A Local Variety Show, Plus the Start of a New Series

I thought I'd start an occasional series about something that's always interested me. I'll admit right off the bat that this might not interest all that many others, but I think it's worth presenting.

What's behind it is this: When I look through the tapes I have bought (and the tapes my family bought and used from before my birth through the 1980's), I notice that, for much of the period when reel to reel tape was a relatively common thing for people to buy and use (1950's through the 1980's, I'd say), the Scotch brand was the dominant company producing the product people wanted to buy.

And the Scotch brand made more changes to their packaging, especially in the 1950's (when they also made particularly attractive boxes), that I thought I'd try to capture the evolution of the Scotch Reel-to Reel Recording Tape box, starting today, and continuing now and then.

The very first box into which Scotch placed its product, circa 1948-49 - and that product would have the paper backed tape (I don't believe there would have been any plastic backing yet) that I've written about from time to time - is this wonderfully colorful plaid pattern:

I have seen very few of these over the course of the many years I've been collecting reel to reel tapes. The tape contained in the above box, appears (based on the writing on the back) to have, at one point, contained classical recordings (radio, records, live? I don't know), made in 1949, 70 years ago. But some misguided person has bulked erased that material. The bulk eraser is an item which should be banned from existence.

Hopefully, this strikes at least a few of you as an interesting sidelight to the main focus of this blog.

~~

A little side business here: First, thank you, as always, for all of the comments. I encourage people to go back and read the comments that have been made, because they often feature someone fleshing out the text I've provided, or adding further information that I didn't know or didn't occur to me. Most of you choose to post without a link back to your e-mail account, which is fine, but please know that if you do make it so that your posts can be responded to in e-mail, I often do respond.

Anyway, after my recent "compendium of comedians" post, someone asked who the comedian was who punctuated his act with repeat cries of "Oh, Yeah!". That's Timmie "Oh Yeah" Rogers. In fact, if you want to hear a fun and ridiculous record, look on youtube for the hit "Back to School Again" by Timmie "Oh Yeah" Rogers, from 1957, perhaps my favorite year for nearly all types of popular music. That it's fun is not in question. What makes it ridiculous is that Timmie Rogers was 42 in 1957.

And now:

~~

Here's a lovely tape I came across a few months ago, featuring a recording of a local talent show. I believe it's held by some sort of lodge or organization or some such - I picked up some clues when I listened all the way through, but failed to take notes, and having spot checked it just now, I didn't find the spots in question, but I'm sure someone out there who enjoys this sort of thing might be able to identify it.

There's a lot to digest here, some of it wonderful, some of it wonderfully awful, some of it admittedly tedious. And it is just over 90 minutes long. I hope that you'll give it a chance, or at least skim through it looking for something sweet or ghastly, depending on your taste. The end of the show is gone, erased by something far less interesting, about halfway through the second side of the reel. I shame, as the last performance is one of the more ridiculously incompetent ones on the the tape.

Download: Various Artists - Yesterday and Today: A Talent Show
Play:

~~

As a bonus, here is a short reel of tape containing two Public Service Announcements about learning CPR, from star Soccer goalie Scott Manning and from a baseball player of someone less stature, Ed Ott.

Download: Two Sports-Related CPR PSAs
Play: