The shortcomings of the New York subway

Conversation on the Subway is impossible. The ingenious gentlemen who constructed it started with the object of making it noisy. Not ordinarily noisy,, like a ton of coal falling onto a sheet of tin, but really noisy. So they fashioned the pillars of thin steel, and the sleepers of thin wood, and loosened all the nuts, and now a Subway rain in motion suggests a prolonged dynamite explosion blended with the voice of some great cataract.

(from Psmith Journalist, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse.

More HERE about the subway.

A lightweight publication, perhaps?

Comrade Wilberfloss's methods were good in their way. I have no quarrel with Comrade Wilberfloss. But he did not lead public thought. He catered exclusively for children with water on the brain, and men and women with solid ivory skulls.

(from Psmith Journalist, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Corn on the cob to a squirrel

Chico Marx on the Bob Hope radio show

Chico Marx is not as well known today as Harpo (thanks to Lucille Ball) and certainly not as famous as Groucho, but he was a competent comedian in his own right. He was the special guest on one episode of the Bob Hope radio show, and played the piano (actually pretty well), while he cracked occasional jokes.

How cheap was Jack Benny?

"Benny not only has no teeth, he is too cheap to buy false teeth. He enamels his guns." - Fred Allen



More HERE about Jack  Benny.

He sat by B. B. King

A man who used to be a salesman where I work had tickets each year at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. He was a regular, and got the same seat each year. It happened that famous blues singer and guitarist B. B. King had the seat next to him. He said they got to be fairly well acquainted, even though they only saw each other once a year.

George became less humorous

In the early episodes of the Let George Do It radio show, Claire Brooks was only his secretary (not yet any romantic interest), and her younger brother Sonny provided the comic relief. Later on, Sonny was dropped, and George and Claire ("Brooksie") became very much an item. As that happened, the program lost a little of its humorous tone.

Pride is expensive

One of the great curses of price is that a man often cannot safely pursue the occupation which he enjoys most and does the best, because he knows the crippling effect success might have upon his moral constitution.

More HERE about pride.

The Ronald Colmans discussing Jack Benny

Benita: You know, darling, there is one thing that is rather amazing about Jack.

Ronnie: Oh, what’s that?

Benita: Well, of all the things he’s taken from us through the years, not once has he tried to borrow any money.

Ronnie: Darling, money is the one thing he doesn’t use.

Benita: He doesn’t use it? Then what does he do with his money?

Ronnie: He gets it, counts it, caresses it, and buries it.

Jimmy Jones - a movie cowboy star you may have missed

In one of the early episodes of Let George Do It, George is hired by movie star Jimmy Jones to get him through an embarrassing situation. Because of an accident, he is now terrified of horses, but he does an annual benefit for an orphanage and does not want to let them down. They notice that George and Jimmy look somewhat alike, so George volunteers to be his double - but George, being a city boy, has never ridden a horse.

One prize you would have wanted for sure

We have a prize tonight for the best singer: a big, beautiful 25-pound box of moustache wax.

(from the Morey Amsterdam radio show)

What is a ketch?

In the radio program The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen, we are told that that vessel is a ketch. A ketch is a sailing craft with two masts. The distinguishing characteristic of a ketch is that the forward of the two masts (the "mainmast") is larger than the after mast (the "mizzen").

Bowdrie's horse

He was lean, rawboned and irritable, yet Bowdrie had developed an affection for him. Pet the roan and he would try to bite you. Curry him and he'd kick. But on a trail he would go all day and all night with a sort of ugly determination. Bowdrie had never known a horse with so much personality, and all of it bad.

(from McNelly Knows a Ranger, by Louis Lamour)

The Peerage. If you enjoy researching the bluebloods

the let me recommend this website LINK. It is a work in progress, but Mr. Lundy is doing a workmanlike job of logging a vast amount of info about the nobility of Europe and elsewhere.

OK, Mrs. Green, here it is. History is on my side.

On the Fibber McGee & Molly radio program of 15 March 1937, Fibber used this joke: "I've sawed that leg off three times, and it's still too short!"

So, take that!

What goes on at the Gildersleeve plant

The Great Gildersleeve was one of the first spin-offs in broadcast history, his character having been a regular on Fibber McGee & Molly for several seasons. On the initial program, still called The Johnson Wax Program (it was later sponsored by Kraft Foods), Gildy takes off for a while from his factory, which manufactures girdles. When he gets to Summerfield, his nephew Leroy has the mistaken impression that the factory makes girders, not girdles, and that Gildy is a rough, tough steelworker. He quips to his uncle, "I'll bet you make the supports for a lot of big projects there." Naturally, that got quite a laugh.

Interestingly, in this initial program, Gildersleeve's niece is named Evelyn, not Marjorie, as she was later.

She looked like Paulette Goddard because she was Paulette Goddard

The Mrs. and I were watching and episode of the old British Sherlock Holmes television program entitled "The Case of Lady Beryl" from 1954. The actress playing the title role looked remarkably like Paulette Goddard, although it did not seem reasonable that she would have been in this series, since she was already a famous movie star. She had been nominated for an Oscar in 1944 and had starred opposite some of Hollywood's big names. I looked it up, however, and it was indeed Goddard. Maybe she needed money.

Jimmy Cagney - a great actor?

Cagney won one Oscar and was nominated for a couple more, but I have never viewed him as a great actor, mainly because he was put in stereotyped roles, and that flavor always permeated his performances. No matter what role he was playing, he always seemed to be a little bit of a gangster. However, his contemporaries seem to have had a high opinion of his abilities. No less an authority than Orson Welles said that he was "maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera."

Nice, lazy Sunday afternoon

An evening of rest and relaxation with family. The good life.

Art Tatum playing "Yesterdays"

If you have never seen live footage of the great Art Tatum playing the piano, you have missed a treat. HERE he is playing the tune Yesterdays. Keep in mind that he was totally blind in one eye and partially blind in the other. His technique and the way he roared through intricate harmonic progressions are unbelievable.