Hello, everyone,
Today, I have something I think is quite special. I'm going to give quite a bit of backstory, and then get to today's offerings, most of which come from the same tape. That tape is one that I made, over 50 years ago.
The backstory: I've already shared in multiple places that the tape recorder was among my favorite "toys", even as a five and six year old. And there are seemingly endless recordings of me, me with my brother and me with my friends, on my family's tapes, starting from when I was about those ages.
On Christmas, 1969, the year I was nine, I was gifted with the first reel of tape which was to be mine, all mine. I had it completely filled, mostly recording at the super slow speed of 1 7/8, and for some of it, recording in mono on all four channels, by the end of January, 1970. That's well over six hours of recording in about five weeks.
By the fall of 1970, I was on my third "all mine" tape, and I announced at the beginning of it that this tape would be used to record things of interest off of the TV. I recorded an entire broadcast of an obscure animated cartoon ("Hoppity Goes to Town"), parts of "The Wizard of Oz", and parts of a few other broadcast movies.
Around age 16, after cataloging all of my family's tapes, I then went through all of my personal tapes (about 36 of them, by that point), writing down what was on them, and where on the tape (per the counter on our reel machine) each section began and ended. For the earlier tapes, this had to be an exercise in tedium. Most of the recordings were pretty unlistenable by anyone who wasn't me, and wasn't me in grade school. I was a severely hyperactive child, prone to simply talking to myself, or pretending I was presenting a (usually very uninteresting) show, or even just banging on things with other things, like a reject from a Spike Jones cover band.
There were periodic highlights, a few of which I'll share in the future, but mostly, these are probably less interesting than banging ones head against the wall. I know this because, about six months ago, I started digitizing these tapes and listening to them all the way through, doubtless for the first time since I was 16.
But the one labeled "Bob Tape # 3" surprised me. For one thing, I never got finished documenting its contents, and skipped over the second side (both channels - which were recorded separately) completely. And that second side contained magic I didn't expect. For those of you who are not into vintage media (in this case, TV, mostly local TV) recordings, this is probably not the post for you - or you can skip down to the Acetate of the Month and the Very Short Reel.
But if what I've described floats your boat like it does for me - and it floats my yacht - this is a treasure trove. A goldmine. A picture of much of what a ten year old might well have been watching - including a lot of child-focused commercials - during the period September 1970 to January 1971, in the Chicago market.
Mostly, I'm going to share these in what appears to be chronological order, from the fall of 1970 to January of 1971, as they appear on side two of the tape. Then at the end, I have a bit of a hodgepodge, a single track made up of several short segments from 1970, from the first side of the tape. I wanted to get this post out today, which is the last chance I'd have until next weekend, and I didn't have time to chop that group of recordings up, the way I did with the other segments heard below.
Two thing before I explain what each track features. First, at times I was quick to turn the machine off and then on again. Sometimes this was done in quick succession, maybe two or three times within ten seconds. Other times, I wasn't interested in capturing whatever the next thing turned out to be, often a segment or commercial, and didn't return to recording until a few minutes later. So parts of this are quite choppy.
I should also mention that, in a few of these cases, the shows in question were children's shows which featured a variety of entertainments, some of them cartoons. I have edited out the cartoon soundtracks, which are mostly to films which are quite commonly available.
Okay, let's start. First up is Ray Rayner. If you're not from Chicago, or not over 50 years old, I encourage you to read about Ray here. Ray was a legendary performer in a genre that has completely disappeared - the local morning kids show. And his show, on WGN, was more than that. He featured traffic reports, sang songs, did comedy bits (literally lip-synching to records), showed the local sports highlights, comment on current events (lightly), did crafts, hosted animal segments, and showed cartoons. At times (as you'll hear later), he simply engaged in conversations about a point of interest with his offstage crew. And in doing this, he BLEW AWAY all of the competition for ratings, among morning TV shows in Chicago. If you can find clips of him online, you will be absolutely befuddled by what he was doing. But it was wonderful, and as a child, Ray was something of a hero to me. I even recorded a song of sorts about him once, after he retired.
Segment one is nearly seven minutes from a Ray Raynor broadcast. The sports results make clear that the date was 9/10/70. We start with the sports results and highlights (and you can hear me repeat the standings, then hear the wonderful Jack Brickhouse in the highlights), as well as the weather. After a cut, we hear Ray singing a song. He may sound like an amateur, but he had a long string of successes, concurrent with his morning show, as an actor in local dinner theatre. We finish with some commercials, interrupted at one point by yours truly.
Download: Ray Rayner and His Friends - 9/10/70
Play:
The longest segment comes next, and (after a moment of some other show) it's a portion of "Bozo's Circus", probably from the same month. Again, this was a HUGE show in Chicago, with a ticket waiting list of over five years at times, and a massive TV audience. Ray Rayner was one of the clowns, Oliver (although he left the show the following year), with Bob Bell as Bozo, Roy Brown as Cookie, and Ringmaster Ned Locke, one of the sweetest personalities ever to appear on TV.
This segment fascinates me, mostly for the opening bit. In the end, it's a shaggy dog joke related to Cookie drawing pictures while everyone else sings (and the joke is not worth the wait). But it's that singing that amazes me. For we are told that everyone is going to sing "Swingin' On a Star", from 1944 (26 years earlier). It's clear from this performance that nearly all of the children present know the choruses (in which the words change) well enough to sing along (and there would have been no point in having the words in front of them - most of these children were not old enough to read). Can you imagine a group of five year olds actively singing along to a hit from 26 years ago today? "It's All Coming Back to Me Now? One Sweet Day? I don't think so. Truly a moment captured in time. I love it.
Part of a Sugar Crisp commercial follows, but then we cut to a few minutes of Herb Alpert style music. I'm not sure what this would have been, but I left it in. Then we hear a tedious skit about a flea circus, followed by a real treat, a Tony the Tiger ad (featuring Thurl Ravenscroft, of course). The show returns with the focal point of every Bozo episode, the Grand Prize Game. A McDonaldland commercial follows (by the way, I had a visceral, nearly hatred reaction to those McDonaldland commercials, when they debuted, which I believe was earlier in 1970 - I never did warm up to them).
Download: Bozo's Circus, circa Fall, 1970
Play:
What follows may be the rarest thing on this tape. It's a recording of most of an episode of a short lived game show called "Words and Music", hosted by Wink Martindale. You can read about the show here. The show only lasted 94 episodes, and debuted on 9/28/70, so we've moved forward a bit in time for this recording. The segment is pretty well self explanatory. Unfortunately, is this case, the commercials are cut.
Download: Words and Music (game show), circa Fall, 1970
Play:
This slides almost right into an episode of What's My Line. But first, we get to hear a legendary commercial for the local ABC news team. I've literally never forgotten the portrayal of the hapless weather girl in this ad. It's really good. The What's My Line episode features Joe Frazier as one of the guests. That he is introduced as the Heavyweight champ - which he was, starting in early 1970 - but also that he just had a song (a 45) released - which happened in late 1969 - makes me suspect this broadcast was a rerun.
Download: What's My Line?
Play:
The game show segments keep getting shorter. Here's a two minute chunk of "Beat the Clock", and a bit of a commercial that followed:
Download; Beat the Clock, Late 1970
Play:
And now we move into 1971. This nearly five minute segment captures the sign on, and opening segments, of a morning of broadcasting on WBBM, the CBS affiliate in town. We start with the national anthem, opening legal and promotional statements, as well as the opening and closing announcements for "Thought for the Day" - I chose not to record the actual thought itself. We then get a preview of the evening's broadcasts, nicely dating this recording to January 9, 1971. At the end, our announcer introduces the news, which we do not hear. But we do hear his name - George Menard - amazingly, the same George Menard who was heard at times during those late 1940's daytime radio shows I shared as part of the Porter Heaps collection, last year.
Download: WBBM TV Sign-On, Preview, Etc, 1/9/71
Play:
We end the main part of this series with 93 seconds of odds and ends from the end of that part of the tape. I have NO idea what the first part of this section was supposed to be. Maybe someone else can enlighten us. Then there is another McDonaldland ad. And I hate the very sound of it.
Download; Early 1971 TV Odds and Ends
Play:
So I mentioned above that there were other 1970 recordings elsewhere on the tape. They are, like some of those above, from September of that year. I have not, and will not have the time to chop these up, so I'm posting them here, because I really want to get this posted today.
This montage is just over 15 minutes long, and here is what you'll hear.
0:00: A few short commercials, with conversation in the background, followed by some messed up sounds from the TV (with my mother's amused response). 1:02: More of Ray Rayner, including another song, and some of those random conversations I mentioned earlier. Yes, this was Chicago's favorite morning show, by far. 2:52: More commercials
Then at 3:50: A lengthy segment of Bill Jackson's "Cartoon Town". This show, which aired on UHS channel WFLD, was the afternoon counterpart to Ray Rayner's show, although not as popular, and much more focused on entertaining children. In this segment, Bill is interacting with his character "Blob", a blob of clay which he would decorate, and which would talk to him via taped groans and other sounds. The Old Professor was another character. You'll hear me interact with the TV at one point. After a bit of some commercials, we have another Bill Jackson segment, the start of one where he would create a drawing out of a viewer's initials.
At 9:03: a further moment of Bill Jackson gives way to an ad for Girl Scouting (which is interrupted by a channel change to another Thurl Ravenscroft/Tony the Tiger ad and several other ads, including the unforgettable Baby Go Bye-Bye, and a tie in to H.R. Pufenstuf (which I hated even more than McDonaldland). The promo for Red Skelton dates all of these recordings to September of 1970, by the way). Finally, at 13:20: A few moments of the Saturday morning show, "Tomfoolery", which I LOVED, and which I recorded on other tapes several times.
Download: Odds and Ends from September, 1970
Play:
Incidentally, buried in the middle of all this media recording, on this tape, is a perfect example of the sort of thing I was wont to do when recording myself. It is mercifully short, so I am going to share it here. I do not have any idea what my "stand-up" bit - or whatever it's supposed to be - meant. Clearly, I knew what I was saying, as I go through the routine (one line) twice and act out the audience reaction, but... I have no idea.
Download: Bobby - The Any Pokabuuh Show, Featuring Bill Banana
Play:
~~
Now it's time for our Acetate of the Month.
If you've been with me for a long time (or have heard my podcast on the subject), you know that I am very much in thrall to an album called "Musical Memories of Camp Bryn Afon", recorded in northern Wisconsin in 1965.
What I've never shared with more than a couple of people is that I also have several acetates from another (unknown) camp, recorded in the late 1940's, but containing performances which have considerable similarities to (and some differences from) the Camp Bryn Afon recordings. I bought them all at the ALS Mammoth Music Mart (which I've also written about a lot), at least 30 years ago. Today, I will share both sides of one of those. It looks like this:
