Conversation with Mike Gannon and Bill Sabis

Claire. Slight conversation Number 5 19 Record day to 4 80. Air Day to 4 80. Director, right from Gainesville, Florida Hello, I'm Mike Gannon. And this is conversation. Once upon a time, there was a land called radio. It was the time known to many as the Golden Age.

It was a time before television, so it was a long time ago. Join me now is I go down memory lane, arm in arm with my guest on this conversation, Um, conversation from the University of Florida, a discussion of social, political, scientific and religious issues of the day.

Your host is Dr Michael Vegan in Ring professor of ethics and assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida. My guest on this conversation is Bill Sabah's host of Theater of the Mind on W. R U F F M Bill.

Welcome to television and welcome to conversation. Well, this is a little switch for May, not having spent too much time on television, but we have an awful lot of fun on Sunday nights, listening to old time radio on theater of mine. I know that you dio and as a matter of fact, last night, driving back from Ocala, I had my radio on listening to your program X minus one.

When I think about the golden age of radio so called and by that I would mean radio of the 19 thirties and the forties. But a time you might extend into the fifties on I'm sure you would. I think of my lost childhood, and I think of, uh, Easy aces and Stella Dallas and Sam Spade, Fred Allen and so on.

And I think of that old radio, that stand up console that stood at one into the living room like Fort Ticonderoga, and you could do any number of things while that instrument was on. You could listen with total attention, or you could, if you wished, read the newspaper or play with toys or whatever, but but it was a world of imagination.

Bill, And that's the world you work in, isn't it? Yes, that's why we call it theater of the Mind We like Thio think that it's an opportunity to exercise your imagination through the medium of radio, the theater of the mind, and in looking at the monitor, we had a radio just like that.

In fact, the rendition of the gentleman reading the newspaper reminds me a great deal of my father, who used to casually listen but read his newspaper first of all. And I used to read all the Superman comic books like all the kids my age, and listen to radio at the same time A lot of fun.

Well, it waas and there was a world there that we don't have today the wind suspense or arch cobblers lights out, came on or inter sanctum or any of the other great Gothic thrillers, uh, one created in the mind set and a galaxy of actors and actresses that was more wonderful than anything that you can see on television.

That's my impression. Any rate. Yeah, I think the to may. Yup, there was nothing more effective than a good horror show on radio, because if I want to frighten you or somebody I can paint a word picture or the artist on radio campaigner word picture. And if you want to be frightened, you will see exactly what you want to see, and you could make yourself far more afraid in your own mind than anything I think that you can see on the screen, and I think that's where you get into the imagination aspect of it.

And it was all done with a range of voices, a musical bridge and sound effects, or the sound effects there was. A program will be discussing a little bit later science fiction show called Dimension X and back in the early Days in the forties and thirties.

Of course, most of these shows were done live, and there was a particular program that we have played on theater of the mind called There Will Come Soft Rains. It required four sound men and was so complicated that they almost canceled the show because of the complexity of all the interaction of the sound men and is one of the most highly requested shows we have on theater of the mind.

But at the last minute, the people at NBC decided to let this show go on, and this was in 1950 it was an absolute masterpiece. And, as I said, we will be playing it again on theater of the mind. The sound effects with the falling rain and the bomb blasts and the echoes of a living house being destroyed during an atomic war was just incredible.

And we get so excited about these shows and sort of the listeners already. As you're getting me excited about that particular show, I'm remembering in my mind's ear hop. Harrigan, hop arrogant, a navigator were coming in, and all those old 15 minutes cereals that came between the soaps and the start of the six o'clock news.

And there was a long Siris of them. Little orphan Annie, of course, and Jack Armstrong, the All American boy. It's a matter of fact, I wrote down for the program tonight. The words to the song I Just Happened to Have It was our country's second national anthem at one time waved the flag for Hudson Hi boys.

Show them how we stand, ever challenging we champions known throughout the land. Well, actually, there was a great deal more than that, But that was the opening stands, and it told the story of Jack and Billy and Betty, and Billy was always a little spacey, and Jack Armstrong was always having to get him out of trouble.

And Uncle Jim, who was all right but got lost in Africa once I remember and uh, together with that. The Lone Ranger, of course, and Tom Mix and his straight shooters when it's roundup time at Ralston and so on. John Windslowe of the Navy and the box tops.

Oh, how I cut out those box tops and and the Ovaltine can tops and sent them in for prizes of one sort or another that were being offered the captain Midnight decoder coder was very, very important because if you had the decoder and you listen carefully to the clues given at the end of the program, you would have a hint of what was going to happen the very next day.

Yes, you had to have your decoder because there was a uh, about a 10. I'd say about it maybe 15 or 22nd period, as I recall, when they would give you some numbers and you could not tell what the clue was about the next story, unless you have the decoder and then you could write it out and you had the answer before the next show.

But on Lee, if you have the Dakota, that's right. And that usually cost anywhere from 10 to 25 cents and a rapper from an Ovaltine bottles, I recall, to be sure, And don't forget the little orphan Annie telescope or don't they call it Periscope Ring? And this was a ring which fit unobtrusively on your finger.

But then, at your command, by pushing a little button, a little mirror went up and you could see who was following you. And I remember when I first got mine, I had to have several friends movin on a trajectory of from varying, different angles before I could actually see them.

And once I mastered it, it tarnished. It's interesting when you talk about the shows you remember between five and six o'clock. It depends on when you listen, because I my prime listening days, were in the years of 1948 to about 1954 and between after five o'clock.

Superman was the first show that came out of 15 minute. Then there was Captain Midnight, and there was Buck Rogers somewhere in there. I don't remember where he came, and then the Tom mix, yes, and also in there somewhere, and I don't know how they fit in were Amos and Andy and Lanny Ross for Franco American Spaghetti.

Remember Amos and Andy and their theme song If we're Playing Trivia, I'd like to divulge to the viewing audience the name of the Amos and Andy theme song, which almost nobody knows. I discovered it was a perfect song. Well, that's all there. The secret is out.

It turned the tables on because we usually ask a trivia question. I have all the answers and people call in. E didn't know the answer to that one They had. Speaking of Amos and Andy, probably one of the most popular radio shows ever. A new interesting thing about Amos and Andy There were.

It was so popular during the thirties that the movie theaters were suffering at night and they would, on the marquee, advertise the fact that they were going to interrupt the movie to broadcast Amos and Andy in the theater so people could hear it and they could come to the theater to see the movie.

It didn't have to worry about missing Amos and Andy. True story. I know that is, ah, powerful impact. Well, you have some tapes of some old time programs. Let's listen to a few of them. Give us a little introduction, and I'll listen along with all with everybody else out in radio land.

One of the probably the most probably the second most requested comedy show on theater of the mind is the Alice Faye Phil Harris Show, And Phil Harris was a bandleader for Jack Benny for many, many years, and in 1948 he was awarded his own show. And the amazing thing about Phil Harris today is that the comedy is is fresh today, in my opinion, as it was back then, there are some shows that just don't cut it today because it's a little dated.

It's stilted and it's old. This particular excerpt we have tonight comes from a show that was broadcast in 1949 and I'll give you a little background. Alison fill it. Hired a lady wrestler. I mean, this is a she guerrilla type, and she was going to come in and take care of the house and so on so forth.

Well, she was such a bad influence on the Children that they decided they were gonna get a job for her, so they took her to the Rexall Drugstore to meet Mr Scott. Incidentally, Mr Scott is played by Gael Gordon, and I think it's hilarious. And Realm Lee, of course, was Phil Harris, a sidekick who was known to imbibe, shall we say, rather frequently.

And the whole thing is hilarious. That is a good example of comedy in 1948 and something that is very much appreciated today According to all the phone calls we get. All right, let's listen to that Phil Harris and Alice Faye. Now, look, Myrtle, when you meet Mr Scott, remember, He's very dignified.

So try to be gentle and lady like, Yes, please try and be gentle in, lady like. And whatever you do, don't shake hands with him. Every time you shake hands with somebody, their fingers drop off like ripe banana. Okay, Scott, over there by the counter. Hi, Scotty.

How do you? Oh! Oh, if it isn't Remlinger Nature's biggest blunder. What are you doing here? He came down with us. Mr Scott. Oh, Mrs Harris, It's a pleasure to see you. Aren't you gonna say hello to me? Well, Mrs Rumley too. Okay. You sure picked yourself a fat one left.

Oh, no, Mr Scott. She's not his wife. You see, she belongs to us. She came to live with us last week, You see. Oh, your mother in law, Harris. You certainly have a beautiful mother. This is not my mother. Oh, well, then you certainly have a handsome father.

Oh, God. You've got a terrific sense of humor, hasn't here, Emily. It leaves me cold. Bill, that is really great. That that that that's wonderful. And people used to line up for blocks to get tickets to sit in. The audience is toe watch. People read scripts into microphones.

A lot of the action that, uh, you never saw was taking place behind the scenes because they're making faces and doing things and trying to get some of the actors thio break up. You never saw this. Of course you could tell that some of the shows that there was laughter going on when you didn't quite comprehend what was going on.

The Phil Harris, the entire Siri's, which lasted until 1954 was, in my opinion, superb. Let me talk about the Lone Ranger because I know you have a clip coming up. Uh, the Lone Ranger was one of the great cereals. And Monday, Wednesday Friday if I remember with tanto, the Lone Ranger in Toronto always held themselves above the rest of what was happening in the Old West.

They were mystery figures. We responded to them in a special way. Really? The mystique surrounding the Lone Ranger A Z. I recall, uh, something I never missed A lone Ranger. I enjoyed the fact that he had a mask, and I always wondered what the lone Ranger looked like.

Everybody wondered what he looked like, Uh, the stories as the Siri's progressed. In all honesty. Incidentally, the Lone Ranger was on the air from 1933 to 1955. There were some 3300 shows broadcast. Earl Greiser was one of the early lone Rangers. He lasted until 1941 when he was killed in a car accident.

At that stage of the announcer for the lone Ranger took over. The announcer's name was Brace Beemer on Beamer was the voice we all associate with. The Lone Ranger today did a marvelous job. The early shows tended to be more of the serial type, were from Monday to Wednesday would be a continuation of a Siri's like the California Siri's, where he spent all his time in San Francisco cleaning up the Barbary Coast.

The letter shows became kind of repetitious stories that were done earlier, and they seem to be a little bit. The time wasn't spent on creating the stories as well, and I think it shows in the later stories. But certainly Lone Ranger was a classic that will never forget.

And he always left behind The Silver Bullets always left behind the silver Bullet. Speaking of premiums, there was a program that gave away premiums. There was the atomic bomb ring, which I don't remember that I remember the Jack Armstrong bomb site, which I used to destroy the entire Japanese fleet, which was made out of paper.

But this one I don't remember. Well, there was. Then you're probably not aware of the weather ring that the Lone Ranger offered. That's where you had a little piece of paper that you're stuck in a ring and it changed with the weather and there was instructions that came along that was expensive.

One that was a 20 center, a Z. I recall that was four or five box tops of Wheaties and Cheerios or something like that, my word. Let's listen to the Lone Ranger. Okay? He was somebody. Look at them. Him kneeled by grave. He's close to his father, Tato A.

And that's where you me pledged friendship many years ago. This is a good time to renew that Pledge Ki musubi, long as you live long is meeting me. Ride with you? Yes. Title. I couldn't carry on without you. As long as we ride, we'll travel together.

Uh uh huh. Oh, that was great. The William tell Overture. Uh, it lent. Ah, sign of permanence to radio and Atlanta. Sign of permanence to our land. And there were a number of things which gave that same impression that there was permanence abroad. Uh, Mr First nighter always had his seat on the aisle.

You remember? Yes. Curtain Time curtain Going up, Mr. First Nighter. Here's your seat. It was always on the aisle. That locomotive always went into Grand Central Station at just the right time. And Allen's alley. Everybody was home when Alan marked out. What walked Portland. Hoffa was there.

Titus, Moody, Senator Cleghorn and so forth. Was that your favorite as faras comedy during as far as comedy? Yes, but Of course, there was a few between Jack Benny and Fred Allen. That was wonderful, continuous, wonderful. And of course, that great line that Alan gave to Jack Benny, your money or your life.

There was that long pause. And then he said, I'm thinking, I'm thinking it's interesting about Jack Benny. And I'm sure most people know that the his radio, his tightness that shall we say that he tried to exude was not really his way. Hey went out of his way.

It seemed to be generous to waiters and so on and so forth. But it was a good gimmick for radio, and the Allen thing was also a radio classic. There were the best of friends, really. All right, let's talk about some of the programs such as Dimension X and so forth that it seemed to interest you the most.

In 1950 I can remember sitting on the steps of our front oh, our front porch and listening to a story that was being told by a neighbor friend of mine. And it happened to be a story about the Martian chronicles, and it was absolutely amazing to me that my friend was an excellent storyteller, and he said that the stories that he was that he would tell me came from a science fiction Siri's, which was on radio.

The name of the Siris was Dimension X, and he said, You ought to tune in and listen to this. He also would tell me a frightening story about a group of men. I think there's three men who were trapped in a lighthouse covered with a carpet of rats.

A little thing that I can't imagine doing it on television. But it was done on radio, and it was from the CBS Siri's Escape and which became a radio classic. It was called Three Skeleton Key, but Dimension X to me was a fascinating story, probably because it was taken off the air so many times.

I never understood why, because the stories were classics. Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, the best in science fiction and the stories today are still excellent. One of the most requested shows we have on the theater of the Mind and what I have done is put together some of the openings from the Escape Siri's, which featured three Skeleton Key, the story of the rats, uh, the opening featuring Norman Rose.

Uh, the opening for Dimension X. Norman Rose appears frequently on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, and we also have an excerpt from a show that we played, uh, two weeks ago on Theater of the Mind from Inner Sanctum with one of my great favorites, Raven opening the door and remember who Raymond was played by?

Um, no, But I heard it last night. It was your trivia question. It wasn't it was one of the trivia questions. Raymond was played in 1945 46 on the on. The show you're about to hear was played by Raymond Edward Johnson. Mm, and But he lasted, I think, until 46.

And then Paul McGrath took over. And the key to the last night's tribute, Paul McGrath. All right, let's hear these openings of these great shows tired of the every day grind, ever Dream of a life of romantic adventure. Want to get away from it all? We offer you escape escape, designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure adventures in time and space transcribed in future tense Demetra.

Thank you. The National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers of astounding science fiction bring you Dimension X, Lipton tea and Lipton soups present in a sanctum mystery. Yeah, good evening. Friends of the inner sanctum waiting to go through the squeaking door. What a long line! But everybody's here.

Tonight the line reaches right to the edge of the gray, waiting long what, seven days and seven nights, dear, dear, you should have knocked. I can always slip the latch, string out and you could hang around properly. Oh, great. You know, when I look at that console in the picture that we used as backdrop, I remember how many nights I would sit and look at the dial.

The dial had a light, whether on the large console model auras we had in one of our rooms the Philco table model. The dial had a certain attractiveness. There was alumina deep what mob luminescent quality to a and it always read standard broadcast. That was the dial, as opposed to short wave.

Well, it was mesmerizing. It's something like looking at a fireplace. You could look at a fire, listen to ah, good radio show. One thing about the opening, Uh, on escape the You heard the voice of William Conrad, who did the opening and was very active in radio.

He played, uh, Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke. Siris on radio, not on television. Uh, the inner sanctum, of course, was from 1946. Incidentally, the escape excerpt you heard was in 1953 and the Dimension X was from 1950 inner sanctum from 1946. You know, Bill, there were a lot of couples on radio in the old days.

I made note of a number of them Lum and Abner, Vic and Sade, Merton, Marge, Ethel and Albert. And, uh, Fibber McGee and Molly. And you have Burns and Gracie George Burns and Gracie Allen, Of course. But you have something for Fibber McGee and Molly. Yes, we have, uh I've been fortunate enough to accumulate about 300 different Fibber McGee and Molly shows, and I wanted to put something on the air tonight, which was representative.

And of course, we have to do the closet. Oh, yes, on. I thought, Well, let's not do any closet. Since we have such a large selection, let's do the very first radio show where the closet was opened on Fibber McGee and Molly. And to do that, we've got to go all the way back to 1940.

0, yes. And I'm going to listen to see if the dinner bell was the last thing out. Because it was later on, we'll we'll find out. Let's listen. Uh huh. What do you keep in that for you? Homesick? No. But if we ever moved back to puree, I try to rent the same house because this key fits the padlock there.

You got to think ahead in these things and you see this key here. It looks like the key to a can of salmon sardines. I use that to clean my pipe with. Now, let's see which one of these keys is the closet door keys. Say maybe we better leave.

The closet is locked. Let me take him. Oh, it's locked. All right. You don't think I'd leave all my personal defects laying around for any prouder to get hands on? McGee? It isn't Ladder. Keep this stuff off. Calling out help, Mickey, I'm buried alive. This junk off of me, alright.

But Dad rather you might have been more careful. There's funny little insects all over me. Brush him off quick. Oh, calm yourself. Calm yourself. Them or my trout flies? Well, I didn't hear the dinner bell. No. Well, they had thio. They had to fashion that little bit later on.

That was the very first one that was 1940 1940. Bill, you've been working at this for some time, collecting all of these tapes, and you've had your program theater of the mind on the air on W R u F F M for three years this month.

How did you get into this? Because you're, ah, civil engineer by profession. Well, one day I was reading a variety magazine, which I never read. I just happened to be reading a variety magazine and somebody I had an ad in there, I guess to they had some escape programs.

And, of course, when I thought of escape, I thought of that old program with rats eso I sent away for a few copies, and that was 14,000 shows ago. And I discovered that when visitors come over to the house that they like to hear about old time radio, so why would play a few shows, and one day I looked at all these thousands and thousands of shows and tapes laying around, and I thought, Well, what a shame.

It's sitting there gathering dust. Why not try to share these with everybody in Gainesville? So I approached WWF. I talked to Bob Leach and the station manager, station manager for WWF, and Bob liked the idea. He said, Well, where you gonna call it? I said, We're gonna call it theater of the mind He said, Well, he said, That sounds good.

I said, Well, it's not original. I stole it from the CBS Radio workshop, which was done in 1956. So he said, Fine, let's try it. So we went on for a half an hour on WWF AM in February of 1977 and, uh, since then we've had a rather long run.

I think you surely have. That's fascinating. I have a few moments in my past that I'd like to bring up some time and talk about There's no time to do it tonight. But there is one moment I might mention I was in the CBS Radio newsroom in New York the day the atom bomb was dropped and that was an electric occasion because the newsman didn't know what to make of it.

And it was a fantastic thing to experience, to find a whole new world being born and to find oneself in the center of information A time it was born. Were you in radio at that time yourself? I waas I was with ah, CBS station at the time.

That was a long while ago. Must have been electrifying. Uh, before I can't imagine that. I know it's hard for me to, uh, imagine it now. As a matter of fact, when I think back to that moment, I wish I had had the wit to take greater advantage of it and to have recorded everything that I saw.

But I was just what, 18 or something like that? Well, our time is up, as they used to say in radio land to end that clock. The hands on the dial of the clock are moving toward the closing minutes of our program. And the old announcers, you remember usedto cut their hand over the ear way back.

That's well I know I go way back. I remember so much of that. And I remember the great announcers, Truman, Bradley and all the rest of them. Great voices, all Chicago voices, by the way, because the normative voice and radio was not the New York voice, it was the Chicago Voice radio.

Big time radio began in Chicago. It was transferred to New York, and, uh, they brought all the Chicago voices with them. And when you hear an announcer on a station of any size it all in the South, it's the Chicago voice you hear. I just thought I'd end with that.

That's where Fibber McGee and Molly got start in Chicago. Thanks a lot, Bill, for being with me. A great conversation. Thank you.