicted of murder, do you hear?!? I'll give a performance that'll sweep a jury off it's feet. They'll never forgive me, they'll never convict me, never, Never, NEVER!"

Listen for the BIG BLOOPER toward the end, when she says "forgive" instead of "convict"...good thing that she really jacks up the energy right after that, so we don't even notice the mistake. In fact, it actually lends a bit of credibility to her character being a nutjob. But not the greatest actress, unfortunately...

Pick up the new Sealed Book set in sparkling clear sound HERE.

March Of Time

Here is a very entertaining piece about radio: a "March Of Time" broadcast from the late 1940's. This 20-minute video narrated by Westbrook VanVoorhis shows many facets of radio production, including various radio stars and sound effects. There's too many cool bits to mention them all, but f'rinstance - at 2:26, Jim Jordan (Fibber McGee) takes a beat or two from his dialog with Marion Jordan (Molly) and Gale Gordon (Mayor LaTrivia, and later on television, Lucy's Mr Mooney) to allow the great "hall closet" sound effect to be performed. Watch how a half-door, a ladder, a pile of odds-and-ends, and a tiny little bell become a very long and very fun to watch audio joke.

I absolutely LOVE the jingle performed by the ersatz Andrews Sisters at 6:06, for "Consolidated Sardines" - "packed twice as tight", indeed! This ad is definitely going to be incorporated into some upcoming TOTM shows!

ENJOY - twenty minutes that feels like only five!

A Quick Typical Fibber Rant

Here's a rather non-typical radio premium (a 1936 Fibber McGee and Molly / Johnson's Wax / NBC top!) paired up with a very typical nonsensical Fibber rant. It's short and sweet and made me laugh, so here it is:



Now if you happen to enjoy Fibber's OTR humor, and especially NEWLY-DISCOVERED and FRESHLY-RESTORED OTR humor, you might want to check out the "Fibber McGee and Molly Lost Episodes" from the First Generation Radio Archives. Volume 6 (!) has just been released, and SERIOUSLY, the stuff sounds like it was just recorded yesterday. Why not go and support this great group?

Nostalgia Convention

BRACE YOURSELVES for the incredible "Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention" (or MANC, for short)! This convention is put on by my buddy Martin Grams (see link at the right), and is quickly becoming the GO TO event of the year.

Not content to limit himself to just Old Time Radio, he has organized an entire weekend of nostalgia: 24 hours a day of rare movies, discussion panels, collectible cars, movie stars, television stars, blooper reels, dealer tables filled with radio shows and books and magazines and comics and autographs and posters and dvds, a special "War Of The Worlds" retrospective, a portable outdoor theater, radio recreations - WHEW! Plus a whole lot MORE stuff that you just won't see ANYWHERE ELSE.

C'mon...LARRY STORCH will be there! Among many others: Conrad Brooks (Plan Nine From Outer Space), Margaret Kerry (Tinkerbell, Little Rascals), Kathleen Hughes (It Came From Outer Space), John Provost (Timmie from Lassie "What's that, Lassie? Johnny got his foot caught? He can't pull it out from between the railroad ties? He's trapped? And the 8:17 from Cucamonga is right on schedule? Good girl! Let's get help!"), Ed (Kookie) Byrnes, Patty McCormack (The Bad Seed), Mickey Freeman (Phil Silvers Show), and more to be announced.

Don't miss it! HERE is the link to the website with all of the information. See you there!

More "Those We Love"

Okay, here's the rest of that rare script from the mostly-forgotten washboard weeper "Those We Love". Took me long enough, huh?!?

Anyway, here it is. What's nice about this script, besides it being terribly uncommon, is that it is evidently a very early draft - which shows the notes and changes that the author made. Since almost no audio of this series exists, these scripts are as close as we can come to hearing the show...

And all in all, not a bad show, either! For a soap opera, anyway...wait'll I break out the lost scripts to "Latitude Zero"!

Cincy OTR Convention!

Only six weeks until the Cincinnati Old Time Radio Convention! It's great fun! It's a very homey atmosphere with a bunch of friendly people. It's the place to go if you're looking for a particular show, or some inside information on what's cooking in the OTR community. Vintage stuff like comics and movie posters and Saturday morning serials on dvd. My sister and I never miss it - you oughtn't either! A splendid time is guaranteed for all! I even hear that there will be some OTRaoke: prerecorded radio shows with the star's roles open for anyone to fill in! Always wanted to be that hardboiled detective yourself? Now you can!

Another Paper Premium!

Here's a shot (taken at a remote spot on the lunar surface, obviously!) of the 1940 Buck Rogers Rubber Band Gun! Originally offered by Onward School Supplies, this is a parody version offered by TOTM. Although I printed this onto cardstock and reinforced it with a layer of clear packing tape, it is still pretty flimsy. If you intend to use yours more than a few times, I would suggest printing it on regular paper and then gluing the paper to heavier stock (like a cereal box, or a comic book backing board). And even though this probably wasn't a radio premium (just a local business premium), Buck Rogers was on the radio. And I thought it was cool. So there. Try it out!

Here we have a 1943 Lone Ranger "Cryptograph Decoder", all set for the 2007 audience (both of you!). Of course, since it was wartime in 1943, many homefront resources were reserved for the war effort...hence the disappearance of those substantial metal decoders, leaving reams of disappointing paper ones in their wake. If there were ever any rubber or beefsteak decoders, they would have gone away, too.

*Sigh*

Anyway, simply print this out (you could use CARDSTOCK if you'd like, to make it seem slightly less flimsy), cut around the edges and fold into a little booklet with the blue square to the front. Be sure to clip out that tiny slot, too, so you can tuck in the tab and keep the undesirables out. "Be sure to guard your Weber's Lone Ranger Cryptograph Decoder carefully so that only those in good standing with the Lone Ranger can decode his secret messages."

With the tab engaged, Butch Cavendish will be unable to decipher any important codes from L.R.

Rare Script "Those We Love"

"Those We Love" was a serial drama/soap opera somewhat similar to Carlton E Morse's "One Man's Family". It ran from January of 1938 to April of 1945 - that's seven years, and there's only a SINGLE episode out there for us to hear (anyone out there have it? I don't.)! So it's not a well-known series, by any means.

I have a short stack of original scripts from this show, and thought that it might be nice to share some. Click on the pictures for some LARGE scans of the pages. I made them SO BIG so you can see the actual notes made in pencil - my guess is that since the added lines are for several different charaters, they were probably written by the author, Agnes Ridgeway, rather than by a single actor in the show.

Evidently good enough to have a seven-year run (albeit somewhat sporadic), the melodramatic stories of the John Marshall family of Connecticut proved unable to overcome the unfortunate pitfalls of numerous day, time, and network changes. One of the actresses on the show, Jean Rogers, you may know: she played the beautiful Dale Arden in the Flash Gordon movies.

So, please, check these out. Still eight more pages to this script to go (I'll have them up soon). I'd love to hear some comments on the script - would you like to see more of these? I'd especially like to hear what you think the pencilled-in stuff is...some of it is awfully hard for me to make out. And this script is marked in dark blue ballpoint pen "1943" at the top of page one, but it also says "Episode 16" typed in the script...the 16th episode would have been some time in 1938. These pages were the oldest looking of all the scripts, I lightened them up considerably to see the pencil notes...the original paper was much tanner, almost brown (!). I think the "1943" was written by someone long after the scripts were done - hey, when did ballpoint pens come into general use? The late 1950's maybe? I thin that this is a VERY old script from 1938, not at all from 1943...

I LOVE A MYSTERY, DON'T YOU?

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT: click the blue word "COMMENTS" at the bottom of this post!

To Make A Long Story Longer...

There were only five issues of the "Mysterious Traveler" magazine, based on Mutual's famous radio program. Each digest-sized issue had a wonderfully horrific Norm Saunders pulp-like cover with a damsel in distress (that's putting it lightly!).





There they are, scanned right from my own set. Click on them if you'd like to see them big. So now for the long story with the ultra-wispy tenuous thread barely connecting things: When I was but a boy, in the early 1970's, I had a favorite book titled "Ghosts And More Ghosts". It was filled with about a dozen tales that scared the living daylights out of me. I held on to that book, and the oddly pleasant creepiness that I felt every time I read the stories inside.

Flash forward to my thirties, getting together with friends and starting an audio performance troupe called Theatre Of The Mindless... we needed some different stories to perform along with the OTR recreations...maybe some adaptations of existing stories? "Ah hah!" I said to myself, "Maybe something from that great old book 'Ghosts And More Ghosts'!"

So I flipped through my well-worn copy, searching for a suitable tale to mold into radio drama. I stopped at "The Rose Crystal Bell", a haunting story about a magical bell that brings the dead back to life, with the delightful twist that another life must fill the void immediately thereafter. Somebody gets to live, somebody else must die. Oooooh, creepy.

I got right to work on my adaptation, surprised at the relative ease at which I translated the book's text into radio script form. "I guess I really have a knack for this!". M-hm. We performed the show, and it was received pretty well...better than one might expect, coming from a junior-high-level book of ghost stories, anyway.

Flash ahead a little further to a point where I have the internet and a more serious interest in the history of OTR. I happen to do a search for the author of my old book, Robert Arthur Jr. He happens to be a rather prolific writer, creator of the 1960's series of chapter books "The Three Investigators", plenty of mystery and ghost stories in detective pulp magazines...he also paired up with David Kogan, and the two of them wrote TONS OF EPISODES (500 or so!) of several classic radio programs: "The Strange Doctor Weird", and (you guessed it) "The Mysterious Traveler".

No wonder it wasn't that hard to "adapt" his story to radio. It probably CAME from a radio script.

Synchronicitous.

Serendipitous.

Diplodocus.

November Calendar

Here is the November calendar - no TOTM shows this month (yet), so there's none listed (yet). Feel free to hire us, the contact info is hidden somewhere near the bottom in very tiny print. Whew. Got this one in just under the wire(less)!

This is Burns and Allen. George and Gracie. George Burns. And. Gracie Allen. She actually did run for President (sort of) in 1940, as a member of the "Surprise" party.

Would You Let A 16-Year-Old Fly Your Plane?

Another in our series of Radio Membership Cards - the Jimmie Allen Flying Club card! This popular series ran through the 1930's, and starred 40-year-old John Frank as the 16-year-old pilot, Jimmie Allen. The Hi-Octane Hi-Flying Sponsor was Skelly Oil:

"Mom! Dad! We just passed a Skelly Oil Station! We HAVE to go in so I can get my membership forms to join the Jimmie Allen Flying Club! PLEEEEEASE?!?!? It's free..." (Father sighs), "Yes, Little Willie, I guess we can stop in. Might as well get some ethyl, too, as long as we're there."

And ring up another sale, thanks to the bright idea of marketing your adult product to the children of those same adults. Thank goodness this idea has come and gone, hm? Now I'm off to McDonnal's for a Shrec-themed Happi-meal...might as well get some "food" for myself, while I'm there...I'm loathin' it!TM

Er, print out the card, fill in your name, and put it in your wallet. Show the card at your friendly neighborhood Skelly Oil dealer - it's good for a FREE gallon of gas! (nudge nudge wink wink)

The Shadow's NOSE

Here's an ultra-rare premium - a 1943 GLOW IN THE DARK Shadow pinback. Okay, so it's not really a radio premium (it's a Shadow Comic premium), but when you see the Shadow, you think radio show! I believe this one recently sold for more than $1,000 - so keep an eye on what you're cleaning out of the "junk" drawer, hm?

Mastering Dialects

So you want to put on your own audio drama? GOOD FOR YOU! Do it. Maybe you'd like to utilize some dialects in your show, in order to keep your listener's interests piqued, or to help keep the characters separate.

Here's a few pages from the 1943 book "Manual Of Foreign Dialects For Radio, Stage, And Screen" (my copy was evidently owned by Judith Krauss, somehow associated with the Will O Way Playhouse, according to the signature on the flyleaf). Be sure to familiarize yourself with all of the phonetic symbols (click each picture for a larger, easy-to-read version) before attempting to read the Irish dialect passage that I've included here:

WHEW! Did you try it out loud?

This book is a really, really rough read! No easy thing to do, learning dialects from a book - but if you were in radio or theater, having a big list of dialects on your resume meant getting more work. Nothing like doubling or tripling your salary by reading multiple parts in the same show, hm? I wonder what kind of money Paul Frees made when he performed EVERY ROLE in the OTR show "The Player"?!?

Of course, I have to mention to everyone that's interested in producing their own audio drama (or "radio shows", whether they are heard on the radio or not) how important it is to study what went before. There's a reason why the (good) old shows are as good as they are, even after 60 years or so: these writers and actors and sound effects men were all PROFESSIONALS. They made their livings doing this. If they weren't up to snuff, they didn't have a job!

So isn't it your responsibility to research the past? Pick up books and scripts that are related to Old Time Radio, and soak them up. As with any profession, you must first learn the rules before you go out and break them. There are tons of old "how to" books out there about radio writing, production, direction, and sound effects - pick up a few and LEARN HOW IT'S REALLY DONE. Besides, the books, just like the old radio shows, are a window to a different time...certainly not very politically correct, worth a nervous laugh or two (I'll post another book snippet later about why women are just not cut out for careers in radio!).

MAH'r LAY/uhr!

("More later!") 8^)#