Charlie Chan TV - "Your Money or Your Wife"

J. Carrol Naish is Charlie in this television adaptation of the famous movie series.

A crippled man drives his car to the edge of a cliff and looks over. Later, Lowell Gilmore, who is crippled, calls Charlie and tells him that someone is trying to kill him. Charlie asks to talk to his wife, but they find a ransom note on the beach. Virginia Gregg is Gilmore's secretary. She is closely questioned by police officer Dayton Lummis. She says that Gilmore's wife is a parasite. Liam Sullivan, an artist, has painted a portrait of the wife. Charlie questions him. He says that she was his model before she married Gilmore, and that Charlie will find the answer a little closer to home.

Gilmore tells Charlie and Lummis that he has found a recording in his car. It is the voice of Gilmore's wife, giving him instructions for leaving the money. They discover that the recording is a phoney, made in Gilmore's house. Then they find his wife dead. They catch Sullivan as involved in the sham kidnap plot, but he claims he did not kill her. Charlie believes him and tells Gilmore that. Gilmore catches Gregg searching the room of the crime. He draws a gun on her, but Chan arrives in time to stop him from shooting. Gregg confesses to the murder.

How a bouncer does his bouncing

Archibald's assertion that the shirt-sleeved man had six arms I discount as due to his not unnatural perturbation a the moment. He bases it on the fact that someone - he assumes it to have been the shirt-sleeved man - seized him by the collar, the right arm, the left arm, the right leg, the left leg, and the seat of the trouser simultaneously. However, be that as it may, my nephew passed the next few moments of his career being shaken like some patent medicine until he could feel his contents frothing within him. Then, just as he had begun to realize that, if this continued, he must reluctantly come unstuck, something seemed to give and he was shooting through the night air - to hit the pavement, bounce, hit it again, bounce for the second time, ricochet along the polished surface for a considerable distance, and eventually come to a halt in the gutter with his head resting against what in its prime must have been part of a good-sized fish. A halibut, Arichabald thinks.

(from Archibald and the Masses, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Social Unconsciousness

     "You used to be one of the cheeriest old bounders that ever donned a spat, and now you're a sort of emperor of the Glooms. You don't even do your hen-imitation any more."
     "Well, the thing is, you can't imitate a hen laying an egg properly if your heart's bleeding for the martyred proletariat."
     "The what?"
     "The martyred proletariat."
     "What's that?"
     "Well . . . er . . . it's - how shall I put it? . . . it's the martyred proletariat."
     "You wouldn't know a martyred proletariat if they brought it to you on a skewer with Bearnaise sauce."

(from Archibald and the Masses, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

What Socialism will do to you

However, of one thing there is no doubt. Before the end of the second week Archibald had become completely converted to the gospel of the Brotherhood of Man: and, as this made him a graver, deeper Archibald, it was not long, of course, before Aurelia noticed the change. And one night, when they were dancing at the Mottled Earwig, she took him to task in her forthright way, accusing him in set terms of going about the place looking like an uncooked haddock.

(from Archibald and the Masses, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Gentlemen, be warned! Buy the right-sized hat.

I trust i am not uncharitable. I try to view these things in a broad-minded way, saying to myself that if a man looks like something that has come out from under a flat stone it is his misfortune rather than his fault and that he is more to be pitied than censured. But on one things I do insist, that such a man does not aggravate the natural unpleasantness of his appearance by prancing about London in a hat that reaches down to his ankles. I cannot and will not endure being escorted along Bruton Street by a sot of human bacillus the brim of whose hat bumps on the pavement with every step he takes. What I have always said and what I shall always say is that the hat is the acid test. A man who cannot buy the right-sized hat is a man one could never like or trust.

(from The Amazing Hat Mystery, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Women!

Freddie clutched at his brow. He might have known, he told himself, that the moment he dropped off for a few minutes refreshing sleep this ghastly kid would be up to something frightful. And he might also have known, he reflected, that she would put the blame on him. He had studied Woman, and he knew that when Woman gets into a tight place her first act is to shovel the blame off on the nearest male.

(from Trouble Down at Tudsleigh, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Know any kids like this?

     "Why aren't you at school now?"
     "I was bunked last month."
     "Really? asked Freddie, interested. "They gave you the push, did they? What for?"
     "Shooting pigs."
     "Shooting pigs?"
     "With a bow and arrow. One pig, that is to say. Percival. He belonged to Miss Maitland, the headmistress. Do you ever pretend to be people in books?"
     "Never. And don't stray from the point at issue. I want to get to the bottom of this thing about the pig."
     "I'm not straying from the point at issue. I was playing William Tell."
     "The old apple-knocker, you mean?"
     "The man who shot an apple off his son's head. I tried to get one of the girls to put the apple on her head, but she wouldn't, so I went down to the pigsty and put it on Percival's. And the silly goop shook it off and started to eat it just as I was shooting, which spoiled my aim and I got him on the left ear. He was rather vexed about it. So was Miss Maitland. Especially as I was supposed to be in disgrace at the time, because I had set the dormitory on fire the night before."

(from Trouble Down at Tudsleigh, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Menacing aspect

"Good evening, Widgeon," said Captain Bradbury. There was only one word, Freddie tells me, to describe the gallant C.'s aspect at this juncture. It was sinister. His eyebrows had met across the top of his nose, his chin was sticking out from ten to fourteen inches, and he stood there flexing the muscles of his arm, making the while a low sound like the rumbling of an only partially extinct volcano. The impression Freddie received was that at any moment molten lava might issue from the man's mouth, and he wasn't absolutely sure the liked the look of things.

(from Trouble Down at Tudsleigh, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The reply just did not have any teeth in it

"I say! I mean, I say. I say, dash it, you know. I mean, dash it," said Barmy, feeling, even as he spoke, that the rebuke had not been phrased as neatly as he could have wished.

(from Tried in the Furnace, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

If you want to keep out elephants

"Bud, that there's an elephant proof fence."

"Elephant proof? You mean an elephant couldn't get past that fence? You're off your trail!"

"Of course it's elephant proof. You don't see any elephants in there, do you?"

(from West of the Tularosas, by Louis Lamour)

Strong stuff, huh?

He quaffed again. The foundation of the beverage manufactured by Mr. Silvers seemed to be neat vitriol, but, once you had got used to the top of your head going up and down like the lid of a kettle with boiling water in it, the effects were far from unpleasant. Mr. Silvers may not have had ideals, but he unquestionably knew what to do when you handed him a still and a potato.

(from Fate, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Assassin

You may or may not know that the word assassin comes from Arabic lands.

"Active in Persia and Syria from the 8th to 14th centuries, the original Assassins were members of the Nizaris, a Muslim group who opposed the Abbasid caliphate with threats of sudden assassination by their secret agents. Other populations of the area regarded the Nizaris as unorthodox outcasts, and from this attitude came one of the names for the group originally meaning 'hashish users,' which had become a general term of abuse."

Not the stuff to keep you on the edge of your seat

He toyed for an instant with the idea of taking one of the magazines which lay on the table and sitting down in the other armchair and spoiling the old blighter's evening; but as those magazines were last-year copies of the Hotel Keepers Register and Licensed Victuallers Gazette he abandoned the project.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road

Believe it or not, this was indeed the name of a hit song a few years back. Don't ask me how. No doubt there is some sort of deep, deep meaning in the lyrics, but I have yet to figure it out.

YOUTUBE

I take it she does not like the man?

"I only asked," said Lady Julia, "because I, personally, consider that all times are good times for Mr. Pilbeam to have headaches. not to mention botts, glanders, quartan ague, frog in the throat and the Black Death."

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

BOTTS
GLANDERS
QUARTAN AGUE

No doubt about it: he IS a poop.

"There is no need," said Ronnie with dignity, "to rub it in."

"Well, I won't, then. Merely contenting myself with remarking that of all the young poops I ever met . . ."

"He is not a poop!" said Sue.

""My dear," insisted the Hon. Galahad, "I was brought up among poops. I spent my formative years among poops. I have been a member of clubs which consisted exclusively of poops. You will allow me to recognize a poop when I see one."

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Be he ever so humble, he is still my son

What you are trying to say, I imagine is, do I still intend to give my child a mother's advice? Certainly I do. A boy's best friend is his mother, don't you sometimes think? Ronnie, handicapped by being virtually half-witted, may not have seen fit to take my advice as yet; but if in the old days you ever had a moment to spare from your life-work of being thrown out of shady night-clubs and were able to look in at the Adelphi Theatre, you may remember the expression, "A time will come!"

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Gally with his back up

"Well, let me tell you," said the Hon Galahad, once more maltreating the billiard table, "that I do care. That girl's mother was the only woman I ever loved, and I don't propose to have her daughter's happiness ruined by any sawn-off young half-portion with a face like a strawberry ice who takes the notion into his beastly turnip of a head to play fast and loose with her. Understand that!"

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

WIKIPEDIA SYNOPSIS

Oh, my aching back!

That expression becomes much more meaningful as time goes on.

Dr. L. D. Newsom - a man of principles

LINK

Look at pages 61 and 62 on the attached link.

He was a fun-loving man, and absolutely wonderful with children. But when it came to what he believed, there was no nonsense about him.

The Gay Falcon (1941)

First off, despite the name, this movie has nothing to do with sexual matters. The Falcon was a carefree, fun-loving individual, and his name was Gay Lawrence.

George Sanders plays the title role. He has opened up a brokerage office to please his fiance (Anne Hunter) assisted by Goldie Locks (Allen Jenkins), his sidekick. They are to go to a society party given by Gladys Cooper, but he talks her out of it. Then Wendy Barrie comes to him asking him to help Cooper because at her last two parties, jewels have been stolen. He calls Hunter to tell her he has changed her mind. At the party, Turhan Bey shows up and dances with Hunter. Sanders dances with Lucille Gleason, who slips him her ring for safekeeping. Then he dances with Cooper, and during the number a shot rings out. Gleason has been killed. The perpetrator makes his getaway past Jenkins, whom the police arrest as a material witness. (Hans Conried plays a disgruntled police artist.) Sanders gets Jenkins released, and Barrie gives them a ride from the station. The police are tailing them, but they lose them. Sanders and Barrie go to talk with Cooper, and Jenkins is kidnapped while he waits for them. The gunman takes Jenkins to a hideout, but then he is shot, and Jenkins is arrested - again.

Sanders sneaks into Hunter's apartment. She is mad as a wet hen until she finds out he is wanted for murder. Then Barrie calls and Sanders pretends it is his valet, until Hunter takes the phone from him and hears Barrie's "sweet nothings." Later he meets her on the street and she tells him she is having dinner with Bey. Barrie volunteers to be his assistant. They figure out that Cooper is the crook.



Jenkins


Barrie

What postage stamps taste like in Wistful Vista

"Your stamps taste like a rubber floor mat out of the engine room of a diesel-powered Scandanavian tuna boat."

(the opinion of Mr. McGee, of Fibber McGee and Molly, as expressed to the local postmaster)

Barbara Luddy and The First Nighter radio show

In time Luddy and Olan Soule became the mainstays on this program, which actually was pretty good. There was a play performed each week, which were mostly romantic comedies. She appeared in several movies, going back into the silent era, but was most famous for being the voice of Lady in the cartoon movie, Lady and the Tramp.



Here is a LINK to one of the First Nighter radio shows.

Now that is WEAK

"Stanley couldn't break a cracker that had been sitting overnight in a cup of tea."

(from The First Nighter radio show, episode "The Honest Dope")

Nevada - a place I have NO desire to visit

Gambling, prostitution, desert - just nothing there I want any part of.

Join this fraternity to catch a mouse

Phi Beta Trappa

(from Fibber McGee)

Racine, Wisconsin

The capital of the world, as far as Fibber and Molly McGee were concerned, at least for several years. (It was the headquarters of the Johnson Wax company, which sponsored the program.)

There is a reference to the radio show on the S. C. Johnson official site.
LINK

Selfishness and lack of patience

These two qualities do much to make married life unpleasant. They work at odds. If one party is a little selfish, then patience on the part of the other can  bridge the gap. But when both parties have neither virtue, then the going will be rocky.

A lively meal

This certainly puts the clock back. The last time I saw you must have been that night at Romano's when Plug Basham started throwing bread and got a little over-excited, and one thing led to another and in about two minutes there you were on the floor, laid out cold by a dashed great side of beef and all the undertakers present making bids for the body.

(from Heavy Weather by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Billy Ray Cyrus for World's Worst Father?

Would anyone care to nominate him?

Step-father

Isn't it amazing? There was a time - within my memory - when if you used this term you assumed there had been a death in the family.

The only one who can extend mercy

is the one whose prerogatives were violated.

True words from a very strange source

"If you wish to be successful in life, be temperate and control your passions; if you don't ruin and death is the result."

Written by John Wesley Hardin, one of the most brutal murderers in American history.

Gregory Ratoff on Information Please

The famous director/actor appeared several times as a panelist on Information Please. His heavy Russian accent made him very entertaining, as well as his special knowledge of the screen and Russian history. Incidentally, he appeared on an episode of the Jack Benny TV show that was especially hilarious.

Radio star in Congress

Will Rogers, Jr., who had how own radio program, was for over a year a member of the House of Representatives.

Fred Allen on Information Please

Allen was well-known as one of the foremost comedians of his time. He served on the Information Please panel several times, and was a surprisingly astute panelist. And on one occasion (February 15, 1943), he switched places with usual host Clifton Fadiman and asked the questions.

"Death, even to deserving, never pleasant."

(from the Charlie Chan movie, The Sky Dragon)

Scattergood Baines (1941)

Guy Kibbee stars in the title role. He is hiking cross country, looking for the right place to settle. He talks to some of the leading citizens and mentions that he is planning to open a general store - in competition with them. He leases a building for three years. The merchants pay him $750 not to compete with them, but they forgot to mention hardware, so he goes into that line. He also builds a railroad, and his industry causes the community to prosper. Willie Best is his assistant. Baines is on the school board, and they pick a new teacher (Carolyn Hughes) because her picture makes her look plain. However, when fixed up she is right pretty. When she arrives, he tells her that the board won't accept her because she is pretty. But he enlists his wife to "plain" her down. Then they try to get her romantically matched with a young lawyer, John Archer. However, Archer is only seeing her plain personna and is not impressed. However, when he brings the school contract for her to sign, they visit and find a lot in common.

Joseph Crehan is one of the managers of the railroad, and he is trying to get control of it from Scattergood. Scattergood hires Archer to buy up the surrounding timberland on the sly. At the school carnival Hughes has to take off her glasses, and one of the school board members figures out they are plain glass. Archer dances with her. The school board sees a man in Hughes' room, and come to Scattergood to get her fired. Archer defends her to them. Then he goes to talk to her to try to defend her to the board, but she refuses to talk about it and they quarrel. Scattergood sells the railroad, but with the other land that Archer has bought, he has foiled Crehan. However, the townsfolk get wind of the deal, and turn against Scattergood, thinking he has sold them out for a profit.

Scattergood talks to Hughes, who tells him she is leaving town. The angry townspeople show up at Scattergood's house. They accuse him, and he sends them away without defending himself. When Crehan discovers that Scattergood has options on the timberland, he storms into his store. Scattergood forces him to sell the railroad back to him at a profit, and pay a fair price for all the timber. Archer catches Hughes at the station, and they all live happily ever after.

Frankie Darro

Darro (very short in stature) starred in a series of action adventures for Monogram Pictures, working alongside the great Mantan Moreland in many of them. They made a great team, even though Darro himself was a little irritating in his character.

LINK


Darro and Moreland

Sherlock Holmes on the Goodness of God

Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers". - Sherlock Holmes - "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty"

This is a famous quotation from the famous detective. Of course, it is fiction, but in this case his logic was exactly correct.

They Made Me a Killer (1946)

Robert Lowery has worked for a garage that fixes up old heaps into jalopies - until his brother is killed in a hot rod accident. Then he leaves town and stops at a used car lot to sell his car to Lola Lane. He gets a room overnight at a cheap boarding house. The next morning Lane's boyfriend shows up to buy the car supposedly, but he and his friend rob the bank and force Lowery to drive his car in the getaway. He deliberately wrecks the car, but he is knocked out and the rest of the gang get away. He is captured. Byron Barr saw the whole thing, but he was shot in the holdup. He undergoes emergency surgery, but he is not able to say anything, so Lowery makes a break. On the way out of the hospital he bumps into Barbara Britton, who is Barr's sister coming to check on him. He disguises himself in surgical garb. He escapes, and the police throw out a state-wide dragnet. Barr dies.

Lowery meets Britton at the train station and talks her into working with him to clear him and her brother's name. Lowery tries to get a blacksmith to take off his handcuffs, but he recognizes him and pulls a gun on him. Britton sneaks up behind the blacksmith and knocks him out. Lowery remembers that the girl that was a part of the gang talked like a hash house waitress. They find clippings in her clothes that give a clue to her location. They hitchhike there. She gets a job in a cafe, but Lowery won't let her do it because of the danger. He sneaks out that night to the cafe and surprises the gang. They claim they do not have the money, Britton turns out the lights and a fight ensues. Lowery is captured, but Britton still has her job in the cafe. Lowery is assigned to do odd jobs in the cafe. They come up with a plan to escape, but it backfires when the gang leader shows up, who knows Britton. However, two local policemen show up who hear the gang talking over the jukebox, which Lowery has wired up. The big final fight and chase scene heats up - naturally. And Lowery wins the girl - naturally




Barr













Lane


Britton

Eddie Gaedel

Eddie Gaedel became a famous baseball player due to the showmanship of St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck. He was 3 feet, 7 inches tall and wore the number “1/8” on his uniform. In his only plate appearance, he walked on four pitches, and thus became one of only five major leaguers who drew a walk in their only plate appearance and never played in the field.


Gaedel’s grandnephew Kyle Gaedele was a minor league ballplayer. He was 6 feet 4 inches tall.

It is difficult to stay clever

day after day on a blog like this. (Actually, with me it is difficult to stay clever at all.)

Arkansas Tech Band at Ann Arbor in 1967

The Arkansas Tech Symphonic Band has had an influence and reputation far disproportionate to the size of the school. This was very much due to the leadership of Mr. Gene Witherspoon, known as "Chief," who was the director during the 1950's through the 1970's. The landmark event in the history of the band was their performance at the College Band Directors National Association meeting at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967. A record was made of their concert, and I used to have a copy. I would love to get another.

Perhaps the highlight number on that concert was Symphonic Movement, by Czech-American composer Vaclav Nelhybel (pronounced "Nellybell"). Here is a LINK to a recording of that piece done by the Western Illinois band.


Vaclav Nelhybel

Tom Conway and George Sanders

They were real-life brothers, both busy actors, and they both portrayed The Falcon in the movie series. Conway was the elder by two years. They were born in St. Petersburg, Russia, but moved to England at the time of the Revolution.


Conway


Sanders

The Falcon and the Coeds (1943)

The Falcon series of detective/adventure movies are a real treasure. George Sanders began the series in a natural progression from his "The Saint" movies. Tom Conway, his real-life brother, took over in the role eventually. Conway stars in this movie.

A young lady at a girls' school (Amelita Ward) phones Conway to meet her. A professor at the school has been killed. She also called the police, and they show up at Conway's apartment just in time to see the girl drive off. Conway gets a cab, and on the way they pass Rita Corday, who everyone says is psychic. He father was a famous composer who committed suicide. When he arrives at the school, George Givot is lecturing. (Givot was the voice of Tony in Lady and the Tramp.) Conway poses as another professor, and is asked to lecture, which he does in a bunch of meaningless babble. Later he explains to the school headmistress that he is a detective sent to investigate the death of Professor Jameson, which had been predicted by Corday. In the slain professor's room, they find Isabel Jewell hiding.

Conway goes to a rehearsal of the school play to talk to the Ward, where he meets the instructor, Jean Brooks. At the rehearsal, Brooks rebukes Corday because she does not want to fence in the scene, fearing harm. Conway follows Brooks to town, where she goes to the undertaker, whom Conway discovers that the professor died of an overdose of codeine. Conway drives Brooks to a steep cliff that overlooked the ocean. She tells him that Jameson loved her, and committed suicide because of it, but Conway still is dubious. Givot, who signed the death certificate, said that it was not listed as suicide to avoid scandal. Inspector Cliff Clark and his assistant, Edward Gargan, are on hand investigating. Conway tells them it is murder, and he will give them the killer if they will be patient.

Outside the performance that night, Corday finds the body of the headmistress. Brooks finds a fencing sword in the bushes. (As always, Clark does a really good job as the gruff Inspector.) Conway goes to the professor's cottage where he finds Corday listening to a recording of her father playing one of his compositions. She thinks her father was insane, and fears it for herself. Conway discovers that Brooks met Givot on a summer cruise and fell in love with him. Then Clark finds that the headmistress' will left everything to Brooks. He suspects her and Givot, but Conway says otherwise. It surfaces that Jewell had married Givot in order for him to enter the country, and could not stand seeing him with Brooks. Corday had seen Jewell kill the headmistress, and so she tries to make her think she is insane, and commit suicide like her father supposedly did. But the Falcon arrives in time and all ends well.




Ward


Conway

The Toy Center

The International Toy Center is located in Manhattan at the point where  Broadway and Fifth Avenue cross. It has been the site of the industry’s major annual trade show (Toy Fair) for a number of years. While I was in the marketing function for Today’s Kids, a toy  company located in Booneville, Arkansas, I visited the Toy Center several times. Just across the street from the Toy Center is the Flatiron Building, which is a historic landmark in the city.

FLATIRON BUILDING LINK

Entrance to the Toy Center

The Flatiron Building

Frank Nelson is showing Jack and Mary a house

Jack: Mr. Nelson, is the bathroom tiled?

Nelson: Shall we go outside and see?

Dennis Day and baseball

Dennis Day: You know, Mr. Benny, a bunch of my friends came over to my house yesterday and asked me to play baseball.


Jack Benny: Oh, did you play?

Day: Yeah, but every time I hit the ball, I broke a window. I broke seven windows.

Benny: Kid, you must have played too close to the house when you went outside.

Day: Oh, outside!

Watching the odometer roll over

One of the small (very small) pleasures you can get from a vehicle is watching so that you can actually see the odometer roll over 100,000 miles.

Italian crooners

It is amazing how many of the crooners of that era were of Italian origin: Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett (Anthony Benedetto), Dean Martin (Dino Crocetti), Perry (Pierino) Como, Vic Damone (Vito Farinola), Al Martino, Jerry Vale (Gennaro Vitaliano), and the list goes on and on.

Look ALL ways

My grandfather never owned a car, and so he never learned to drive. He lived about a mile from a small town in Arkansas, and during my lifetime he generally would walk to town sometime during the day to visit with oldtimers who would congregate there. One day, late in his life, as he was walking down the state highway, a car got too close to him and smashed his hand as it passed. After that incident, he told me, "People will tell you, look both ways before you cross the street, but what you really need to do is to look ALL ways." From hard experience he had learned that vigilance is the price of health.

The Haydn of the 20th century - Alan Hovhaness

Hovhaness wrote 67 numbered symphonies, far more than most composers. He did not write as many as Hadyn, who wrote over 100, but far more than his contemporaries, for the most part. I do not know his works, so I cannot vouch for their quality. However, I do remember that when I was in college at Arkansas Tech, his compositions were in vogue.

Unsustainable budget course

“The federal budget is on a course that cannot be sustained indefinitely,” CBO director Douglas Elmendorf told reporters.


This is news? Any halfwit should have been able to figure this our several decades ago.

The First Citizen of Van Buren, Arkansas

This was how comedian Bob Burns styled himself. He was born in Greenwood, but his family moved to Van Buren when he was three years old. He had a homespun, somewhat corny style, but it had its niche. He appeared in a number of movies from 1925 to 1951. Attached is a link to a radio show he was on, which was a fill-in for George Burns and Gracie Allen one summer. In it he makes several references to his roots.

LINK TO RADIO SHOW

The Oldtimer's uncle went broke

He was a snake oil salesman, but it seemed that no one wanted to oil a snake.

Who was Harry Snozzlescreen?

A character mentioned on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show.

What do these companies have in common?

They were all sponsors of the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show.