Broadcasting (July - Dec 1938)

Lips That Lisp and Slip in the Mike Tongue Twitters Amuse Audiences, But Bring Agony to Announcers ✓ ✓-^k -y EXT on our program I^Wl 's tne charming Sandra I Lee — and what a ^ charming little bit she is!" Which sounds different than it reads, a phenomenon familiar to radio craftsmen, who discovered some 18 years ago that things aren't always what they seem. Many are the tales of woe that arise from phonetic trickery, just as there are oft-told stories of mechanical slips like the one that occurred just a fortnight or so ago when Charles Friedrichs, secretary of the San Francisco SPCA, participated on a recent Uncle Charley Pet Club broadcast on KYA. While he was extolling the virtues of a brave puppy, Announcer Richard Wynne was all set with a sound-effects record to imitate a dog's bark. The KYA audience heard Mr. Friedrichs: "And now, Rover, tell the audience how glad you are to receive this honor ..." At this cue, Announcer Wynne started his record — but instead of a bark, out came an infant's cry. Similar announcers' nightmares have dogged radio from its first days, giving radio audiences their best belly laughs and loudest squawks. Stemming from the clas.sic, first publicly attributed to Norman Brokenshire and later to scores s>f bedtime story narrators, in which a worn announcer unwittingly thunders into a still-open mike, "Well, I hope that puts the little to sleep!" these slips still confound listeners and radio men [Broadcasting, Sept. 15, 1936]. A lieutenant commander in the British Navy, announcing a fleet maneuver off the British Coast in honor of King George VI, visited several vessels in line of duty. At each stop several bumpers of ale were lifted to honor His Majesty. Describing the review, the officer commented enthusiastically, "The whole fleet's lit up. It's a wonderful sight with little fairy lights all about them. The big boats are lit up with fairy lights. In a minute they're going to fire some rockets. I will tell you how it reacts on me." Then came a sound like the popping of a cork, and excitedly he resumed: "The whole fleet's gone. In fact, it's vanished! It's absolutely fantastic the way it's vanished! It's vanished — the whole fleet of 200 ships — gone. All around me minutes ago — there they were, all lit up. In fact, the whole damn fleet was lit up. Now they're gone." British listeners sat aghast. Un surprised, they heard a second voice from the studio break in, "That will be the end of the broadcast!" It was also the end of that announcer's radio career. Another favorite in the trade is the one about the Miami minister who was preaching a sermon on the birth of Christ. "A lot of people," he said, "are complaining about it being hot down here. It was also warm where Jesus Christ was born. And where was Christ born?" The station announcer, not listening to the sermon closely, but noting the clock, broke in with "Station WQAM, Miami, Florida". Twisted names are an everpresent menace. Harry Von Zell, introducing Herbert Hoover, was responsible for "And now may I present, the President of the United States, Hoobert Heever". And not to be outdone, Clyde Kittell, on an NBC program, popped up with another: "We will now take you to Rome to hear His Holiness, Pipe Poes ... I mean Pipe Poes". Perspiring, he tried again, "His Holiness, Pope Pius, speaking from you to Vatican Citv". And a close third was Ed Thorgersen, when he was on NBC, with "We now present the A & G Pipsies". Harrison Holliway, manager of KFI-KECA, Los Angeles, tells of an interview about 10 years ago between Monroe Upton, known on the air as Lord Bilgewater, and John Barrymore in San Francisco. Mr. Barrymore was making a personal appearance in a local theatre in connection with a new picture. When the questioning was concluded, he backed away from the mike, not yet dead, and asked clearly, "Where is that G D theatre anyway?" During a winter meeting of West Coast athletic officials several years ago in Portland, Mr. Holliway also relates, a sports writer of the Morning Oregonian arranged for radio interviews with Bill Monahan, former graduate manager of the University of California, "Pop" Warner, then at Stanford, "Babe" Hollingberry of Washington State, Bill Ingram and several other gridiron notables. There was a misunderstanding about the time of the program, and when the group arrived, the reporter was not there. Smoothing out the situation, the announcer, who was doubling in the control room, agreed to put them on the air if someone would be master of ceremonies. Mr. Monahan agreed to the chore. In the station at that time, as in many early installations, programs were often monitored "blind" — the control man could not see the performers. Mr. Monahan introduced all his notables and consumed his allotted quarter hour. Just a Lot of . Then he waited for something to happen — at least an announcer to sign him off. But nothing did happen, so he assumed he was off the air. Mr. Hollingberry then went to work on the studio tom-toms, and Mr. Warner went into his act in the center of the studio. In the same democratic manner Mr. Monahan stepped to the mike and crisply and deliberately announced that the "ladies and gentlemen have just heard 'Pop' Warner doing a Carlisle Indian dance, which was a lot better than his talk, which was after all just a lot of ". That he was programmed for 30 minutes instead of 15 Mr. Monahan was not aware! When Mr. Warner first came to Stanford he told a story of a slip by an announcer reporting a Carnegie-Penn game. The commentator, a Carnegie alumnus, by sheer will power remained impartial until the last minutes of the game, when Carnegie had the ball on Penn's 10 yard line and the score was tied. "McGimple goes off tackle for five yards", reported the impartial sportscaster. "Second down and five to go for a touchdown for Tech . . . McGimple goes through again for four more yards . . . Third down and one yard to go . . . They're in the huddle — they come out of it — up to the line of scrimmage . . . The ball's snapped to McGimple again . . . He drives in hard . . . Oh C , he fumbled!" Dui'ing a coast-to-coast CBS broadcast of a Navy Day program, in which pickups were made from the Navy's airship Macon and vessels of the Fleet off Long Beach, along with several cutbacks to Los Angeles studios, the announcer concluded: "We will now take you to our studios in Los Angeles where Raymond Paige and his orchestra will play an appropriate Navy Day salute to Uncle Sam's sea forces" — whereupon Mr. Paige and his boys played But Honey, Are You Makin' Any Money? A "question and answer" commentator received a letter from a listener asking how a radio compass station functioned in guiding ships into port in foggy weather. He turned the query over to the station's technical department for the data. Luckily, he "woodshedded" the act before he went on the air — for wherever the technician had dictated "radio compass station", the stenographer had substituted "radio comfort station". Vice President Charles Curtis came to Los Angeles to officiate at the opening of the Olympic Games in 1932. He had 17 words to speak. They were mailed to him for "rehearsal" a month in advance. He rode with them across the continent. He was checked and doublechecked when he arrived in Los Angeles. Finally, standing before 100,000 solemn spectators and athletes, the Vice President with great deliberation uttered for history: "As Vice-President of the United States I hereby open the 11th Olympiad of the Modern EREA." It was truly a "tremendacle spectous", as an announcer commented. Harry Flannery, news director of KMOX, St. Louis, tells, among others, the one on Elsie Hitz, who, at a critical moment when she was supposed to suggest, "Give the bell a pull", astonished herself and demoralized the cast with "Give the bull a pill". Another time, according to Mr. Flannery, Dr. Herman Bundesen, broadcasting over a Chicago station, picked up his script with the last page first and began a radio chat with "And so ladies and gentlemen, good night". And then there's the one about Ed Allen, when he was with WIND in Gary, announcing that a clothing store sponsor was presenting its "greatest closing sale in history". Lee Little, now with CBS in New York, back in St. Louis once was to follow a sound record of machine gun fire with the announcement: "Machine gun fire, cannons, the roar of bombing planes. They're all in the story about 'My Days in the War', by Sergeant York in the Sunday Globe-Democrat." But the operator put the transcription, recorded at 78 r.p.m. on a 33 r.p.m. turntable, and Mr. Little made his thrilling announcement after a putt-putt that sounded like a motorboat. BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising August 15, 1938 • Page 17