Thanks for putting together this pear harbor show and including the Jack Benny show with the live interruptions about the attack.
Personally, I thank God I had Jack Benny as a fallback. (I also had The Great Gildersleeve, which also aired that night and featured a pair of Pearl news break-ins.) My original plan was to assemble a pair of medleys, one a medley of the Pearl Harbour bulletins and immediate news analyses, recaps, and updates, up to and including from FDR's "Date That Will Live In Infamy" address to Congress; the second, a medley of the whole of World War II up to and including the V-J Day celebrations.
I had assembled the medleys and re-edited them successfully enough, but when I gave them a playback to be certain of their flow and quality, I was horrified to discover they'd been hit with some awful filtering hiss and bristle that I didn't have time to fix. (It had taken me long enough to put the medleys together in the first place.) So I had to think fast, prowl my old-time radio library, and between Benny and Gildy I went with Benny.
But I still wish the original medleys had been useable. They'd have made an even better show.
people don realize what effort mixing down a program takes.
Getting all the segue ways right.
Its a job, and you did a good job.
While I was waiting for the arrival of the Coast Starlight in San Luis Obispo, my lady friend and I sat in her SUV and listened to recordings of McGee from the mid-Forties. I was surprised at just how sharp the writing was. The names of the characters were hilarious in themselves. Mayor LaTrivia and Water Commissioner Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve were funny even before the characters came before the microphone.
Jim Jordan, Bea Benederet, Hal Peary and a great cast of tens. They don't make 'em like that anymore.