Smokin'

From the Bandcamp collections.

 

Smokin' (0:49) 

Elmer Davis on the News

 

 

This week's installment of Old Time Radio Ventriloquism captures the voice of Elmer Davis, attempting to craft a new understanding of The News.

play (2:23) 

 

What is "eye-watering" supposed to mean?

I have never heard this expression until recently, and now it's in the headines a couple times a week.  "Eye-Watering Budget Projections", "Eye-Watering Scale of Scandal".  Eyes water for a lot of things- sad, happy, onions.  Aren't there better words people are already using, like "shocking"?  

It sounds like AI made it up.  Some weird concatenation of "mouth-watering", and the same body-function reaction to shock that's in so many other expressions.  But AI doesn't appreciate (or even know about) the emotional context that would cause an eye to water.  Can it ever?   

The Bizarre Subcontext of "Wally's Haircomb"

I'll get right to the main topic: there's a Leave It To Beaver episode where Wally starts combing his hair like his mom.  

 

It's not explicit- in fact, they gloss over the whole thing with the idea that Wally's hair is done up like a dumb teenager, in the "jellyroll" style, swept up on the sides, and piled on top of the head in an inverted "U".

 

Coincidentally, his mom, June, also wears her hair swept up on the sides and kind of piled on top.  

 

Hmm.  Are they trying to make a point, here?  Well, we can certainly try.

The point of the episode (I think) is how embarrassed June and Ward are, for Wally, on his account, as he happily goes through life with hair like his mom a very strange haircut.  (The accompanying juke box jive whenever Wally's hair heaves into sight is a nice touch.  Maybe it's a fragrant pomade.)

 

 

 

It might be that they're concerned about how Wally's doing high-hair like an amateur; the "fallen cake" effect on top looks like June's 'do with clippers run through the middle.  

 

But even if it weren't soaked with 30-weight, the question remains:  why would their eldest son want hair like his mother?  Is it the smell of the pomade?

 

 

Ask Your Doctor

MAD Magazine, and don't you dare forget it!

From the late 90s.  But things haven't changed much.

 

Ask Your Doctor (5:09)

1941 in Review

Josephine Baker

This week's feature appears to be a fragment that fell out of the film can that contained last week's feature.  

 

1941 in Review (1:52) 

 

Not sure what to do about these short old-time-radio cutups.  Maybe I should just dump them on the Internet Archive like my hero, Mr. F. Le Mur. 

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Stupid

 

Wherein Dr Watson quacks like a duck.

 

Play (5:55)