What Is Your Name?

MAD Magazine

The topic for this week arose from the basic questions I have to solve, in order to wrangle new content onto this site.  Right now I'm wondering, is the person I tell myself I am, the same one that's going to make enough new audio (and now, video) every week, to not have to rely on reruns or other people's content.  

 

It's not something I know the answer to.  But I'll give myself another year to develop the resilient process that may make it possible. 

 

Here's something I made when I was doing radio.  Hasn't been included in a collection or previously posted.  

 

What Is Your Name? 

 

This week's picture is from the MAD Magazine parody of the TV series Hazel, where the idea is, the characters speak to each other with masks, and confide their real feelings to the audience through the Fourth Wall.   

 

The drawing is by Mort Drucker, and I just realized it's probably supposed to be Bruce Kirby, 

a well-known face on Old TV, but who never appeared on Hazel.  Mort was such a great caricaturist, he'd throw in cameos like this all the time.  

 

 

 

 

The Happy Wanderers Salute John Williams (SCTV)

 With polka versions of his film music, from Superman, Star Wars, etc.

 

Unintentional Internet Cut & Paste

 From this afternoon's YouTube recommendations- gun-toting Katie Phang!

 (Here's the original.  I didn't do anything but capture it.)

 

Haywire Mac: Ain't We Crazy

Haywire Mac wrote hobo songs like "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" and "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum".  He was a roustabout and a wandering musician 100 years ago, who settled down to make radio in San Francisco- a daily children's program- and became popular among everyone else. "Mac and His Haywire Orkestry".  (His birthday is October 8, which happens to be this month.  Thank you, Radio God, for bringing him up in The Mix.)

 

Ain't We Crazy is our birthday choice because of how it speaks to our commitment to bring you only the finest Dada, wherever it can be found.  Sing along if you want.

 

Now, I know a little ditty, it's as crazy as can be.
The guy who wrote it said he wanted it, and handed it to me.
I found I couldn't use it because it sounded blue,
And that's the very reason why I'm handing it to you.

It's a song the alligators sing while coming through the rye,
As they serenade the elephants up in the trees so high.
The iceman hums this ditty as he shovels in the coal,
And the monkeys join the chorus up around the nothern pole.

Ain't we crazy, ain't we crazy,
This is the way we pass the time away.
Ain't we crazy, ain't we crazy,
We're going to sing this song all night today.

It was midnight on the ocean, not a streetcar was in sight,
And the sun was shining brightly, for it rained all day that night.
'Twas a summer night in winter, and the rain was snowing fast,
And a barefoot boy with shoes on stood a-sitting in the grass.

It was evening, and the rising sun was setting in the west.
The little fishes in the trees were huddled in their nest.
The rain was pouring down and the moon was shining bright,
And everything that you could see was hidden out of sight.

While the organ pealed potatoes, lard was rendered by the choir.
The sexton rung the dishrag, someone set the church on fire.
"Holy smoke!", the preacher shouted. In the rain he lost his hair.
Now his head resembles heaven, for there is no parting there.

The cows were making cowslips and the bells were wringing wet,
And the bumblebees were making bums and smoking cigarettes.
And a man slept in a stable and came out a little hoarse,
So he hopped upon his golf sticks and drove all around the course.

Ain't we crazy, ain't we crazy,
This is the way we pass the time away.
Ain't we crazy, ain't we crazy,
We're goin' to sing this song all night today.

It was midnight on the ocean, not a horsecar was in sight
As I stepped into the drugstore to get myself a light.
The man behind the counter was a woman old and gray
Who used to peddle shoestrings on the road to Mandalay.

"Good evening, sir," the woman said, and her eyes were bright with tears
As she put her head beneath her feet and stood that way for years.
Her children, six, were orphans, except one tiny tot
Who lived in a house across the street above a vacant lot.

Ain't we crazy, ain't we crazy,
But this is the way we pass the time away.
Ain't we crazy, ain't we crazy,
We're going to sing this song all night today.

Sean Tejaratchi: Liartown book promo

 From 2017.  Presented purely for artistic, non-commercial purposes.

 

Best of the Year

Clara Kreevich Finork

Well, here we are again, with quickie links to our best posts of the year, as determined by me.  The rules are,

- They have to be made by me,

- Substantially original,

- No reruns.  

And it now includes videos, as long as they meet the other conditions.

 

In case you're wondering, our year runs from Oct 1 to Sep 30.  The current series of posts began Oct 2024.  

  

This year, it was 63 posts.  17 were new and original audio collage, 11 were commentary and pictures (I'm saying "11"), and 5 write-ups of veteran character actors.  6 of the audio collage were re-runs.  And 24 posts were things that were made by other people.  

 

Non-finalists included an amazing music video, rockin' Soviet-era jazz and a reading from Charles Fort. 

 

The five finalists for Best Bit of the Year are:

Nov 2: Dueling Presidents (audio collage)

Nov 16: Ack Seasoning (audio collage)

Dec 28: Mission Preposterous (audio collage)

Jan 18: "Watch Out For That Cashy Soap Arop!"  (commentary)

Apr 12: Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Stupid (audio collage)

 

 

  

And the winner is...

 

 

 

Sherlock Holmes 

and the Voice of Stupid!

(Cue the scary theme music)

 

 

Thanks for coming.  

We'll be back next week with Season 3, 

I hope.

 

 

 

TV Sheriff and the Trailbuddies: Jerry vs Jerry

 

 

TV Sheriff (aka Davy Force) appeared briefly 20 years ago, video synthesizer in hand.  His work is similar to Emergency Broadcast Network, another flash of cut-up brilliance occurring a decade earlier.  This is from his DVD "Not For Sale", which is still available at othercinemaDVD.  (I hope the free plug makes up for me posting it.)

 

 We'll be back next week with the Best Bits of the Year for Oct 2025 to Sep 2026. 

Frank De Vol, born Sep 20, 1911

Frank wrote a lot of music for a lot of shows.  He was basically the House Composer for "The Brady Bunch," and "The Bradys" and all the Brady Christmases and weddings.  He wrote soundtracks for 92 movies and TV programs, from the usual light-hearted family fare (Disney's "Herbie" films, "My Three Sons"), to grittier, more desperate tales ("Emperor of the North",  "Murder Inc"), and a few 1960s classics ("Guess Who's Coming To Dinner", "The Dirty Dozen", "Pillow Talk").  

 

He made "stock music" for film production.  And he wrote the music for Screen Gems' "dancing stick" animated trademark of the 60's.  

 

 

 

He also started appearing as a character actor- a role for which he was suited, obviously being some kind of character.  Mostly one-shots, except for his excellent work as bandleader Happy Kyne on Norman Lear's living tribute to the 70's, "Fernwood 2 Night" and "America 2 Night".  His low-key style really fit in with the kind of talk-show surreality they practiced in Fernwood.

 

 

William W.D. "Bud" Prize: Origin Story

I guess this is a bonus video.  Next Sunday is-  well, it's a special day for Old TV Fans.  While I was looking up material for it, I uncovered this appearance by Kenneth Marrs on "Fernwood 2 Night".  Looking at it again, the Radio Dada quasi-interview influence of Bob and Ray is clearer than ever.

 

Charles Fort: an excerpt from The Book of the Damned

 

Charles H Fort collected and wrote about unusual events that were poorly explained, mostly things falling from the sky- meat, spiders, tiny crosses (thus giving his name to the eponymous fortean fall)- but any strange, inexplicable events in general; intrusions on our untidy reality of the many things in Heaven and Earth that are not dreamt of in our philosophy.

 

His influence to our work here at CutUpSound is in his reminder that explanations necessarily follow the event, which itself acknowledges no rules or prior realities.  Reality is not necessarily playing our game.  But whatever the case, keep good notes and use them to bedevil the self-proclaimed interpreters of that reality.  

 

This week's reading is an excerpt from "The Book of the Damned", published in 1919.  

 

"Astronomy" 

Alternate History: Wally Cox

 

Pelfrey & Rhodes: Imperialism, intro music

"Imperialism" was a computer game, produced by Frog City Software and SSI.  The soundtrack was written by Danny Pelfrey and Rick Rhodes.  The opening music sets the theme about 19th Century empire-building in a striking and appropriate way.  

A musical poem, actually.  About the release of the Genie, with the discovery of steam power.  The empires built on that and their inevitable conflict. Valiant heroism riding a surge of intricate energy.  And through it all, the little MIDI toiling away like a full-blown symphony orchestra.  

play (2:19)

Luciano Albo: She's Leaving Home

 

Wait, that's Jesslyn Fax, in The Music Man-

 

This week's offering is from Luciano Albo, and it answers the musical question, what if the Beatles had been a Motown band?  It might have gone something like this...

 

Play 

Alternate history: Columbo

Vic Berger: Jeb Is a Mess

Vic Berger does a lot of tweaking of news footage.  I'm pretty sure most (all?) of these sentences are edited somehow.  The total effect captures the spirit of what happened to the leading candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, when he had to actually campaign.  

 Mr Berger includes this in much longer piece, as well. 

Standing By

Paul Frees

 

1) Obscure Monty Python behind the scenes at the Beeb.

 

2) I banged the Old Time Radio around and this fell out. 

The Mysterious Mr Mute

This is my first audio post about a silent artist. 

 

Randomly flipping through the TV one day.  The cowboy channel was playing an episode of "Tales of Wells Fargo", a series featuring Dale Robertson, William Demarest, Chubby Johnson 

 

various other denizens of the old west, and in this one, a mime.

 

Kind of an interesting touch for old TV.  There were a lot of ensemble-style TV Westerns in the early 60s, where a dozen or so regulars would have a weekly one-off with some crazy miner or an out-of-control posse, and the demand for oddballs and eccentrics was high.  But I don't think I ever saw a mime before.

 

And this guy was a pretty good mime.  In 1960 Hollywood?  Probably not an American actor.  Who knew from mimes in 1960?  Would Marceau appear on le Western Americain?  It's probably someone I've never seen, in years of watching TV, and growing up recognizing all these guys.  Some theater actor.  Unless it's something crazy like Ken Berry or Tim Conway.  

 

So I stayed for the credits.  And you're not gonna believe it.  It was indeed someone very familiar.  

Here's his act, it's only about a minute, once the cursor calms down.  (If Starz has an issue, I'll reluctantly take it off.  Not a problem.  My intent is to inform, not defraud.  They can tell YouTube and it's gone.  I'm just a little gadfly.)

Classic mime.  He plays to the audience like Harpo Marx and Charlie Chaplin.  

 

 

 

 

 

Can you guess?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Vito Scotti.  

One of the most That Guy! of all those guys and gals.  About half a dozen appearances a year for 45 years, (241 total per IMDB).  And a formidable scene stealer.  

 

 

It makes sense because Vito was a lifelong adept at the business of The Stage.  But he was definitely not known for any physical comedy more developed than slapstick.  Finding out he could mime, and was very good at it, was a big surprise for this fan.  

 

 

 

Little Richard: Hey Hey Hey Hey

 

 

A shot of audio espresso.  

play

Mario Wienerroither: Speechless Speech / BARACK OBAMA

Definitely re-posting video cutups, now, too.  And still on Sundays.  

 Should get back to doing new audio, sometime...

There I Ruined It: Always Look On the Bright Side of Life

 This video posting stuff's not a bad deal.

 

Negativland: Our Favorite Things

It looks like my audio host has quit working.  I found out last night at midnight, when it wouldn't play the bit I picked out for today.  Sigh.  I dunno.  It really seems like things just glitch a lot more.  I need to look at this whole thing, anyway.  I want to keep doing weekly posts, but the current arrangement is just kind of creaking along.  Nothing new is being worked up.  It's times like this that I'm inspired by those greater than I.

Dan Travanty or Noam Pitlik?

Welcome again to the site that regularly considers Hollywood's enduring mysteries:  

 

Who IS that guy?

Our discussion this week covers a question that's been unresolved for over 60 years: who plays the police detective in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"?  

 

As Variety magazine might put it, "Classic Comic Cameos Clinch Chaos!"  Over 100 mostly comic actors dropped in to play bit parts, including a good helping of those who toiled in supporting roles in TV and movies at the time (1963).  

 

Artwork by Jack Davis

 

But for all the detail about the cast, one name is missing.  Who is the detective in the hat? 

 

Looking over the cast: there's a Dick Cherney as "Detective".  (And try to search for THIS guy.  You won't be able to get past the know-it-all computer insisting you want to know about "Dick Cheney".  They're actually getting dumber.  There is apparently no way to search the internet for "Dick Cherney", with only the name.  Try it yourself if you think I'm kidding.) 

 

I finally found a picture,  of "Dick Cherney, Mad Mad", from an appearance on "Star Trek":

 

Must have been another detective.  Although this actor has an interesting resume, with appearances on popular TV shows, playing even more obscure background characters.  Apparently in the same "silent bystander" category as Tony Regan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are no other unidentified "detective" actors.  Our man might be listed as a "spectator"- there's a couple dozen of them- but I think it's unlikely.  I'm going to say the actor isn't listed.

 

Let's consider whether it's one of these two men: 

I think I've seen an online post discussing one or the other in this role; can't find it now.  In fact, "Mad Mad Pitlik", "Mad Mad Travanti", even "Mad Mad Travanty" (his stage name in 1963) turn up zero info linking either one to this film.  Perhaps the question's never seriously been asked.  

 

It's made a little easier due to the fact that Noam Pitlik once wore his hat the same way.

 

"The Fortune Cookie"

 

We also have Daniel J. Travanti in a hat- which doesn't add anything.

 

"Lost in Space: Collision of Planets"

 

Hmm...how about the ears?  

 

A                                                B                                        C

Do we have any samples of Travanti's ears from that period?  Well, actually yes, his second professional appearance (according to IMDB) was a "Route 66" episode from 1964:

 

Look at that.  No lobe.  Uh-huh!

Ok, first of all, we have to consider it may be neither of them.  Maybe people will write in like an old Dear Abby column- "That's my Uncle Spif!"  I dunno.

 

But in my opinion, there's enough there to think it's probably Noam Pitlik.  

- earlobes (Travanti hasn't got one).

- their hairlines match...do we have one of Travanti's hairline?  Take off that hat!  (Raise your right hand!...)

I can't believe how much these guys look alike.  This is a toughie.  But we have to go with the ear.  They just don't match.  Pitlik's is closer.  (Yes, I know he has two.)  And he's got a bony forehead.  

The closest we can get is that the detective in Mad Mad World is most likely played by Noam Pitlik, or his twin.  Especially when you consider his career, much more of an Old TV Guy than Mr Travanti (about 3 jobs/year in TV and movies for 37 years, plus directing).  In this film, laboring in the full anonymity that usually falls over the efforts of these hard-working folks, turning up who knows where.

 

Bonobo- Cirrus

Well, no podcast yet.  I tried it and broke my headphones.  The tyranny of circumstance.  I don't know what's going to happen on this site.  

The Goon Show

I'm going to change the way this blog is run, and start doing half-hour podcasts every Sunday morning.  It's going to be like a weekly radio program.  

 

Back when I had a radio show, it ran from the middle of the night to dawn.  I'd always give over the last 30 minutes to the Goon Show, a living comic strip that ran on the BBC, 70 or so years ago.  Peter Sellers was one of them, Spike Milligan wrote most of it, a Welsh heldentenor named Harry Seacombe was dragged in somehow-- there they are on the left, Spike, Peter, Mr Greenslade, and Harry.  This week's program is from Feb 15, 1955, "The Sinking of Westminster Pier".

 

I think we'll start readings next week. 

July 4 test post

 The Abe Lincoln Malfunction at the Hall of Presidents.

 Hey, it works!  Our first video file!  Yay!  Happy Fourth of July, everybody!

John Oswald: A Case of Death

This might be the best Spoken Word cutup ever.  It sounds like something from Finnegan's Wake.

Play (9:21)

Rush Limbaugh: I'm a Nazi

I wish I knew who really made this track.  It was some Radio Morning Show, and they had to listen to enough of his voice to put this together, and make it rhyme, and swing!  The other thing about this piece- all that was originally spewed by Limbaugh himself.  Insulting people he disagreed with was his whole concept.  It was kind of like Bizarro Muzak.

Play 

Thinking

 

(That sure is a big dictionary page.) Remember what I was saying last week?  "Old time radio mashup site."  

"Thinking" is a good title for this week.  It's from "The Dental Clinic of the Air", performed on a musical saw by Sam or Stan.  The program is in a collection of Old Time Radio one-shots, on the Internet Archive.  At least it used to be.  I found it just now on a new site called "Radio Echoes".

Thinking.  What do I really want to do, here?  Still want to put up something brand new and weird every week.  Not giving that up yet.  At least weird, if not new.  Perhaps more OTR.

Play (1:42)

D-Day, with the Kingsmen

(...Maybe I should just turn this into an Old-Time Radio Mashup site.)  

 

Oh, hey, folks.  I have to say, as an experiment, this site may be reaching the end of a phase.  My intent remains to have a kind of open audio lab, with new bits tossed out every week.  But I already know, the ratio is about 20-30 hours of fooling around to 5 minutes of completed bit.  Which I've been expecting to do, eventually. 

 

But we're not anywhere near that.  It'll be a couple of years in October, since I started posting again.  Let's see if I can set up a more resilient process for the whole thing over the next three months.  If not, I might try something else for art.

 

**

 

The King's Men  

 

 

(not the band that sang "Louie Louie") were an a cappella quartet of the last century, emerging from the rich ferment of Vaudeville.  They were possibly considered a more "hep" version of Barbershop Quartet music, but that entire genre was supposed to sound corny, so they could never quite escape being associated with the moldiest of figs.  And sometimes, they sounded downright eerie.

For example, as we remember D-Day this week, June 6, 1944, the beginning of the liberation of Europe-- that evening, America tried to carry on as normal, but everyone was too nervous about whether it would succeed.  Fibber McGee and Molly substituted their regular comedy program for half an hour of patriotic music broken by news bulletins-- one of which, unfortunately, ran into the beginning of The King's Men singing Fred Waring's Army Hymn: a rare song,  a rarer rendition, missing the beginning but with enough to make one realize how differently this country went to war, in those days.

 

Til next time

-Ye Olde Farte 

 

Electoral Collage 2024

 

It's been a couple years.  Are we used to it yet?  Maybe not.

Play (3:13)

FDR (& Fala), Antifa

We fought a war to defeat world fascism.  I guess you could call the president of that day an "anti-fascist".  He talked about it sometimes.  If he were to discuss it today, it might go something like this... 

 

play (4:10)

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)