Sound effects and music definitely have their place, although I'm not terribly concerned by them. One of my favourite programs is Quiet, Please, a low budget series which had extremely limited music and sound effects, yet never felt lacking; the series' author, Wyllis Cooper, wrote within the program's budgetary limitations.
Occasionally, though, I do find the music in old-time radio shows to be a bit tiresome. During the 1950s as budgets were slashed, programs began using canned music. It was especially a problem on NBC radio, where the same music tracks would show up on X Minus One, The Chase, Rocky Fortune, Cloak and Dagger, and Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator. It's not that the music is bad, it's that hearing the same music every episode (to say nothing of the same casts) creates a sense of genericness; it's especially difficult to 'binge' those shows.
But let's consider performances. A fantastic script can be ruined by a poor performance. A funny line can be stifled by unfunny delivery. And when the script isn't great to begin with, a poor performance hurts it even more.
I can only share my opinions. I've mentioned before that I when I first became interested in old-time radio, comedy programs were the hardest for me to appreciate. I had enjoyed Abbott & Costello's movies when I was a kid, but I don't like their radio program; The Abbott and Costello Show has a few great routines by the duo, but so much of the humour is centred around 'funny voices'. Nothing turns me off comedy of the 1930s-50s more than 'funny voices'.
First, I had to make a distinction between 'funny' and 'peculiar'. It took time for me to warm up to shows like The Great Gildersleeve or Fibber McGee and Molly, but beneath the superficial 'peculiar voices' characters have, there is some good comedic writing; neither program is a favourite of mine, but for the most part (Molly's 'Teeny' character being an exception), the jokes on those program are not simply "hey, this character talks funny!"
There are a host of shows I tend to steer away from simply because those 'funny voices' grate on me. Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy; Baby Snooks; Blondie; Amos 'N' Andy. I've never been too wild about The Fred Allen Show either, and not simply because I'm a Jack Benny fan (or because Allen's humour was too topical, although it rather was) but because Portland Hoffa's off-key voice put me right off.
Although I've never been fond of the 'squeaky voiced teens' of The Aldrich Family, I do appreciate that program has very clever writing; it isn't a favourite, but I don't always mind listening to it. On the other hand, the imitation program Archie Andrews has a cast which is almost entirely 'squeaky voiced people'. The in-studio audience laughed every single time someone's voice creaked; I find that program interminable.
Tomorrow I'll share some thoughts about which old-time radio programs are the worst.
1 comment:
"Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy; Baby Snooks; Blondie". Absolutely. Some shows you wonder why people listened. Fred Allen is topical in its humor related to news. Jack Benny's humor is timeless but Fred Allen's popularity puzzles me.
I believe Amos and Andy is by far the funniest comedy in the history of OTR in terms of the scenarios which were often wacky maybe in the way that Seinfeld was or even more so like Beaver. It's unfortunate about the canned non-authentic voices and the failure to employ blacks like Benny did. But in my recollection, this was not a show that bashed blacks in general, nor did it "mean" to categorize blacks as anything except at times similar to the Honeymooners but honestly, much, much better than that show. Amos and Andy is right among a small handful of other shows which are virtually always good episodes, like X Minus One/Dimension X and Escape and Jack Benny and maybe the Whistler.
The show has become stigmatized and WAMU won't play it although they run Jack Benny quite often. Basically, WAMU has substituted one of the most insipid radio shows of all time, Lum and Abner, which might be more authentic in dialect but Lum and Abner were about as smart as your average, say, seven year old. Fortunately, the episodes are only 15 minutes but I suffer through every minute live and simply fast forward through it, if I listen to it say, the next day on the internet.
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