Established 1975 Number 285 December 2000
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Established 1975 Number 285 December 2000 Publication of the Old Time Radio Club Membership Information Club Officers and Librarians New member processing, $5 plus club member President ship of $17.50 per year from January 1 to Jerry Collins (716) 683-6199 December 31. Members receive a tape library list 56 Christen Ct. ing, reference library listing and a monthly newslet Lancaster, NY 14086 ter. Memberships are as follows: if you join January-March, $17.50; April-June, $14; JUly Vice President & Canadian Branch September, $10; October-December, $7. All Richard Simpson renewals should be sent in as soon as possible to 960 16 Road RR. 3 avoid missing issues. Please be sure to notify us if Fenwick, Ontario you have a change of address. The Old Time Canada, LOS 1CO Radio Club meets the first Monday of every month at 7:30 PM during the months of September to. Treasurer, Back Issues, Videos & Records June at 393 George Urban Blvd., Cheektowaga, NY Dominic Parisi (716) 884-2004 14225. The club meets informally during the 38 Ardmore PI. months of July and August at the same address. Buffalo, NY 14213 Anyone interested in the Golden Age of Radio is welcome. The Old Time Radio Club is affiliated Membership Renewals, Change of Address, with The Old Time Radio Network. Cassette Library - #2000 and YR. Illustrated Press Cover Designs Club Mailing Address . Peter Bellanca (716) 713-2485 Old Time Radio Club 1620 Ferry Road 56 Christen Ct. Grand Island, NY 14072 Lancaster, NY 14086 Membership Inquires and OTR Network Related Items Back issues of The Illustrated Press are $1.50 post Richard Olday (716) 684-1604 paid. Publications out of print may be borrowed 100 Harvey Dr. from our Reference Library. Lancaster. NY 14086 Deadline for The Illustrated Press is the Tape Libraries 1st of each month prior to pubtieatlon. Cassettes - #1 YR. to 1999 . Dan Marafino (716) 684-0733 The Illustrated Press is a monthly newsletter of the 19 Church Street Old Time Radio Club, headquartered in Western Lancaster, NY 14086 New York State. Contents except where noted are copyright © 2000 by the OTRC. Reel-to-Reel and Reference Library Ed Wanat, Sr. (716) 895-9690 Send all articles, letters, exchange newsletters, 393 George Urban Blvd. etc. to: The Illustrated Press Cheektowaga, NY 14225 et« Ken Krug, Editor (716) 684-5290 49 Regal Street Tape Library Rates: All reels and video cassettes Depew, New York 14043 are $1.85 per month; audio cassettes and records E-Mail address:[email protected] are $0.85 per month. Rates include postage and handling and are payable in U.S. funds. fi)ecem1kJt 2000 Publication of the Old Time Radio Club Ton Department Store, it is always at 14th and Oak. The Wistful Vista would have to have the country's most vertical business district to house all the enterprises spotted at this corner. But nobody seems to notice and McGees of Quinn and Producer Frank Pittman have filed it sadly under "confidential humor." Wistful It would take skyscrapers, and you wouldn't find sky scrapers in Wistful Vista, which is pretty clearly a small Vista town, although with remarkably flexible borders. Listeners are never told just how big it is, and those -who write in to ask are given the soft answer that turns by Robert M. Yoder away real information. The mayor drops in on the (Continued from last issue) McGees, which isn't a regular thing in New York or Chicago, and McGee. gossips with the telephone opera In radio they keep anxious books on laughter and would tor-"How's every little thing, Myrt?" That is small measure the faintest grin ifanyone knew how. The yak, town color, but anything that might give the town a or belly laugh, has always been the touchdown. Quinn more specific size is shunned as assiduously as a real and the J ordans think listeners prefer "a chuckle city might boast of it. That, way, no listener's own pic show." The chore they face equably each week is, of ture of the town can be wrong. But there's no doubt course, far more intricate than the show will sound what flag they hang out, if they can find it, on the they will devise a story putting five to eight characters fourth of what month. Thanks to some excellent obser on stage and requiring sixty to 100 pretty funny ideas. vation, this is as American as the ice-cream soda you "A continuous ripple of amusement" is what they are don't want, but eat because you're supposed to want to. after. At times they have clocked ninety laughs in the half hour, which seemed to indicate they were keeping In Fibber's overstuffed closet, for example, there must listeners in pretty steady good humor. be a mah-jongg set, Molly's old Empress Eugenie hat and maybe Fibber's old capping machine from the To get the "ripple of amusement," Quinn relies on home-brew days. There would also be a three-legged lightly struck but telling notes, which are a speciality of bridge table, some gilded pussy willows, a couple of the house. Repairing Doc Gamble's ear-and switching Rosa Bonheur horse pictures, the Christmas-tree orna car batteries in Fibber's favor-McGee was using tools ments that have been missing since 1940, Fibber's old borrowed from the cautious weatherman who appeared plus-four golf knickers and the Spanish shawl they used in the 1947 line-up, Foggy Williams. Foggy wanted to keep on the piano. And any day now, they intend to them back because they were tools with a sentimental straighten that closet out. value-his "birthday hammer," his "anniversary pli ers." That rang true to many a handy man around the Fibber and Molly keep getting praise from church house. Quinn also has a sure eye for the plausible but groups for the purity of their entertainment. They jour ridiculous postures people get into. Thus Fibber, trying neyed back to the Middle West in April of last year to to be a busy executive, was caught making paper air receive honorary LL.D.'s at the hands of the Reverend planes because Molly had said he couldn't do it after Walter Pax, of St. Joseph's College, in Collegeville, Fibber said he didn't have time for that sort of non Indiana, for their "truly Christian philosophy" and the sense. general "acceptability" of their comedy. They arrived with a roar of police motorcycles, and the college band The McGees have not always lived at 79 Wistful. Vista, played Pretty Redwing. There is never a blue line in although that imaginary address of a hypothetical cou their script, although the most noticeable thing about ple probably is better known than the address of the this purity is that it isn't noticeable; the two manage to White House-1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. At first they keep their show clean without sounding like prigs, were tourists, because the principal. product advertised which they aren't, on stage or off. It pleases churchmen was car wax. When traveling wore thin, Quinn housed that they present such a picture of devoted home life. them with beautiful ease. They stopped in Wistful Fibber never so much as mentions another female, Vista, where a house was being raffled off. They won although there isn't much reason why he should: Molly and have been there ever since. A second address ought is about the most amiable wife this side of never-never to be equally famous. That is 14th and Oak. Whether land. If Fibber hopes to mystify, she's mystified; if he Fibber is getting a haircut, negotiating a bank loan or hopes to impress, she's impressed, suppressing a giggle. pricing a neat power-driven crumb scraper at the Bon He could launch a wild venture to grow self-peeling 9)ecmrkt, 2000 Publication of the Old Time Radio Club bananas or take the vacuum cleaner apart to invent a in, and protested. Other serious souls get disturbed over magnetic leaf rake and he'd never hear a word of criti the possibility that Fibber may be setting an example of cism from this noble woman "You're a good kid," he happy indolence because he doesn't have a job. He tells her generously, and she certainly is. IfMolly's vel doesn't, of course; he is neither clerk, factory hand, vet disposition could set a style, Quinn would be the salesman, millwright nor parttime petunia potter. This American husband's best friend. is because to give him a specific vocation would restrict It's excellent propaganda, anyway, at which Quinn is a the action. Inquirers are told that the imaginary Fibber master. During the war it struck him that housewives is a natural-born helper-outer who will step in whenev must be pretty sick of hearing some movie queen with er needed; This seems to satisfy them. The real Fibber, seven servants urge the public to save bacon drippings, of course, works with great regularity and much profit, while a radio star with four cars urged motorists to When not panning that radio gold or raising feeders on walk. Wartime sacrifices were petty, but they were also his ranch, he has other ventures, including one he annoying. You were supposed to feel as exalted about might describe in one of his alliterative anecdotes: he is saving your tires as Betsy Ross stitching up the first the busy big shot ofa bustling bottling business. flag, and that wouldn't work.