PART TWO

Fibber McGee and Molly

After listening to When Radio Was I realized that the interest in OTR is still around. While listening to the show, I learned of RADIO SPIRITS, the company that produced the show. Hearing that a free catalog was only a phone call away, at the end of the program, I dashed to the telephone, dialed 1-800-RADIO-48, and spoke with a RADIO SPIRITS’ operator. I ordered my free catalog, then climbed back in bed, and went to sleep. The next few weeks I spent waiting for the catalog seemed to last forever. Finally, one day I arrived home from school to find a glossy, 90-page color catalog in my mailbox. I was ecstatic. My hands trembled as I thumbed through the pages, filled with 6-tape collections of virtually every show I had heard of--and quite a few I hadn’t. They were all there, ESCAPE, THE WHISTLER, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO, SUSPENSE, FIBBER McGEE AND MOLLY and many, many more.

My smile faded when I noticed something I had failed to consider before--cost. All these impressive collections were only... $29.98 each! And then when, I received my next catalog several months later, I became even more disappointed to learn that the price had risen to $34.98 each. It was then that I realized that at this rate I’d never be able to afford a collection of my own. So I built my collection the best way I knew how, by taping When Radio Was right off the radio. Those free days of collecting were soon over, as the station I had heard When Radio Was on went out of business and off the air.

Fortunately, at the same When Radio Was went off the air, I got my own screen name on America Online. With the internet at my fingertips, I was connected with other OTR collectors like myself from all over the United States. From these collectors, I learned about other catalog companies. I also learned about two other ways of acquiring shows: trading and OTR clubs.

The one that interested me the most at first was trading. “Trading for old programs can, like most things, be pleasant, fun and rewarding,” (Mann). The obvious reason was cost. Through trading, all it cost me was the cost of 10 blank cassette tapes ($6-$7), postage ($1.50-$2), and the time required to record my shows for my partner. Soon, I had two trading partners. We exchanged shows as well as collecting tips. Since then, I’ve traded with many other individuals, making friends as well as obtaining some great shows. I also learned that several OTR clubs exist today, the main one being the Society to Preserve and Encourage Radio Drama, Variety, And Comedy (SPERDVAC). Many of these clubs feature newsletters as well as lending libraries for their members. Further, the cost to join isn’t expensive, usually only $15 to $25 per year. I was overjoyed at hearing this. Over the next several months, I joined two clubs, SPERDVAC, and the Metro Washington Old Time Radio Club (MWOTRC). I am still a happy member of both today.

Once I found these inexpensive sources for OTR shows, the tapes started pouring in. I’d receive a box of tapes from somewhere almost every week. This led to a new problem... storage and cataloging.

After a while, I had so many shows, I couldn’t tell what I did and didn’t have. Also, when I wanted to hear a program, or when one of my partners wanted a copy of a particular broadcast, I needed to know where to look. I needed my own catalog. When writing my catalog, I realized I didn’t know what information I should include in it. According to Terry Salomonson, aspects of a show that should be included in one’s personal catalog are:

1.) Whether the program is restricted from trading 2.) Date of the broadcast 3.) Broadcast number (if known) 4.) Title of script (if known) 5.) Which broadcast network 6.) If it is available, do I have it? 7.) Source of the program 8.) Sound quality rating of the program 9.) Whether I have or would air it on my radio program 10.) Reel number that it is stored on 11.) Location and which track on the reel 12.) Running time of the program 13.) If I have it on cassette, the cassette number 14.) First ten words of the script 15.) Names of the actors/actresses of the broadcast 16.) Any notes about the program I may need (Salomonson Part 3)

I found the best way of cataloging, was to first number each of my tapes, beginning with 0001. After numbering all my tapes by attaching a number to the top of each cassette with with transparent tape, I used a spreadsheet program on my computer to create the catalog. Creating the list wasn’t easy. Finding dates for many of the programs was the most difficult part. Most other information could be obtained simply by listening to the programs. To get dates, I hunted through commercial catalogs, as well as various internet sources. Finding each date could take up to an hour, until I learned about the log.

In his report, Terry Salomonson points out “..how can you build a serious collection or collect a particular series if you don’t know what programs were broadcast, when they were broadcast, and in what order they were aired, and how many were done.” (Salomonson Part 4) The log helps to clear most of this up. The OTR log usually lists all episodes of a series that aired, when they were aired, lists the cast, broadcast number, and approximate running time. Currently, there are logs for virtually all popular OTR shows. However, due to lost written records, logs aren’t available for some shows.

People may think, why is having all of this information so important? Many series, such as SUSPENSE and ESCAPE broadcast a popular script more than once, sometimes with a different cast. Take “Sorry, Wrong Number” on SUSPENSE for example. This episode was broadcast eight times throughout SUSPENSE’s twenty year run. Each time it starred Agnes Moorehead. Suppose you want to trade tapes with someone. You have three broadcasts of “Sorry, Wrong Number,” and you want to collect all available recordings of this episode. Your partner simply lists one broadcast of “Sorry, Wrong Number,” How will you know if you already have this recording? NO DATES! For this as well as other reasons, logs are important.

Throughout my search for knowledge of OTR, I learned much in how to successfully organize an OTR collection, where to obtain shows, how to properly set up a trade, and I learned more about the programming itself.

Enough about the collecting OTR, now what is OTR?

When I first became interested in OTR, I came across some startling facts, which while new to me at the time, are nothing new to the average collector. Perhaps one of the things that surprised me most was that virtually all radio in the 1930s-1940s was done live. As John Dunning puts it, “Everything on radio was done live, often with so little preparation that it defies belief today” (Dunning xii). Not only was radio nearly always live, but usually no more than two hours were spent rehearsing (Dunning 647), and this was almost always done the two hours before air time. For example, an actor may walk into the studio at six o’clock and look at the script for the first time that he is to read on the air at eight o’clock. It takes real talent to pull a thing like that off! Many of the programs we have today were recorded on 7 to 16-inch "transcription discs." These are often made of a lacquer-coated metal base, a lacquer-coted glass base, or bare aluminum. Transcription discs are essentially instantaneously recorded phonograph records. Grooves were either cut or embossed into the surface of a blank disc, and the recording could be playd back later for re-broadcast or for a radio star's own use.

“What did you listen to every day at five o’clock?” asks Jim Harmon in his book, The Great Radio Heroes (Harmon 11). Children’s serials were popular throughout the Golden Age of Radio. Every day, children would rush home from school to hear the latest news from their heroes like Jack Armstrong, Little Orphan Annie, Superman, and many others. Many of these programs ran in fifteen-minute time slots, five or six times a week. Many of these programs featured premiums to promote the company sponsoring the show. “Radio premiums cost nothing but a box top, or maybe a dime, or, at the very most, perhaps twenty cents, and they were worth every penny and pouring spout flap of it” (Harmon 130). Whatever it was about these serials, they never failed to attract plenty of listeners each day.

Another thing that helped to make radio what it was was sound effects. Without them, radio shows could be called little more than audio-book readings. Sound effects helped create images--pictures in the listener’s mind. The making of sound effects was considered to be an art form. As John Dunning recalls about Suspense, “In the climatic scene of the chilling ‘Diary of Sophia Winters,’ he (soundman Berne Surrey) achieved the sound of madman Ray Collins’s head meeting Agnes Moorehead’s ax by stabbing a cabbage with an ice pick,” (647). While not all were that gruesome, this case demonstrates the creative methods that were used in obtaining the desired sound. Sound effects along with music provided a door to the adventurous land inside the radio.

Besides children’s serials, many other popular program types existed. Comedy, soap opera, mystery, adventure, horror, musical, variety, western, and science fiction were among the most common types. Whatever it was, radio had the ability to entertain people as few other mediums had, while providing the listener a chance to use his or her own imagination to a great extent. That’s why, for over thirty years, radio was truly king.

PART THREE

As time passes, the number of people who were around during the Golden Age Of Radio decreases. Fewer and fewer people are picking up the hobby. Already, many OTR organizations have shut down from lack of interest. In 15-20 years, there may be no OTR clubs or businesses left. Like many other collectors, I find it necessary to preserve these shows and the information that goes with them as completely and accurately as possible.

Several years ago, on May 16, 1998, a long-time dream of mine came true when I alone produced and hosted “The WLVA Radio Theatre,” on Lynchburg’s first radio station, which was around at the beginning of the golden days of radio. Several weeks later, I renamed the program “Sunday Night Nostalgia” and every Sunday evening for three hours, I played a mix of big band, 1920s jazz and dance bands, and old time radio. My show aired for nearly three years on WLVA (AM 590) and WLQE (106.9 FM) before the station was sold and changed formats in December, 2000.

Bibliography

Dunning, John. On The Air, The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio New York: Oxford University Press, 1998
French, Jack. “Fifteen Minute Favorites” Online. 11 January 1998
Harmon, Jim. The Great Radio Heroes New York: Doubleday, 1967
Harris, Bill. “A History of the NBC Chimes” Online. 29 December 1997
Mann, Jack. “A Guide to OTR Trading” Online. 10 January 1998
M.W.O.T.R.C. Radio Recall February-April 1998
Past Times Newsletter – Issues 21-31
Salomonson, Terry. “Information and Help To the OTR Collector” Online. 21 February 1998
SPERDVAC Radiogram. Newsletter 1997-1998