My Weekly Reader: "Kentucky Has a Singing Festival"

Kismet! This is a companion post to a Papergreat post from exactly nine years ago today. Nine years! Gosh, it especially seems like time flies sometimes. With regard to the June 10-14, 1940, edition of My Weekly Reader, I had previously featured the front page photo of photographer/folk festival promoter Jean Bell Thomas (1881-1982). 

Here's the entire front page of that issue, with the photo of Thomas plus the article headlined "Kentucky Has a Singing Festival." The article states that the festival is held not far from Ashland, Kentucky, "near a little log cabin" in which Thomas lives. The 1940 article indicates that the festival had been going on for 10 years. That jibes with what I read on this website, which states that the American Folk Song Festival, founded and organized by Thomas, was held from 1930 until her retirement in 1972.

The website (which seems to pull from Thomas' Wikipedia biography) further states: "The festival followed an unchanging script that Thomas said was intended to show 'authentic sequences in America's musical history.' Overall it reflected the belief of Thomas and many of her contemporaries that the speech patterns, songs, and other traditions of early British Isles settlers still survived in Appalachia." 

Fortunately, some recordings of the festival have been preserved.

Screenshot & memories: Turntable and Christmas tunes

I've previously done a bunch of "Snapshot & memories" posts (see list below), but what is the fate of snapshots and our photo memories, moving forward? How many physical 21st century snapshots will there be in future drawers and albums and shoeboxes? Most of the pictures documenting our lives are on our phones and/or in the cloud. That seems a far more fragile existence than we had in the second half of the 20th century.

So now I sometimes find myself documenting screenshots. Here's one from December 29, 2013, that shows the record player/radio cabinet at the family house on Oak Crest Lane in Wallingford. It was quite the behemoth, with the records stored underneath. When I was growing up, it got most of its use when friends and family were over during the Christmas holidays. But the following generation had some different ideas, as I wrote in 2013: "Ye olde family turntable/radio has been playing some Katy Perry, Daft Punk and, I think, Eminem this morning. It's held up well so far after being powered up for the first time in probably over a decade."

Since it's December, this image got me to thinking about all the vinyl Christmas albums from that cabinet we listened to from the mid-1970s through the 1990s. Many of the songs were the standards we still listen to on the radio or music streaming services these days: Burl Ives, Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis, etc. But you'd be listening to a whole album by one artist before moving on to the next one, which allowed for Yuletide vibe shifts every 45 minutes, instead of every 4 minutes. And then you'd put thought into what record went on next.

These are some of the albums I remember being in that cabinet:

Holiday Sing Along with Mitch (1961) and Christmas Sing-Along with Mitch (1958)

The Andy Williams Christmas Album (1963)

There was at least one Johnny Mathis album, and probably more than one. None of the covers ring an exact bell in my memory, but this one seems likely: Christmas with Johnny Mathis.

Some of the following are guesses, because my memory is hazy. I wish I had documented these albums and written this post a quarter-century ago, even though I wasn't blogging then, unless you count UsedPandas.com. All of these family albums will be lost in time, like carols in snow.

We did have some compilation albums. This one from the popular Great Songs of Christmas series seems familiar.

We certainly had Perry Como. This one, The Perry Como Christmas Album, seems like it would have been in the cabinet.

And certainly we had Bing Crosby. Perhaps including some of his older ones, such as Merry Christmas, which was first issued in 1945 but saw many subsequent revisions and re-releases.

Finally, this one kind of rings a bell, and it was local: The Glorious Sound of Christmas by the the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by Eugene Ormandy (1962).

I wish I could remember more specifics. I'm sure there was a Gene Autry album, a Nat King Cole album, a Burl Ives album and probably a Dean Martin album. In the 1990s, Mom added famous albums by Manheim Steamroller and Vince Guaraldi Trio (A Charlie Brown Christmas) to the festive mix.

Snapshot & memories posts          

• Adorable little me on Mulberry Street
• Kitchen at Willow Street house in Montoursville
• Me and Pop-Pop in the kitchen
• Commodore 64 corner
• (Missing) snapshot & memories: Thanksgiving
• Me & Cyrano
• Me in a Star Trek shirt
• All kids do these days is play video games
• Posing with a Saturn V in 1982
• The Phillies are hot, and so was I
• Relocated fire engine in Montoursville
• Family outfits of 1972
• Our little bookstore
• Well-dressed for first day of nursery school

Do you want to hear something REALLY scary?

Last month I bookmarked this tweet by Theo Paijmans (who has an amazeballs book collection he often discusses) because I thought it would be a good Mild Fear 2021 post.

What is the creepiest recording you ever heard?

— Theo Paijmans (@memizon) September 1, 2021

It was a simple question. These were some of the responses. (With a trigger warning that some of these are legitimately unexplained and disturbing. I've mostly just provided Wikipedia links for background information. But many of the recordings referred to can be found via online searches. If you intend to track them down and listen, maybe do it during daylight hours.)

• Numbers station, with children voices.
• Serious answer: probably the Judica-Cordiglia lost Cosmonaut tape.
• The Maurice Grosse recording of Bill, from the Enfield poltergeist. I lived in the area at the time.
• Radiohead - Creep
• Those old Aleister Crowley wax cylinder jobs they transferred to CD in the 90s.
• Southern Television Broadcast Interruption as watched as a child (This was the answer provided by David Southwell, who I interviewed in 2015)
• The last couple of minutes of "It Has To Be" from the Help Yourself album The Return of Ken Whaley. They were tripping on LSD and had taken delivery of a new synth. The last few notes of the grand piano and the synth are just truly creepy.
• Quite probably the Konstantin Raudive recordings. That voice just sends chills down my spine!

My response, meanwhile, went in a much more literal and innocent direction. Reading Theo's question, I though immediately of those vinyl albums we listened to as kids in the 1970s. You know the type...

Those albums were great. Thunderstorms. Doors creaking open. Rattling chains. Glass breaking. Plodding footsteps. Ominous wind. Rats (or something else) scurrying across a floor. A screeching cat. And, of course, creepy laughter. 

Before these record albums existed, these were the kind of sound effects that made old-time radio shows so effective. These recordings play right into the great rule of horror: What you can only hear is so much scarier than what you actually see. The mind imagines terrors far greater than any visual that can be created through special effects or CGI.

Who else remembers listening to these spine-tingling albums as a kid?

1973 advertisement for Licorice Pizza music stores

Licorice Pizza is not just Paul Thomas Anderson's highly anticipated new movie. It was also a real place. Licorice Pizza was a chain of record stores that operated in California from about 1969 to 1986. To those who grew up in the San Fernando Valley circa 1971, the place and time in which the new movie is set, Licorice Pizza definitely means something (just like those mashed potatoes meant something Richard Dreyfuss, but I digress.) 

Pictured above is a Licorice Pizza music store advertisement from the December 2, 1973, edition of The Los Angeles Times. Coincidentally, one of the albums pictured in the advertisement (Pin Ups) is by David Bowie, whose iconic 1971 song "Life on Mars?" serves as the music for Licorice Pizza's trailer, which I promise I've only watched about a dozen times.

(A further fun twist: The trailer includes a scene in which Bradley Cooper's character attempts to give Cooper Hoffman's character a lesson in the pronunciation of Barbra Streisand's name. In 1974, Streisand covered Bowie's "Life on Mars?" and Bowie later called it "Bloody awful. Sorry, Barb, but it was atrocious.")

Snapshots & some finds during a thrift store Saturday in Arizona

"Sing the Polka Mass" with Peter & Paul and the Wendinger Band (1979). There is a YouTube video devoted to this, in which the reviewer listens to unusual records, folds laundry and cracks wise. I did not purchase this album.

An amazing birdcage that Ashar and I came across.

Some of the books that I bought for $1 apiece.

Meanwhile, while browsing (and wearing my mask) I overheard this nearby exchange between two women, which angered/frustrated/saddened me:

#1: "So, I know someone from work who was vaccinated, and they got COVID."
#2: "Of course they did."
#1: "That wasn't supposed to happen."
#2: "That’s because the vaccination doesn’t do a damn thing." <--misinformation!

Vaccinations work. Get vaccinated!

Oh, that's what a mourning dove sounds like

I've been thinking recently about my grandmother's vinyl records that featured nothing but bird songs. She had about a half-dozen of them, and would play them on the living room record player cabinet that was about the size of a refrigerator turned on its side. They were probably from the late 1960s through early 1980s. I don't remember the exact titles — we got rid of all them during the house cleanout — but they were surely like the ones pictured above, if not those exact ones.

The record formats were similar. A Very Serious Man's Voice would guide you through different bird calls and songs. So it would go something like this...

Man: The Hoary Puffleg...

Bird: Chit-chit-chit-chit.

Man: ... The Hoary Puffleg.

(The Hoary Puffleg is not actually native to North America and would not have been featured on my grandmother's records. But I didn't want to miss the opportunity to get "Hoary Puffleg" on Papergreat.)

We've been doing a lot of bird and wildlife watching during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has kept us in our homes and neighborhoods for 98% of our existence since mid-March. (And we've been documenting our observations in the "What I Know About Flower Arranging" blank book I mentioned in 2014.)

Our backyard has three bird feeders, a bird bath and a tiny picnic table for squirrels and chipmunks (and the occasional bluejay) to dine on peanuts and sunflower seeds mere inches away from the four cats. Our wildlife roster includes birds, rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels and a pudgy field mouse. I make sure all the feeders are full at least once a day, sometimes twice, and the backyard has truly become a haven for all of this half-tame wildlife. Chipmunks scurried back and forth near my feet the other day as I was outside talking to Dad. The birds, especially one catbird, are slower to fly to safety each time I venture outside.

And I've been observing more of the wildlife interaction, too. The cardinal couples that are most inseparable. The bold robins. Birds the size of a salt shaker that dart in and out among larger animals with seemingly zero fear. Birds that aggressively knock seed out of the bird feeder and onto the ground below, because apparently they prefer it that way. Or they're just jerks of the bird kingdom. And doves. So many doves. I think those ground-feeding doves are getting the bulk of the food I put out, because they're always there.

But I didn't put 2 and 2 together. I recently found myself wondering about an especially common bird call I'd been hearing throughout the day. It must be some especially cool bird, I thought. It almost sounded like an owl. Nope, Joan informed me, it was just those silly doves. I guess I would have known that if I had listened more closely to my grandmother's records.

It was funny at the time?

Ashar and I found a humorous juxtaposition between these two 45-rpm album covers while browsing through an antiques store earlier this year.

But now it's pretty much lost on me.

I think it had something to do with drinking alone and then ending up under the blade of a creepy barber.

Humor is fragile, and it can have a short shelf life.


(Apologies to Mantovani and Benjamin Bertram Leight.)

Saturday Night's alright for some Hip-Pocket Hanky Panky

I had no idea there had been such a thing as Hip-Pocket Records until I stumbled across this "gem" late last year. It's a five-inch wide envelope that holds a four-inch wide flexible record that features two singles from Tommy James and the Shondells — "Hanky Panky" and "Gettin' Together."

The record, as you can see, isn't even as wide as a trade paperback. And so, as the name Hip-Pocket Records states, they could fit in your pocket. Portable music. That was the theory, anyway. Here's one of the less-than-subtle advertising images.

The flexi-records were manufactured from 1967 to 1969 by Philco-Ford. (Ford Motor Company owned Philco from 1961 until 1974, when Ford flipped Philco to GTE.) According to the Museum of Obsolete Media, "Philco teamed with three major record companies, Atlantic, Mercury and Roulette, to produce music for them, and around 50 titles were released. They were sold for 69 cents at Woolworth, and also at local Ford Dealers and came in colourful packaging."

Some of the other featured artists on Hip-Pocket Records were Neil Diamond, Sonny & Cher, The Doors, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Van Morrison, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, and Joan Baez. There were also very short stories, including Peter Pan, Pinocchio, and Jack and the Beanstalk. (And, in fact, NYU's Dead Media Archive states that those records "were first marketed to children, as prizes in cereal boxes and samples in magazines.")

Vinyl Factory, which has a dandy gallery of Hip-Pocket Record covers, explains the quick downfall of the format: "They were marketed as more durable than regular 45s, but unsurprisingly this was not the case, with a typical Pocket Record deteriorating in quality after a dozen or so plays."

Another problem besides durability came along: a rival. The PocketDisc debuted in September 1968. NYU's Dead Media Archive has the scoop on that development:

"The Americom Company sensed that Hip Pocket Records would be a long-lived fad, and produced their own form of Hip Pocket Records called Pocket Discs. These Pocket Discs were sold only in vending machines, and cost 50 cents. Americom teamed with Apple Records, the record company that backed the most popular band of the 60’s — The Beatles. Americom released Pocket Discs with Beatles songs as well as songs from other artists under the Apple label such as the Iveys and Billy Preston."

And thus it was that Hip-Pocket records, despite coming first, faded into obscurity and are not even the best-remembered or most-collectible records in their format. The PocketDiscs didn't last long on the market, either, but they are highly sought, especially the releases featuring The Beatles.

The NYU site adds this: "There is very little scholarly research on Hip Pocket Records. Most of the information on Hip Pockets comes from the memories of those who used them, posted on personal blogs. People remember receiving Hip Pocket samples in the mail. For many, Hip Pockets are a product of their childhood that died before its time."

And, in fact, some of those blogs and websites cited are already gone, Lost Corners of the Internet that are truly lost.

"Crazy Otto's Back in Town"

Although I should perhaps resent the correct implication that I'm crazy, I was thrilled to receive this groovy Christmas gift — sent through the U.S. Postal Service!¹ It's the 60-year-old vinyl sleeve to the 1958 album Crazy Otto's Back In Town. On it, Crazy Otto is dangling from a rope ladder, dressed like he's on his way to Passamaquoddy. The Decca Records cover (DL 8627) proclaims, "43 Favorite Songs 43 Honkytonk Piano."

I don't believe I'm any relation to Crazy Otto, though I suspect an ninth-cousin situation² is always possible. But who was he?

His real name was Fritz Schulz-Reichel, and he was a German musician who lived from 1912 to 1990. Here's an excerpt from his biography by Bruce Eder on AllMusic.com:

"He became a light jazz performer known for his unusual, often comical improvisations built on popular melodies, and began building a reputation akin to Victor Borge³ ... but anchored in popular, as opposed to classical, music. ... In 1953, Schulz-Reichel took on the performing identity of Crazy Otto and made records for Deutsche Grammophon, either solo or with a small rhythm group backing him up, consisting of originals and improvisations on established popular tunes."

Discogs appears to have the most complete discography for Schulz-Reichel/Crazy Otto that I could find. Here are some notes from the back cover of Crazy Otto's Back in Town:

"This fascinating album displays the extraordinary talent of Crazy Otto in a collection of well known tunes ... some, old beloved standards like 'Cruising Down The River', 'Bill Bailey', and 'Auf Weidersehen' ... others, current favorites such as 'Dungaree Doll'.⁴ Old or new, however, they are interpreted in the infectious style that has made the name Crazy Otto synonymous with great piano entertainment. ... The 'tipsy wire box', with which he creates the unusual 'beer hall piano' sound, is his own secret invention."

To complicate matters, there was (sort of) more than one Crazy Otto. Wikipedia states that "in 1955, American musician Johnny Maddox played a medley of his songs, entitled 'The Crazy Otto Medley'; this went to #2 on the U.S. charts, and in the U.S. both Reichel and Maddox were subsequently known as 'Crazy Otto', to some confusion."

Here's a fun illustration from the back of the LP...

And here's a closer look at Schulz-Reichel/Crazy Otto, who was clearly in disguise. Most other photos show him clean-shaven.

Footnotes
1. I am told the postal workers were a little grumpy about processing it.
2. Google says: No results found for "ninth-cousin situation".
3. My mother, grandmother and I loved watching Victor Borge performances on TV. Later, Ashar got a kick out of some of his YouTube videos.
4. "Dungaree Doll" was sung by Eddie Fisher, the father of Princess Leia.

"Sounds in Space" in Living Stereo

I picked up this record earlier this year at Atomic Warehouse in Harrisburg, during the same trip when Ashar and I were checking out "vintage" boom boxes and cassette tapes. I picked it up because it looked cool. No other reason.

The record was issued by RCA Victor in 1958. It's a "stereo-orthophonic high fidelty recording" that's narrated by Ken Nordine, who is best known for his Word Jazz albums and is, according to Wikipedia, still alive today at age 98.

While it has an outer-space theme, this was intended as a demonstration record, to show off the benefits of stereophonic presentation. As such, there's an IMPORTANT NOTICE on the back of the album sleeve: "This is a TRUE STEREOPHONIC RECORD specifically designed to be played only on phonographs equipped for stereophonic reproduction. This record will also give outstanding monaural performance on many conventional high fidelity phonographs by a replacement of the cartridge. See your local dealer or serviceman."

From that level of stated concern, it sounds as if failure to follow the guidelines might result in tearing a hole in the space-time continuum. If someone actually did that, though, would we know? Or would we just assume that the universe in which we live today is the one that it's supposed to be? (Because there's nothing at all weird about the universe in 2018, right?)

The album's "Sounds of Space" include segments from Russian composer Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. That's both an obvious and ironic inclusion for this album, since Stravinsky's otherworldly and influential 1913 ballet influenced John Williams' Star Wars score more than six decades later.

You can see the full track listing for the album, which includes Lena Horne and Julie Andrews, here and listen to the whole thing on YouTube.

Finally, two Amazon reviewers sharing their memories of this album state that it was not available as a standalone album:

• Penelopeantelope: "This '58 sampler / demo LP came packed inside RCA Victor stereo phonographs, & was never available for separate sale. The best 'ear candy' cuts are Lena Horne doing 'Day In, Day Out', & excerpts from Stravinsky's 'Rite Of Spring', & Prokofieff's 'Lt. Kije'. Interspersed with the music are sound effects by stereo recording pioneer Robert O. Jordan. My favorite is the indoor pool with splashes echoing all over — especially thrilling with headphones! The narration is by Ken ('Word Jazz') Nordine. One of the best early stereo demos ever!"
• Warren: "I am almost 40 years old now. I can remember listening to this LP through my grandparents Sears Roebuck console stereo system as a young child. The music is presented very well and the narration is a hoot! Stereo was a brand new thing when this demo album was provided with new purchases of equipment. Very creative, the folks that produced it had a very wild imagination. Get a copy and sit back, relax and indulge yourself in 'Sounds in Space'. You won't be disappointed."

The Story of Mr. World, narrated by Lowell Thomas Jr.

This is the record sleeve for Volume 1 of The Story of Mr. World, which was produced in 1962 by Replogle Globes, a Chicago company that was founded in 1930 and, fighting the good fight against the Flat Earthers, remains a significant manufacturer of globes today.

The Story of Mr. World is a 33-1/3 RPM record that was narrated by Lowell Thomas Jr., who was writing about Forbidden Tibet when we last met him here on Papergreat. His tale is apparently so enchanting that Dad grabbed his pipe and wandered over to listen for a few minutes.

According to the information on the back of the record sleeve, The Story of Mr. World is a "new adventure in learning!" Here's an excerpt:

"Listen to this dramatic 15-minute sound-and-story narrative, and you'll discover more excitement in a globe than you ever dreamed of. ... As entertaining as it is educational, you hear the sounds of the earth — rain, ocean surf, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes — thrill to the roar of jets, the fiery blastoff of spaceships streaking skyward! Now — for the first time — a world globe becomes a living, talking wonderland of knowledge — fascinating to all ages! All through their school years, children will play it again and again as a constant aid in the study and use of the globe."

This record wasn't, I believe, sold alone. It would have come with the purchase of a Replogle globe, one that was intended for home educational use. Here's an advertisement I found on a November 1966 page of The Des Moines Register.

Tue, Nov 15, 1966 – 8 · The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, Iowa) · Newspapers.com

I don't typically embed YouTube videos, but here, for the sake of completeness and for the curious, are Thinkbolt's YouTube videos featuring Volume 1 and Volume 2 of The Story of Mr. World. Pull Dad away from his bills, extinguish his pipe, and have a listen!

Circa 1959 record sleeve featuring Polly Wolly Doodle

It's been almost a year since the last vintage record cover that appeared on Papergreat, so we're definitely overdue for today's blast from the past.

This is the 7-inch-wide paper sleeve for a mid-century Golden Record featuring the 19th century ditty "Polly Wolly Doodle" and "The Happy Wanderer." The songs are performed by "the GOLDEN Children's Chorus, The Sandpiper Singers, Mitch Miller, Jimmy Carroll and Orchestra." This is the 45 rpm version of the vinyl record. I see that there are numerous mentions online for a 78 rpm version that was also produced and sold.

Here are the credits from the back of the sleeve:

• Distributed by Affiliated Publishers, Rockefeller Center, New York
• Produced by A.A. Records Inc.
• Printed in U.S.A.
• Record manufactured by Bestway Products Inc.
• Illustrations copyright 1959 by A.A. Records Inc.

Indeed, I believe that this was published in either 1959 or 1960. Besides the copyright date for the cover illustration, there is a long list of other Golden Records that were available, and one of them features Huckleberry Hound, a Hanna-Barbera character that didn't debut until 1958.

Here is a sampling of some of the other Golden Records that are listed on the back of the sleeve:

• EP 568 Shari Lewis: HI KIDS
• EP 566 SUPERMAN, RAMAR, YANCY DERRINGER, LAWMAN, HAWKEYE
• EP 562 ROCKET TO THE MOON!
• EP 522 LONE RANGER
• EP 561 HAPPY YULETIDE, The Three Stooges
• 574 LITTLE FAT POLICEMAN
• 552 CRACKERS IN MY SOUP
• 548 Disney's SHAGGY DOG
• 497 SMOKEY THE BEAR
• 493 WOODY WOODPECKER
• 471 MARCH OF TOYS (Captain Kangaroo)

More about Golden Records

• Wikipedia entry
• 2006 New York Times obituary of Golden Records founder Arthur Shimkin
• "Collecting Vintage Children's Records" on the Kiddie Rekord King
• Golden Records price guide

What are your Golden Records memories? Do you still have any of them and, if so, do you have a record player on which to play them?

Ephemera for Lunch #35: Snow White and The Godfather

This week's final "Ephemera for Lunch" record cover is also the oldest of the week. It's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a 45-rpm record published in 1950 as CF-620 by Caravan Records Inc. of New York.

The crazy thing is that I can't find much about the history of Caravan Records and the company's "unbreakable" red vinyl records.

I did, however, discover a few of their other children's titles, including Old MacDonald Had a Farm, Sleeping Beauty, Little Black Sambo, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Little Red Riding Hood. They also published something called Foodini's Trip to the Moon.

If anyone can point us in the direction of more information or memories about Caravan Records, that would certainly be appreciated!

Here's how the back of this paper slipcase describes the record:

"This the musical story of SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, a new version especially prepared for your child's entertainment. It follows the classic pattern of the original fairy tale, and is supported by original songs and sound effects that will delight any youngster."

While we don't know any more about the publisher, we are kindly given a set of credits for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The story is told by Merrill E. Joels and a supporting cast. It features Glenn Osser and his orchestra. And the original music and story adaptation were done by Paul Davis.

And that gets us to the best part of today's post.

Merrill Joels (1909-2011), the record's narrator, had a long career in show business. He also, according to imdb.com, appeared in one movie.

That movie? The Godfather.

In a non-speaking role, Joels portrays the tollbooth collector who takes Sonny Corleone's money and then hits the floor as the bullets start flying and — spoiler alert — Sonny is turned into Swiss cheese.

I'd love to know the story behind this. If you're only ever going to appear in one movie, for just a few seconds, The Godfather is about as good as it gets.

As so, without further ado, I give you the cinema career of Merrill Joels...

Ephemera for Lunch #34: Three Star Trek tales

This 33-1/3 Star Trek record, unlike the other vinyl covers being featured this week, is a personal relic that has survived from my 1970s childhood. We pulled it out of a box in the far reaches of the basement while cleaning out the house on Oak Crest Lane last year.

I had a few cool Trek things as a kid, including a model Enterprise¹, and watched TOS reruns all the time. And we're still a Star Trek family here in 2016. Sarah is reading the novel Q-Space, by Greg Cox, as I type this post. Also, earlier this week I was checking out the wonder that is Star Trek Continues after hearing an interview with star Vic Mignogna on Coast to Coast AM.

This record was published in 1975 by Power Records, which was a label of Peter Pan Records. There were, I learned, eleven different Star Trek stories released via 23 different records from 1975 through 1979, as the franchise was relaunching with Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I learned this from the fantastic website maintained by Curt Danhauser. It lists all of the records that were released, details the original stories and has tons of other great information. You should definitely check it out.

My record was the first one released. It contained the stories "Passage to Moauv," "In Vino Veritas" and "The Crier in the Emptiness." I can still remember listening to and enjoying them, especially the sound effects of the cat-like critter in "Passage to Moauv."

I do have a question/concern, however, about this record cover. If you look closely, you can see that the Enterprise is labeled the NCC 1311. What's up with that? Apparently, these releases suffered from accuracy problems in other areas, too. Some of the records were accompanied by comic books and, according to Danhauser's trivia page, the comic artists "depicted Uhura as a blond, Caucasian woman and Sulu as a black man in a uniform with a blue shirt, instead of his usual yellow shirt."

The back cover of this first record has Uhura correct, at least.

Since this is Star Trek we're talking about this, many others have written about these 1970s records. Here are some links to other sites you might be interested in checking out:

• On the Star Trek Peter Pan Records of 1975-1976, by Julian Darius
• Special Review – Star Trek: Book and Record Set, by Willam Mann
• Memory Alpha, Peter Pan Records
• Medium: The Avengers’ Age of Analog: The Power Records Story, by Robbie Ettelson (not specifically about Star Trek, but a cool read)

Other Star Trek-related Papergreat posts

• Unfortunate apparel of 1980: The official Star Trek duty jacket
• Advertisements for a pair of 1980s Star Trek games
• Telegram: Sandra & Leonard Nimoy plead with JFK for a safer planet
• The Nimoy Award for 1967 goes to Miss Nancyann Hiera!
• From 1982: William Shatner peddles Commodore's VIC-20

Footnote
1. I have a fleeting recollection of having the Mego Enterprise Playset, but that might represent a faulty memory on my part. The mind can play tricks on you.

Ephemera for Lunch #33: The Magic Fish and Choo Choo

Switching gears after two days of Peter Pan Records, today's two children's record covers are from Scholastic Records, a division of Scholastic, in the early 1970s. Scholastic was much more generous with its credits than Peter Pan. Here's what we know about these two 33-1/3 rpm records:

The Magic Fish

• 11:28 long
• Published 1972
• Narrated by Alan Mills
• Music composed and conducted by Arthur Rubinstein
• Produced by Robert Mack
• Directed by Bernice Chardiet
• Based on the 1967 text by Freya Littledale
• Illustrations copyright 1967 by Scholastic Magazines Inc. (The artist is Ed Arno, according to the well-loved 1967 book, which gets 4.8 stars (out of 5.0) on Amazon with 39 reviews.)

Choo Choo The Runaway Engine

• 10:58 long
• Published 1974
• Narrated by Alan Mills
• Music composed, arranged and conducted by Albert Hague
• Produced by Robert Mack
• Directed by Bernice Chardiet
• Story by Virginia Lee Burton, aka Virginia Lee Demetrios
• Text and illustrations copyright 1937 by Virginia Lee Demetrios

Ephemera for Lunch #32: Little Toot (Ha, you said toot)

Here's another vintage cover from Peter Pan Records, which was discussed yesterday. This one is the tale of "Little Toot" on a 45-rpm record designated as F1210. The record has "Little Toot" on Side 1 and "Pancho the Circus Donkey" on Side 2, a little bonus that isn't noted anywhere in the packaging. Poor Pancho gets no respect.

The back cover lists dozens of available F-series Peter Pan Records, including Puff the Magic Dragon, Smokey the Bear, London Bridge, three volumes of Hits From Sesame Street, six volumes of Romper Room music, Learn About Good Habits and Good Manners, Learn About Science and Weather, and Hokey Pokey.

Mostly, though, I just wanted to post this record cover because Sarah laughs every time I say "toot."

Every. Time.

P.S. — Another title listed on the back cover is Puff and Toot.

Ephemera for Lunch #31: Tales with Alice and Peter

After being on hiatus since that Soviet Union rocket ship on October 2, "Ephemera for Lunch" — in which I pick a theme for the week and have a short post at noon (EST) each day — is back.

This week's theme is record covers (but not stuff like Houses of the Holy or Song to a Seagull).

For today, there are actually two related covers...

Peter Pan Records was one of the biggest publishers of records for children from the 1950s through 1980s. If you were a kid in America during that time, you probably had a Peter Pan record.¹

These two 45-rpm records, Alice in Wonderland (PP1021) and Peter and the Wolf (PP1010), were part of the Sunshine Series in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As best as I can tell, there were about 100 records in the Sunshine Series (and that might be a low estimate), including such other titles as The Wizard Of Oz, On the Good Ship Lollipop, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Romper Room Visit with Mother Goose, and Casper the Friendly Ghost.²

As you might guess, what I like best about these two covers is the artwork. It would be great to discover and give credit to the artist(s).

Did you have these records? Or a different version of these two tales that Peter Pan published, with different cover art, over the years? Share your memories in the comments section or email me chrisottopa (at) gmail.com.

Footnotes
1. The company has changed hands several times and now has the much less inspired name of Inspired Studios.
2. A partial list can be found here.

Some Phillies Fever from the Bicentennial summer of 1976

The 2015 Philadelphia Phillies have gone from historically awful — a 29-60 start to the season — to inexplicably red-hot, winning 15 of their 20 games since Major League Baseball's All-Star break.¹

So it's clearly a good time to recall some true "Phillies Fever" from 39 years ago, the era of "Can you dig it!" and "Right on!"

I picked up this 1976 vinyl single, still in its paper sleeve, on the cheap earlier this year in Columbia, Pennsylvania. The three-minute song features the vocal stylings of Phillies Dave Cash, Larry Bowa, Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski and Garry Maddox. It was produced by Walt Kahn, arranged by Andy Kahn, written by Walt Kahn, Lorenzo Wright and Rich Wing, and published by Grand Prix Records.

Dan Epstein, writing on Fox Sports' Just a Bit Outside blog, doesn't mix any words in his modern review of "Phillies Fever":²

"[It] may well be the worst record to come out of Philadelphia during the 1970s; at the same time, its sheer awesomeness as a cultural artifact cannot be understated. Where else can you hear disco music (which was rapidly ascending in popularity at the time) collide with the CB Radio fad of 1976? Indeed, where else can you hear Garry Maddox and Dave Cash banter with each other in CB lingo? Throw in Greg 'The Bull' Luzinski’s joke about taking batting practice 'as soon as I finish these three cheeseburgers,' and a picture sleeve that features 1976 NL home run king Mike Schmidt using his bat as an air guitar, and you’ve pretty much hit the jukebox jackpot..."

If you're now dying to hear it, here's a YouTube clip of the disco-era ditty. The audio is a little off, or it might just be that's as good as the song sounds...



On the back of the record's paper jacket, Walt Kahn writes:

"My 'producer's hat' is off to Dave, Larry, Mike, Greg and Garry. They proved to be as professional behind the microphone as they are in front of the plate. Their hard work and commitment to excellence in the recording studio has paid off. Phillies Fever is a home run! An exciting, danceable, upbeat sound that captures the spirit of the greatest team in baseball. Thank you, guys. You are real champions, as the world will find out come Series time."

While the 1976 Phillies were much better on the baseball field than they were in the music studio, they did not, of course, prove themselves to be the best team in baseball that October. They won 101 games but were swept by the Cincinnati Reds in the National League Championship Series.

1977 was a repeat performance, with 101 Phillies wins and a National League Championship Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

1978 brought another NLCS loss to the Dodgers.

It wasn't until 1980 that the Phillies — who had transitioned from a "Fever" vibe to a McFadden & Whitehead "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now"³ vibe — finally won the World Series. Cash was gone from the team at that point, but Schmidt, Bowa, Maddox and Luzinski remained from the "Phillies Fever" core.

At that point, everyone could dig it.

Other baseball-related posts

• Down memory lane with 1983 Topps Baseball Sticker Album
• Richie Ashburn: Philadelphia's favorite Nebraska farm boy
• Collection of Phillies ticket stubs
• Baseball-themed advertisements from a 1953 Phillies scorecard
• Inside the 1973 Spartanburg Phillies program
• Baseball photos from the early 20th century
• John Doll's 1929 baseball predictions
• 1944: "An additional one dollar to take care of a midnight snack"
• Postcard: Wanamaker's and the 1911 World Series
• Yankees SS Derek Jeter, before any of his 3,300+ MLB hits
• 19th century advertising card: "Base Ball at our Picnic"
• Creased and crinkled old snapshot of a youth baseball team

Footnotes
1. It won't last. But it's fun to think about what the Phillies future might hold, based around a core of Maikel Franco, Aaron Nola, Ken Giles, J.P. Crawford, Nick Williams, Jorge Alfaro, Scott Kingery, Jhailyn Ortiz, Cornelius Randolph and Franklyn Kilome.¹
2. In the blog post, Epstein also discusses a 1975 single by Bowa and Cash titled “Ting-A-Ling Double Play.” It was an actual thing.
3. "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" was the theme song for the 1980 Phillies and the 1980-81 Philadelphia Eagles. In modified versions, part of the chorus included "Ain't no stoppin' us now, the Phillies got the groove".

Secondary footnote
1. I fully expect that footnote to be quite comical in fairly short order.