Sweet and Lovely and First Generation

A few days ago, iTunes was featuring old time radio broadcasts as free podcasts from Humphrey/Camardella Productions. In fact, they still are; I just wandered over to the iTunes store and sure enough, the huge old-time-radio button is still on the podcast page.

Humphrey/Camardella Productions are the people who bring you Boxcars 711 old time radio (it's also free) and they can be found in my list of "great listening sites" in the sidebar at right. I've loved the free programs I've listened to at the Radio 711 site, so I subscribed but the podcasts through iTunes were of disappointing quality - muffled, indistinct... you know that sound, like listening through a wet sponge. I unsubscribed quickly. Don't know what the issue is - theoretically the exact same feed - but I'm going to stick to the Radio 711 site.

The problem, of course, is that as listeners, we wind up hearing somebody's copy of some other person's copy of another person's copy of the copy of a copy that was originally made from... well, who knows? It might have been recorded off the radio by a home enthusiast, and if that's all that's available, we should consider ourselves lucky to have anything.

However - Radio Archives is an outfit that deserves your attention and patronage. Yes, it's on CDs, and yes, it costs, but even in this day and age of free old time radio on the internet, these CDs are worth every penny.

For their Premier Collection, they only will work directly from original transcription discs, and their release from last month, The Coconut Grove Ambassadors, sounds stunning. I don't have it yet, but plan on ordering it, based on previous purchases from these folks, and based on the clip you can hear on the page linked above, which has to be the most incredible sounding band remote from this era I've ever heard, even in its internet sample.

They have other great first generation recordings and are definitely worth a visit.

Tom Snyder Radio Shows With Norman Lear And Bonnie Hunt

Here's why I like Tom Snyder, right here.

The hour he spends with Bonnie Hunt.

Tom Snyder falls head over heels in love with Bonnie Hunt right on the air. You can hear it happen. It can't be anything else.

And, of course, why not? Bonnie's beautiful, funny, talented, easy-going... and Tom means no harm; he just lets himself fall completely under her spell, and it's lovely. Tom and Bonnie recall their respective strict Catholic upbringings, and Tom makes a couple of remarkably intimate and revealing statements about his life and philosophy.

First up is a segment with Norman Lear, followed by some "open phones" calls. The Lear show is from May 29, 1991 and the Hunt show is from April 19, 1992. And no, we never do get to hear how Norman Lear got through to Danny Thomas.

Two shows, both a little incomplete (The Lear segment is joined in progress, as is the Bonnie Hunt interview), but still a treat. Just under an hour and a half in total; commercials have been painstakingly removed. This program will stream in Box.net's audio player, or you can download it.

Link

That's The House Up There, Right On Top Of The Stoop

NPR ran a piece on Weekend Edition about Laurel and Hardy's Music Box steps that answers the question, "What does NPR do when they have an extra couple of minutes to fill and they can't come up with an idea?" 3m, with Kiefer Sutherland as Ollie, Dame Helen Mirren as Stan, and Scott Simon as the rear portion of Susie.

Link

Stan Freberg with TS

Stan Freberg spends an hour with Tom Snyder. (36m) This dates from November 1991 - the time of Stan's one-shot NPR special. The feed for the interview came from WICC-AM, and they had the "D" team running the board this particular night, as you'll hear during those moments when the program is drowned out by extraneous material. And speaking of extraneous material...

The interview includes clips from the special, including one that would have been much more funny had Freberg simply performed it without introduction. Instead, fearing that his audience had no familiarity with Stephen Foster song titles, he carefully and painfully sets up the sketch with background material the audience 'needs' to get the jokes. Not only is this condescending - it's annoying. This is my gripe with later Freberg material - he started talking down to his audience, became more concerned with his 'message' (usually quite obvious) and lost track of what was funny. It's almost as if he came to believe than anything he said was funny, so long as he said it with a sneer and dragged the pronunciation out.

The interview is far more fun than the NPR Special (59m) itself.

Imagine if Stan's great record, "Wun'erful, Wun'erful!" [Side Uh-1 (4m), Side Uh-2 (3m)] had started with a detailed explanation of who Lawrence Welk was, what kinds of music he featured on his show, that he always thanked his audience for the cards and letters they sent, and the manner in which Welk created the sound of a champagne cork popping by using a finger in his cheek.

Why did Soupy look DOWN when the naked lady came to the door?

I've had a few remarkable experiences in my life. One was somehow getting onto the set of The Soupy Sales Show at WNEW-TV in New York in 1965. Another was finding the pictures I took on that occasion nearly forty years later (that's one of them above). I've posted Soupy videos here and here on YouTube, and to the available Soupy on the 'net, I now add Soupy Sales on The Tom Snyder Radio Show (36m) - an old hour-long interview (minus commercials) in which Soupy reveals why, in that famous NSFW outtake, he was looking down when he opened the door.