Microphone Huggers Found Their Pony Children's Shows I am very much displeased with Just a few lines to let you know Of all the children's program on what you call a barn dance. I've that we found our pony and buggy the air-and I ha ve two boys who never heard a concert orchestra with and appreciate your broadcasting listen to them all-Jolly Joe's is the a barn dance yet. How come you about it. A group of boys had taken outstanding one. I find myself don't have the same performers for the pony and hidden it, along with thinking he must be speaking to me the first and second shows? The first some stolen bicycles and other ar­ personally, so you see how the chil­ show sounds the same to me every ticles, in an old barn. The pony had dren must love it. You should see week. such sore feet she could hardly walk them using the pitch pipe. holding What's the matter with Winnie. and we fished the buggy out of the up their hands to show that they are Lou and Sully? Do they hug the cirainage canal where the boys had dressed, and eating their cereal. microphone? When an announcer pushed it. ... Mrs. W. O. Pittinger, From the mother's standpOint, Jolly calls for a song, they pop out of no­ Chicago. Joe helps get the youngsters dressed. where and say, "How about us?" Did fed, and puts them in a splendid they run out of hillbilly songs? They In Colorado humor for school. A program that don't sing them any more. helps children in their daily life is We want to tell you that we gather Here's something else I don't like something to be proud of . Mrs. around our radio every Saturday F. J. Froelich, Niles Center. Ill. - performers and announcers who night way out here in Colorado at the read, jokes and sing songs from pa­ foot of the Rockies to listen to your pers ... Amy, Chicago. program. And do we enjoy it? I Radio in Japan should say we do! After supper I turn on the radio and hear one of the two programs Husking Crowd Those Hoosier Hot Shots are real­ ly hot. We also enjoy Professor on the air. The programs are mostly I was one of the several thousand Charlie Wilson's nonnonical non­ lectures and amusements. The lec­ who splashed around in the mud at sense a great deal. We hope he over­ ture subjects range from "The Finan­ the Illinois State Corn Husking con­ comes that impediment in his speech cial Policy of the Government" to test. One thing impressed me very real soon. Mr. and Mrs. E. K. "The Latest Developments in Cancer forcibly and I write to commend you Salling. Elba. Col. Research" while the amusements and your associates on it. It was the consist of renditions of Beethoven's cleanest. best-behaved crowd I ever Eroica Symphony by the New Sym­ saw. I think it speaks volumes for Weather Forecasts phony Orchestra under Conductor your listeners and for the quality of I presume the most beneficial Koscak Yamada or Pringsheim, or character to be found among our broadcast over your station is the the Singing of Japanese folklore, or rural population. Charles H. weather. The thousands and thou­ listening to the jokes of otsuji, the Draper, Pastor, First Methodist Epis­ sands of farmers within reach of Japanese Eddie Cantor. copal Church, Sycamore, Ill. your station guide their work accord­ All of the radio programs are un­ ing to weather forecasts. Now a word der the strict surveillance of the gov­ for the mariner of the Great Lakes. ernment authorities so you can't lis­ Old Timer We look forward to the forecast for ten to pOlitical speeches and so on. I am 95 years young today. In my the Great Lakes with a great deal ... Togo Sheba, Tokyo, J apan. long life I have seen many wonderful of interest. .. W. H. M. S. Neill. (Togo Sheba and Julian Bentley things. but nothing as wonderful as Master, Steamer Samuel Mather, were at Knox College together and the radio. Ten years before I bought Duluth, Minn. Julian asked him to comment on my home at Grove Place, Abraham Japanese radio programs.) Lincoln and Stephen Douglas talked on these grounds-that was in 1858- Opera House ST AND BY and the spot is marked. I built this I have been listening to the barn house in 1868 and there's not a knot dance every Saturday night for five BURRIDGE D. BUTLER. Publisher in any board in it.... John C. Nelt­ years and I think it gets worse every Copyright. 1936, Prairie Farmer Publishing Co. 1230 Washington Blvd., Chicago nor, Grove Place, Illinois. week. It does not sound like a barn Indianapolis: 241 N . Pennsylvania dance but more like an opera house. New York City: 250 Park Avenue There should be more cowboy songs. Subscription Price, $1.00 a Year Inspiration yodeling, square dances and more fun Single Copy. 5 cents I have been listening to Morning and laughter. I never heard of a classical orchestra being in a barn Issued Every Saturday Devotions for years and I want to Entered as second-class matter February say that they are a very great in­ dance and never heard of sopranos 15. 1935. at the post office at Chicago. Illi­ spiration to me. I am a shut-in­ and bali tones singing classical songs nois. under the Act of March 3. 1879. in any kind of a barn dance. not really an invalid but am nursing JULIAN T. BENTLEY. Editor an aged lady who is my adopted If you have ever heard Pappy Che­ mother. The radio seems to make shire's program, that's what I call a Virginia Seeds, Managing Editor the time go much faster .... Mrs. real program. .. A Disappointed December 5, 1936 Eulah Duckwall, Elkhart. Ind. Listener, Ch icago. VOLUME 2 NUMBER 43 • tream tne ios! CBS Presents "Poetic Melodies" In Modern Setting finger pOinted. for a minute and when he drops it. ·'Poetic Melodies·' is on the air. Billy Mills leads his orchestra into the theme song, '·1 Sang A Song Today," MacCormack says a line from a poem, and Jack Fulton sings a line from the theme. Without ces­ sation of the music, the show con­ tinues with readings by MacCormack and songs by Jack Fulton. By VIRGINIA SEEDS It's amazing to learn that Mac­ Cormack once stuttered hopelessly NSPIRED by the Zeppelin Hinden­ and cured himself of this impediment burg, Columbia Broadcasting Sys­ by persistent work and arm-swing­ I tem's new audience studio is the ing. He is now considered one of the last word in modern design. finest Tony Wons type readers on the air. He is quite tall and thin. and Compared to the WGN theatre drapes himself over the microphone across Michigan Boulevard or the as though he might be reading to a seating capacity of some of NBC's young lady shorter than he is. studios, CBS Studio Number 10 is not large; but it has a cozy studio On the Nose Jack Fulton, "romantic tenor" of Poet­ , atmosphere that makes it very at­ ic Melodies, likes blue shirts and striped When his first poem is finished, he tractive. neckties. However, he wears formal eve­ ning attire when he broadcasts. takes a hasty glance at the studio The stage is rather small, barely clock on the opposite wall, turns tri­ large enough to accommodate Billy Poetic Reader Franklyn MacCormack umphantly to the production man took arm-swinging exerelses to CUre him­ Mills' string orchestra; and the thea­ self of stuttering. and puts his forefinger on his nose. tre seats 285. But perhaps you'd like In radio "handies" he is calling at­ to take a trip through the studio tention to the fact that he finished yourself. We have two tickets for blue and gray, and the lights are just on time, or "on the nose." the new chewing gum program, chromium mushrooms. The comfort­ Jack Fulton, the "romantic tenor," "Poetic Melodies," so come along with able chairs are beige and chromium; looks younger than his 33 years. He me. and since they aren't collapsible, we has a mellifiuous voice, very much Submarine Doors don't have the feeling that they like that of Bing Crosby, with whom might fold up on us any time. he once sang in pictures. However We get off the bus at the Wrigley To our left and hanging above us Fulton's voice, as MacCormack's, is Building and go in the North door. is the control room with oblique glass so soft that the audience in the thea­ Quite a crowd is hurrying toward the panels patterned after the Graf Zep­ tre has a little difficulty in hearing end of the hall and we follow them. pelin. Where the balcony would be in it. We come into a reception room at an ordinary theatre is another glass­ With remarkable restraint, there one side of which is a modern circu­ paneled room, the clients' box. are no commercial plugs spotted in lar stairway, at the other an attrac­ the IS-minute show until the very tive reception girl, and straight Watching the Show end, although in the middle Mac­ ahead are heavy steel doors that The musicians, in tuxedos, are just Cormack does give a tribute to retail look a bit as if they might have come arriving; then comes Billy Mills, five merchants, for whom the program is off a submarine.