 Ladies and gentlemen, the railroad hour. And here comes our star-studded show train! Gordon MacRae and his lovely guest Dorothy Warren Show. Our choir is under the direction of Norman Luboff, and our music is prepared and conducted by Carmen Dragon. Yes, tonight another delightful musical is brought to you by the American Railroads. The same railroads that bring you most of the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the fuel you burn, and all the other things you use in your daily life. And now, here is our star, Gordon MacRae! Thank you. Thank you, Marvin Miller, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Well, sir, tonight we're going to hear the story behind the scenes of two great music makers, Gilbert and Sullivan, in a delightful opera called Pirates of Piccadilly. The Wondering Nymphs are like a thing of shreds and patches, of ballad songs and snatches, and we belong... Lady, come in here. Oh, thank you, Mr. Gilbert. I've been waiting for days to see you and Mr. Sullivan. I've brought my own music. Well, you look like a young lady with taste. Well, I've had an extensive musical background, Mr. Sullivan. I speak Spanish and French. Mm-hmm. And what do you think of this carpet? Uh, the carpet? Isn't it the most beautiful office carpet you've ever seen in your whole life? Well, yes, it's very nice. Nice? Uh, if you like that sort of thing. You see, Sullivan, she admits you haven't a smattering of taste. I'm a great admirer of Mr. Sullivan's music. She has no taste whatsoever. Now, just a minute, Gilbert. My dear, what's your name? Jessie Bond. Miss Bond. How can you possibly like this man's music? Arthur Seymour Sullivan knows only two melodies. One of them is God Save the King, and one of them isn't. I just adore your stories and lyrics, Mr. Gilbert. Send her away. She hasn't got the taste of a cucumber. What about Mr. Sullivan? How any human being in his right mind can abide the trivia this music hall hack calls lyrics is more than I can understand. That concludes your audition, Miss Bond. Leave your address with the receptionist. Mr. Gilbert, I haven't even sung for you. We'll call you if we need you. Yes, sir. Now, Sullivan, get this carpet out of our office. If you expect me to pay half of the cost, couldn't you make me move you? I am in love with you. Well, that's how I met Gilbert and Sullivan. Have you ever been in love with two men who hated each other? Well, I got a part, a walk on in a brand new nautical comic opera they called HMS Pinafore. I don't suppose any of us will ever forget those rehearsals, especially poor Mr. Gilbert. When I was a lad, I served not term as office boy to an attorney's firm. I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor. No, Mr. Grossmuth, no, no, no. I fully realize, Mr. Grossmuth, that the music is working against you. But a little more animation, please, in the lyrics. Well, may I try again? You may. When I was a lad, I served not term as office boy to an attorney's firm. Stop! I not only write the show, I must go up on the stage and show everybody how to sing. Now listen, Mr. Grossmuth, and softly please, orchestra, I don't want any of that dreadful music to drown out a single syllable. Begin. When I was a lad, I served as term as office boy to an attorney's firm. I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor with the handle of the big front door. I polished up the handle of the big front door. I polished up the handle so carefully that now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navi. I polished up the handle so carefully that now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navi. You see, Grossmuth? A legal knowledge acquires such a grip that they took me into partnership and the junior partnership I weaned was the only ship that I ever had seen. Was the only ship that he ever had seen? That kind of ship so suited me that now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navi. That kind of ship so suited me that now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navi. Simple as that. I grew so rich that I was sent by a pocket fellow and to polyaments. I always voted at my party's call and I never thought of thinking for myself that long. He never thought of thinking for himself that long. I fought so little they rewarded me by making me the ruler of the Queen's Navi. He fought so little they rewarded me by making him the ruler of the Queen's Navi. That is the way it should be sung, Mr. Grossmuth. Now would you try it again? Certainly. When I was a dad, I served a term as office warden attorney and I need the medicine. No, Mr. Grossmuth, no. What seems to be wrong, Mr. Sullivan? Wrong. I walk into the theater and I hear you massacring my music. Now I admit the lyrics they're working against. How any human being with only two tonsils and one pair of long-skinned garble that gavel I'll live in all. Mr. Grossmuth, Mr. Sullivan, you better get somebody else. I don't know whether I'm going to be able to do this. I like the whole song. Though they thought they turned out enchantment and a national love affair developed between the audience and the stage, a magic emerged. The magical word was and. The and in Gilbert and Sullivan. Alone they were a couple of wanderers. Have you noticed how the word wandering runs through their song? Well, maybe I'm especially aware of it because of my first solo in Pirate Penzan. It was a dreadful performance. The words completely drowned out the music. If you and your blasted wind instruments would have blown any louder, we wouldn't have to go to America. They could have heard the show from here. Why, I practically broke my arm conducting that major general nonsense. Singers must stop for breath occasionally, Mr. Gilbert. Grossmuth did it all wrong. Hold the orchestra in chorus. We're going to run that number again. Mr. Grossmuth. Ah, yes, Mr. Gilbert. Sit down in the front row and listen. Here's how that song should be sung. I don't know what you're bothering about. This show won't run for three nights. If you'd only let me cut a few of the words. My words, Mr. Sullivan, are precious pearls strung on the rude hemp of your melodies. Now wave at those musicians and we'll begin. I am the very model of a major general of information, vegetable, animal and mineral. I know the kings of England and the court, the fights historical, from Marathon to Waterloo are categorical. I'm very well acquainted to and matters mathematical. I understand equations both the simple and quadratical. A bop, I know your theorem, I'm teaming with a lot of news. You see, Mr. Grossmuth, the words aren't too long. Your breath is too short. With many cheerful facts about the sweater, bop, bop, bop, bop, news. Many cheerful facts about the sweater, bop, bop, bop, bop, news. Many cheerful facts about the sweater, bop, bop, bop, bop, news. I'm very good at integral and differential calculus. Scientific names of beings, animalculus. Basil and matters vegetable, animal and mineral. I am the very model of a modern major general. Basil and matters vegetable, animal and mineral. I am the very model of a modern major general. I know I'm at the kiss to wreaking of the sense of paradox. I answer hard across each supper, 50 tastes for paradox. I quote a nearly jigsaw, the climbs of Heliogabalus and conics I can plop with you. Your attitude is fabulous. I can tell undoubted rapy, I'll send Jarrod Dawson's oponies. I know the croaking chorus from the frogs of Aristophanes. Nothing zu it really? Grossmith? Or whistle, oh,訂閱 andático... I can write a washing vilon Babel on a cuniform and tell you every detail of kerastic as its uniform, but what matters is vegetable, animal and mineral. I am the very model of a modern major general. Basil and matters vegetable, animal and mineral. I am the very model of a modern major general. Easiest thing I've ever sung. I don't have to tell you that Pirates of Penzance ran a lot longer than three nights. Then Sullivan was knighted, and Gilbert was not. That's when the split-up really began. Mr. Doiley Cart, their producer, tried to patch it up, but only made matters worse. Gentlemen, gentlemen, listen to me. If you're talking to both of us, Cart, you may just nod to me, but be sure to bow to his lordship. Gilbert, Sullivan, please one more show for the fall season. I wouldn't stay in the same room with that hack. Collaborate by mail, through me, anyway. By mail? And take a chance that one of my compositions might be lost? Huh. You could always replace it by consulting an old hymn, no? Goodbye, and don't try to write, see, or contact me again as long as I live. The same to you and many of them. And that's really when the wandering began. While wandering in, shall I a thing of shreds and patches? Not poor, not penniless, but unfulfilled. A ballad songs and snatches, and dreamy love apart. A dark stage at the Savoy, no laughter, no music. My care for love is long through every passion ranging. And the whole nation began praying that they'd stop wandering and put the end back into Gilbert and Sullivan. I chewed my soul, soul, soul. We'll return for the second act of Pirates of Piccadilly in just a moment. Thousands of people gathered in Tracy, Minnesota today to attend the 25th annual Boxcar Day. This traditional event sponsored by the entire community included a long parade of bands and close sports contests and many other features. The principal speaker was Mayor Joseph Huberti, who said, Today, as on each Labor Day for a quarter of a century, we residents of Tracy are proud to have thousands of our neighbors from Minnesota join us to celebrate Boxcar Day. Boxcars have been a part of America for so long that many of us rather take them for granted. But we here in Tracy know what railroad boxcars mean to us as producers, as marketers, as consumers. We see the long trains of empty boxcars moving west for grain loading. And we see the loaded cars moving east to all parts of the country. We realize that today, and it was just as true today as it was 25 years ago, we realize that today we depend on railroad boxcars to carry our products to market and to bring us the necessities and luxuries of life we enjoy. That's why Tracy welcomes this annual opportunity to pay tribute to the boxcar for its important part in our daily life and to the railroads for serving us so dependably and so well. That was what Mayor Joseph Huberti of Tracy, Minnesota said at his community's annual observance of Boxcar Day. Although you may not often stop to think of it, you too depend on the familiar hard-working railroad freight car for almost everything you eat, wear, and use. For it takes the tremendous carrying capacity which only the railroads almost two million freight cars can provide to link farm, forest, mine, and factory with village, town, and city in every part of the nation. Yes, these cars are the very basis of the mass transportation that makes possible the marvel of America's rich agricultural output and its mass production. And the railroad freight car is the foundation of our distribution system, giving you, the consumer, the widest possible choice in the things you buy. Now here is Act Two of Pirates of Piccadilly, starring Gordon MacRae as W.S. Gilbert and Dorothy Warren-Scholl as Jesse Bond with Willard Waterman as Arthur Sullivan. It would have been an international tragedy if those two had remained separated. Gilbert wrote many charming plays by himself, but they gathered dust on the shelves and on theater seats. Sullivan wrote a few pompous operas, whose names we don't even remember, and then one day I ran into Mr. Gilbert. Hi, hello, Jesse. Hello, Mr. Gilbert. We've missed you. I've missed all of you. Jesse. Yes, sir? Do you ever meet up with that composer? You know the one I mean, sir. What's his name? Mr. Sullivan? Sir Arthur? Ah, that's the one. His name was on the very tip of my tongue. Well, I expect to see him in a party this weekend. I happen to have a libretto here, a little Japanese thing that might be pleasant. And do you know his silly melodies might be just the thing for it? Oh, Mr. Gilbert... Only don't tell him I said that. I'll be reading it all weekend. He'll have to notice. You might point out that tit-willow number. Very few words and very slow. Even a chance for the music to sneak off by itself for a few bars. That might flatter the old boy. Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Sullivan loves it. He said he'll risk collaborating by mail. And he's already set the first lyric to music. Let me see that. On a tree by a river, a little tom-tip, sang willow, tit-willow, tit-willow. Boy, that's not bad. Not bad at all. The old boy's improving. He must be taking lessons. Of course, the lyric is rather fascinating. Don't you think so, Jesse? And I said to him, Dickie Bird, why do you sit singing willow, tit-willow, tit-willow? Is it weakness of intellect? Birdie, I cried. Or a rather tough worm in your little inside? With a shake of his cool little hand, he replied. Oh, willow, tit-willow, tit-willow. Now I feel just as sure as I'm sure that my name isn't willow, tit-willow, tit-willow. That was flighted affection that made him exclaim. Oh, willow, tit-willow, tit-willow. And if you remain callous and obturated, and you exclaim, tit-willow, tit-willow. And that opening night of the Mikado, the audience laughed and cried and shook the theater with their applause. And I, I was in a Japanese fairyland, moon-struck behind the footlight. And served his flame, that placid day, the moon fit as still hot. Started the strangest collaboration in history, Gilbert and Sullivan wrote opera after opera, and yet they rarely met. Occasionally they took vows from opposite sides of the stage. Then, the night of the opening of the gondoliers, a strange thing happened. The audience came early, even before the orchestra began to tune up. And backstage, we heard them. What's happening? The show hasn't begun yet. Yeah, who's singing? The orchestra isn't even in the pit. It's the audience, Mr. Gilbert, the entire audience. They're singing your songs. Yes. Why, so they are. Why, Sullivan, you old sentimental fool, you're crying. Well, those aren't glycerin tears rolling down your nose, Gilbert. Why, we're talking to each other. So we are. It's been a long time. Why haven't we been able to be friends? Frankly, I don't think we ever liked each other very much. Maybe our operas have been better because we fought like pirates. We've been nicely self-satisfied, leaning on each other in paternal dependence. We might not have produced what we did. Listen, listen to that applause. Very sweet music, applause. Why, they're applauding your melodies, Mr. Sullivan. No, no, no. Your lyrics, Mr. Gilbert. Do you know we're getting along fine? Absolutely top-rate. Shall we begin a new work? Immediately. In person? Face to face? Shake hands on that. We're going to the office right now and start to work. You first, Sir Arthur. Uh, lyrics always precede music, my dear friend. Thank you. Oh, isn't it gratifying to listen to the audience singing our old songs and know that you and I are as much of an institution as, well, as Westminster Abbey? Yes, it's a wonderful feeling. Just a moment. Where did this carpet come from? Oh, it's something of a surprise. I felt the office needed a new carpet. It's a worse monstrosity than the original. Am I expected to pay for half of this? Well, everything is 50-50. Equal billing, credit, royalties. I will see you dead before I pay a copper fathering for this floor rag. The greatest mistake I ever made in my life was ever coming within 10 feet of you. I want nothing but you singing pompous, unfeeling, hastily. Gentlemen, gentlemen, curtain going up. The show is about to begin. The pirates of Piccadilly, the minstrel boys, the wanderers, God love them, and three cheers for them. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Lovely Dorothy Warren Show will be back in just a moment. And meanwhile, our hearty thanks to Willard Waterman, who was Sir Arthur Sullivan, Pearl Ravenscroft, and her entire company. Pirates of Piccadilly, based on the lives and music of Gilbert and Sullivan, was written especially for the railroad hour by Lawrence and Lee. The railroad hour is brought to you each week, at the same time by the American railroads. Marvin? A few minutes ago, you heard what the mayor of Tracy, Minnesota, said today in tribute to the railroad boxcar, and mighty important it is to all of us. But boxcars by themselves are not much use. It takes locomotives and tracks and signals and shops and all the other facilities of a railroad to turn out America's essential transportation. And more than that, it takes people, railroad people, all kinds of workers, to all of whom on this Labor Day, we pay tribute. Dorothy, you were a delight. Thank you, Gordon. See, the voice of Sir Arthur Sullivan tonight seems familiar. That's because it belongs to Willard Waterman, who is Radio's famous great gilder sleeve here on NBC. Shh, Gordon, not so loud. Little Leroy will never believe I wrote Pinafore. Not to mention the Lost Court. Well, Willard, if we find it, we'll send it right over to your studio. Thank you. What's on the show train next week, Gordon? We decided it's high time we made you a ballerina, Dorothy, and so we're pinning a backstage story of the ballet. I say pinning, I mean spinning, a backstage story of the ballet. Set to the magnificent music of Tchaikovsky, and it's called Swan Lake. I'll practice flapping my wings all week. Good night, Gordon. Good night, Dorothy. Good night, Willard. Good night, Gordon. All aboard. Dear friends, it looks as though we're ready to pull out, and so until next Monday night, in our new musical play, Swan Lake. This is Gordon McRae saying goodbye. Gordon McRae can be seen starring in Warner Brothers About Face. Our choir is of the direction of Norman Luboff, and our music is prepared and conducted by Carmen Dragon. This is Marvin Miller saying goodbye until next week for the American Railroads. Now stay tuned for your Monday night of music on NBC. This evening, Lois Hunt stars on The Voice of Firestone on NBC.