SBL Sunday Supplement

I am an introverted loner by nature, and a historian by proclivity. Hence this blog. Why the recent focus on Winona? you might ask. It's my hometown. It's where I grew up. True, I've not had a permanent residence in the Island City (which isn't really an island, by the way) in fifteen years, and haven't lived there for closer to twenty; and for a plethora of reasons that aren't important to this post, I don't foresee myself moving back anytime in the near or not-so-near future. When you're a child you don't necessarily think about place and existence beyond "this is where I live because it's where I was born and it's my town" and you simply exist and your life happens and that is your world; but when you get older, for some of us, we find that life isn't a plot of land where existence simply flourishes around you, but rather a roller coaster track of dubious construction that twists you and pulls you until you find a cart of reasonable comfort operating at a tolerable speed, and you nestle in, hoping that the wheels stay on the rails and that you don't spend too much time puking over the side. But I love history and research, and thoroughly enjoy excavating lost artifacts of my hometown's past. I miss many things about the town, both geographic places that have garnered a personal patina of sentimentality in my mind, the the few people still there with whom I am lucky enough to call myself friend. I now live on the East side of St. Paul, our state's grand capital. I've never been an urbanite. There are many things I now take for granted living in a metropolitan area that I never could have experienced staying in a small factory-and-college town, but I definitely prefer the small town quality of living compared to the chipped concrete-coated sprawl I find myself now maneuvering around. But I digress.

Here are a couple of ads from the Winona Daily News for programming on KNWO 1230 on the AM dial. It was Winona's first local station, going on the air in 1938, and solely remained "The Talk Of Winona" until 1957, when KAGE joined the broadcast family. 

I became a regular listener to KWNO during my days in junior high and high school. As a chronic insomniac, I would often find myself up at all hours of the night, either unable to fall asleep or fall back asleep should I have gotten up to use the restroom or something. It's a problem that persists to this day. At the time, KWNO broadcasted Coast To Coast AM with Art Bell from midnight until two a.m. (it was a three hour show), and then the first two hours of the program were looped again until five o'clock, when local news or right-wing talk radio would come on the air. The when and where of Kiwanis Club luncheons or the views of Rush Limbaugh have never been of particular interest to me, but an all-night radio program devoted to the bizarre, which gave equal opportunity to experts, skeptics and plain-bonkers sociopaths, was right up my alley.

I thought, being about radio, this was a perfect segue into the second episode of my Secret Basement Laboratory Radio Theater program. Last time, in episode one, I presented a couple of radio programs featuring wisecracking detectives. This time I thought I would provide a show of weather-appropriate programming, meaning short-shorts. Short radio programs were essential for padding out scheduling blocks back in the day of old time radio. It was essential because they could fill out local news and weather breaks, and ingenious because, though the programs ran only from ten to fifteen minutes or so, they could be serialized adventures divvied up into several episodic chunks, which might hook listeners and keep them tuning in to hear the other parts of the play.

I've compiled a nice assortment of programs for you here. We're starting off with a Believe It Or Not minute, a fifty-second or so program created sans-commercials by Robert Ripley as an extension of his then-booming Ripley's Believe It

Robert Ripley and friend.

Or Not brand of sideshow entertainment where two bizarre–and "true"–factoids are related to the listener. I've selected one that briefly relates the attempts to poison Thomas Overbury, the English poet and essayist who was thrown into the Tower Of London after raising the ire of James I (King of England) and a scandal ensued. Here he is dubbed "The Iron Man" for surviving the poisonous diet he was fed and survived.

Second, we have an episode of Blackstone, The Magic Detective from Nov. 28th, 1948. For more information about the personnel behind the show–no, Blackstone the magician wasn't actually playing himself–go to this excellent write-up with mp3s of many more episodes. The particular episode I've chosen for inclusion here is episode nine: "The Ghost That Wasn't."

Thirdly is an eight minute quickie from Calling All Detectives, a one man operation by personality Paul Barnes, who does all the voices. And it shows. This was a novelty show in that Barnes would call a listener to try and get them to solve the crime before revealing the whodunnit. This episode, "Morgue Nightclub Is A Setting For Death" is episode No. 366, originally broadcast on February 3rd, 1949.

I've included another Believe It Or Not in the intermission, this episode (no. 6) about a witchdoctor who had to wear a mask to change his identity. Talk about government red tape!

Cugi and cocktail.

Next we have a musical program! Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands, a Coca-Cola sponsored big band program ran for fifteen minutes, Monday through Friday for a brief period starting in 1941. Each episode featured a "spotlight" on a different band. The one I've chosen features a personal favorite of mine: Xavier Cugat. Cugi was a Spanish bandleader who moved to Cuba and became the Rhumba king of the American music world. He's also famous (or infamous) for thrusting Charo on an unsuspecting world. 

Finally, I present to you a Ripley's competitor–Strange As It Seems, also based off of a syndicated bizarre minutiae factoid comic strip, presented by illustrator John Hix. Unlike Ripley's, which invited you to "believe it or not", Hix claimed that all of his bizarre facts were "...verified by a minimum of three sources." The show was sponsored by Ex-Lax, which will be evident as the commercial at the beginning of the program takes up a good minute-and-a-half, trying to convince you of all the chocolatey wonder that is everyone's favorite laxative. This particularly interesting episode is about a baby spy during the French revolution. The spy wasn't really a baby, but a 23" tall dwarf named Richebourg. He did in fact exist, and is listed in the Guinness Book Of World Records as "Shortest Spy".

As a bonus treat, I've rounded out the program with two tracks from Xavier Cugat. "Flute Nightmare" was released in 1954, utilized in the film The Americano, starring Glenn Ford and directed by William Castle of all people! The other is the b-side to a Mercury Records single released in 1952, titled "Jungle Flute."

Enjoy!

Secret Basement Laboratory Radio, Episode One: Private Dicks and Smart Alecks

Today I have something a little different to offer. It's a multimedia blog post featuring the standard biographical/historical thing I do here, paired with an audio offering in podcast form via Mixcloud. That way royalties will be dispensed per-play to the writers of the music used in the program (or so I'm lead to believe). 

I'm a big fan of what is now dubbed Old Time Radio. Obviously, like any medium, there's a lot to sift through, not all of it of the same quality. But when I'm lying awake nights, waiting for the veil of insomnia to part, or I am just not ready to sleep yet, I plug the earbuds of my iPod into my ears and listen to some good old-fashioned radio plays.

I first discovered the magic of OTR back in my middle school days, when I found my local hometown public library had episodes of The Shadow, packaged in what looked like those oversized vinyl videocassette cases. Since then I've grown to appreciate this artform from an era when folks actually had to pay attention to their entertainment to get something out of it. Now it seems everything is ADHD quick-cut together in music video fashion so that movies and television shows can be playing in the background while the consumer fiddles with their cell phone or plays video games. Perhaps the art of listening has taken a back burner to instant gratification and one-liner reference gags that seem popular these days vis-a-vis Family Guy and millennial comedy Netflix specials. Or, perhaps, I'm just a grumpy old man.

About The Show

Walk Softly, Peter Troy

There were, according to the scant information I could on this program, two Walk Softly, Peter Troys. One was an Australian production, and one a British production from South Africa. The Peter Troy you'll hear in this program is the latter. Sadly, as I've said, I couldn't find much in the way of information about the show. There is this page on the Times Past Old Time Radio website that features a blurb provided by someone named Pumamouse (as well as mp3 files of many of the episodes), who runs a Saint fan page full of information on The Saint radio program and the minutiae related to it. 

Walk Softly, Peter Troy is set in London, and features a very Tony Randall-sounding Troy who, in a reversal of the popular roles, seems to actually be second in command in his private investigations. His name is stenciled on the glass inset on the office door, but he's usually finding himself guided onto the right track by his doting–and sassy–secretary Julie. The show is very much cut from the Mr. Lucky cloth. The soundtrack sounds positively Mancinian, the jokes are dry and the plots could easily have been Carter Brown paperback fodder. 

It's definitely a Top Ten radio program for me. 

This show features the episode "A Flight Of Fancy", originally broadcast March 28th, 1964. It follows Troy's exploits trying to bodyguard a scientist who's developed a super jet fuel.

Richard Diamond, Private Detective

Fortunately there's a little more information on the Richard Diamond, Private Detective program, which seems to have had a long-lasting, if not somewhat convoluted shelf life. The life of a private eye, I guess. It ran from April 24, 1949, on NBC, until December of the following year. It moved to ABC radio in January of 1951, where it lasted just over five months, and then aired on CBS for a four month summer stint as a replacement for Amos 'n' Andy.

Much like Peter Troy above, the program focuses on a P.I. who is less hardboiled than your average Mike Shayne stereotype, and more prone to corny wordplay and even crooning to his girlfriend Helen at the end of each episode (played by Virginia Gregg). 

The episode I've chosen for inclusion in this particular episode of Secret Basement Laboratory Radio, titled "The Van Dyke Seance Case" originally aired September 10th, 1949. Troy is charged with revealing a sham spiritualist who is conning a Mrs. Van Dyke with phony calls from beyond the grave to ingratiate himself and his conniving partner into the lady's jewelry box.

Virginia Gregg and Dick Powell (Helen
Asher and Richard Diamond respectively)

I've chosen this episode because it's one of my personal favorites from the series, and features one of my hands-down favorite back-and-forth moments when Diamond and his girlfriend attend a seance by Professor Leonardo, the fake medium, in the guise of two hillbilly yokels. 

The Music

I've sandwiched three songs between the episodes as sort of an intermission. It beats hearing me chatter, anyway. All three were chosen because they fit the theme, atmosphere and aesthetic of the shows featured. 

All three are also from the British stock music house KPM Library. Even if you've never heard of KPM, or have the vaguest notion of what library music is, odds are you've heard a lot of the production house's music, as the NFL has licensed scores of it (pun intended) for their highlight reel production work. Many compilations even exist with titles like Music From Superbowl (insert roman numeral here), or Music From the NFL. Many of the songs, at least the first two of this trio, were also used as background music for the likes of SpongeBob Squarepants and The Ren & Stimpy Show.

The first is a track from 1965 by Laurie Johnson, titled "Blood In The Gutter." It was taken from a KPM "brownsleeve" record. A plodding drumbeat dancing with a Dragnet-esque brass section and some jazzy rolling piano. Laurie Johnson went on to score the The Avengers television series (the Steed and Peel Avengers, not the Rogers and Stark one) and Jason King, as well as the 1974 cult Hammer Studios film Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter.

Secondly we have another NFL utilized tune called "The Unknown", by Ralph Dollimore. Dollimore was a British composer and pianist that worked with a number of the popular orchestral and big band jazz groups in London during the 1950s and 1960s (most notably, at least for me, Kenny Graham and his Afro-Cubists). His tune "Hit and Run" has been prolifically used (though uncredited, such is the fate of most stock music library musicians) in cartoons and television.

Finally, we have a man who needs no introduction in my eyes, but for the general reader, I'll go ahead and give you a little info on the amazing Syd Dale. Dale has created (subjectively speaking) some of the most amazing instrumental music I've ever heard, and is easily one of my favorite musicians, library music or otherwise. If you've seen the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, you've heard Syd Dale. If you're a fan of niche cinema purveyors Something Weird Video, you've heard Syd Dale. The iconic music in the promo that they preface each video with is Dale's track "The Hell Raisers".

The song featured in this episode of SBLR, "Man Trap," is from the 1968 KPM album Flamboyant Themes Volume Two. Dale was a self-taught composer and musician who studied big band music while working in a chocolate factory. Eventually he started working extensively with various library houses and eventually formed his own Amphonic Sounds production company. While "The Hell Raisers" is one of his most prominently recognizable tracks, Dale has left a huge mark on the world of entertainment and advertising, largely unknown to the generations of consumers who've undoubtedly hummed some of his jingles used on the BBC or prolifically sampled by pop and hip-hop producers.

Again, I want to point out that this was a trial run. I'm working on ironing out the wrinkles, and hopefully, should an episode two drop in the future, it'll be much more polished and professionally put together than this inaugural one was.

Enjoy!
Mad Doctor Josh

Prep For Halloween Day 3

Wyllis Cooper, creator of Quiet, Please

The brainchild of Wyllis Cooper, a man whom Harlan Ellison tried to get put on a U.S. postage stamp for his contribution to fantasy writing, the radio program Quiet, Please has garnered a reputation as one of the better written dark fantasy drama anthologies ever created.

There is one particularly popular episode called "The Thing On The Fourble Board," on which you can read comedian Patton Oswalt's and writer Harlan Ellison's thoughts (and further rejoinders), here. The show is also posted at said link in the form of a Youtube video.

You can also download it as an mp3 file here from archive.org.

I can honestly say that listening to it in bed one night a few years back did creep me out. Not to the extent that Ellison claims that it did an entire generation of the most prolific science fiction and fantasy writers of the 1950s and 60s, but, it certainly merits a listen.