[Click the Link at the bottom of this article to listen to a Billie the Brownie program from the 1040's.]
"IT'S BILLIE THE BROWNIE FROM SCHUSTERS!"
It's time to replay this narrative about a special time in a special city -- long, long ago........
What could be more exciting for a young boy in the early 1940's living in Milwaukee? So naive, so easy to have his imagination tweaked, so ready for the unknown and adventure. Yes, even Billy the Brownie could do it for this boy.
Oh, how I used to anxiously await 5:00 pm so I could turn our radio dial from WGN and "Terry and the Pirates" to 640 and WTMJ. Billy the Brownie from Schusters was the marketing tool of one of the four main department stores in Milwaukee. There was Schusters, Gimbles, The Boston Store, and Chapmans (East of the river for the upper crust).
The program was a marketing tool for Schusters to get families in the store to "see Santa" and shop while they were there. The program was 15:00 each weekday and aired at 5:00 pm for 24 years (1931 to 1955), always from Thanksgiving night to Christmas day.
The characters were, of course, Santa Claus, Billie the Brownie, Me-tik the Eskimo, Willie Wagtail (Billie's Dog), Fairy Queen, Bongo (Santa's Dog) and often Mrs. Clause via telephone hookup from the North Pole where she would give a full report on cookie baking and toy manufacturing complete with sound effects. The creator and writer was Larry Teich, and the sponsor was Schuster's Department Store -- a long time before Federated.
Billie the Brownie had a fine "elf" voice. Mi-tek had a more base voice and limited vocabulary with grunts -- after all, he was a genuine Eskimo who was in charge of the reindeer. Willie Wagtail was Billie’s' dog, Bongo was Santa's dog, and "Fairy Queen" would show up ever so often as the adventure story merited.
The first Billie the Brownie was Esther Werner, nee Schmidt of West Bend who died in Menominee Falls the summer of 2001. The last voice of Billie was Carol Cotter. This memorable, local children's program aired on WTMJ from 1931 until 1955. Santa would come on at the close reading letters from children. During the broadcasts we would be fed a strong diet of adventure, problem solving, mystery, Santa stuff and what was on special at Schusters. Sometimes there would be a remote call from the North Pole, and we'd get a report from Mrs. Santa and some of the production elves.
The photo at the top of the page is the result of "Billie the Brownie" program. I'm not going to say who is on Santa's lap since I think you can guess. Isn't it interesting how easily customers were pleased? Look at that garish photo customer number in the middle of the picture. Can you believe that horrendous interruption of photographic composition was accepted by the parents? This was not the year I asked for a Red Ryder air rifle. Notice the long hair on that kid! I had 48 wiener curls until I was six-years-old. I don't know...you ask my mother. Maybe it had something to do with Dad's advertising contract with Morton Salt.
I distinctly remember riding home in our 1937 Buick with side mounts and jump seats after seeing Santa and having this picture taken. I stood up and asked mom and dad why Santa Clause had a staple in his beard near his mouth! As usual, no definitive answer. I though it was dumb. I also remember telling them that he smelled like beer.
My most memorable winter evening was when Mrs. Haack asked me to shovel her sidewalk and driveway. The Haacks lived a block east on Cedar Street and were the last house next to Jacobus Park. Mr. Haack was Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange and would come back to Wauwatosa on the weekend. Later he would become CEO of Lockheed Aircraft.
Anyway, after school that day I rushed down to the Haacks and started shoveling. I wanted to be home before 5:00 so I wouldn't miss Billie the Brownie. Don't know how or why I was able to finish in an hour and a half but I did. At 4:40 it started getting dark so I worked all the faster.
When Mrs. Haack paid me I looked down and saw a five-dollar bill in my hand! I was stunned and couldn't believe what she had given me. This was in 1946! FIVE DOLLARS? I thanked her but I don't think I did a very good job beause of my excitement. I ran home as fast as I could. Made it just in time for "It's Billie the Brownie from Schusters!" Taking off my snow suit and galoshes I ran into the living room and listened to Billie and Mi-tek while holding the treasure I had just been given; staring at it in disbelief. I was rich. Mrs. Haack would never know how happy she made this 12-year-old boy or what an incredible memory she gave him that night which is just as vivid 61 years later -- as it was the cold snowy night it happened.
Last month, I sent Ray Py, a Wauwatosa classmate, some material I had gathered about the "Billie the Brownie" program. He is using it for some Christmas presentations he's doing this year. I think you will thoroughly enjoy and be blessed by the report he sent me this morning. Ray is an actor and a retired UPI reporter who worked the International Desk in Washington D.C." Norman--I thought you might like to know this: Yesterday I had an opportunity to read various selections to the elderly veterans at the VA hospital here and used the Billie the Brownie tape from a radio broadcast of 1940. One veteran who was heavily medicated and deep within himself, head down, wheel chaired, suddenly picked up his head and loudly uttered "Schusters" when the tape mentioned the store name.
Another, similarly into herself, a woman named Viola, at the back of my listening circle who seldom talked, was mouthing "The Night Before Christmas" when Larry Teich began reading that poem on the tape. I don't know if that was a breakthrough for these patients or not because I don't see them that often.
But the VA recreation coordinator who was in the group was more than mildly surprised at the reactions of both of those people.
I also did one hell'uva Franklin Roosevelt in reading his Declaration of War speech before Congress on Dec. 8. 1941 The healthier among the group wanted to go to war again. -Ray Py
.
In researching my beautiful memory about "Billie The Brownie," I found an incredible short story written by Phil Pluta, who lived "by Schusters plus two blocks." I don't know who Phil is but he perfectly described "how it was" and it's great fun to read. Don't miss his Milwaukee Dutch phrase in his title -- "BY SCHUSTERS..." Dutchers used "by" in place of to, near, over, at, and words like that. "I'm goin' down by Schusters" would be a normal way to tell someone where you were going. My favorite Milwaukee Dutch phrase is, "Ya, noo, over by tirdy-tird street where the streetcar turns the corner around." Next favorite is "Throw me down the stairs da broom so I can vacuum da floor. Getting back to the excellent story about Milwaukee, Schusters was the touchstone of direction and you used it's location as the center of your map and added from that point. Phil Pluta's great memory about Schusters is the next aritcle. Be sure to read it -- and listen to the Billy the Brownie program from 1940.
In researching the beautiful and exciting memory of "Billie the Brownie from Schusters," I found an incredible short story written by Phil Pluta, who lived "by Schusters plus two blocks." I don't know who Phil is but he perfectly described "how it was" and it's great fun to read.
In Old Milwaukee, Schusters was the touchstone of direction. You'd use it's location as the center of your map and add instructions from that point. The street photo will be sentimental to any old timer resident of Milwaukee. But all of you can be whisked away to 12th and Vliet some 60 years ago by reading Phil Pluta's wonderful writing.
To the adults Schusters was just a department store. There were three of them in Milwaukee when I was growing up in the forties. My very own was between 12th and 13th on Vliet Street just a half block from where I lived.
Schusters was the big guy on the block. It towered over the busy Vliet street shopping strip that stretched from Samson's, Walgreens and The First Wisconsin National Bank on 12th Street to Fareway Meat Market, the A&P, Omar and Father and Son's shoe store on 14th Street. It was part of the neighborhood that embraced the Colonial Theater on 15th Street where lines of kids spilled over from the entrance on Vliet every Sunday afternoon each clutching his twelve cent admission that would treat him to a double feature, news reel, and cartoon not to mention the coming attractions and the nickel popcorn.
I could see the Schusters main parking lot from my front porch. At one time it was the only parking lot until after the war when they tore down an old brewery on 13th street and made room for more cars. From my porch I could hear the all seeing and all wise parking attendant high up in his tower calling out the make and model of each car that entered and guiding them to a parking spot. I sometimes would hang around outside the cyclone fence that separated the parking lot from the rest of the neighborhood, fascinated with the man in the tower with his ability to know at a glance that the car entering was a 39 Buick that he advised to take isle three the third isle. Then he would guide a new 47 Studebaker to isle five--the fifth isle. At those moments I would wonder if I would ever be smart enough to learn to identify all of those cars and be able to sit up in that high tower surveying and guiding the people below.
Schusters was a landmark; a point of reference. Other places in the neighborhood were " by Schusters and yet two blocks." It was where Santa Claus kept his Reindeer after the Christmas Parade. It was were Santa, Billy the Brownie and Willie Wagtail hung their hat until Christmas and where Santa sat on a red and white throne flanked by helpers who handed out gifts after you had a chat with their boss. I always approached those helpers with a jaundiced eye, suspicious that they might be the very Brownies assigned to peek into our windows and catch me being naughty and then reporting my behavior to the Big Guy. Whenever the magic story book did not open on the Billy the Brownie Show I knew it was because I was not completely honest when I faced the radio and said "I have been a good boy today."
Schusters was also a fantasy land and a playground for the neighborhood kids. It wasn't that we didn't have any thing else to do, or that there were not playground facilities and recreational equipment in our neighborhood. One block away from my house Siefert School, my grade school, covered one square city block and had not one, but two playgrounds. The larger playground was called the "boys' play ground , probably because it had three soft ball diamonds and in the fall was converted into a touch football field. In addition there was a fenced off basket ball court ,which served as a supervised snowball fight arena in the winter, a horse shoe court, monkey bars, parallel bars, a shack full of equipment and a row of swings where you stood in line and counted to 100 to earn your turn..
The girl's playground had a sand box and a wading pool with a shower pole in the middle, that was a haven on sultry summer afternoons.
Both playgrounds were covered with asphalt (except for the horseshoe court) , and in the winter time the larger playground was flooded for ice skating. The whole area was flooded with light in the winter allowing the skaters to enjoy themselves until closing time, and on summer evenings the lights shined down on the organized tavern league underhand fast pitch softball games that drew the whole neighborhood.
Besides this summer and winter activities out on the playground, Siefert had a top notch Social Center Program during the school year. We did everything from after school shirts and skins basket ball games, to working on an ad hoc newspaper that my friends and I put together and Tony, who we called the coach, ran off on a mimeograph machine. So we were not without things to do. If we needed a more exciting adventure we walked straight up Cherry Street to Washington Park. We would leave early in the morning with a packed lunch and either play hardball, explore the zoo, catch carp in the lagoon or rent a boat and row out to one of the islands pretending to be shipwrecked.
Then there was Schusters! There was of course the obvious attraction at Christmas time. Right after Thanksgiving Vliet Street would suddenly be transformed with Christmas decorations, and the Schusters windows would be bright with winter and Christmas displays. On Sunday morning as I waited with my mother on the corner of 14th and Vliet (on dry asphalt that magically melted the falling snow) for the street car that would take us to church, I would stare with fascination at the mannequins fantasizing that they might come to life at night when no one was watching.
During the week or on Saturday's (in those days no store would dream of being opened on Sunday), we explored the wonderland of the toy department the main feature of which was a huge model railroad layout with cities and tunnels and bridges. Every accessory you could buy for your Lionel or American Flyer train set, was set up in working order. At specially planned times someone would come and run the trains. We would watch them for what seemed like hours. By the time Christmas was over we knew ever inch of that toy department. We knew we couldn't own all the toys we wanted, but being able to touch them and look at them seemed to help fulfill our fantasy.
It was not, however, just the Christmas magic that made Schusters our playground. There were the frozen malts!. For ten cents you could buy this cone full of frozen malt that swirled out of the machine like custard at a Carvell stand, but tasted nothing like custard. Unfortunately ten cents was a lot of money for a ten year old, so we did not get that particular treat as often as we would have liked. Candy, on the other hand, could be free to an observant and enterprising buccaneer.
No, the Schusters employees didn't exactly hand out free candy because they thought we were such cute little fellows. Although that worked like a charm when I would walk my two kid sisters up the alley from our house to the back end of the Hires Root Beer bottle House and hang around the open overhead door until someone noticed those two cute curly tops and gave us all a free bottle of rootbeer At Schusters, however, careful reconnaissance uncovered the reality that when the clerk behind the counter would dig into the candy tray with her metal scoop and pour the contents into a bag for a customer, some pieces of the wrapped candy would fall over the sides of the bag and roll under the counter.
We unanimously agreed that the candy under the counter was fair game, like sunken treasure, waiting for a salvage crew. We would wait for a moment when we would not be conspicuous and then drop to the floor with outstretched hands to scoop our treasure from beneath the counter to be stuffed into the hold of our pirate ship trousers
With the candy secure in our pockets we made our way past the new 10 inch television sets with the big magnifying glass in front of them. Our destination was the record department. We examined the selection of 78 rpm records until we found some that we thought we would like or we would take a whole album of one artist. (An Album was just that--an album with six pockets for six separate single disks.) We headed for one of the listening booths, closed the door, unwrapped our candy and enjoyed our concert until one of the clerks realized what we were up to and shoed us on our way.
As we got older, though, our relationship with Schusters began to change. When school let out a 3:30 the swarm of kids descending on the store became an irritant to the customers and thus a community problem. Schusters and the rest of the retail community turned to Siefert School to work out a solution. At this time our school under the direction of its Principal Mr. Peck, was experimenting with an active student government. We had elections for Mayor, council members, court officers including a judge, clerk of court, district attorney and jurors. On one occasion we put on a skit of a mock trial over WTMJ-TV--channel 3. Since our parents did not own television sets, Schusters played host to them in their television department.
The store cooperated with our school's innovative approach to teaching civic responsibility. Arrangements were made to have cadets posted at the doors for a half hour after school to turn back students that only wanted to roam the store. Only an official note from ones' parents certifying a legitimate shopping trip would get you in. A metamorphosis took place. We were no longer crawling on the floor like pirate caterpillars snatching treasured goodies. Like a proud Monarch fresh from his cocoon, we preened ourselves at our post, our yellow cadet badge announcing to the passing adults that we were worthy of respect.
The Schusters management gave us that respect. When our tour of duty was completed the store management arranged a banquet for us and our parents. The manager told us all that when we were old enough, and we needed employment Schusters would be proud to hire us. I never knew if anyone ever took the store up on that offer. Within a few years of graduating from sixth grade most of us had moved out of the old neighborhood as our parents became part of the coming suburban sprawl. It was the offer that counted though. It was a family thing and it made the prospect of growing up just a little less scary.
We needed that support. Though we didn't know it, rapid change was going to sweep over the remainder of our lives. The street cars would soon disappear, and the tracks that carried Santa Claus to his Christmas throne at Schusters would soon be ripped up. The wise voice in the parking lot tower went silent and neighborhood kids could no longer linger at the cyclone fence talking to Reindeer nestled in the warm hay.
Some of us would try not to let go. My parents moved to the far north side of town, but we still had the Fareway Market deliver our meat to us. For a while my parents made trips to the old neighborhood and bought our dress up cloths at Schneiderman's as they always had.
Eventually though new ways of living seduced us to the glitter of the new shopping centers, and supermarkets made shopping so much easier if less personal. One after another familiar friend closed shop. Of course the changes that came made us materially better off. I would not have wanted to raise four children in a one bedroom cold water flat as my parents did until they bought a home in 1949. Yet as my own life moved towards greater material prosperity Schusters, my old friend, was swallowed up by a bigger fish in the corporate pond, and my store, which once offered jobs to the neighborhood youth became the main headquarters for the County Welfare System.
Maybe in every mans life there is that "one brief shinning moment" that Camelot celebrated by Alan Jay Lerner's musical. It isn't a place or a time though. There was nothing mystically special about Schusters on 12th and Vliet or the "yet two blocks" and more that was its community. The people that lived there then were no better or no worse examples of the human race than those that live there now. What was different and what is implanted in my memory, is the feeling of community and the spirit of genuine neighborly concern that flowed from our homes our schools, and even the businesses that we patronized. The relationship of Schusters with its community, especially the young people, stand out in my memory as a symbol of the spirit that permeated the community in which I grew up.
I have carried that spirit with me and have been better for it.
WE OFFER YOU SOME WONDERFUL OLD TIME RADIO CHRISTMAS PROGRAMS
Great Gildersleeve, Red Skelton and Philco Music Hall were just posted Friday, Dec. 21.
The Skelton has audio problems at first but levels out. These are from the early and mid 1940's when Christmas was a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ and not the Winter Carnival it has become as a result of the secular humanists and our change to a pluralistic society.
HERE ARE TWO HOLIDAY CARDS THAT ASK FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION
Neighbor, Henrietta Hastie and Mary Plunkett sent me these well done holiday greeting. Click the links below and follow the instructions. The cards were painted and constructed by artist, Jacquie Lawson. You will go to her site when you link.
Are You Prepared For the Celebration of the Incarnation?
Some radio celebrities are reacting to the secularization of Christmas -- the attempt to remove "Christ" from the reason for the celebration. Some of this is out of respect for those of other faiths. Two years ago, White House Christmas card began using a "Holiday" greeting. That type of social response from any of us for this reason is certaianly in order and does show respect.
But there is another cultrual force at work to just plain remove Christ from Christmas. That's been going on since I was a kid but is so much more pervasive 50-60 years later.
To show the difference in our culture, I'll be airing some vintage Old Time Radio programs. All of them refer to the birth of Jesus Christ, God's Son and even Amos of the 'Amos and Andy' program reads the Lord's prayer and explains it as their Christmas program -- sponsored by Campbell Soup! Can you believe that? Can you believe this? The Amos and Andy program was so popular that when it came on at it's regular evening time, theaters stopped the movie and played the fifteen minute program over the loudspeaker at request of the theater goers.
This month is a joyous and solemn time in the Christian calendar. The reason for the season is not the Norse or pagen celebration of the winter soltace,though the early church piggybacked on that tradition of its people.
Christmas, or Christ Mass, is the observance and celebration of the Incarnation -- the time when God left where he was and came to earth to become part of the human race in the person of Jesus Christ -- very tough for some people to accept. Creator God entered into the life of a virgin born, human baby.
It’s a time when we MUST do more than Christmas shopping to get us spiritually ready for Christmas. It's apparent that one of the several varieties and colors of Christmas Cacti I enjoy growing is far more ready for Christmas than most of us are.
Sunday was the third week of the Advent calendar that focuses on the JOY of Christ's coming and the realiztion that he came for everyone. We observed it at Chamblee First Methodist My brother Robert is leading his small Baptist congregation in the Eastern desert of Washington in this observance of Advent and has been lighting the candles each Sunday just as he and his wife Sharon have done at the Pine Street Baptist Chursh for over 30 years and he has done alone for the past seven years.
Having been raised in a non-liturgical church and then serving Southern Baptist Churches as a staff member for thirty-five years before starting my small broadcast agency, Peachtree Media, I didn’t pay much attention to formality and beautiful and meaningful traditions of the church like “Advent.” This is my personal loss.
My first wife, Nancy Ann, came from a Lutheran background and had a good education in these observances and practices. The year before she ejected her body suit for the place she lived for and longed for near the end, helped make an Advent Wreath at our neighborhood Lutheran church, Cross and Crown. I clearly remember that after the service, they had a wonderful time of fellowship with delicious homemade soup and bread. A tinge of “Milwaukee German” tradition there, would you say?
Just a few days left -- but still time to "get ready!"
The Holiday Tune "I'll Be Home for Christmas" Brings Home Royalties to St. Lawrence University
I'LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
CANTON, N.Y., Nov. 25 (AScribe Newswire) -- Every time you hear the song "I'll Be Home For Christmas" - one of the most beloved holiday songs of all time - St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, benefits, through an unusual gift made to the school by one of the song's composers.
The song's lyricist, J. Kimball "Kim" Gannon (1900-1974), graduated from the University in 1924 and through his estate, the University receives royalties from the song, as well as his many other compositions in the sum of about $20,000 annually, the equivalent of an average St. Lawrence student scholarship.
Gannon wrote a number of popular songs during the swing era; he also wrote St. Lawrence's alma mater while a student. He received royalties during his lifetime through the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). In his estate plan, he arranged for his wife, Norma Allen Gannon (St. Lawrence Class of 1925), to continue receiving the royalties, and, following her death, for St. Lawrence to receive 30 percent of them; Mrs. Gannon died in 2000. The University now receives a monthly check (and will, for the next 40 or so years) representing the royalties, paid each time one of Gannon's songs is performed or used in a movie or television program, or even when one is played on an airplane's sound system.
ASCAP annually compiles a list of the 25 all-time most-performed holiday songs based on its most recent performance data. Last year, "I'll Be Home For Christmas" was Number Nine on the list.
The Library of Congress' "Patriotic Melodies" Web site states that the song was first recorded on October 4, 1943, by Bing Crosby with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra for Decca Records. "Within about a month of its being copyrighted the song hit the music charts and remained there for 11 weeks, peaking at Number Three. The following year, the song reached Number 19 on the charts. It touched a tender place in the hearts of Americans, both soldiers and civilians, who were then in the depths of World War II, and it earned Crosby his fifth gold record. [It] became the most requested song at Christmas U.S.O. shows in both Europe and the Pacific and Yank, the G.I. magazine, said Crosby accomplished more for military morale than anyone else of that era."
According to the Reader's Digest Merry Christmas Songbook (1981), "In 1943 the world was at war, and many thousands of American men and women in the service would be spending Christmas far from home. As a special gift to them and their families came this lovely, tender ballad, recorded by Bing Crosby. Just a year earlier, Bing had had a best seller with Irving Berlin's 'White Christmas,' and his recording of this new song also passed the million-record mark in sales. On December 17, 1965, the Crosby recording became the first 'request' that was broadcast into outer space. As astronauts James Lovell and Frank Borman were hurtling back to earth aboard Gemini 7 after their record 206 orbits, a NASA transmitter asked if there was any music they would especially like to hear. Their immediate reply? Bing's 'I'll Be Home For Christmas.'"
Following in Crosby's formidable footsteps, nearly 250 artists and groups have recorded "I'll Be Home For Christmas," in just about every conceivable style and genre of music - Frank Sinatra, the Beach Boys, Jimmy Buffett, Rosemary Clooney, B.B. King, Gloria Estefan, Reba McEntire, the "Three Tenors" (Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti), Johnny Mathis, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Oscar Peterson, Elvis Presley and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra among them.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH GOD -- ON THIS LAST SUNDAY BEFORE ADVENT?
COME CLOSE AND SEE!
Take your bible and turn to the following Scripture -- John 5:41
Prayerfully read the verses two times, and then read the Advent Devotional that follows written by Dr. Thomas Q. Robbins, former Pastor of the University Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas. Then spend a few moments in prayer using the suggestions Thomas Q. offers. Be sure to wait a few moments in silence to let your Creator God speak to you.
Think About It – John 5:41
This passage along with John 12:43 (look that up too) speaks of the impossibility of saving faith if we value the opinion of other people more than we value our Heavenly Father’s opinion of us. Our relationship with God must be valued over every other relationship we enjoy, even that within the family. In the passage, Jesus is condemning the idolatry of seeking popularity for ourselves over the relationship of Grace that we enjoy with God. Selfish ambition, love of power or position – or prestige or acclaim - all of these squelch genuine faith, which is humble gratitude to God in and through Jesus Christ. If your chief love and desire is glory from other people instead of the glory of God, now is the time to change that direction in your life. But you can’t do it – you don’t have the strength or the power to do it. Give up, surrender to your Creator and acknowledge that He alone can do it when you allow Him.
Prayer:
What is it that I really want in Life? O Lord, that’s a question I have to face right now if I’m going to be an authentic person. Lord, help me to be honest in seeking my answer. Help me to evaluate my life and priorities and see your perspective about what is and is not important. Most of all, Father, I want to know you personally and be assured of your forgiveness. Accept me as I am and hear my acknowledgement that I need you because “I” am not enough. I need you. I want to experience your Grace to us in Jesus Christ. I now realize that only in Him will I be entirely content in You!
Dr. Thomas Q. Robbins, Senior Pastor
University Park Methodist, Dallas, Texas.
Jim and Marion Jordan in costume as Molly and Fibber
An old Fibber McGee and Molly table game
Jim and Marion Jordan at their peak
Water Commissioner, Gildersleve was a spin-off program - Willis Waterman
Water Commissioner, Gildersleve was a spin-off program - Willis Waterman
Fibber McGee and Molly Radio Program aired April 1935 – September 1959 on Blue Network and NBC.
We have a nice Fibber McGee and Molly Christmas program from 1942 for you in the middle of a over-baking summer to help cool you off. Click the link at the end of this article to start the program right now, then you can read the rest of Norm's Ramblins while you listen... or finishing those emails you intended to get out yesterday.
Fibber McGee and Molly, one of the most popular radio programs of all time, first premiered in 1935, but its origins can be traced farther back into the lives of the show’s two lead actors. The program was the creation of the husband and wife comedy team of Jim and Marian Jordan. The singing and comedy duo hailed from Peoria, Illinois, where the two grew up, met, and married in 1918.
From an early age both had dreams of a life in entertainment, but before becoming one of America’s best known celebrity couples the two would spend decades paying their “showbiz dues” -with seven years fruitless effort traveling the vaudeville circuit and another ten singing and acting in numerous small-time radio shows in the Chicago area.
It was in Chicago in 1929 that the pair became friends with a Don Quinn, who began writing an occasional joke or humor sketch for the Jordans to use in their act on The Farmer Rusk Hour. The material that Quinn wrote was superior to anything the “Farmer Rusk” writers were producing, and thus began a partnership between the three that would carry them to fame and fortune on Fibber McGee and Molly.
In the early 1930’s the trio from Farmer Rusk to a comedy show of their own creation called Smackout, named after a well stocked country store which somehow was “smack out” of anything you wished to buy. It was on this program that many character ideas were created which would be continued on Fibber McGee and Molly. At the time, the Jordans also remained active on many other radio shows including various musical dramas, quiz shows, variety shows, other comedies, and children’s programs.
When Fibber McGee and Molly began in 1935 under sponsorship of Johnson Wax, the program was a simple continuation of the vaudeville style format that the duo had practiced for years. The pair were cast as traveling vagabonds who stopped in to towns along “route 42” for gas and conversation. Fibber was the happily inept braggart whose vivid imagination leads him to telling the most outlandish stories about himself. Molly was cast as his constant companion and severest critic, whose shrill “McGee!” would bring him back to earth in an instant.
In the next several months Quinn’s scriptwriting began to really excel, which was reflected in turn by the Jordans’ seamless performances and impeccable comedic timing. The show’s character also began taking on more of a connected storyline rather than a series of distended vaudeville skits.
The McGees moved into a home in the town of “Wistful Vista” where the show now revolved around Fibber bungling his chores around the house, or his various occupations at the public library, post office, and antique store. Molly became more of a sympathetic, tolerant, easy-going character and audiences responded immediately to the changes. In 1940 it became the top show in the nation and throughout the 1940’s remained a tight contender for the honor with Bob Hope, Jack Benny, and Edgar Bergen.
Throughout the run of the show a whole series of guest characters came and went. Among these included Fibber’s feuding neighbor Gildersleeves, who went on to be the star character in the spin-off The Great Gildersleeves. It was Gildersleeves who had the patent line “You’re a haaaa-hard man, McGee!” Other famous lines from the show came from Fibber’s wife Molly including “T’aint funny McGee!” and “Heavenly Days!” Also on the show was the ever-timid Wallace Whimple, who was terrified of his wife, the ferocious, often discussed, but never present “Sweetie Face.” Fibber gave Wallace the nickname “wimp” –and thus coined the meaning for the word to this day.
Perhaps the most well remembered “character” from the show was Fibber McGee’s cluttered closet. Whenever Fibber, or someone else, made the mistake of opening the closed door, a tremendous mountain of junk would come crashing down. The closet was the work of sound effects engineers who would assemble the assorted closet pieces (which sometimes included golf clubs, guitars, pith helmets, roller skates, a sword, a spear-gun, shoes, a suitcase and a broken clock) perching them precariously atop a short stairway during the half-hour live broadcasts until it was time for the closet to “open.”
On the 128 occasions the closet gag was used, not once did the props tumble down off cue. Fibber McGee and Molly is still quite popular among old time radio fans to this day, with over 700 episodes still existing in their entirety. After the death of Jim Jordan in 1988, members of his family donated the bound volumes of Fibber McGee and Molly scripts to the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, where there is also a “Fibber McGee’s Closet” exhibit. –CP
For today’s featured Sound From the Past we’ve selected a Christmas episode which first aired on December 15th 1942.
HERE'S WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH CHRISTMAS LIGHTS! -- ALL OVER THE COUNTRY
Some of you are so busy getting ready for Christmas you don't even have time to go out and see the lights in your neighborhood. Others may not be able to "get out" because of personal reasons. Well, here's your chance to see some beautiful displays that "are now showing" across this nation in 2007. And you won't have to use a drop of gasoline or a map to get to that "special one" the newspapaer wrote about. Planet Christmas is a great website that gives you the opportunity of checking out the lights from other years and so much more. Merry Christmas.
Just before Thanksgiving I drove by Lennx Square on Peachtree Street and the Pink Pig was already in operation bringing joy to kids and parents and making new memories.... but this pig has tires instead of riding on the Rich's monorail downtown as it used to. Rich's is now call Macy's and they and WXIA-TV11 sponsor the retro renewed Christmas ride for children. I understand that a considerable amount of the profits now go to the Children's Egleston Hospitals. I've got to run this article again as it really fits the season, is about a dear friend of mine and it just good writing... I wrote that too. Enjoy!
The Pink Pig is a fond memory for every child who grew up in Atlanta in the 1950's through the 1970's.
“Who or what’s the Pink Pig?” you ask. It’s not the steady friend of Kermit the Frog, or that great barbeque place on just off the expressway that serves great pork on white bread. “The Pink Pig” I’m referring to was once the main Christmas attraction at THE finest department store that once was called Rich’s after its founder, Richard Rich.
The Pink Pig was a train for children that traveled as a monorail on the ceiling of Rich’s toy department and then burst out onto the roof and around the massive Christmas tree that stood so proudly on the bridge over Forsyth Street between the store’s two buildings just south of the famous Five Points in downtown Atlanta. It was a very small train that was even small and confining for the children who rode the Pig. This incredible memory-maker carried hundreds of thousands of children from 1953 until 1991 when downtown Rich’s closed and the building was demolished.
But none of those stories can come close to the one Ron Buchanan told me many years ago. Ron had been hired as a part of the Christmas staff at Rich’s while a student in college. He was given the assignment of being one of Santa’s Elves who would escort children who were to ride on The Pink Pig. He would walk them down a darkened and beautifully decorated tunnel that led from the parents to the entrance platform for The Pig. The presence of hundreds of black lights illuminated the specially chosen graphics on the wall and enhanced the mood and the fine Christmas décor.
Ron really enjoyed his job. It was so much fun to see the excitement of the kids. How they responded to him and the other Elves. One afternoon, everything changed. Suddenly, the children were afraid of him and didn’t want him to get anywhere close to them let alone hold their hand. Some of the children would look at his face and show extreme fear even to the point of breaking into tears and screams. The children were having their reaction in the darkened tunnel that led from "the parents" out into the “Pig platform” loading area.
The reaction of the children was disturbing Ron and he didn’t know what to do about it. “What’s goin on?” He sure didn’t want to be the reason some child would have a trauma they would never forget. Leading more child passengers through the tunnel didn’t change anything. On one of his trips he happened to look at one of the decorations that had a small mirror in it. RON WAS HORRIFIED AT WHAT HE SAW! His eyes were luminous and glowing like a demon from hell! Why his reflection even scared him. It was terrifying.
Ron put it all together immediately. He came to work right from the Optometrist’s office where he had an eye checkup. The drops used to dilate his eyes caused his eyes to react to the “black light” which filled the darkened tunnel. As Ron walked the children through the black light turned his eyes into glowing orbs of horror terrifying the children!
Needless to say, Ron asked to be excused from work for the rest of the evening. I’m sure there were children that night who rode The Pink Pig for the first time NEVER to think of riding it again.
I borrowed two of the Atlanta Journal Constitution file photos of the Pink Pig to show out of towners what the original looked like. The AJC has run some excellent news and human interest articles about the Pig's resurrection. If you go to www.ajc.com and look for the Pig -- you'll find it and a lot of other excellent interesting and informative stuff.
The Pink Pig was once the main Christmas activity for children back in the 1950's and 60's.
The Pig burst out onto the roof of Rich's after leaving the ceiling of the toy department.
Ron probably looked like this to those children!
Or maybe he looked like this!
Norm's Daily Ramblins
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE ACROSS THE STREET?
Outdoor Christmas displays have long been a "one-ups-man-ship" to not only celebrate what has become the holiday of Winter but perhaps how much better can I do it than others? Most of the elaborate and unbelievable displays are more Santa, Snow, and Rudolph oriented, but there are exceptions.. What once was keyed on the birth of Jesus as the "Light of the World," has been redirected into a more generic theme to reach a larger secular audience. But it will always be a very beautiful and exciting time to watch the neighborhoods become alive with color.
It was Carson Williams, a Mason, Ohio electrical engineer who was the first to plan, build and sequence 88 Light-O-Rama channels that controlled the 16,000 Christmas lights in his annual holiday lighting spectacular back in Christmas 2004. His 2005 display included over 25,000 lights that he spent nearly two months and $10,000 to hook up.
Now that this has caught on nationally. Last year we saw video on network news and variety shows of a neighborhood of 15 homes all hooked to the same computer and FM signal. But we want to acknowledge the people who set the pattern and were the trailblazers in neighborhood lighting technology. There is no telling what we might eventually see in the years ahead.
So that the Williams' neighbors aren't disturbed by constant noise, viewers driving by the house are informed by signs to tune in to a signal broadcast over a low-power FM radio station to hear the musical accompaniment.
Carson's Christmas display proved so popular that it was featured in a Miller Lite beer commercial in December 2005. Carson pulled the plug when asked by City Hall. The traffic congestion and a serious accident prompted the request.
CLICK THE LINKS BELOW TO SEE VARIOUS DISPLAYS IN ACTION -- TIMED PERFECTLY TO THE Trans Siberian Orchestra's "Wizzard in Winter.
My youngest son, Christopher Sean Plunkett, wrote this essay on "the Fruitcake" some time ago. Dad thinks it's "one of the best" and it's time to unwrap it again. Chris grew up in a "Claxton Fruitcake home" so we are all partial to that scrumptious little brick that is always found in our home every fall and totally destroys the accepted opinion of our culture regarding "fruitcake."
At one time, let's say 40 years ago, you could only find a Claxton Fruitcake in Georgia. Today, you can find them in your supermarket... almost anywhere. The "Claxtons" are delicious, mainly because they are jammed full of Georgia pecans. If you can't find one and want to taste one, let me know. Chris writes about another really good fruit cake -- the Collin Street Bakery premium fruitcake that has been made in Corsicana, Texas since 1989. I just came across a nostalia website that listed the tim for a Collin Street Bakery fruitcake -- they wanted $15.00 for the empty 15 year old tin. Remember that when you purchase one.
Last year the FAA made a decision to not permit the "Carry-On" of any fruitcake. It seems like the density of the product resembles gunpowder. Is that why most fruitcakes are stored?
Now there's something to think about and pass on as one of your Christmas reality jokes. Now here's Chris Plunkett's classic essay on Fruitcake. Chris is now the Hydrologist for the Flaming Gorge Reservoir and the Unita Wilderness of Northeast Utah.
"Tis The Time For Fruitcake!"
Ah yes, ‘tis the season for yet another holiday tradition! Just like good ole Saint Nick himself it’s time for that long-lived and oft-maligned gastronomic wonder, the noble fruitcake, to rise from it’s darkened celestial cupboard and set out on its holiday “gift given” rounds, spreading joy and good cheer the wide world over.
And to serve as a yuletide warning for all the headstrong and precocious children of the planet to behave themselves, ere the firm hands of justice should force them in punishment to actually eat a piece!
As far back as the gilded Christmas age of Charles Dickens’ England, the fruitcake has suffered the “slings and arrows of outrageous” culinary reviews. It was Dickens himself who once referred to it as “a geological homemade cake,” but it was under Johnny Carson’s watch on "The Tonight Show" that fruitcakedom witnessed its public relations low-point with a series of “vicious and slanderous” chucklers, the best of which was… “There’s only one fruitcake in the entire U.S. and it’s passed around year after year, from family to family!”
Not laughing? Well I suppose we lack Ed McMahon’s “Ho-Ho’ing” shotgun-backup for the full “Carson effect.”
There are a few among fruitcake’s myriad fans (and those who just pretend to be for “image’s sake”) that trace its beginnings back to Egyptian times when cakes of dried fruit (in a tasteful dusting of natron) were prepared for the Pharaoh to take with him into the afterlife.
Still others cite the first fruitcakes occurring in Roman times, when a sumptuous mélange of raisins, pine nuts, and pomegranate were set in a barley mash and baked to produce a dense, durable food stuff that could easily travel on long campaigns with the conquering legions.
During the Middle Ages in Europe honey became an essential ingredient of the cakes, as a flavoring and a preservative. With the advent of cheap sugar, brought by the colonial trade of the 1600’s, fruitcake’s shelf-life steadily increased as the nuts and fruity bits were soaked in greater and greater concentrations of sugar.
By the 1700’s these cakes were used in various religious festivals, harvest celebrations, and weddings. In rural communities the harvest was marked by the baking of special cakes, which were stored until the following year to bring luck to the New Year’s crop. Along a similar vein, in some parts of England the upper layer of wedding cakes (the bride’s cake) is still made of fruitcake, which the newly wed couple keeps for the coming year(s).
No one seems to be certain why fruitcakes became associated with Christmas time, but one imaginative story involves a late 1700’s English custom of handing out slices of cake to impoverished women who traveled door to door at Christmas, singing carols. Another possibility involves another English law from the 1700’s, which restricts the use of plum cake (i.e. fruitcake) to Christmas, Easter, weddings, christenings and funerals. In any case most fruitcakes are eaten (or I should say, “sold”) at holiday time.
Here in America, the modern Christmas fruitcake comes in two basic varieties, typically formed into a dense ring-shaped loaf, often topped in pecans. One variety is the “light fruitcake;” this uses sugar or corn syrup and a mixture of walnuts, almonds, pecans, golden raisins, pineapple, lemon rind, apricot, and cherry, bound in a sweet heavy dough.
"Dark fruitcakes" employ brown sugar or molasses as the main sweetener, and often use additional fruits such as dark raisins, prunes, and dates. Both varieties are often available with bourbon, brandy, or some other eau de vie as an added flavoring.
Despite all the jokes and their bad image, fruitcakes can be big business. The two largest fruitcake companies hail from the rural South, where traditionally fruit and nutmeats were available at bargain prices. The top-selling fruitcake company is the Claxton Bakery out of Claxton, Georgia -- you've seen it with it's two inch square loaf that is about eight inches long and chucked full of Georgia pecans. The rival to Claxton is the Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas. The Claxton Bakery does not readily disclose exactly how many of their unusual brick shaped “beauties” are foisted upon humanity each year, but in one article they mention that a single government commissary once placed an order for 65,000 cakes. Oddly enough, a surprisingly large portion of all fruitcakes produced go to Japan!
For those brave few souls who feel inspired to actually do some fruitcake nibbling this holiday season, I can offer but a scant few tips. Sadly –perhaps I mean “happily”- my experience has been limited to only a few mass-produced examples of the fruitcake baker’s art. I suppose I should also warn you that my opinion is further handicapped by a hatred of maraschino cherries!
Most of the fruitcakes I’ve eaten have struck me as quite dry and bland, but find that the Claxton fruitcakes (while still bland compared to fruit breads like German stollen, Italian panetone, and French kougelhof) …the Claxton cakes have a wet dense texture that I find a bit more palatable than other options I’ve sampled -including the fruit-flavored CLIF and Powerbars that mountainbikers and "outdoorsy types" so often rave about. I've never had a Collin Street fruitcake, but know those who swear by them. (Or was it "at them?") I hear that the dark variety of fruitcake has a bolder flavor and that all of them are much improved if they’ve been baked with a little bourbon or some other liqueur.
Fruitcakes also improve with time; a good three months are required for the flavors from the fruits to fully blend and meld into the sweet doughy binder. Carefully stored, a fruitcake can last for years! The first thing to "go" on them will be the nuts.
Though I’ve never tried them, I hear that Trappist monks can make some pretty good fruitcakes! Two “orders” renowned for their bourbon-laced cakes are the Abbey of Gethsemane near Louisville, Kentucky (www.monks.org) and the Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia. (www.monasteryfruitcake.org).
For those curious to have a look at the operations of the top-producing Claxton Bakery their web address is www.claxtonfruitcake.com. And in the interest of granting equal billing for our "Texas friends" the Collin Street Bakery's site is www.collinstreetbakery.com.
And if, at the end of your holiday, all the fruitcakes you’ve bought have been “tried and found wanting,” they needn’t go to waste; you could take a little trip to the town of Manitou Springs, Colorado for their annual “Fruitcake Toss.” Here participants throw, “tee-off”, and catapult fruitcakes of all varieties and ilks. (I hear for reasons of “ballistics,” the brick shaped Claxton cakes do quite well!) The coming year’s toss will be held the first week of January, and if you don’t have a fruitcake of your own, one can be “rented
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We extend to you an old Southern salutation you don't hear much... any more down here in Atlanta. "Ya'll come back now, ya'hear?"
Norman Plunkett
God is good -- ALWAYS!
And especially as He floods you with all the grace you need no matter what the situation. As you trust Him, God's grace is always just enough and always on time.
