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.

TOTM Shoe, er, Show

Okay, so after TOO LONG a hiatus (so please don't HATE US! Har har!), there will be a Theatre Of The Mindless show at the Waukegan Yacht Club, on May 15th, at 7pm. Tickets are $12 at the door, they should also be available online at the Waukegan Community Players website, here. I also hear that the dinners at the Yacht Club are excellent - you may want to call ahead for dinner reservations, and have a bite to eat before the show. Best to watch this space for any further information or changes...we hope to see you there!

Dave Warren Award

This past weekend at the Cincinnati Old Time Radio Convention, I was the very proud recipient of the Dave Warren Award. Given to "those who preserve Old Time Radio by bringing it alive through re-creations", this award means SO much to me - that is what this is all about: OTR and audio drama are ARTFORMS...granted, they can be entertaining, but how amazing is it that waves of compressed air can travel to your ears and create pictures, characters, intrigue, laughter, thrills?

I never got to meet Dave Warren, I wish I had. Evidently, in addition to his OTR re-creations from the '70's on, he was quite a good artist. If you had bought any of a number of OTR cassette collections from Adventures In Cassettes, you had seen his work. And he did tons of black and white covers for the Old Time Radio Digest. And, of course, he was managing director for the Dave Warren Players, an OTR group that continues to this day.

I barely know what I said when I accepted the award. I know that I thanked my father, for introducing me to Old Time Radio in the 1970's.

Big HUGE thanks to all of the past and present members of the Theatre Of The Mindless group: no single person could get an award for re-creations without being surrounded and supported by enormously talented people...so THANK YOU Jason Clark, Heidi Feldkirchner, Shawn and Virginia Fitzgerald, Laura Jansen, Bob Jeunger, Mark Kettner, and Chris Wild! And to the two old guys, Hank and Jim, who are there for every one of our rehearsals and shows, sitting next to each other, enjoying the perfomances, proud that they passed the artform down to us, so that we can do the same for others...

And THANKS to all who have come to see our shows - hopefully, we have either re-lit an old sputtering flame (for you old-timers who remember OTR), or begun a fresh warm fire (for you newbies who were just born too late). This is all for you.

Thanks again.

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 Mirror

So I just picked up this May, 1939 issue of Radio Mirror. I got it for the articles. That's Miss Dorothy Lamour, there, on the cover (Hubba, hubba!). Does anyone else think that she looks sort of like Bebe (Frasier's Lilith) Neuwirth? It's almost like looking into a mirror...a RADIO MIRROR, that is! I say, that's a JOKE, son. Ya get it? A joke!

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.

I Love A Mystery Gift!

My buddy (and fellow TOTM'er) Jason just gave me this SPIFFY watch. Since there were no "proper" premiums for the incredible I Love A Mystery series (other than a few photographs of the cast members), this is about as close as anyone can come to having a decoder badge or glow-in-the-dark ring for the show.

It includes some marvelous miniature mysterious items inside the crystal: a revolver, a magnifying glass, a coffee cup (the coffee tainted with poison, no doubt!), a bloody knife, and a garotte. What's not to like?

The clock face has "WYL" on it...I'm not sure what that stands for. Wish You Luck? Watch Your Language? When You Listen? Who's Your Lawyer? Why, You Louse? What's Your Line? Waste Your Life?

A very cool timepiece.

Thanks, Jase!

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?

The Farther Adventures Of CRIMEBUSTER

Is that a banana in your hand, or are you just happy to see me?

Waaaaaaaay back when (in 2001 or 2002) we did a fundraiser for the NARA News. NARA (the North American Radio Archives) had a quarterly digest in which they would print radio scripts by a funny fellow named Ken Weigel. Mr Weigel passed away in 2001, so as a sort of tribute, we strung a bunch of these scripts together and "performed" them on cd.

The disk had seven short adventures of the bumbling-forgetful-idiotic-lovable gumshoe named CRIMEBUSTER ("Oh, I DO have gum on my shoe, darnit...Hmm...mmm...Mm. Spearmint."), plus a few other humorous oddities.

Now some collectible items are made as Limited Editions, with runs of thousands, or maybe even only hundreds. Be advised that this cd is BEYOND RARE, as it's print run was only in the range of "several". Doesn't mean it wasn't good, though!

Click the player below to hear "The Case Of The Strange Waiter"!

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!

Stiffman's Selection

Another advertisement from our sponsor, Earl Stiffman, of Earl Stiffman's Just Caskets..And More. He's nothing if not..."accommodating".

Click HERE, or use the gigantic player below:

Some Words About The ART Of Audio Drama

"In the late fifties it was decided that you couldn't broadcast dreams on the air unless you transmitted pictures with it. This, despite the fact that radio had become the most popular mass entertainment medium of all time. The basic appeal of radio drama was the fact that you had to listen if you wanted to follow it. It wasn't enough to merely "hear" it. You had to listen. The word listen implies a conscious effort to pay attention, to participate. Thus, all the senses are activated, the curiosity is sparked, the imagination is fired, and the listener finds himself participating. In a real sense, he is a collaborator. In his brain he matches a face and a body to the voice. In his mind, he sees the action. And this is the basic difference between radio on the one hand, and every visual medium on the other. A good movie, a fine stage play or television drama, an excellent ballet, all these require an appreciative audience - a listener who literally works with the writer, the director, the actors and technicians to give completeness to the creative process.
It can fairly be said that along about the same time that radio drama disappeared, there came about a general decay in the art of listening. If you don't believe it, "listen" to some of the nonsense that's being spouted in all fields of endeavor and in all walks of life. This kind of talk is being inflicted upon us, because, in my opinion, people aren't really listening.
The most popular word in our language is now Communication. We deplore the fact that we no longer seem to be able to communicate with our children, our parents, our allies, industry, labor, each other.
How can we communicate if we no longer listen? A radio show has listeners, a television show has "viewers". Listening is an activity. Viewing is an event. Of course, there is room and need for all the entertainment media - and happily, a regrettable error made some [time] ago is slowly and hopefully being rectified. To me, it was incomprehensible that a flourishing and, yes, a spiritually nourishing, art form should have been allowed to die."

These thoughts echo mine.

They are from the introduction to the book "Strange Tales From CBS Radio Mystery Theater", written by the indomitable Himan Brown. THIRTY TWO years ago. 1976. This radio revival series ran from 1974 to 1982, logging some 1,400 shows (!). Originally hosted by E. G. Marshall, of which, here is a pic:

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.

Our Sponsor, Earl Stiffman

So since it's our TENTH year performing, we figgered it was high time we gave props to our seemingly eternal sponsor, Earl Stiffman (of Earl Stiffman's "Just Caskets...And More"). He's been hawking his wares with us for so long, it seems like HE'S ONE OF US.

Where would we be without you, Earl? Thanks so much!

Click the Texan salutation below to hear one of Mr Stiffman's distinctive TOTM advertisements.

"HOW-DEE!"

Or try out the new H * U * G * E Humyo player: