Showing posts with label The 30s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The 30s. Show all posts

Sunday, August 21, 2016

PEOPLE THAT MADE RADIO GREAT




I'll admit that I'm a day late on this, but August 20 is National Radio Day. Since I'm in the radio industry, I felt I should acknowledge that day. I've been planing this post for awhile. I like to talk about what makes radio great. Sadly, it has gotten me into trouble in the radio industry and at my job.

I used to get into discussions on statewide radio industry message board. Once there was a discussion on some of the greatest radio personalities and radio stations ever. I posted my thoughts on the subject. A person, who hosted a show on the radio station I worked for (he paid to be on the air), got upset because I didn't mention him or the radio station. He complained to my boss about my opinions and how he was slighted. The good news is this person is no longer in radio. The bad news is you don't want to know what this person is doing now.

This is a list of some of my favorite things about radio. This will be chronological to keep down arguments. I'm also keeping this national rather than local. I would love to do a post about local radio's influences on my career, but it wouldn't be of interest to very many people outside of Missouri. I'm sure the person mentioned above will be upset that his favorites are not going to be mentioned.



JACK BENNY - Benny was probably radio's first major personality and his show was a pop culture phenomenon. The catchphrases were everywhere, especially in the Warner Brothers cartoons. Benny created a persona for his radio show that was different from his real life self. Benny was a humble, very generous man, who was also a very competent violinist, but on radio, Benny played a conceded, tightwad, who was a horrible violin player. His show also created a strange fictional world that could have only exist on radio. He kept his money in an underground vault with multiple chains, steal doors, loud alarms, lions, gorillas, dragons and, most famously, a guard who had been on duty forever. He didn't know what a car, radio or movie was. Also Jack had his sarcastic African-American valet Rochester drive him around in worn out Maxwell car. The sound of the car was provided by Mel Blanc (he recycled the same voice for the 70s cartoon character Speed Buggy).


FRAN STRIKER - He was writer working at WXYZ in Detroit. He created The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet.


In a 1970s poll, more people could recite the opening to The Lone Ranger than they could the Pledge of Allegiance.


ARCH OBOLER - Producer and creative mind behind the horror show Lights Out. Oboler used some graphic sound effects for people being electrocuted, monsters crushing their victims to death and chicken heart that grew to engulf a whole city.


ORSON WELLES - He made his first mark on radio as the voice of The Shadow and his playboy alter-ego, Lamont Cranston. He later created The Mercury Radio Theater of the Air, which produced a great version of Dracula. He produced and performed in a version of Heart of Darkness that Francis Ford Coppala says influenced Apocalypse Now. That would be enough, but his crowning achievement was his version of War of the Worlds, that mimicked radio news reports, blurred the line between drama and reality so well that it caused panic along the East Coast.


TODD STORZ - He watched a waitress use her tips to play the most popular hits on a juke box and thought "What if radio played only the top hits over and over?" He then created the Top 40 format at the exact birth of rock and roll in the mid 50s.



WOLFMAN JACK - Like Benny before him, Wolfman Jack created a persona. One of the longest lasting of the 50s era DJs with a werewolf howl, a raspy voice and hipster lingo. Really a quite guy named Bob Smith, who like to freak out radio station clients and young fans, by slipping into the Wolfman voice suddenly. George Lucas used this along with the real Wolfman Jack in American Graffiti. He then hosted the TV show The Midnight Special on NBC in the 70s.


GARY OWENS - A smooth talking, wise cracking DJ, who became famous outside radio and the announcer on TVs Laugh-In and the voice of cartoon superheroes Space Ghost and Blue Falcon.


BILL DRAKE - He took what Todd Storz created in the 50s and modernized it in the 60s. Consulting other radio stations on how to do it. He update the jingles from 40s sounding pop to a dynamic rock instrumental with vocals by the Johnny Mann Singers. He had radio stations remove the sales department from any decisions about programing, including getting rid of long form live ads. An tightened up the presentation to an art form. "AND THE HITS JUST KEEP A COMIN!"



THE REAL DON STEELE - Drake's big star at KHJ in Los Angeles. The epitome of loud, fast-talking radio DJs. Later appeared in the films Death Race 2000, Eating Raole, and Rock & Roll High School.


BIG DADDY TOM DONAHUE - The opposite of The Real Don Steele and Wolfman Jack, but belongs along side Storz and Drake. Began as a jazz DJ in San Fransisco, a general manager forced Drake to fire him because he couldn't talk fast enough. Donahue looked at the growing counter culture scene of San Fransisco Haight-Ashbury and created underground radio. Slower, quieter DJs playing long LP cuts. In the 70s, it morphed into AOR radio and influenced college/alternative radio of the 80s. His DJs included Sly Stone, Ben Fong -Torres and Howard Hessman from WKRP and Head of the Class.


BYRON MACGREGOR - Worked as a news director for the Drake consulted CKLW in Windsor, Ontario, a rimshot of Detroit, in the early 70s. Windsor had very little news, Detroit was coming unglued with so many murders that the morgue ran out of room. MacGregor's booming voice and envelope pushing "if-it-bleeds-it-leads" news writing became legendary. No truth to the rumor MacGregor lead a newscast with "A 5 year old boy was strained like spaghetti through the grill of a Buick today," but he did record a patriotic, spoken word record called "The Americans," that became popular again after 9-11-2001.


CASEY KASEM - Once referred to as "the man who taught America how to count backwards." The L.A DJ and cartoon voice over actor, created the syndicated radio show, The American Top 40 Countdown, where he played the hits, gave positive, uplifting stories about the artist, Billboard chart trivia, sappy, tearjerker dedications, and turned rock and roll into a kind of cross between sports coverage and a soap opera. He always closed with "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars."


DR. DEMENTO - A musicologist and music historian, who introduced audiences to some of the strangest novelty and comedy records ever made on his syndicated radio show of the 70s and 80s. He also is credited with playing homemade tapes by a listener named Weird Al Yankovic.   

And those are the people who not only made radio great, but inspired my career in radio.  

Sunday, July 24, 2016

TARZAN AND THE IMPOSTERS


One of the big movie releases this summer has been The Legend of Tarzan. Reviews are mixed but it is another addition to the long history of one of the most famous adventure, literature characters of all time. The first Tarzan story, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, was published in a magazine in 1912. The first comic adaptation was in 1929 in a newspaper strip drawn by Hal Foster. Reprints began appearing in a new form of reading material called comic books. Later, original stories and adaptations of Burroughs stories began appearing in comic book form in 1947. From 1939 to 1972, Tarzan comics were published by Western Publishing, first under the Dell imprint, then Gold Key Comics imprint. Starting in 1972, Tarzan was published by DC Comics. Then in 1978 to 1979, the character went to Marvel.

There were also many Tarzan imposters, that sprang up with the popularity of comic books. In the mid 30s, Marvel launched a character in their pulp magazines known as Ka-Zar of the Hidden Jungle. They brought the character back in the 60s. Here are some Tarzan covers as well as some imitation jungle men and women. Incidentally, the Tarzan comic strip still appears in newspapers, thought Universal Features.



Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Saturday, October 17, 2015

DESDINOVA'S HALLOWEEN PODCAST 2

Here it is! Halloween podcast number 2 with more creepy musical favorites including:
  • Til The Following Night- Lord Sutch
  • Voodoo Walk-  Cindy & Misty with Sonny Richard's Panics
  • Mr. Ghost Goes To Town - The 5 Jones Boys
  • Soul Dracula - Hot Blood
  • Frankenstein's Den - The Hollywood Flames
  • Season of the Witch - Donovan
  • Bark At The Moon - Ozzy Osbourne
  • The Munsters Theme - The Comateens



Friday, October 9, 2015

Van Beuren's Magic Mummy Cartoon

I've said on this blog before that the Van Beuren Studios made some of the worst cartoons ever. This is one of the few good ones.

I mentioned on an earlier post about Van Beuren's Milton Mouse that got them a lawsuit from Walt Disney. This is Van Beuren's ripoff of the popular Mutt & Jeff comic strip and cartoon characters named Tom & Jerry. These cartoons have been used in many budget compilations of cartoons because they are in public domain and they have the same name as the more popular cat & mouse team from MGM.

This has a Phantom of the Opera type character and dancing skeletons. The mummy is more of a Goth chick/zombie, who sings in a Betty Boop-like voice. Oh yeah, also Tom & Jerry are cops at a gay precient. There are two singing cops wearing eye shadow and lipstick. The other cops spend their time dancing with the jails inmates. Enjoy this bit of strangeness.
   


Saturday, October 3, 2015

FOUR MONSTERS DANCE

From a 1938 Warner Brothers cartoon called "Have You Any Castles?" In it books come to life. Here Mr. Hyde, Fu Manchu, the Phantom of the Opera and the Frankenstein monster do a silly dance.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Female Comic Strip Character Movie No. 10: ANNIE

This is the one I've been dreading. It is a musical with one of the sappiest songs ever written. It is based on a comic strip that had an extreme right-wing, bigoted slant and some of the worst artwork ever. Come on, I've been drawing people since I was five and I HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN HOW TO DRAW PUPILS IN EYES! Yes, this is Annie, based on Little Orphan Annie.


Little Orphan Annie was created by Harold Gray in 1924. In the original story, Annie is adopted by millionaire industrialist Oliver Warbucks and his wife from an orphanage run by cranky Miss Asthma. The wife, who was the daughter of a union plumber, hated Annie. When Daddy Warbucks would leave on business, Mrs. Warbucks would send Annie back to the orphanage, which was later ran by another cranky woman name Ma Liscious.


Annie would escape and get into an adventure with spies, gangsters, labor unions, Democrats and Hollywood studio executives. Luckily, Annie would be saved by Daddy Warbucks and his two bodyguards, the Indian mystic Punjab and the ninja-like Asp. At one point, Daddy Warbucks died because the American people re-elected FDR. Daddy Warbucks magically came back to life after FDR died (I am not making this up).


In 1977, a musical based on Annie began on Broadway and was a huge success. In 1982, Annie became a movie. The movie was directed by legendary director John Huston. It stared Aileen Quinn as Annie and Albert Finney as Daddy Warbucks. Quinn is great at saying "Leaping Lizards!" at the right time.

The musical removed the characters of Mrs. Warbucks, Punjab and the Asp. It also removed the right-wing propaganda and, ironically, made FDR a character. The movie brings back Punjab (Geoffrey Holder) and the Asp (Roger Minami), as well as adding Daddy Warbucks' gyro-copter from the comics, which he uses to take Annie to visit the White House. It is shown that there is a contentious relationship between Daddy Warbucks and President Roosevelt (Edward Hermann). It is at this point in the film that Annie sings the aforementioned sappiest song ever written, "Tomorrow," which FDR likes so much that he makes Daddy Warbucks and Elenore sing along.


In both the musical and movie, Miss Asthma/Ma Liscious are replaced by Miss Hannigan, an abusive, drunken floozy played by Carol Burnett. Certain things in television history have been comedy goldmines, such as Ernie Kovacs camera tricks, Benny Hill chasing women, David Letterman breaking stuff and Carol Burnett acting sexy. She does it here in a musical number with Albert Finney.

The first part of this movie is kind of sweet and corny, however the climax, where Annie is rescued by the Asp and Punjab, in the gyro-copter, from a railroad bridge is exciting.

I should mention there were two other movies from the comic strips heyday, but neither of those are available.


An entire generation of kids have grown up watching Annie, not knowing about its early beginnings in the comics. Hard to believe but Aileen Quinn is grown up too (photo above). The music has become part of our culture as "Hard Knock Life" was used by rapper Jay-Z and David Letterman used "Tomorrow" as background music for a film clip of an owl eating a mouse. The movie removed some of the darker eliminates and replaced it with a good dose of sunshine and hope. So watching it wasn't a bad thing after all.




 

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Female Comic Strip Character Movie No. 9: SHEENA QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE

Sheena riding a real zebra

Some movies earn a reputation as bad but some eventually develop a cult following because they are funny when they aren't supposed to be. Sheena Queen of the Jungle is just that kind of film.

Comic book Sheena

TV Sheena Irish McCalla

First, the background of the character. Sheena was created by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger, under the pen name W. Morgan Thomas, for a company called Fiction House. Sheena had already been adapted for TV in the mid-50s staring Irish McCalla, who looked exactly like the comic book Sheena. Same body proportions too, which is incredible considering that there couldn't possibly be a woman built like that in real life.




That is one of the problem with this adaption of Sheena. Tanya Roberts (Charlie's Angels, That 70s Show) is beautiful and sexy, but not an imposing figure like the comic book Sheena and Irish McCalla. You might say she is not scary enough to be Sheena.

The plot involves a coup of an African country by the king's wife and his football player brother, who are planing to wipe out a tribe protected by the king, take the land for a mineral that is a miracle cure. This just happens to be the tribe that raised Sheena. The tribe shaman (played by a lady name Elizabeth of Toro) teaches Sheena how to communicate with the animals by holding her forehead and closing her eyes. It looks cool when the shaman lady does this, but when Tanya Roberts does it, she looks like she's suffering from a migraine or bad PMS. This power was not in the Sheena comics or the Sheena TV series. I believe the writers stole this from Aquaman.

I should point out the origin story in the movie is much simpler than the one in the comics, however, explaining either origin story to you would be take way to much time. In the comics, Sheena had a civilized, male friend named Bob, who was a hunter/explorer. In the movie, she befriends a TV journalist named Vic Casey, played by Ted Wass (Soap, Blossom). Sheena calls him "Vicasey."

One of the highlights of this film is Sheena taking a shower under a waterfall. When this film was released, the late Roger Ebert joked would be the first PG movie that should play continuously on the Playboy Channel. Now, if you are waiting for me to complain about the nudity as with my review of Friday Foster, you will be waiting a while. For one thing, it fits with the character. In the origin, at the beginning of the film, we see that for about the first ten years of her life, Sheena didn't wear a shirt. Second, she is taking a shower. Even a woman who has grown up in the jungle knows you don't take a shower with your clothes on. Third, and the main reason I'm not complaining (other than seeing Tanya Roberts naked is awesome), is Sheena was occasionally naked in the comics too.

Sheena is wet and naked in the comics

Before someone launches in some stupid Facebook meme version of revisionist history and tells me "But Sheena was from the good old days, when people liked Shirley Temple instead of Honey Boo-Boo,"  let me break it to you gently. Sheena's comic books came about before what was known as the Comic Book Code of Authority. Among the things banned in the Comic Book Code was nudity. Yes Virginia, there was some nudity in comic books in those days. Not the major companies, but the company that Sheena was published by was so notorious that the Comic Book Code put them out of business. Half of things banned by the Comic Book Code were things that Fiction House, and the companies other imprints, were almost trademarks of that company. Nobody noticed Sheena's nudity, when the company's crime comics were filled with open-eyed corpses, big-breasted hookers, crooked cops, suicides and slashed throats.  

The problem with this movie is that it seems to be two different movies slammed together. It starts off great with the origin story, then they bring in the coup part that never makes sense, and then there is the romantic story of Sheena and Vic. Another problem is the action sequences featuring the mercenary soldiers range from extremely violent to looking like outtakes from The Gods Must Be Crazy.


The same could be said for the animals. Usually in movie, the chimpanzees upstage the human actors. The chimps in this movie act like they don't know what they are doing. There is a scene when probably looked good on paper but the animals didn't cooperate. When Sheena and Vic kiss in the "Land of Waterbirds," the birds were supposed to fly away. Only half of the did and the other half stand still like "Hey, let's watch this couple kiss." The waterbirds also look silly when Sheena has them attack a helicopter she is held hostage in. Instead of looking like a scene from The Birds, it looks a group of flamingos came and sat down in a helicopter.

Tanya Roberts riding a fake zebra

One of the things this film is most famous for is Sheena's pet zebra, which was a white horse with black stripes painted on it, because zebra's couldn't be trained to let a woman (even one as hot as Tanya Roberts) ride them. I remember this being in the news, because it was the first time I heard of animal rights activist.

She is wicked with that bow & arrow

The editing on this movie is not tight. The scenes go on longer than they should. The climactic scene with Sheena, Vic and the King's brother is one of the best moments of the film (photo above), but would be much better if it didn't take so long. The same goes for the waterbirds attacking the helicopter.

This movie also suffers from one of the most boring musical scores ever. It is certainly not made for a comic book inspired movie. More of a chick flick score.

While not a great adaptation of the comic book, it is fun in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 kind of way and, of course, Tanya Roberts is naked.  

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