There was nothing like the radio

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Apr 23, 2004 by Capital-Journal

The other day, while visiting at a local nursing home, I fell into conversation with one of the residents who was an old-time radio buff.

He came to sit near me just outside the entrance to the facility and, I suppose noticing my age, opened our conversation by asking if I remembered listening to "The Lone Ranger" on the radio years ago. In response, I immediately launched into vocalizing my version of "The William Tell Overture," the theme music that introduced the program --- an association readily made by anyone of about my age, and by some a good deal younger.

My new acquaintance laughed and went on to say that he had a collection of cassette tapes of old radio shows and enjoyed listening to them. Then, he recalled how his mother faithfully listened to "Oxydol's Old May Perkins," a day-time soap opera, and named other programs he listened to as a boy.

I told him that I remembered the things he did and then added that I could recall listening to "Captain Midnight" and imitated the "bong, bong" of the clock that introduced the show. I asked if he had ever listened to "The Air Adventures of Jimmy Allen" and made the sound of Jimmy Allen's airplane motor and mimicked the excited voice of the announcer who introduced the show.

I told him about the Orphan Annie program and her secret code. When he still had no recollection of having heard these programs, I realized that, although he was in a nursing home, my boyhood years were further in the past than his.

He expressed interest in Orphan Annie's secret code, and I told him that a listener had to have the secret code in order to decode an important message Annie gave at the close of the program each weekday. To acquire the code, a listener needed to send in a dime and a label from the top of a jar of Ovaltine, Annie's sponsor. I told how I had prevailed upon my mother to buy a jar of Ovaltine, which was to be mixed into milk to make the dairy product even more healthful, and took a dime from my paper route collections and sent them to Orphan Annie. The sad thing is I discovered I didn't like the taste of Ovaltine and for some reason or another, I never received the secret code. Consequently, I was forever in the dark as to just what the important secret messages were.

I told him that after school in my grade school days, I used to listen to these programs along with "Jack Armstrong, The All American Boy," sponsored by a new cereal, Wheaties, "The Breakfast of Champions." Although we didn't have exactly the same memories, we had many in common and he said, "There was nothing like radio back then."

We went on to add to our recollections of the great days of radio - -- Eddie Cantor and The Texaco Star Theater with the sound of a siren wailing away to introduce it, Fred Allen and Allen's Alley, Jack Benny and Rochester, Fibber McGhee and Mollie, and Red Skelton. These and other comedians were very popular, but programs like Lux Radio Theater, Dr. I.Q., and live entertainers from local stations were, too.

In addition, there were the broadcasts of special events like the Joe Louis fights, the World Series and the coronation of the king of England. I recalled listening to reports from Antarctica when Admiral Richard E. Byrd went down there. Nearly everyone listened, then the next day talked about all that they had heard.

My nursing home friend and I agreed that Red Skelton was handicapped somewhat on the radio because he couldn't do his entertaining pantomimes on the radio as he did later on TV. Except for the live events broadcast from the real world, much of radio in the days we were recalling required a vivid imagination prompted by a variety of sound effects, such as the motor of Jack Benny's Maxwell car and Fibber McGhee's closet with everything falling out of it when he opened it.

Back home, reflecting on my nursing home visit, and thinking about Red Skelton not being able to pantomime on the radio, I recalled a piece I had clipped from "The American Scholar" (August 1981) more than 20 years ago. With my system of filing these kinds of things, it's amazing that I could locate it, but I did, and read: "Many of the silent movie stars, who came out of vaudeville, juggled. Charlie Chaplin did and so did Buster Keaton. I recall a hilarious Buster Keaton movie in which Buster is a contestant on a radio amateur hour and whose talent turns out to be juggling. Juggling, mind you, over the radio. In the movie Keaton, deadpan as always, is blithely tossing balls in the air while in their homes the members of the listening audience are banging away on the sides of their Philco consoles, certain that the silence is attributable to a loose tube. A splendid bit."

The article points out one limitation to radio. Even the most imaginative listener would have difficulty knowing what was going on during a juggling act. But it's easy for me to imagine the listeners banging on their Philcos, thinking a tube had gone out --- something that couldn't happen today when radio tubes themselves have all gone out of use, giving way to transistors and other electronic technology.