Radio doings (Dec 1930-Jun1932)

-MORE CHATTER Carlton Bowman, youthful Denver tenor, is the third singer to leave the KOA staff and go to New York to become a member of Seth Parker's radio troupe heard every Sunday night. The other two singers from KO\ are Norman Price, tenor, and Edward Wolter, baritone. • Charlie Lung, that ingenious young man with a hundred voices — ninety-nine including his own, which you seldom hear — has girded his loins in search of more and varied pastures. Now we find him at KFWB every Saturday night as several of the characters in "Flat Feet," and as a regular artist at KTM, from 10:15 to 10:30 P. M. every night except Sunday. Some day it wouldn't surprise us to see Charlie start up a station of his own, where we would be the entire staff, from guest soprano to roaring bass. • While Bing Crosby was taking his mysterious sojourn in Hollywood, he made a picture. At the Mack Sennett studios. A singing picture. Called "I Surrender Dear." It has been released. It will probably be showing at your local theater one of these days. Are you going? Thought so. • Starting as a fledgling radio station some four years ago, KGDM, Stockton, appears to be plodding right along on the upward trail of popularity. And a few weeks ago, during the San Joaquin County Fair, KGDM stepped out and took first place in the mammoth street parade. The winning KGDM float was designed as a huge replica of the Peffer building, on which the studios are located, with high towers, windows, and all that goes with it. The KGDM Hawaiians were gathered beneath the towers, blithely serenading the throng of spectators., along., the., streets. .. KGDM broadcast the entire fair, and took a prominent part in the exhibitions in the big show. • Buying neckties takes up a whole lot of Al Pearce's time, it seems. During the Happy-Go-Lucky gang's stage appearances, they have an act which calls for Norman Neilson to gently but decisively clip off Al's red tie with a large pair of scissors. Everything usually goes along fine, as long as Norman "considers the Adam's Apple." • Beginning October 17, a weekly program of educational addresses will be broadcast over a nation-wide NBC network. The program is arranged and sponsored by the National Advisory Council on Radio in Education, and promises to be a worthwhile broadcast, indeed. The programs come on the air at 11:30 a. m., Pacific time, every Saturday. The series consists of 30 lectures, by such leaders as Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, James Angell, president of Yale, and Ernest L. Bogart, president of the American Economic Association. • The Solitaire Cowboys, a group of hard ridin' and sweet singin' punchers from the Flying M ranch in northern Colorado, are back at KOA, Denver, to begin their fourth year of broadcasting. These prank-playin' cow-pokes take the air at 10:15 Pacific time, every Wednesday night. • With chips flying, axes and larynxes whetted, the Vermont Lumberjacks are back at their old stand over KGO and stations of the NBC western network. Ted Maxwell and Charlie Marshall, who were in the former Lumberjack series, take their old parts in the new presentations, assisted by the Doric Quartet. • Ted Osborne, that drawling, likable gentleman at KHJ, has left radio. Several years ago, before he went to KHJ, he used to write "balloons," those hand-lettered conversations used in newspaper and comic strips. Recently he had an offer to write continuity for a series on Mickey Mouse cartoons for the Walt Disner studios. As his last gesture at KHJ, Ted presented a program of his own, "Laughing Gas," a comic production on which he worked for weeks. The program was a riot. KHJ listeners will miss Ted a lot, and we all wish him success in his new position. (Ted confided that he will come back on the Hallelujah Hour once in awhile, perhaps) . • If you like the Ambassador-Gus Arnheim-Loyce Whiteman-Harry Barris-Don Novis program on KFWB at ten, you will have to tune in KFI beginning December 1. KECA and KFI recently entered into a contract with Cocoanut Grove officials to broadcast this popular program, so if you don't find it at its usual place on the dial after the first, don't think it is off the air. • Graham McNamee, veteran announcer, and Bill Munday, noted football broadcaster, take almost equal roles in the broadcasting of descriptions of the big football games coming over NBC networks this season. Munday started as McNamee's assistant, and has been rivalling the old maestro at his own game lately. He's the boy with the soft Southern drawl. • Ted White studied the piano for years, intending to go on the concert stage. But he drifted into warbling popular songs, and now only his friends are fortunate enough to hear him play. • Vi Curtis, lady announcer on the graveyard shift at KELW, continues to break the sunlight of fame as the only night-time woman announcer west of Chicago. Speaking of KELW, Dave Ward, announcer has firmly refuted the rumor that he moved because it was cheaper than paying rent. Claims it was because he was tired of living in furnished apartments, so turned ritzy and went to Beverly Hills. Even is police dog is putting on airs, they say. • "What this country needs," says Ted Weems, band leader, "are more go-getters;" and gives as an example the lad who finds a worm in his apple and his fish for supper. • The theme song of Russ Columbo, romantic baritone, is called "You Call It Madness, but I Call It Love," and he wrote it himself. Dr. Cross, who belies his name with his quiet, good-natured comments on topics of the day as the "Colonel," comes by his Southern character honestly. His granddad, in the days "befo' de Wah," owned a 30-000-acre plantation and 700 slaves. » Hundreds of letters of protest were written to KHJ when the popular eye-opener, the Hallelujah Hour, was taken off the air for a few days. But it's back again, with Ken Niles, the good-looking boy with the buoyant voice and bounding enthusiasm at the helm. • Because Abo Lyman returned to America without tal^s of his friendship with the Prince of Wales, he now is known as "Honest Abe." • That hot fiddle you hear on Bing's programs belongs to Joe Venuti, of Vic Young's orchestra. It not only belongs to him, but he is at the business end of it. • Little Kate Smith, the buxom Miss who is partly responsible for "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain" and "Making Faces at the Man in the Moon," has collaborated with J. Russel Robinson on another number, "I Was True." • Paul Whiteman and Jeck Denney have signed exclusive recording contracts with RCA-Victor. • Jiggs and Maggie, of "Bringing Up Father" comic strip fame, have been translated into radio personalities, and KHJ is releasing the program by electrical transcription at 7:15 p. m. Wednesdays. The surprising thing about the skit is that the characters are actually what you would expect them to be. This ought to be a rib-tickler for the whole familv. • Now here's a funny thing. You'd imagine that Carlton Young, author of NBC mystery serials, would be the type that sits up late at night in a silk lounging robe in a haunted house, to get the proper inspiration. Instead, he gets down to the office every morning at seven and does most of his writing at that time. • "Bob and Harriet," that clever human interest comedy skit on KHJ, has expanded from a once-a-week spot to a twice-weekly program, Mondays and Thursdays at 7:30 p. m. • An entertaining program is the "Adventures of Red Goose," CBS feature, that is strongly reminiscent of the old James Fenimore Cooper tales that never fail to thrill youthful readers — and some of the older ones too, for that matter. Good clean Indian melodrama, with battles, ambushes, scalpings — and romance. Chief Whirling Thunder, full-blooded Winnebago chief, is retained by Columbia as program consultant. • Members of the Camel Quarter Hour recently visited Boston's city hall, where Morton Downey was asked to sing several songs, among them being "My Wild Irish Rose." But in the middle of the song he stopped — the words had slipped his memory. "If my dad were here and thought I'd forgotten the words to that song, he'd kill me," Downey said afterward. I'D TKrtv RADIO DOINGS