Fear and Loathing: The Way It Was, 5 August

FEATURED BROADCAST
FORT LARAMIE:
THE MASSSACRE
(CBS, 1956)

Finding a Shoshone encampment surprisingly quiet and unsuspicious, for a tribe preparing to move home unsanctioned, Quince (Raymond Burr) promises their chief (John Dehner), with whom he's personally friendly, a safe escort home to Wind River, a promise the chief fears will be broken when a nighttime coyote howl---that the chief takes as a warning---triggers him to make the move alone.

It's a decision Quince accepts reluctantly, a reluctance justified soon and gravely enough, after he and his men see another cavalry company on the horizon as they travel ahead of the tribe---a half-frenzied company, led by a firebrand major (possibly Lawrence Dobkin) who fires them up with brimstone preaching . . . and "half a dozen scalps" on his belt.

Harrison: Vic Perrin. Sieberts: Harry Bartell. Daggett: Jack Moyle. Music: Amerigo Marino. Sound: Bill James, Tom Henley. Director: Norman Macdonnell. Writer: Kathleen Hite.

AIRWAVES . . . A TALE OF TWO DIAMONDS

1920: IT'S A LONG WAY TO NIGHT COURT---The baby girl born in Montreal, but raised in Brooklyn, will grow up to make her comedic bones as a published humourist in The New Yorker and, then, an old-time radio comedy writing protege of titans Ed Gardner and Goodman Ace, for whom she will work, respectively, on Duffy's Tavern and The Big Show . . . before becoming a television writer (and, it will be believed, the partial inspiration for man-hungry comedy writer Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show) and the author of the cheerfully tart Nose Jobs for Peace.

But Selma Diamond will probably be remembered best, alas, as the first lady bailiff on television's Night Court---where she will come to share a grave Duffy's Tavern connection decades after that radio classic leaves the air: she and her Night Court successor, Florence Halop (the second Miss Duffy, and also a member of Henry Morgan's and numerous other old-time radio casts), will die within a year of each other. Both of cancer.

1921: PLAY BALL!---The first known broadcast of a major league baseball game goes on the air over KDKA-AM, Pittsburgh, featuring the Pittsburgh Pirates versus the Philadelphia Phillies and Harold W. Arlin doing the play-by-play of the game.

The Phillies win, 8-0, as heard over the station that becomes in due course the flagship station for the Pirates' radio network.

CHANNEL SURFING . . .

LUM & ABNER: ABNER BECOMES THE BIGGEST SOCIETY MAN (NBC BLUE, 1935)---Once-reluctant Abner (Norris Goff) has a discomfiting change of heart regarding the wave of high society style and mannerism sweeping Pine Ridge. Lum/Snake/Grandpappy: Chester Lauck. Dick/Squire: Also Norris Goff. Announcer: Carlton Brickert. Writers: Chester Lauck, Norris Goff.

THE GOLDBERGS: CATER FINDS A REAL CLUE (CBS, 1942)---The family bustles while psychiatrist Cater (unknown) thinks he has a breakthrough in trying to help Ann (also unknown), which is the reason Molly (Gertrude Berg) enlisted him in the first place. Rosalie: Roslyn Siber. Jake: John R. Waters. Sammy: Alfred Ryder. Writer/director: Gertrude Berg.

PREMIERING TODAY . . .

1887---Reginald Owen (actor: Lux Radio Theater), Wheathampton, U.K.
1890---Al Goodman (pianist/bandleader: Town Hall Tonight; The Sal Hepatica Revue/Hour of Smiles; Texaco Star Theater; The Fred Allen Show), Nikopol, Russia.
1906---John Huston (actor: Lux Radio Theater), Nevada, Missouri.
1908---Wilbur Evans (singer: Vicks Open House; Stars from the Blue), Philadelphia.
1911---Robert Taylor (actor: Good News of 1938; Lux Radio Theater; Plays for Americans), Filley, Nebraska.
1912---Lew Valentine (host: Mennen Jury Trials; Dr. IQ, the Mental Banker)
1914---David Brian (actor: Mr. District Attorney), New York City; Parley Baer (actor: Gunsmoke; Rogers of the Gazette), Salt Lake City; Anita Colby (actress: Radio Hall of Fame), Washington, D.C.
1915---Peter Lisagor (journalist: Meet the Press), Keystone, West Virginia.
1917---Don Stanley (announcer: Adventures of Nero Wolfe; Out of the Deep; The Saint), Stoughton, Wisconsin.
1918---Tom Drake (actor: Old Gold Comedy Theater; Lux Radio Theater; So Proudly We Hail), Brooklyn.