THE BACKTRACK RADIO SPOTLIGHT

FEATURED ARTICLES

Duffy's Tavern *AIRS DAILY AT 4 & 11am

Source: Wikipedia

Sam Berman's caricature of Ed Gardner as the bartender Archie on Duffy's Tavern was published in NBC's 1947 book promoting the network's top stars.
Duffy's Tavern is an American radio situation comedy that ran for a decade on several networks (CBS, 1941–42; NBC-Blue Network, 1942–44; and NBC, 1944–51), concluding with the December 28, 1951, broadcast.

The program often featured celebrity guest stars but always hooked them around the misadventures of Archie, the tavern's manager, portrayed by Ed Gardner. Archie was prone to involvement in get-rich-quick schemes and romantic missteps, and constantly communicated with malaprops and mixed metaphors. Gardner had performed the character of Archie, talking about Duffy's Tavern, as early as November 9, 1939, when he appeared on NBC's Good News of 1940.

In the early 1940s, Gardner worked as a director, writer, and producer for radio programs. In 1941, he created a character for This Is New York, a program that he was producing. The character, which Gardner played, became Archie of Duffy's Tavern.

In the familiar opening, "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," performed either solo on an old-sounding piano or by a larger orchestra, is interrupted by the ring of a telephone and Gardner's New Yorkese accent as he answers, "Hello, Duffy's Tavern, where the elite meet to eat. Archie the manager speakin'. Duffy ain't here—oh, hello, Duffy."

Owner Duffy was never heard nor seen, either on the radio program or in the 1945 film adaptation or the short-lived 1954 TV series. Archie constantly bantered with Duffy's man-crazy daughter, Miss Duffy, played by several actresses, beginning with Gardner's real-life first wife, Shirley Booth, followed by Florence Halop and, later, by actress Hazel Shermet, and especially with Clifton Finnegan (Charlie Cantor, later Sid Raymond), a likeable soul with several screws loose and a knack for falling for every other salesman's scam. Eddie the Waiter was played by Eddie Green. The pianist Fats Pichon took over the role after Green's death in 1950.

Hoping to take advantage of the income-tax-free status of Puerto Rico, Gardner moved Duffy's Tavern there in 1949 Unfortunately, many guest personalities declined to make the journey to appear on the show and it eventually went off the air in 1951.

The series featured many high-profile guest stars, including Fred Allen, Mel Allen, Lucille Ball, Joan Bennett, Nigel Bruce, Billie Burke, Bing Crosby, Gracie Fields, Rex Harrison, Susan Hayward, Bob Hope, Lena Horne, Boris Karloff, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Peter Lorre, Tony Martin, Marie McDonald, Vincent Price, Gene Tierney, Arthur Treacher, and Shelley Winters. As the series progressed, Archie slipped in and out of a variety of quixotic, self-imploding plotlines—from writing an opera to faking a fortune to marry an heiress. Such situations mattered less than did the clever depiction of earthbound-but-dreaming New York life and its individualistic, often bizarre characters.

Early in the show's life, however, its name, Duffy's Tavern, was changed—first to Duffy's and then, for four episodes, to Duffy's Variety. An employee for Bristol-Myers—whose Ipana toothpaste was the show's early sponsor—persuaded the company's publicity director to demand the name change because the original title promoted "the hobby of drinking" too much for certain sensibilities. Bristol-Myers eventually admitted the employee had little to go on other than a handful of protesting letters, and—to the delight of fans who never stopped using the original name anyway—the original title was restored permanently. The name change was often subverted by the Armed Forces Radio Network. When the AFRN rebroadcast those episodes for U.S. servicemen during World War II, the announcer referred to Duffy's Tavern. 

Source: Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duffy%27s_Tavern

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Top 6 Reasons to Listen to Old Time Radio Shows

Written by Amy Dee Stephens for the Edmond Historical Society

Amy Stephens was a fan of Old Time Radio even during her high school years.

I’m an 80’s girl. I grew up in the era of big hair, leg warmers, and Whitney Houston. Unlike my teen peers, I had an unusual interest in the “oldies.” I thought it was fun to watch black-and-white movies and read old books. But listening to Old Time Radio shows became the habit that has stuck with me for life.

When I was in high school, the local oldies station, KOMA, ran a throw-back of 1940-1950’s radio shows in the wee hours of the morning. For Christmas I had gotten a fancy alarm clock with a cassette tape deck—and I could set it to record something from the radio. While most kids my age were recording Madonna and Bon Jovi, I was recording Old Time Radio Shows. As I was getting ready for school (spending an hour on my 80’s big hair), I would listen to these shows.

And I started learning a lot of history—about how people lived during the 1940s and during WWII.
 
I’ve been a fan ever since. Even still, when I go to the gym or take a walk in the neighborhood—I listen to a 30-minute episode. Depending on my mood, it might be a mystery, a comedy, a big band concert, or a Fireside Chat with President Roosevelt.
So, I want to share my personal Top 6 Reasons why anyone of any age can enjoy listening to Old Time Radio.

1. Good shows, Minus the Screen Time
I give credit to the radio show writers, because they were master storytellers. They used only words, voices, and sound effects. I can stroll through the neighborhood and enjoy scenery while listening to The Shadow–using my imagination and not looking down at my phone.

 
2. A Fun Way to Learn (or Re-live) History
As mentioned, I was the quirky teenager who preferred Bob Hope jokes to Seinfeld humor. I’ve now realized that I gained a solid understanding of the social and political issues going on during the early radio era–from the stock market crash to war rationing. These shows prepared me for my museum career. I’ve also had the pleasure of sharing lively conversations with the “senior citizen set” who actually remember listening to the radio as kids.

 
3. Kid-Friendly, Clean Content
Have children at home? Then you know how hard it is to find clean, appropriate television shows. Questionable content and cuss words have crept into today’s commercials, the news, and even cartoons. Radio shows are safe. A strict board of censors kept things squeaky clean. I do have disclaimers, however, because radios shows occasionally include items that are no longer considered acceptable, from fat jokes to wide-spread cigarette use. Even as a teenager, it was obvious to me that these were part of a different time in history—but realize that a rare teaching moment might present itself about how things have changed.

 
4. Easily Accessed by Phone or Computer
It’s as easy as YouTube. No more midnight recordings or cassette tapes for me! There are many online sites that offer original recordings that you can listen to, download, or buy on CD. One site has a phone app, which offers a different show each day—that’s what I listen to when I head to the gym or am doing housework.

 
5. No Commercial Interruptions
No commercial breaks every 3 minutes! Most radio shows were sponsored by one company, which received mention at the beginning, the end, and sometimes the middle. For example, during the Fibber McGee & Molly Show, the sponsor would “drop by” for a visit with McGees, but always managed to turn the conversation about a lost hammer or a cake recipe toward Johnson’s Wax. Sometimes it was sneaky, usually it was blatant, but it in either case, it propelled the storyline forward.

 
6. A LOT of Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby Music
Crosby and Sinatra both began as big band singers, but soon starred in their own radio shows. I was probably their only Generation X-er fan during the 1980’s when most people my age only knew them as Christmas singers. Then, “crooner” popularity resurged again in the 1990’s, and suddenly their music was heard in movies and restaurants everywhere. But I’m claiming it! I knew their music before that happened. Thanks to old radio, I’ve enjoyed a lifetime of their music, and often heard song versions that didn’t make the recording studio cut.

 
Have I convinced you that the golden-age of radio is the coolest? Give old radio a try next time your eyes need a screen break. Turn to the Radio Classics channel on your satellite station during your next road trip. Let your sick child lay in bed and listen to old radio (haha—yes, I’ve done that). If you’re looking for a great way to enjoy classic stories, hear your favorite Sinatra song in a new way, or learn a little history—listen to old radio shows.

Credit:
Written by Amy Dee Stephens for the Edmond Historical Society

https://www.edmondhistory.org/top-6-reasons-to-listen-to-old-time-radio-shows/

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THE PHIL HARRIS / ALICE FAYE SHOW  *AIRS EVERY DAY AT 4PM

The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, was a comedy radio program which ran on NBC from 1948 to 1954 starring Alice Faye and Phil Harris. Harris had previously become known to radio audiences as the band leader turned cast member of the same name on The Jack Benny Program while Faye had been a frequent guest on programs such as Rudy Vallée's variety shows. After becoming the breakout stars of the music and comedy variety program "The Fitch Bandwagon", the show was retooled into a full situation comedy, with Harris and Faye playing fictionalized versions of themselves as a working show business couple raising two daughters in a madcap home.

Since 1936 Harris had been a comedic mainstay and musical director for The Jack Benny Program; Faye had been a frequent guest on programs such as Rudy Vallée's. Their marriage provoked a 1941 episode of the Benny show.

In 1946, they were invited to co-host The Fitch Bandwagon, a musical variety and comedy show that had been a Sunday night fixture on NBC since 1938, featuring such orchestras as Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Grier, Harry James, Freddy Martin and Jan Savitt and Harry Sosnik. In The Big Broadcast 1920–1950 Frank Buxton and Bill Owen wrote: "Even though many people thought that The Fitch Bandwagon was lucky to be sandwiched in between Jack Benny at 7pm and Edgar Bergen at 8pm on NBC, the show pioneered Sunday evening entertainment programming, because prior to its appearance most broadcasters felt that Sunday programming should be of a more religious or serious nature."

The growing popularity of the Harris-Faye family sketches turned the program into their own comic vehicle by 1947. When announcer Bill Foreman hailed, "Good health to all... from Rexall!" on October 3, 1948, The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show launched its independent life under Rexall's sponsorship with a debut storyline about the fictitious day the couple signed their sponsorship deal.

The show was a quick success, making the most of its position in the powerhouse NBC Sunday lineup. Playing themselves as radio and music star parents of two precocious young daughters (played by actresses Jeanine Roose and Ann Whitfield, instead of the Harrises' own young daughters), Harris refined his character from the booze-and-broads, hipster jive talker he had been on the Benny show into a vain buffoon but loyal husband who usually needed rescuing by Faye, his occasionally tart but always loving wife. References to his hair and vanity became a running gag.

Harris often passed wisecracks about buddy Frank Remley's taste for the spirits, a continuation of Harris' former Benny character. The show's writers, Ray Singer and Dick Chevillat, also used Faye's experience making the ill-fated film Fallen Angel as a source of meta-gags, writing her as a rich, in-demand starlet. In what is seen by historians as an ironic jab at her former studio, announcer Bill Foreman closed each program with "Alice Faye appears through the courtesy of 20th Century Fox." In truth, Faye's contract had been torn up when she walked out rather than abide Darryl Zanuck cutting her scenes in favor of Linda Darnell.

Harris's radio character was also scripted as an occasional language and context mangler, six parts Gracie Allen and half a dozen parts Yogi Berra.The sardonic humor and debaucherous nightlife references that laced the show went beyond the gentility of another show which featured a bandleader and his singing wife, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

Source: Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phil_Harris-Alice_Faye_Show