Treasure-troves of OTR Soap Operas

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Larry M
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:51 pm
Location: Ohio

Treasure-troves of OTR Soap Operas

Postby Larry M » Tue Jan 16, 2007 9:15 pm

One of the best collector's items from radio's past is the entire broadcast day aired over station WJSV, Washington, D.C. on Thursday, September 21, 1939. Beginning with the sign-on and Arthur Godfrey's "Sundial" program at 6:30 a.m., it concludes with the sign-off at 1 a.m. Friday following a remote broadcast of the Bob Chester Orchestra "playing for dancers in the Mayfair Restaurant of Hotel Van Cleve in Dayton, Ohio." It is available from various dealers, and as a free download at archive.org under the title "Complete Broadcast Day."

The recording is a wonderful relic of radio's past, and should be of special interest to soap opera fans and collectors. All told, seventeen episodes of soaps can be heard (nineteen if you count The Goldbergs and Scattergood Baines as soap operas). Some of them are instantly recognizable to this day, such as When a Girl Marries, The Romance of Helen Trent, Our Gal Sunday and Road of Life. Others were not as famous, and extant episodes can be hard to find. These include Pretty Kitty Kelly, Brenda Curtis, This Day is Ours, The Life and Love of Dr. Susan, and Your Family and Mine.

Also available to collectors is the CBS coverage of D-day. Try searching sites of Internet dealers with key words "CBS," "D-day," and "Complete Day." My own copy is on cassette tapes, obtained from a dealer who is no longer in business. It begins at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 6, 1944 and runs continuously until 4:45 p.m. on the 7th except for a break between 3:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. on the second day.

Although the two days are dominated by war news, I count twenty-five soap episodes that survived all the pre-empts (again, twenty-six with one airing of The Goldbergs). Familiar programs like Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories, Big Sister, Life Can Be Beautiful, Ma Perkins and Portia Faces Life are included. So are some not as readily recollected like The Open Door, Amanda of Honeymoon Hill, This Life is Mine and Bright Horizon. As for rarities, the only episode I have ever seen available of The Story of Mary Marlin is part of the June 7th programming.

These two items are worth acquiring on their overall merits, but the inclusion of all the soap operas makes them even more attractive to some of us.

Jeeper One Radio
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:56 pm
Location: Denver, Colorado

Re: Treasure-troves of OTR Soap Operas

Postby Jeeper One Radio » Tue Oct 06, 2009 11:27 pm

NBC's coverage of D-Day is (I believe!) also on the Internet Archive now too. Their coverage is much more in-depth as it goes pretty much straight on through for over 37 1/2 whereas the CBS coverage only goes straight through for over 23 hours.

That said, now that I have TWO OTR stations (One for the soaps & the other for everything else), I plan on making use of both stations by putting the NBC coverage on one station & the CBS coverage on the other station next June. :D

Cheers & 73 to all the Hams amongst us :D

Larry M
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:51 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Treasure-troves of OTR Soap Operas

Postby Larry M » Fri Mar 25, 2011 4:36 pm

The links in Pat's post don't work (at least I can't get them to). Use http://backtothefutureradiosoapoperas.blogspot.com/. This is a very nice site with lots of enjoyable episode summaries and the ability to download each episode to your computer. No need to subscribe to a podcast unless you want to, which is fortunate in my case because I don't even know how.

Thank you Pat!

Jeeper One Radio
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:56 pm
Location: Denver, Colorado

Re: Treasure-troves of OTR Soap Operas

Postby Jeeper One Radio » Thu Dec 29, 2011 9:00 pm

I'm not sure why my podcasts have been rendered inaccessible beyond the podcast RSS feeds (All Google told me was that there was "Suspicious Activity" which I wonder about). I've unlocked them so they're accessible now HOWEVER I will be exporting them to another Google Account I have which I use more often. Because of this, I may be forced to change the URLs (Blogger servers seem to be SLOW in propagating a deleted blog across its network for some reason when that deletion was prompted by user request)

When I do this, it will be in preparation for the resumption of posting. I've had SEVERAL setbacks over the past several months ranging from computer problems (I've got one minor one to this day which may force me to take it in for repair) to hosting (Especially with the Classic TV soap opera podcast) to just plain burn out in posting in the first place

That said though, you're right Larry. You don't have to subscribe to watch/listen to the soaps but doing so has its advantages (Like KEEPING THEM to start or to add to YOUR OWN collection)

Anyway, just wanted to respond to Larry's post by announcing that I've investigated the problem & have temporarily resolved it. A more permanent solution is upcoming & will be announced soon.

Also, I plan to add websites for STREAMING MEDIA STATIONS MP3 via either Live365 or SHOUTcast for the Radio soaps & Flash via Livestream for the TV soaps (The latter is already set up. All I need is to embed the player). The website itself may also be Flash-based too although I'm working on figuring out Google Pages which would be helpful as I could then use Blogger for the website host as well)

Cheers & 73 :)


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