Sponsor (Jan-June 1951)

those who hinted that the talking and singing drums of the African jungle had come down by taxicab from a Harlem night club and were more Haitian than Congo. William Saroyan's specially-writtenfor-the-Workshop, Radio Play had no more orthodox continuity or logic than Saroyan usually provides. There was a murder by pop-gun, a variety of non sequilurs, some after-thoughts on love, a bit of opera, a bit of Jerry Colonna and for a finale Raymond Scott's newest musical goof. "In A Subway Far From Ireland." When you tuned in the Workshop. you never knew what your luck might be. You might tune out pronto as if hissed at by a snake. Or you might be captivated, lulled into a happy state ending with regret that nothing like the program you'd just heard would ever be repeated. But sometimes it v/as. Sometimes sponsored shows snatched up a Workshop idea, recognized a Workshop talent. For nearly a year and a half Irving Reis did pretty much what he liked, subject only to budget. Perhaps nobody in radio history ever for so long a time, as human rapture is reckoned, enjoyed comparable carle blanche. The budget did annoy him. Personages like Sir Cedric Hardwicke would accept engagements on the Workshop but contemptuously refuse to be paid. at Workshop fees, preferring instead to donate their talents. A future Broadway playwright, Arthur Laurents, sold his first script, Now Playing Tomorrow for a scandalous $30. The highwater mark of the early Workshop was Archibald MacLeish's Fall of the City in April of 1937 with Orson Welles and Burgess Meredith in the cast. This took place in a big New York armory and was almost spoiled when units of the military, strangely unaware of the plan, came plunging into the armory just before air time in big noisy, five-ton army tanks. This near-fluke apart, the event was a stupendous triumph. Time wrote that the drama "would not soon be forgotten" and thought "Poet MacLeish seems to have solved at one crack two long-troublesome theatrical problems: what to do about verse plays and what to do with radio." Reis was in top form. Time went on to speak of radio as "science's gift to poetry and poetic drama" declaring that "in the hands of a master, a $10 receiving set Advertising is one of the few enterprises where the boss can walk into your office, find you reading a magazine, and not get apoplexy. But the working day isn't long enough, so you go home with a bundle — under your arm — and read magazines. Man, we're for you. and we'll reward you with some economy-size intelligence about our favorite topic. Iowa. The usual approach is to try to cajole your interest with frivolity, then smack you in the budget with an ineluctable fact. But here's a straight syllogism: 1. Iowa is a get -out -the -superlatives -this -is -uptown -stuff kind of market ($2 billion annual agricultural income; retail sales up $115 million over 1949's record; cash farm income $4.50 to $5 per acre per month ; more cattle fed and sold than in any other state; $2 billion industrial income, with factories employing 50'/( more workers than in 1940). 2. WMT reaches the Eastern Iowa market. ( We've got more analyses than you can shake a stick at which prove this.*) 3. Your client can effectively reach same via WMT, where a one-minute Class A commercial (52-time rate) budgets at a mere $27. * So has the Katz Agency, which please see for stick shaking and dotted line talk. 600 KC 5000 WATTS DAY & NIGHT BASIC COLUMBIA NETWORK 12 FEBRUARY 1951 65