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!