 Radio's own show, Behind the Mic. With a switch of a dial, radio brings you tragedy, comedy, entertainment, information, education, a whole world at your command. But radio isn't all on the surface. There are stories behind radio, stories behind your favorite program, and favorite personalities, and radio people you never hear of. Stories as amusing, dramatic, and interesting as any make-believe story you hear on the air. And that's what we give you, the human address, the glamour, the tragedy, the comedy and information that is behind the mic. And now presenting the conductor of this program, a man whose name since the beginning of broadcasting has been a byword in radio. Graham McNamee. Thank you, Gene Hamilton. Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience. First off, behind the mic presents warming up a studio audience. Folks at home have been missing something that has become a part of radio broadcast, and frankly, we don't think you should miss it. You see you people listening to your radios are easy and relaxed, but when an audience comes into the studio, it is at first, sometimes generally tense and nervous and possibly a little ill at ease. And now since the audience plays an important part in any radio broadcast, making it feel at home and introducing it to certain details with which it can cooperate is very important. This is accomplished by doing what is known as warming up the studio audience. I don't have to tell you any more about that because we have the best warmer upper in radio right here. The famous announcer, Harry von Zell. And without any further ado, I'm going to call on him to show you what is meant by warming up a studio audience. Harry von Zell. I could sing a few bars of it to get started. Graham didn't say so, but I think I'd better mention that this sample of a warm-up speech that I'm going to do is the one that I've been doing with the Fred Allen show. That's a comedy program. And before we go on, five or ten minutes before we go on the air, I hobble out and start this speech. I say, ladies and gentlemen, we have but a very few moments before taking the air and before that time we'd like to welcome you here and express to you our thanks for the kind interest which prompts your visit to our broadcast. It's the usual procedure before going on the air for some little man like myself to hobble out and run through a brief recitation of the technical problems we face in the presentation of radio program. We do that because your understanding of those problems and your cooperation can aid us immeasurably in meeting them. Of course, the most important element is the time element. You know, on radio, when your half hour is up, you go off whether you're ready or not. You can't hang over at the finish, you know. The fact is resulted in some very unsatisfactory finishes for radio programs. You probably have heard at some time or other some poor worried announcer signing off a program in very hurried fashion with words to the effect, don't forget to run out in the morning and buy a tube of national broadcasting company. Only results in bewildering the poor listener who naturally never had any idea that you could buy the national broadcasting company by the tube. So, we've naturally tried to avoid that by having as much flexibility as possible in the running time of the show. One means of achieving that desired flexibility is to seek your cooperation in the matter of applause. We ask that during the broadcast, you allow us to give you a signal when it's time to stop applauding. We don't like you to overdo it. I think I'd better add, too, so as to avoid any possible misunderstanding that while we do cue the applause in the interest of saving time, there is at no time during the program any signal of any kind given when it's time to laugh. We wouldn't like to feel that if Mr. Allen or somebody here says something funny that you were sitting there choking back gales of uproarious laughter waiting for someone here to tell you to let it fly. Quite to the contrary, any time you think you have heard anything funny, you just go ahead and react in any way that suits you best, be it either a giggle, or a pitter, or a guffaw. And at such times as that may happen, we here on the stage, a little surprised and very grateful, immediately stop whatever we're doing and hang around until you grow weary of laughing. Then we plunge blindly on into the next bit of hilarious higgily-piggily, hoping for more bursts of gay chartals throughout the show. Sometimes we get them and sometimes we don't. Well, we only have 30 seconds now before taking air. We're not taking gas, but we sincerely hope that when you leave this studio tonight, you leave feeling that you have enjoyed one of the happiest hours of your lives. Thank you very much. That was swell, Harry. I think by now you've got our audience just sizzling. The winner did with his prized money. This radio is the Pot of Gold program conducted by orchestra leader Horace Hyde. For those of you who don't know, the feature of the program is this. Each week a telephone number is selected somewhere in the United States. The number is 10 phones. And if somebody answers the phone, the person who was called becomes the recipient of at least $1,000. Tonight we bring you a Pot of Gold prize winner of a year ago to ask him what he's done with the money he was awarded. Introducing Mr. Sidney Anthony of Stamford, Connecticut. Mr. Anthony, when did you win your Pot of Gold money? October 17, 1939. And my prize money amounted to $1,900. As much as that? You see, if your phone number is selected and called and nobody answers the phone, you receive only $100 instead of the thousand. The extra $900 is added to the person's whose money will follow the next week. Week before, the person who had been phoned was not at home. I received the additional $900. I suppose that money of yours came in mighty handy, didn't it? It certainly did. Business had been going steadily downhill the past few years, and that made it even more welcome. What business are you in? The house-moving business. Mr. Anthony, what have you done with that $1,900 that rolled in so unexpectedly? Well, Mr. McNamee, I manage our business. It's a sort of family affair. And I use some of the money to pay a few of the company bills. I also paid all my personal bills. You certainly weren't wasting your money. I don't think so. Well, and then the rest of it put me on the way to achieve an ambition. I lost my home to a mortgagee about three years ago, and ever since, I have wanted to build a new home in the same neighborhood. Well, with the rest of the part of gold money, I bought a building lot, and since then, I've built a foundation, and someday I'm going to build the rest of the house. Well, you certainly have proven wrong the old saying that unearned money never did anybody any good. Thank you, Mr. Anthony, very much for coming here today. Behind the Mic presents the story behind how a radio program influenced a listener. Standing at the microphone is one of radio's most talented writers, Jane West, the author of the popular daytime serial, The O'Neill's. Jane, that was the most interesting story you told me about the effect of your program on a listener, and I'd like you to tell it to our audience. Won't you please? My thirdly, Graham. I went into a New York department store to buy some dresses, and one of the sales women whom I knew greeted me with hello, Mrs. O'Neill. Is your program still on the radio? I said, yes, we're still going along. And at that, a lady who was standing next to me said, I couldn't help overhearing. Are you really Mrs. O'Neill of the radio O'Neill? No, I'm not Mrs. O'Neill. I play the part of Mrs. Bailey in the story, and I also write the script. Oh. Oh, then you wrote the words for the play to an important part in my life. Why, in my life? Why, how do you mean? Won't you sit down a minute? Well, please. I feel I've just got to tell you. You see, I used to live here in New York, and I was very happily married. And then my husband bought a very promising store in a little town upstate, and that's where our troubles began. I didn't know anybody in the town when I was lonely and dreadfully unhappy. I even refused to try to make friends, and it seems that my husband and I did nothing to quarrel. And finally things got so bad between us that at last I went to see a lawyer about getting a divorce. And after telling him my story... Well, the situation is unpleasant probably for both of you. But I don't think it necessitates divorce. After all, you've been married happily for years. You have two lovely children. You know, divorce would mean a miserable existence for them, especially. Now, why don't you go home and try to work out some sort of an adjustment? While I was at the lawyer that afternoon, a radio had arrived at our house. We hadn't had a radio since we moved from New York because the current in our new home was the 18th of December. And a couple of days later, while I was still taking over the lawyer's advice, I was fiddling around the radio and just by accident I tuned in on the O'Neill's. And through sheer coincidence it was the episode where Peggy O'Neill was contemplating divorcing her husband and Mother O'Neill was advising her. Take a year. You've got to think more carefully before you take such a drastic step. It isn't easy to face the future alone after years of married happiness with love and companionship. Your husband perhaps has made a mistake. Even say that he has. But have you made every effort possible to try to save your marriage, your home and future for your children? Have you really tried to meet in half-way? Peggy, when you married Monte, you entered into a lifetime contract for better or for worse. And you should honestly try to live up to that agreement just as much as you would do a business contract. Darling, you must be more understanding, more unselfish and more forgiving, more loving and more willing to help. I was fascinated. Mother O'Neill seemed to be talking to me. I could hardly wait to hear the following day's episode, which also concerned Peggy's proposed divorce. And I started to apply Mrs. O'Neill's advice to my own experience. I took an interest in the community and the people around me. I made friends and I tried to understand my husband's problems and make a long story short. I'd never want to live any place else from where I am and have never been so happy in all my life. Thank you, Jane West, for a most interesting story. And thanks to you, Kate McComb, for your sympathetic characterization of Mother O'Neill. The story behind animals on radio programs calls for a hippopotamus, an African warthog, or a chickadee. Instead of going out personally to enlist these animals for the sake of realism, the director generally calls upon one of a small group of men who specialize in animal sounds. Among these animal impersonators is our next guest, Donald Bain. Exactly what animals can you imitate? Oh, Graham, I can imitate everything from mosquitoes to elephants. Mosquitoes to elephants? Yes, in other words, from two. What type of animal are you called upon to do most, Donald? Well, most of the time, I'm a dog. Donald, you're just being hard on yourself. But seriously, do you play all kinds... And in all kinds of moods, too. You see, Graham, in a script, I may be called upon to be a friendly dog like this, a suspicious dog like this, or a vicious dog like this. There's a type of a dog that's just not smart to argue with. Yes, especially as his arguments have teeth in them. You certainly must have studied dogs in various moods. Yes, Graham, and any person who really knows dogs can tell exactly how they feel by the sounds that they make. When a dog feels he is being left behind and wants to go along with his master, he'll sound like this. When he feels like playing, he'll sound like this. If any of you have your dogs listening to the radio, would you please explain to them that they're not listening to a highly successful canine, but merely a reasonable facsimile? Don, what other animals are you called on to imitate? Well, I have not been entirely unsuccessful as a chicken. And I was Joan Betts' pet canary bird on a long show. I had quite a run of pigeons on Mr. District Attorney and others last winter. They sounded like this. And last winter, I was a pet monkey on Lorenzo Jones for quite a while. Then not long ago, they made a jack out of me on a radio gill show. What was the most difficult animal impersonation you ever had to do, Donald? Well, I think it was the hardest role for me to play. It was a killer ape in one of the Shatter Scripts. That was hard because whenever I do my imitations, I put my whole heart and soul into them, and it was a terrific strain on my abdominal muscle. Do you mind recreating that famous moment for us when you were the killer ape? All right, here goes. Are you sure have me scared, Donald? That was mighty good. Several people in the back row here fainted, and a hysterical page boy had just been carried out in a straight jacket. And incidentally, if Gargantua is listening in, Donald was just fooling. Ladies in radio, presenting odd, amusing little true stories that help make radio sometimes funny, sometimes exasperating, but always interesting. This week's Oddity. A few years ago, the Believe It or Not program fell on Christmas Day, and Bob Ripley thought it would be a good idea to interview a man on the show whose actual name was Santa Claus. After a great deal of investigation, Bob actually discovered a man whose real name was Santa Claus. He was a preacher down in the Ozarks, who had not only never been in New York, but he'd never been in any big city. Arrangements were made to put the preacher on the train, and he was told that when he reached New York, the very day before the broadcast, if somebody failed to meet him, he was to telephone the office of Doug Storer, Ripley's manager. Well, after the arrival of the train, the man who was to meet Santa Claus at the station phoned Storer. Hello? Yes, this is Storer. What can't find him? He looked all over the station? Oh, well, that's okay. I gave him my phone number and told him if nobody picked him up to phone me here. It's one o'clock now. He ought to call any minute. You might as well come back to the office and wait for him here. Three o'clock already? Good heavens. He should have phoned a couple of hours ago. See, I wonder if anything's happened to him. Don, you sure you looked all over the station? Yes, I have, Doug. I'm starting to get worried after all this the first time he's ever been in a big city. This is getting awful. Well, we're going to be short one guest for tomorrow's program. Yes, and it's too late to get another one now. I can't understand it. I'm going out to see our telephone operator. Say, Miss Evans, I haven't had a single phone call this afternoon. Hasn't anybody called me? There hasn't been a single call, Mr. Storer. Tomorrow's Christmas, you know, and nobody's at their office. Yes, but are you positive nobody's phoned? Well, sure I'm positive. Oh, some practical joker did phone and kept pestering me all afternoon. A practical joker? Yes, the phone is a Douglas Storer's office. Who is this, please? And someone say, this is Santa Claus. The last time he called, I got sore and said, well, I'm Cleopatra, and hung up. Doug, did you ever find Santa Claus? Yes, Graham. About ten minutes later. Ten minutes later, he phoned once again, and this time asked if I was there and told him, and I said, where are you? And he said, I'm still down at the Pennsylvania station. I said, for Pete's sake, stay where you are and don't move. I'll tell the man right down to get you. And Graham, when the man got down there, he found Santa Claus had taken my words literally. He was still in the telephone booth where he had been all afternoon trying to get me. And you can bet your life, Graham, we didn't let him out of our sight until the next night when he appeared on the Believe It or Not program. Thank you very much, Doug Storer. You did a great job acting the part of yourself. So long, Doug. Each week, we invite the listeners of Behind the Mic to write us questions about radio. And the three or four we consider to be of most general interest, we have answered on the air by the radio editor of some outstanding newspaper or magazine. Tonight's questions will be answered by E. L. Braggden, radio editor of The New York Sun. Mr. Braggden, Mr. Braggden, Mr. Roger Neely of New Brunswick, New Jersey, has this question to ask. He writes, the other night, I was listening to the Albridge family. And a few hours later, I was fiddling around with my set and got a call from the director I was fiddling around with my set and got a California station. Much to my surprise, I heard the Albridge family again, doing exactly the same program I had heard a few hours before. Was this a recording I listened to the second time? No, Mr. Neely, it was not a recording. You heard what is known as a repeat broadcast. Many radio programs are broadcast from the east early in the evening. They repeat the same broadcast later because of the difference in time between the east and the west coast. For instance, the Albridge family was broadcast at 8.30 Eastern Daylight Saving Time, which would be heard in California at 4.30 Pacific Coast Time. This would be too early in the afternoon to reach the same size audience as had listened to the program in the east. So the Albridge family repeats the same broadcast at 12.30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time for the west coast only, where it is heard at 8.30 Pacific Coast Time. This is a very common procedure. Our second question is from Mr. Armand Elbaugh of Wichita, Kansas. Is he right? I hear the expression ad-libbing used on the air every once in a while. Then I have read that Fred Allen and Jack Benny are great ad-libbers. Will you please tell me exactly what is the meaning of ad-libbing? Well, ad-libbing actually comes from the Latin, ad libertum, which means ad liberty. A radio performer or any performer is said to be ad-libbing when he does not follow the prepared script and speaks lines which presumably he had thought up on the spur of the moment. Fred Allen is said to be a great ad-libber because when the situation arises on a program that was not foreseen when the original script was written, he is expert at improvising funny lines to meet the situation. Thank you, Mr. Bragden, for answering all those questions. Behind the Mic presents the story behind a story behind the mic. Standing at the microphone is a pleasant, thick-set gentleman whose broadcasts by shortwave probably go to more countries than any commercial broadcast on the air. The gentleman heard three times each week over NBC is Captain Tim Healy, conductor of Captain Tim Healy's Stamp Club of the Air. Thank you. Captain Tim, exactly what was this broadcast you did, the one that had that strange result? Well, Graham, back in 1935, I told the following spy story on the air. During the visit of the Kaiser to London in 1913, the British Intelligence Department assigned various officers to watch the visitors. Now they were not to spy on them, but to guard them and keep them out of trouble. One night, shortly before midnight, a secret service officer who was disguised as a footman in Buckingham Palace wrapped on the window to call the attention of another secret service officer outside. What is it? General Vaughan Tabor is leading the palace. I'll keep an eye on him. The general drove off in a taxi, followed at not too great a distance by the officer, also in a taxi. The general's taxi twisted and turned through the streets as if, well, he was trying to shake off any possible pursuit. A maneuver which, incidentally, was not successful. Finally, about midnight, the general drove up before a barber's shop in North London. He got out of the taxi, and after looking about very carefully, knocked at the barber's door. Dumb cop. What's the noise, my dear? What's your idea of keeping me bathing here? Oh, I'm very sorry, General. Well, well, well, well. The intelligence officer hung around the outside of the barber's shop an hour before the general emerged. The general was then driven back to Buckingham Palace. The intelligence officer thought this very strange, and he told his chief, and his chief thought it was rather strange. Upon investigations, it was discovered that the barber's shop was owned by a man named Carl Ernst, a naturalized British subject. The chief assigned different officers every day to hang around the barber's shop and see if there was anything in the barber's actions to arouse suspicion. One day, the chief himself was in the barber's shop to get shaved when the postman entered them through a large brown envelope on the table. Hello, Carl. Oh, hello. Got something for me? Yes, here's your money from Germany. I wish it was. Goodbye. Right, Earl. I say barber. I'll be back in a few minutes. Oh, but you're next. Yes, but I must get a check cash to the bank, and it's almost closing time. All right, I will. I say there, postman. I want a word with you. Oh, Scotland Yard, eh? Yes. Let's pop into this pub for half a moment. All right. Now, first as a loyal British subject, I want you to keep your mouth shut about whatever I ask you. You don't have to worry about me. That big brown envelope you brought into the barber's shop. Does the barber get letters like that often? Depends on what you might call often. He gets one of these envelopes regularly. I should think about once a month. Oh, oh. The chief then arranged with the post office department for the next of those letters to be delivered to him, and when it was delivered to him, the envelope was opened by a secret process known to military intelligence, opened in such a way that it could be closed without the tampering being detected. As soon as that letter was opened, they discovered 26 letters within that brown envelope. The letters seemed rather harmless enough, but when they were decoded. Gentlemen, this one is addressed to a German agent in Portsmouth. They want to know the disposition of our fleet there. This one is to an agent in Manchester. They want to know about the production capacity of one of the munition factories. It is all undoubtedly clear that Karl Ernst is acting as a kind of spy post office. These letters are sent to him in this big envelope from Germany. Then he mails the individual letters himself using English stamps, and the letters are then postmarked in England. And so the agents are not suspected of receiving mail from Germany. We'll just keep an eye on our Mr. Ernst. The British intelligence kept their eye on Mr. Ernst and on 26 German agents. So well that when the war was declared in 1914, they were all immediately clapped into jail. So the Germany was in complete darkness concerning the British troop and naval movements the few first months of the war. What happened to Ernst and the other agents? Well Graham, of course, they paid the penalty for being spies. Now Graham, what makes this story so strange is this. The day after I told this on the air, I received a telephone call from a gentleman who'd heard the broadcast, and he asked me to give him an interview. I did, and he told me a very strange story. He had been in complete ignorance as to what had happened to his grandfather, who had disappeared in England more than 20 years before until he had heard my broadcast. His grandfather, Graham, had been carl Ernst. Thank you, thank you, Captain Tim Healy, for a very interesting and a mighty entertaining tale. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions about the inside of radio that you wish answered on the air, write a letter to us. Address it to Graham McNamee, behind the mic, National Broadcasting Company, New York City. As many questions as possible will be answered by mail. And the three or four questions we feel to be of most general interest will be answered on this program. Thank you. This is Graham McNamee speaking. Good afternoon all. Next Sunday, behind the mic, we'll be heard at five minutes past six, Eastern Standard Time, and thereafter at half past five. This is the National Broadcasting Company.