Bob and Ray WHDH September 1st 1949

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(4.3 stars; 3 reviews)

Thursday, September 1, 1949; The audio quality on this file is above the normal Bob and Ray For The Truly Desperate standard of poor to unlistenable. It was transferred from a transcription disk in the collection of revered member R2. Please list as much information about these shows as possible in a review of the show. Your information will be used to update the Archive page. Thanks the users who have helped with this file. Some notes on the show. Dating Of Episode: At 18:10, Peter Gorey mentions that the film 'Rope Of Sand' opened at two Boston theaters today. An article in The Boston Globe of Wednesday, August 31st, 1949 carried the headline "Corinne Calvet, French Screen Star, in Boston Today", presumably for the Boston premiere of Rope Of Sand, in which she starred. This information was useful in pinning down the week of the broadcast. At 24:30, in the promo for Wonderland Revere Greyhound Park, Ray states that tonight is "the greatest race of the year, the 1949 Wonderland $12,200 Futurity". As announced on the August 31 Bob & Ray, that particular race would run on Thursday night, which was September 1st. Some circulating mp3 files of this show are misdated as September 29, 1949. The last night of greyhound racing for 1949 was actually Thursday, September 8, so no commercials for Wonderland would have run as late as the 29th, three weeks after closing for the season. The September 29th date is also well after 'Rope Of Sand' had opened nation-wide. 0:00 - Ray sings (terribly), Bob and Ray then open the show nonsensically. They discuss their Brockton Fair contest, the Cohasset Day parade and fair, and the floats in the parade. 5:50 - While Bob takes a phone call, an unidentified hillbilly 'spelling' song, similar in construction to Theodore F. Morse & Howard E. Johnson's 1915 'M-O-T-H-E-R: A Word That Means The World To Me' ("M is for the million things she gave me, O is for..."). 50 BNR Bonus Points if you can identify the singers. Bob's crediting of the song to 'The Chamber Music Society Of Lower Beacon Street' is a reference to 'The Chamber Music Society Of Lower Basin Street', a popular radio show of the 1940s (available on The Archive) that featured hot jazz interspersed with tongue-in-cheek pretentious commentary. The 'Lower Basin Street' of its title was changed to 'Lower Beacon Street', an area of Boston. 9:10 - A singing commercial for Chesterfield cigarettes. 9:30 - Further discussion of the Brockton Fair contest, with Bob reading some of the entries. 11:55 - Bob does a commercial for 'The House Of Television', assisted by Ray as the specially-trained operator. 14:30 - A discussion of, then a visit to, The Simple Phone Call School, where operators are specially-trained. 16:55 - A discussion of Paramount's new release 'Rope Of Sand', a pre-recorded commercial for the film, then more discussion of the film opening today, and its associated contest, by Ray and Peter Gorey (Bob). (This information was useful in pinning down the week of this broadcast; see above.) 21:00 - A particularly maudlin recording of the Jimmie Davis tune 'Nobody's Darlin' But Mine', sung by Gene Autry. Autry performs this song in his 1936 film 'The Big Show', available on The Archive. (Bob and Ray would often play cowboy tunes at a slightly slower-than-normal speed, in order to give them that extra-woebegone feeling.) 23:25 - Bob and Ray read a commercial for Wonderland Greyhound Park at Revere, Massachusetts. (The contents of this advertisement allowed a precise dating of this episode; see above.) 25:50 - A visit to Ben Dover (Bob) at The Friendly Little Candy Store in River's Mouth. Ben receives an old friend, Stan Dupp (Ray), now a brain surgeon on the run from the law. 28:35 - The wrap-up, including a choral commercial for the 1950 Studebaker. Episode annotation by Harry Wilson

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.

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