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Established 1975 Number 229 October 1995 THE DINAH ANDREWS SHORE SISTERS 08 as THE TESS SUMMER TRUE· SISTERS HEART COMMAND PERFORMANCE lin fI//-stflr !JfJllr-/fJlIllJrfJfldcflst frfJm IIrmed Forces I(fldifJ. FelJrllfl'Y IS, 19"5 .9be !Ir{ustrated"!l!ress $n[armation !/!age Publicationof the Old Time Radio Club Membership Information Club Officers and Librarians New member processing, $5.00 plus club membership President of $15.00 per year from Jan 1 to Dec 31. Members Jerry Collins (716) 683-6199 receive a tape library listing, reference library listing, 56 Christen Ct. and a monthly newsletter. Lancaster, N.Y. 14086 Memberships are as follows: If you join Jan-Mar, $15.00; Vice President & Canadian Branch Apr-Jun, $12.00; Jul-Sep, Richard Simpson $8.00; Oct-Dec, $5.00. All 960 16 Road RR 3 renewals should be sent in as Fenwick, Ontario soon as possible to avoid Canada, LOS 1CO missing issues. Please be sure to notify us if you have a change of Treasurer, Back Issues, Video & address. The Old Time Radio Club meets the first Records Monday of every month at 7:30 P.M. during the months Dominic Parisi (716) 884-2004 of September to June at 393 George Urban Blvd. 38 Ardmore PI. Cheektowaga, N.Y. 14225. The club meets informally Buffalo N.Y. 14213 durinq the months of July and August at the same address. Anyone interested in the Golden Age of Editor of IP, Renewals, Change of Radio is welcome. The Old Time Radio Club is Address affiliated with The Old Time Radio Network.' Peter Bellanca (716) 773-2485 ______~_ _ 1620 Ferry Road Club Mailing Address Grand Island, N.Y. 14072 Old TIme Radio Club Membership Inquires, and OTR P.O. Box 426 Network Related Items Lancaster, N. Y. 14086 Richard Olday (716) 684-1604 100 Harvey Dr. Back issues of The Illustrated Press are $1.50 Lancaster, N.Y. 14086 postpaid. Publications out off print may be borrowed from our Reference Library. Tape Libraries Cassettes Deadline for The Illustrated Press is the Don Friedrich (716) 626-9164 1st of each month prior to publication. 21 Southcrest Cheektowaga, NY 14225 The Illustrated Press is a monthly newsletter of The Old Time Radio Club, headquartered in Western New Reel to Reel and Reference Library York State. Contents except where noted, are Ed Wanat Sr. (716) 895-9690 copyright 1995 by the OTRC. 393 George Urban Blvd. Cheektowaga NY 14225 Send all articles, letters, exchange newsletters, etc. to: The lIIusttoted Press Tape Library Rates: All reels and video cassettes c/o Peter Bellanca, editor are $1.85 per month; audio cassettes and records are 1620 Ferry Road $0.85 per month. Rates include postage and handling. Grand Island NY 14072 Canadian rates are the same as above, but in Canadian funds. She ${{ustratea!i!ress .(jct05er 1995 Publication of the Old Time Radio Club ARMY SHORT WAVES BIGGEST about like this: "Just tear offthe top ofa Stuka AMERICAN RADIO SHOW TO SERVICE or Zero and write us what you want on the MEN ABROAD show. We 11 give it to you." And the boys have done just that. One bomber squadron stationed (reprint for TUNE IN, March 1943) in England has a working arrangement with Judy Garland, She'll sing a song for them in A few Sundays ago, a young and unknown radio return for each Nazi plane they shoot down. To producer sat down to a telephone in the War date, Judy owes the boys two songs. A request Department in Washington and called Leopold that the world's best and worst violinists do a Stokowski, in New York. , "Mr. Stokowski," he program together found Jascha Heifetz and said "I want you and your orchestra to appear , " Jack Benny working as a team. Brenda and on my radio program two weeks from today. Cobina brought the rubber shortage on the Mr. Stokowski, who won't lift a baton for less home front close to the boys by describing how than four thousand dollars, gasped. But before the girls are retreading their girdles. Perhaps he could hang up, Glenn Wheaton, radio the most unusual request was from a sailor at producer for Uncle Sam, explained. Pearl Harbor. "Would Carole Landis step up to the microphone and just sigh, that's all?" She "We want you to appear on Command would and did. Periormence. Command Periormance isn't heard in the United States. It's Uncle Sam's Command Performances were once the show for men in the armed forces serving prerogative of royalty. Now every soldier's a abroad. They ask for what they want. We give king, his command an order of the day. it to them. We've had a bunch of requests for classical music and we'd like you to answer The Radio Branch originated Command those requests." "Tell me where you want me to Perfonnance nearly a year ago. The shows are be and when. III be there." It was as simple as broadcast thirty-six times weekly by short wave that. By V-mail, letters, cables, requests pour beamed at different parts of the world and at into Washington from American lads serving different hours so that wherever American from Alaska to the Antipodes. soldiers are on duty overseas, it will reach them during their waking hours. Having proved its The letters, themselves, provide a magnificent power as a morale builder, on December 15, it collection of Americana, a cross-section of the was transferred to the Army's Special Service soul of America, and a wistful study in Division, in charge of welfare and entertain­ nostalgia. Good, bad, or indifferent, these men ment of U. S. Troops with Glenn Wheaton on foreign soil ask only for the America they left remaining as its guiding genius. behind. Chief of the Radio Branch is cocky, active, Command Perfonnance is a remarkably well sandy-haired Lt. Col. E. M. Kirby. Kirby produced show, There are no corny pep talks, operates from a half-finished office cluttered The Army feels that fellows out in Guadalcanal with uncovered telephone cables in the Army's and Africa know why they're there. Neither are new and fantastic Pentagon Building, in there commercial announcements on these Arlington. He is a red tape cutter; and few men shows. Nearest thing to a commercial runs know their way around in radio better than he. ${{ustratea!l!ress 3 Ylie !I((ustratea ~ress clJcto6er 1995 Publication of the Old Time Radio Club For years, he directed the National Association of Broadcasters, and knows the problems of SAMET/ME broadcasting and programming intimately. Before Pearl Harbor, when only ostriches and SAME STAT/ON those who were blind and would not hear failed by Jim Cox to perceive the war clouds then brewing, Kirby went to the army as a civilian dollar-a-year man to direct the then new Radio Branch. MA PERKINS After Pearl Harbor, he was commissioned and has been doing a terrific job. Among the great homespun philosophers of old time radio, none is remembered with more affection and Command Performance was born of a sports pathos than Ma Perkins -- Oxydol's Own Ma Perkins, broadcast the Radio Branch cooked up. Boys in that is, radio's "mother of the air." Flowing into the field wanted to know how the baseball kitchens each weekday afternoon to a slight variation of "My Old Kentucky Home," Ma Perkins was one of games were going, and Col. Kirby arranged to radio's most important daytime serials, spanning broadcast the games by short wave. almost the entire life of network broadcasting. But the boys in far places then began to write in Ma was the "den mom of our dreams," said author and ask why, if they could have the sports Robert LaGuardia. He called her "a pie baking Sher­ broadcasts, couldn't they have the good lock Holmes with an I.Q. of about 180." entertainment shows being broadcast in America. Col. Kirby knew that the entertainers A comparison between Ma and Bill Davidson, barber of America were more than willing to do their of Hartville who solved that fictional town's prob­ lems, has been drawn before. One chronicler termed part. So were the radio stations. The result Ma "a woman's answer to Just Plain Bill." The was, Command Performance. Presented by a weekly Variety labeled her "Just Plain Bill in drag." commercial sponsor, Command Performance Author Jim Harmon felt similarly; he said her char­ would have a weekly talent cost of not less than acter was conceived as "Just Plain Bill in skirts:' $50,000. For Uncle Sam, there are no charges. No matter. Ma became the conscience of Rushville Center, another fictional hamlet somewhere in the Midwest. As its best-loved sounding board, her prac­ tical advice was drawn from experience and an inher­ ent belief in the basic goodness of those around her. Ma's personal qualities included tough honesty com­ bined with an instinctive understanding of the hu­ man spirit. Just as Bill Davidson was not the protagonist of his drama, author Raymond William Stedman observes that neither was Ma of hers. While Ma rarely got into difficulty herself, others turned regularly to her in their hour of need. The kindly widow who oper­ ated Rushville Center's lumberyard while raising three youngsters encouraged the world's little people. Her wisdom in handling difficulties was not acquired through extensive formal education; her grammatical constructions and patterns of enunciation gave evi­ dence that she was a bonafide homespun philoso­ pher.

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