Radio fan-fare, combining radio digest (June-Oct 1933)

tTIP TO SPONSORS— Some advertiser would do well to sponsor Belle Baker. She's a good bet for reaching the folks who like their heaving hot and heavy . . . who love to have the last tear wrung out of a lyric. When Belle gets through working on emotional listeners they should be pushovers for even the average radio advertising. SYNTHETIC SUSPENSE— The last time we heard "The Magic Voice of 1wr Ex-Lax" the program included : ( 1 ) a phony villain from Zengovia who menaced the heroine by telephone — forgetting her name at one point and using the hero's name instead; (2) speeches by the hero such as, "No, I must be stern," and, "That's not the real June. Show me the real June — the June I fell in love with"; (3) a thoroughly ham story; (4) a lot of tiresome and slightly offensive advertising. t PASSE"Easy Aces," the continued story about bridge, is now on the slide. The trouble is that contract bridge is not the big news it was a year ago. The skits have been intelligently written, and well played by Mr. and Mrs. Goodman Ace. The way each program starts (with an infectious chuckle breaking through the music and then the announcer saying "Easy Aces, ladies and gentlemen — Easy Aces") is one of the best send-offs a radio program ever had. If the Aces can get another idea as good as the one on bridge they should easily be able to repeat their first big radio success. (Editor's note: After this opinion was written "Easy Aces" went off the air — -which may indicate that Tuna knows his programs.) PRETTY GOOD TO THE LAST DROP — The Maxwell House Showboat is drifting slowly toward a sand bar. The fault does not lie with the entertainers, except in the case of Molasses 'n' January, two-outmoded blackface comics who never say anything especially funny (unless you count the cracks you used to hear in Coburn's and Fields' minstrels when you were very young). The others — Charles Winninger, Lanny Ross, Conrad Thibault, Muriel Wilson, Annette Hanshaw, Helen Oelheim, and Don Voorhees and his orchestra— are all fine. They make the program musically and vocally pleasing, if not absorbing. The trouble with the hour is that it gets nowhere. It has a thin romantic story that bobs up occasionally as if by accident — between variety numbers that are supposed to be part of a performance on a showboat. MARY McCOY She is better than her program BEN BERNIE You can't grasp him by the forelock The name Voice ELSIE HITZ villain forgot her in "The Magic MARY EASTMAN She need not be seen to be appreciated Radio Fan-Fare The show might just as well be in Madison Square Garden, for all the showboat atmosphere you get out of it. The whistles aren't enough. The program tries to include a bit of everything, and yet it definitely lacks the completeness and climax of the well planned vaudeville bill. Maxwell House should either go in stronger for the story, or stage a lively variety show. As it is, you don't get interested enough in the characters to keep from feeling slightly bored at finding the same ones on hand week after week. Compare the Maxwell House hour with Rudy Vallee's show. Fleischmann now has the least stereotyped of the regular air programs. Why? Because it has new personalities every week. Because it has enough contrasts in its different parts to create an illusion of wide variety. Because it is put on with a briskness that prevents it from ever taking itself too seriously. Our opinion is that Vallee's program is on top right now. The fact that he writes for this magazine does not prejudice us — either way. Another bad feature of the Maxwell House program is the attempt to insert bits of advertising here and there. A short blurb by an announcer (not a character) at the beginning and end of the show, and perhaps a long one in the middle, would be much more in keeping with the atmosphere of gracious hospitality Maxwell House has been trying to build up. After all, you don't keep springing a sales talk on your guests everv few minutes — not even if business is bad.' e • • \ BLUE RIBBON BANDSMAN— The THr high point in selective criticism will ! be reached when someone can tell the different torch singers, crooners, and dance orchestras apart. Even in the case of a band as well known as Ben Bernie's there is not much about the music that is individual. It is made to seem a little unique, however, by the strongly individual personality of the Old Boy. Bernie is gaining in popularity and will continue going up as long as his material is good. At one time he seemed to be hard up for fresh stuff. He got off the same gags for weeks. Recently Ben's material has improved, but it's still distinctly his own brand of stuff. Examples : Ben, the evening after the disclosures in Washington, saying of one of his vocalists, "Few people know that Pat Kennedy is a partner of J. P. Morgan. Pat hasn't paid any income tax for three years either — too many bookmakers among his dependents." And again, the hardly hirsute Mr. Bernie introducing a song called "Goin', Goin', Gone," by observing, "You can grasp Time by the forelock, ladies and gentlemen, (Continued on page 41)