East/West feed and transcription archives.

[Maxwell Stroud]

I'm pretty sure I've read that they did two live broadcasts.
It seems like the recordings made are (for the most part) from the afternoon broadcast for the east coast. Were both recorded and only one version saved?
Is there any source for the alternate version if both were saved?
There are plenty of little asides and line fluffs in the recordings that would be impossible to pull off as smoothly if they were to try to do them on purpose. For instance, I'd love to hear both versions of the Drear Pooson episode. Then there are the famous Mary fluffs like the grass reak line. The following episode from Palm Springs where the skunk fight makes the grass reak wouldn't make sense unless Mary had re-done the fluff for the west coast broadcast. Then there are the longest laugh episodes, "Your money or your life" and "Oh, shut up." Were those laughs as long in the other broadcast as they were in the one recorded?
Am I even right about the two live broadcasts thing?
If not, then oops. Never mind.

[shimp scrampi]

You're right about the two broadcasts up until 1946, after which only one show was done and it was transcribed for the West Coast. And funnily enough, most of the examples you cite (grass reek, Drear Pooson) are post-1946. So there's no alternate broadcast for those shows.

Sometimes you can tell from the earlier shows which coast the recording is from (listen for California-specific commercials for example). Laura's 39 FOREVER is, as always, a great guide to this.

[Maxwell]

As I recall, without going to 39 Forever, there are just a handful of shows where recordings of both broadcasts exist.

[Maxwell Stroud]

I've been reading about and wanting to find a copy of 39 Forever, available at local booksellers or Amazon?

[helloagain]

Both the east and west coast broadcasts of the 12-17-39 Benny program are available, as are 2 rehearsals from the mid 50s. These are all that I am aware of. If more exist I would like to know about it.

[scottp]

I would have thought there'd be more east/west pairs surviving. If airchecks are to serve a legal purpose-- for instance, defense against a claim such as "My client was slandered in last night's broadcast..." what good is the OTHER broadcast from that date?
I suppose recordings were saved, for a time, by various parties... ad agency, network, local stations... but virtually no east/west pairs survive!?!?

[helloagain]

As I said...I really don't know. Does anyone out there have more information about this?

[helloagain]

I was just listening to a show from 12-22-40. When a joke fell flat, Jack said that it had gotten a bigger laugh on the earlier show, identifying this as a west coast broadcast. Unless a reference like this is made, I don't know how we can tell the difference.

[Maxwell Stroud]

December 17th 1939 I have two versions labeled as east & west. Seems like some of the jokes were funnier in the 1rst broadcast, I guess that they guessed wrong when they re-wrote. It would be interesting to have an idea how the meeting between broadcasts went: why they changed the sleeping on a pool table joke (dreamt I was an ostrich/Rochester charged me sixty cents an hour) for example.
This led to another question along the same lines: later that winter they do a show from Oakland Civic Auditorium (last show before the Yosemite trip) and mention 9000 people in the audience. Did they keep those people for both broadcast, empty and refill the hall (18,000 total butts in the bleachers) or did they transcribe the odd show before 1946 in special cases like this.
I guess the same question could be asked about the wartime military base shows.

[Jack Benny]

I've been playing the 1940-1941 season from 70 years ago of the Fred Allen Show featuring Kenny Baker on my podcast, every Friday, and almost all of them have an east coast and west coast version available, and I post both. In Allen's case due to all of his adlibbing the two shows are often markedly different from each other. Here are a couple for your enjoyment.

Fred Allen Podcast 1941-04-24 (29) Radio, the Great American Pastime (West Coast 41-04-23)
http://jack_benny.podomatic.com/entry/2011-05-06T16_35_12-07_00

Fred Allen - Texaco Star Theater 1941-04-23 (29) Radio, the Great American Pastime (East Coast)
http://jack_benny.podomatic.com/entry/2011-05-06T16_36_01-07_00

[Yhtapmys]

Did they keep those people for both broadcast, empty and refill the hall (18,000 total butts in the bleachers) or did they transcribe the odd show before 1946 in special cases like this.

That's a really good question. I looked up the local papers from when Jack did the show from Vancouver (the last one before Dennis went into the service) and it appears there was only one show, at least in the one paper I perused (there were three dailies here at the time).

Yhtapmys

[krledu]

So does anyone know how they made the show work when Jack and the Gang did special shows or military camps?

[Jack Benny]

So does anyone know how they made the show work when Jack and the Gang did special shows or military camps?

I would think it would be a great opportunity to have twice as many military personnel see the show, so my guess would be that they did two shows with two different audiences.

[Jack Benny]

As I said...I really don't know. Does anyone out there have more information about this?

I've just checked all of the shows I have and there are exactly 10 episodes with surviving East and West coast feeds, actually more than I thought. I'll try and post both versions of all of them to this thread in the near future.

[Yhtapmys]

So does anyone know how they made the show work when Jack and the Gang did special shows or military camps?

I've still been hunting around for this. I found a reference in a book that Bob Hope would do two shows at bases during WW2 but nothing about Jack.

But the St. Joseph News-Press of Feb. 18, 1945 mentions Jack doing two shows there (at 6 and 8:30 local time) for an audience of 4,000 blood donors in each show.

And I've found the answer to the Vancouver question. There were two different shows at the Forum, the first one in the afternoon for the public, the second in the evening for members of the armed forces.

Yhtapmys