Week Forty: Radio Party

It’s funny, what the older generations will do to the younger. And what the younger generations will learn to be thankful for.

My mother, at the time in her sixties, introduced me to Spike Jones and the City Slickers thanks to a neighbor, then in her eighties, who had a Spike Jones cassette tape. Mom also introduced me to the likes of George Burns and Gracie Allen, Fibber McGee and Molly, and dozens of other radio show stars. These were her childhood, she said, and she wanted to share them with her kids.

As far as I know, I’m the only one who took the bait. And I think I’m richer for it. What’s old is new when you listen to it for the first time. I love listening in anticipation for McGee to open that famous closet. Despite the blackface roots, I enjoy listening to the antics of Amos and Andy. Bob Hope and Jerry Colona have a wonderful chemistry together.

So it’s no surprise that Cokesbury’s Radio Party should be a popular one with me.

But Cokesbury seems to take radio for granted and the party, I have to admit, is a disappointment for dyed-in-the-wool radio fans. Of course, this was in 1932. The shows I mention weren’t on the air then. But something had to be. True, Cokesbury does mention Amos ‘n’ Andy, but that’s the only – the only – program they mention. It’s like talking about television and only mentioning Seinfeld. Sure, Seinfeld was immensely popular. But what about all the others?

Could Cokesbury have been worried about copyright, even way back then? Can’t be. Why mention Amos ‘n’ Andy then? It’s a mystery for the ages.

So just as Seinfeld is a show about nothing, Cokesbury’s Radio Party is a radio party about, well, the radio. As you’ll see.

Here’s the invitation, finally, after my long preamble:

At our Radio Party we want you all,
Endeavorers short and Endeavorers tall.
The Social Committee has made a decision
To entertain you with radio and television.
Come to the social room on Friday night,
For we promise you an evening of real delight.

Now, without preamble, we get into the radio part of the Radio Party. Literally.

Part of the program should be a radio program. So construct a large radio out of a large box or make a frame and cover it with dark cloth of dark crepe paper. Arrange it so that parts of the program may come over the radio – that is, an improvised radio. Of course, the performers will be the guests. Those taking part should stand in the radio or behind it to perform, so that the program will appear to the guests to come over the radio.

Some of the program may be television and may be acted behind a screen of white sheets, with a light behind it so that a shadow will be cast on the screen. A reader may read the story while the actors dramatize it. Some suggested stunts that might be used are: “The Supreme Sacrifice” and “The Mellerdrammer,” from Handy, by Rohrbough, and “The Delectable Ballad of the Waller Lot,” “The Ogre of Rashamon,” and “An Indian Massacre,” in Stunt Night Tonight, by Miller.

It is our thought that the above suggestions about the radio and television programs should form only a part of the evening program. The party should proceed in the usual way, and the program occupy only about forty-five minutes at the end of the program.

So. Two books I need to look up when I run out of Cokesbury parties this May: Handy Playparty Book, by Lynn Rohrbough, and Stunt Night Tonight, by Catherine Miller Balm. But as I’m at the mercy of whatever books people toss to the local thrift stores, who knows what’ll happen next?

And, really, Cokesbury. You demand a lot from your readers. If this were a modern radio/television aprty, folks would come with their digitized Fibber McGees or DVD box sets of Hogan’s heroes and make a night of it. At most they might play some televison-oriented trivia game. But make shows of their own? Act them out? Build a box big enough to resemble a television or radio in which to perform said pantomimes? Not hardly. You were indeed a hardy folk in 1932. I doff my hat to you.

And for you planning such a party today, maybe find somebody with a cargo container. Or just stage it in the driveway, using the garage door opening for your “television.” That might work.

But back to the party. Or the next, exciting radio-themed game:

Opening Mixer: Radio Stations. Hang around the neck of each guest a card six inches by six inches lettered with the initial of their last name. A string should be tied in each of the corners on the upper side that will slip over the head. Guests should wear them all the evening, for they will be needed in the radio program at the close. Ask each guest to write his name on his card as well as having his initial on it.

Each guest is given a paper and pencil, and the leader explains that the guests are to form the call numbers of radio stations such as WJZ and WEAF, New York; KDKA, Pittsburgh; WAPI, Birmingham; WLW, Cincinnati, WIOD, Miami, etc. When three or four players can get themselves into formation so that they form a call number of a radio station, each of the four may write down the call number of that station. The best radio fan will probably know a large number of stations. Give a prize to the person having the largest number.

You can tell already that anyone with the initial W or K is going to become very popular during this game. If you can get your guests to play, that is. Seems kinda lame to me.

And yes, it might have been possible for you to hear such distant stations, especially at night. Go here for more info. This is the Cokesbury Party Blog, not Radio Amateurs.

But ponder this: Radio was kind of the last truly magical technologies. You could sit in your living room, tinkering with the knobs, and hear, if you were lucky, stations from far away. Radio is still mysterious and magical today, with numbers stations and the ability to broadcast yourself on a microstation. TV doesn’t hold that magical sway. The Internet is kinda like that, but the noise to signal ratio is really high. And aside from GeoCities, do people really get nostalgic about how a web page used to look?

Whoah. I guess they do.

On to the next game.

Names of Radio makes. Give guests blank sheets of paper and pencil and tell them that when the whistle blows, they are to write the names of all the makes of radio they can think of. Some of the makes now on the market are:

Victor
Philco
Silvertone
Atwater Kent
Majestic
General Electric
Apex
Pilot
Crosley
RCA
Stromberg Carlson
Koslter

Give a prize to the one having the largest list. Five or six minutes should be the time limit of this game.

This game is one of my favorites from the book, because it reminds me of the early days of computing when you had your Colecos, your Commodore 64s, your TRS-80s, your TI-994As, and even your Ataris. Sure, we still get that kind of variation today, but nobody – I guarantee nobody – is going to have as strong an emotional attachment to a Lenovo or a Gateway than they would with a Commodore or a TRS-80. It’s just not possible. Computers of today will never love us. Computers of that era did.

Okay, now it’s time to put on your own radio program. Here’s the setup:

We assume that some of the radio program has been arranged in advance, such as a reading or recitation, vocal solo, orchestra, and Amos ‘n’ Andy. A song leader should also be secured in advance who will know how to lead the songs for the sitting-up exercises.

Two of the radio features, however, should be impromptu. The leader selects two stations, WEAF and KDKA. Those having the letters WEAF and those having the letters KDKA to represent the initial of their last name get together and are assigned the task by the leader of “poking about” among the guests for advertisements and news. Let them write this out and get it up so that it can be given over the radio. The leader should take care in making the selection of those wgo are going to do this work, and it might be well go give some notice in advance. When they have finished, let the radio program start as indicated below, and let them take their aprt on the program. One from each of the stations should read the advertisements and news.

Then we go on to the “sitting-up exercises,” which includes singing enormous slabs of syllable and rhyme squeezed into tunes familiar and unfamiliar, such as:

Smile awhile and give your face a rest,
Stretch a while and ease your manly chest,
Reach your hads up toward the sky
While you watch them with your eye
Jump awhile, and shake a leg there sir!
Now step forward, backward – as you were
Then reach right out to someone near
Shake his hand and smile.

This is sung to the tune of “Smile the While You Kiss Me Fond Adieu.”

Now, on to the news. Advertisements. A reading – Cokesbury suggests a story from the Gipsy Party or – for the Amos ‘n’ Andy skit – something from the Cokesbury Minstrel Show, which will be handled with much delicacy later this year on this blog. Then, my favorite:

Orchestra. Gazoo orchestra could be substituted if a real one is not available. See “Kitchen Cabinet Orchestra” in Index. Or just go here.

Now to the refreshments which do not appear to be coffee and cigarettes, the most popular radio station snack I’m aware of:

Refreshment suggestions for this party would be Waldorf salad, sandwiches or wafers, and coffee, or iced or hot tea, depending on the season in which the party is given.

So I was wrong about the coffee.

Hope you had fun. Tune in – ha – next week for a Progessive Hearts Party. The party involves (whisper) dice, so you might want to consider once again screening your dice-fearing friends.

But before you go, Jerry Colonna – who has a face and voice built for radio – has this parting shot for us.

And while we’re speaking of the venerable Mr. Colonna, I never realized this:

But it’s certainly easy to pick out that radio voice, isn’t it?