Medium Rare

The Old Time Radio Researchers have, via archive.org, bestowed upon us a marvelous bounty; their much coveted Singles and Doubles Collection, an Astonishingly Ample Aggregation of Audio Aberrations.. a collection of radio programs for which only one or two episodes remain. While this isn't entirely accurate (a glance at J. David Goldin's indispensable radiogoldindex.com will show that there are many shows in the SADC for which more episodes exist), it's more often true than not, and who the hell am I to nitpick? SHAME ON ME! We're talking about some museum-worthy material here: a joint radio interview with Orson Welles and H. G. Wells (Orson is clearly in awe, and H. G. gives him a pitch for the yet to be released Citizen Kane!), radio broadcasts from the 1920s, etc. etc.. I've uploaded a sampling of the available programs to my box.net account for you (see sidebar), concentrating on comedies for The Gazeeka Box and comic strip-themed shows for the "limited-edition" Four Color OTR player. Box.net limits files to 10 MB for cheapskates like myself so (for now) I had to leave out such gems as The George O' Hanlon Show (!!!!!) and Bert Wheeler starring on The Fresh Up Show (!!!!!!!!!), but there are still plenty of goodies left. Of particular interest (to me) are Tim and Irene Ryan's appearances on Circus Night in Silvertown (1935), and subbing for Jack Benny on the Jell-O Program (1936). Tim Ryan's Ted Healy-isms are much more pronounced here than in his later appearances in Monogram musicals, helping him to rise above some pretty godawful material, but Irene is just as much an unlikable cross between Gracie Allen and Cass Daley as she ever was before her Beverly Hillbillies days. Also of note is the closed-circuit broadcast of the first episode of The Morey Amsterdam Show with Morey in excellent form. This series would go on to become an early television hit on CBS and DuMont, giving a young Art Carney a solid start to his TV career. His future comedy partner is represented here by a 1944 episode of The Jackie Gleason-Les Tremayne Show, much funnier than you'd except (Les Tremayne??). Less successful by far is a 1946 starring vehicle for Phil Silvers, "20th Century-Fox's Brilliant Comedian", that foreshadows not even faintly the later brilliance of Sgt. Bilko. And perhaps most fascinating of the lot is an episode of Living 1949 in which Fred Allen examines American humor ("The average radio comedian is a mouth that speaks the words of others' brains.") and the hellish grind of his own career. As for the comic-themed shows:

Smilin' Jack, 12/18/39 or 2/13/39. The only complete surviving episode of this Mutual series based on Zack Mosley's bizarro aviation strip. Features the beloved shirt-button-popping Fat Stuff, and precious little of Jack himself. An on-air audition, the announcer invites listeners to write in and tell them what they like and don't like about the show. I imagine that a key complaint from kids would have been that virtually nothing happens in the show.

Dan Dunn, Secret Operative #48. Two episodes are all that remains of this syndicated 1930s series adapted from Norman Marsh's incredibly poorly drawn Dick Tracy knockoff. Not a bad show, but unremarkable.

That's My Pop, 7/29/45, based on one of Milt Gross's many brilliant strips. It's a crime that this is the sole surviving episode. While devoid of Yiddish, it's Milt Gross through and through. Shiftless Pop makes a few bucks for himself by turning the house into a sleazy dive while his family is away on vacation. One surprising, and very Gross (literally), gag involves Pop's mother-in-law stomping a giant mosquito to death. The wonderfully wet crunch that results is hilarious. The audience audibly squirms. Beautiful stuff. Aired on CBS.

Moon Mullins, 1/31/47, CBS. Frank Willard's classic strip isn't particularly well-served by this somewhat plodding audition, a pity as the strip and its colorful cast lends itself well to radio. While the material here is weak, Sheldon Leonard is perfectly cast as the scheming lowbrow Moonshine. Another audition for this series exists, dating from 1940.

Bringing Up Father. The date on this file is dead wrong. From the sound of it, and the quarter-hour runtime, I'll bet that this brisk, charming adaptation of George McManus's strip was recorded no later than 1932. It's pretty nifty hearing Maggie and Jiggs speak with their appropriate Irish brogues. This particular episode is, I believe, based directly on a McManus Sunday page. Syndicated by King Features. I wonder if they gave any of their other strips the quarter-hour treatment.

For the flipside, a comic strip based on a radio comedy success, check out the wonderful Charlie McCarthy strips over at Allan Holtz's Stripper's Guide.

"The best of the old comedy favorites, the brightest of the new stars"

Founded in 1915 by Earle W. Hammons for the production and distribution of classroom films, Educational Pictures quickly, and lucratively, shifted gears and began producing comedy shorts. Educational hit its peak sometime in the mid-20s, releasing Jack White's acclaimed Lloyd Hamilton shorts and distributing Otto Messmer's Felix the Cat cartoons. But in 1933, following a financially disastrous partnership with Mack Sennett to produce features (as Sono Art-World Wide Pictures), Educational was forced to sell off its exchanges and reopen at Paramount's old Astoria, Long Island facility (where The Cocoanuts and Follow The Leader were shot). Now releasing through 20th Century Fox, Educational had become a strange twilight zone of down-on-their-luck silent era names like Buster Keaton and moonlighting Broadway celebrities like Bert Lahr and Joe Cook, taking advantage of the studio's convenient proximity. Not only silent era performers but producers and directors found Educational a friendly port during the industry's turbulent transition to sound. The studio's product was wildly uneven during its final decade with even the best shorts looking extremely threadbare. As cheap as the shorts may have been, and as poor as the writing frequently was, the talent on display was undeniably impressive.

I found this 1936 trade ad for Educational on Ebay last month and it nicely illustrates the bizarre blend of "old comedy favorites" and "new stars" that populated the studio's product at the time. Buster Keaton, at a low point in his life but still capable of wonderful work, and the brilliant Joe Cook are clearly the studio's prize performers (Joe Cook had no better film vehicles than his shorts), but the lower ranks are pretty fascinating, too. Bert Lahr, the most famous of the second-stringers depicted, should have been a major film personality (IMO) but his film career never clicked and today he's remembered primarily for his performance as the Cowardly Lion. Tom Howard, Joe Cook's stooge from Rain Or Shine (1930), had his own series, appearing with his own stooge George Shelton. Both went on to star through the 1940s in the radio quiz parody It Pays To Be Ignorant. Until I saw this ad, I had no idea that professional milquetoast Ernest Truex had ever been the featured performer in anything, let alone his own series of shorts. He found work in film and on TV through 1965 as the meek next-door neighbor or the ineffectual boss. Truex's wife, Mary Jane Barrett (bottom right), appeared with him frequently on Broadway and, it seems, at Educational, although she doesn't have an IMDB listing. The rest of the comics are the aforementioned "new stars" and of them, only Tim and Irene Ryan, the poor man's Burns and Allen, went on to have any kind of substantial screen career. Gruff Tim and madcap Irene became a standard feature of poverty row musical comedies through 1944. I've never seen any of their work for Educational but The Wacky Family (1936) must be one of the weakest film titles of all time. Tim, a prolific B-comedy screenwriter, died in 1956. Irene Ryan, who divorced Tim in 1942, went on to lasting fame as Granny Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies. Incidentally, Tim and Irene are featured on the original 1934 sheet music for Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town. I'm assuming they introduced the song on radio. Does anyone out there know? The team of Patricola and West had a brief series of for Educational between 1935 and 1938, reportedly interchangeable with that of Educational's other musical comedy duo, Timberg and Rooney (curiously not depicted). It seems that Earl Oxford appeared in exactly one short for the studio and I can't find even that many for the amiable looking Fred Lightner (any relation to Winnie? There's a definite resemblance). Singer Niela Goodelle headlined her own series (and appeared at least once with Earl Oxford on Broadway), but I'm unsure about Nell Kelly, another Broadway singer.

This eclectic lineup represents Educational's last gasp. E. W. Hammons, eager to re-enter the features market ever since his 1931-33 partnership with Sennett, gambled it all and lost. In 1938, he merged Educational with Grand National Pictures just as it was sinking into bankruptcy, apparently in a bid to save it. But Grand National's situation was terminal and, when it finally folded in 1939, it took what remained of Educational with it (Fox took over distribution of the Terrytoons). Just a few years later, adding insult to injury, a vault fire at Fox's Deluxe labs destroyed a tremendous number Educational's negatives, all but wiping out the studio's (presumably superior) silent output and erasing most of the film careers of Lloyd Hamilton and Lupino Lane, a staggering blow to the record of the silent era.