Radio mirror (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

RADIO MIRROR Court in Washington was being C. C. Csick. Not very funny, not very good, said the continuity editors. All of Washington's alphabetical agencies are sacred to radio, as far as that goes. One of Fred Allen's gags, which got on the air because he ad-libbed it, was about a boy who built a snow-man. While he stood looking at it, a government paymaster came along and handed him a check. If that joke had been in the script, it would never have been passed. One great literary figure, who is still on the air in a different program, became quite adept at leaving his pet double; meaning lines out of the script and out of rehearsals, and then saying them during a broadcast. He learned how to do this early in his series when he tried to read this line: "Today's Washington's birthday, the birthday of the father of his country — or at least as much of his country as he could cover on horseback." Shocked production men cut the line out at rehearsals, but on the broadcast the author got it in anyway. Afterwards he professed bland innocence and extreme regret. But he used the trick again. The networks are always afraid they'll offend some specific group of people. A recent script satirizing some aspects of the medical profession was thrown out almost bodily; a crime story about a shyster lawyer who made a practice of chasing ambulances and talking injured persons into filing damage suits, had to be worked on endlessly before it was inoffensive enough to the legal profession to be accepted. A very famous mystery story which was adapted for radio had its scene in Utah and its plot depended largely upon the fact that several of its characters were members of the Morman church. The story had to be changed around to eliminate all reference to that religion, even though the original reference was not insulting. AN inane little joke about America being like a baseball game — "No Hitlers, no runs, no terrors" — was blue-penciled by a shocked continuity editor. Likewise all facetious reference to the state of affairs in Italy, Spain, Russia, New South Wales and intermediate points. Here again, there's no evidence that the State Department at Washington or any of the foreign powers' representatives in this country have anvthing directly to do with these bans. Radio simply isn't taking any chance of offending the German-American, Italo-American, Spanish-American. Russian-American, or any other foreign group in this country. A comic reference to Adam and Eve was thrown out, presumably because it was sacrilegious; and even those time-honored staples of all joke books, the old maid and the mother-in-law, have, upon occasion been judged unsuitable for a comedian's script. You haven't been hearing very many burlesques of popular moving pictures latelv, have you? Jack Benny, some say, finished them when he burlesqued "Anthony Adverse" in two mammoth instalments. Comedians now have to get the permission of the studio which produced a picture before they can burlesque it. because, so the story goes. Warner Brothers didn't like Jack's version of "Anthony." They disliked it so much they are now making it a matter of policy to require every radio program desiring ' to burlesque one of their pictures to check with them first; and other Hollywood studios are growing correspondingly particular. But the payoff on all these taboos is that they aren't applied consistently. Whether or not a script writer can get away because of the 3-way protection of Kotex ® CAN'T CHAFE The sides of Kotex are cushioned in a special, soft, downy cotton to prevent chafing and irritation. Thus Wondersoft Kotex provides lasting comfort and freedom. But sides only are cushioned — the center surface is free to absorb. ® CAN) FAIL The filler of Kotex is actually 5 TIMES more absorbent than cotton. A special "Equalizer" center guides moisture evenly the whole length of the pad. Gives "body" but not bulk — prevents twisting and roping. © can't snow The rounded ends of Kotex are flattened and tapered to provide absolute invisibility. Even the sheerest dress, the closestfitting gown, reveals no tell-tale lines or wrinkles. 3 TYPES OF KOTEX ALL AT THE SAME LOW PRICE Regular, Junior, and Super — for different women, different days. WONDERSOFT KOTEX A SANITARY NAPKIN made from Cellucotton (not cotton) 75