NEWSLETTER | VOL. 38, June 2024
Welcome to this month’s edition of The Hollywood 360 Newsletter, your place to get all the news on upcoming shows, schedule and interesting facts from your H360 team!
Carl’s Corner
by Carl Amari
Happy June everyone! Here’s the Hollywood 360 newsletter, June 2024 / Vol. 38. As someone on our mailing list, you’ll receive the most current newsletter via email on the first day of every month. If you don’t receive it by the end of the first day of the month, check your spam folder as they often end up there. If it is not in your regular email box or in your spam folder, contact me at carlpamari@gmail.com and I’ll forward you a copy. The monthly Hollywood 360 newsletter contains articles from my team and the full month’s detailed schedule of classic radio shows that will air on Hollywood 360. The week of June 1st on Hollywood 360, we’ll present a thrilling 1951 radio western episode of Hopalong Cassidy starring William Boyd. Here’s some info on Hopalong Cassidy and be sure to check out the official Hopalong Cassidy website by clicking here: http://hopalongcassidy.com/
Hopalong Cassidy
by Carl Amari
Fictional cowboy hero Hopalong Cassidy was created in 1904 by author Clarence E. Mulford in a series of short stories and novels based on the character. Beginning in 1935, William Boyd starred as Hoppy in 66 popular films. On screen, the white-haired Bill “Hopalong” Cassidy was clad strikingly in all black, rode a white horse named “Topper” and thwarted dishonest characters that took advantage of honest citizens. By 1946, Hopalong Cassidy became the first network Western television series. Capitalizing on the success of the films and TV series, Mutual radio began broadcasting a weekly radio version in 1950 starring William Boyd as Hoppy with Andy Clyde as his comedic sidekick “California Carlson.” By 1950 more than 100 companies were manufacturing $70 million of Hopalong Cassidy product, including children’s dinnerware, lunch-boxes, pillows, roller skates, soap, wristwatches and pocketknives.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM CARL AMARI:
BOLD VENTURE and BOSTON BLACKIE fans – THANK YOU – we saved both series!
As most of you know, I have licensed the entire Frederic W. Ziv library of more than 10,000 original radio shows. Mr. Ziv was one of radio’s premiere radio producers and syndicators.
The Ziv library contains 41 different radio series including the entire runs of BOLD VENTURE, BOSTON BLACKIE, I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI, PHILO VANCE, THE CISCO KID, MR. DISTRICT ATTORNEY, FAVORITE STORY and many more.
Mr. Ziv preserved these radio shows on “unplayed” 16 inch transcription discs, which have been stored in a climate-controlled warehouse for more than 60 years. If these episodes are not transferred, they will never be heard by the world.
We launched two Kickstarter campaigns to raise the funds to transfer all 78 BOLD VENTURE and all 218 BOSTON BLACKIE radio shows. Thanks mostly to YOU the HOLLYWOOD 360 listeners, we were successful in saving both of these series. We already made the transfers for the 78 BOLD VENTURE shows and are in the process of making the transfers for all 218 BOSTON BLACKIE shows.
If you were one of the 200+ Kickstarter pledgers for BOLD VENTURE you have your digital downloads or audio CDs by now. If you pledged toward BOSTON BLACKIE you will receive your digital downloads or audio CDs as soon as we’ve completed the transfer of all 218 episodes, which we expect to be before June 2024.
If you did NOT pledge and you’d like to receive the complete runs of BOLD VENTURE and BOSTON BLACKIE via digital download or audio CDs, call us at 815-900-7535 and speak to a live operator. Because BOSTON BLACKIE is 218 episodes, we are offering a 3-pay option.
LEND ME YOUR EARS by Lisa Wolf
ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG, Billy Joel
RELEASED: 1977
“That song was released as a single back in 1977, I think. It was not really doing very well, just languishing in the charts. Then it was banned by a radio station in New Jersey at a Catholic university. The minute the kids found out it was banned, they ran out in droves and it became a huge hit. If you tell kids they can’t have something, that’s what they want. I don’t understand the problem with the song. It’s about a guy trying to seduce a girl but, at the end of the song, she’s still chaste and pure and he hasn’t got anything. So I never understood what the furor was about. But I did write a letter to the archdiocese who’d banned it, asking them to ban my next record.” ~ Billy Joel
Billy Joel’s 1977 hit “Only the Good Die Young” has become one of the most iconic and enduring songs in his extensive catalog.At the heart of the song is a young man’s pursuit of a Catholic girl named Virginia. As the lyrics suggest, the narrator would “rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints”, believing that the “sinners are much more fun.” The song’s origins trace back to Joel’s own high school days, when he had a crush on a Catholic girl named Virginia Callahan. “When I wrote ‘Only the Good Die Young,’ the point of the song wasn’t so much anti-Catholic as pro-lust,” Joel explained. He brought the finished song to his band, where drummer Liberty DeVitto helped shape the song’s signature shuffle rhythm.
Upon the song’s release, some religious groups and Catholic schools, such as Seton Hall University, banned the song, perceiving it as an attack on their faith. But Joel maintained that the song was not meant to be anti-religious, but rather a celebration of youthful indulgence.
Melissa Etheridge performed her unique version of this song at a 2014 Billy Joel town hall event hosted by Howard Stern. Etheridge explained that she grew up playing Joel’s songs in piano bars and cover bands, but she never had the chance to perform this one, which was one of her favorites.
HOLLYWOOD 360 Broadcast Schedule for June 2024 (episodes subject to change):
6/1/24
DEFENSE ATTORNEY 4/10/52 The Joshua Masters Case
THE GREAT GILDERSLEEVE 5/9/43 The Wedding List
HOPALONG CASSIDY 12/29/51 The Killers of Lion Canyon
MR. CHAMELEON 9/15/48 The Case of Murder and the Man Who Saw Too Much
MYSTERY IN THE AIR 9/25/47 Crime and Punishment
6/15/24 (Repeat of 6/18/22 show)
BOX THIRTEEN 1/16/48 Diamond in the Sky
THE CHARLIE McCARTHY SHOW 11/22/53 w/ guest, Ronald Reagan
HAVE GUN-WILL TRAVEL 2/21/60 That Was No Lady
NICK CARTER, MASTER DETECTIVE 4/13/47 The Chemical Chickens
THE RED SKELTON SHOW 5/9/44 Tops is Swimming
6/8/24
LET GEORGE DO IT 11/19/51 Destination Danger
THE STAN FREBERG SHOW 8/4/57 Episode 4 of 15
DIMENSION X 9/22/50 Dr. Grimshaw’s Sanitorium
FORT LARAMIE 6/24/56 The Loving Cup
SUSPENSE 3/31/48 You Can’t Die Twice
6/22/24
THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM 5/22/49 Champion Set Up
BARRIE CRAIG-CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATOR 7/8/52 The Lone Way Home
THE SEALED BOOK 3/25/45 The King of the World
THEATER FIVE 12/18/64 Nuptial Flight
ROCKY JORDAN 5/22/49 Desert Betrayal
6/29/24 (Independence Day show)
THE GREAT GILDERSLEEVE 7/2/52 Fourth of July Speech
YOU ARE THERE 3/21/48 Philadelphia, July 4, 1776
COMMAND PERFORMANCE 4/19/42
THE MAN CALLED X 5/18/51 Haiti: Zombies
FIBBER McGEE & MOLLY 12/11/45 My Friend the Governor
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