Carlton E. Morse

 

The title of the series Adventures by Morse refers to the writer and director of the show, Carlton E. Morse. There were 52 episodes of this thirty-minute adventure series featuring a San Francisco detective, Captain Bart Friday, and his sidekick, Skip Turner. Captain Friday and Skip roamed the world together seeking danger and solving mysteries. 

Carlton E. Morse was born on June 4th, 1901, in Jennings, Louisiana. At the time of his birth, his parents, George and Ora Morse (Ora Anna Phyllis Grubb) never had an inkling that their little boy would grow up to become a writer. Carlton was the oldest of six children. As with most parents, George and Ora assumed that "Carl," as they so called him during his youth, was just an average boy growing up to find his fortune, and possibly marry the woman of his dreams. But in 1906, the family was forced to move to west, to the booming town of San Francisco, California, where George and Ora hoped to raise their children in a more strict, conventional home life. Years later, the family would move north where help was needed on a fruit and dairy ranch in Talent, Oregon. 

"At the tender age of five I enticed my father and mother away from their rice fields and oil wells near Jennings, Louisiana, not too distant from the rough, tough, roistering elements of the Texas Panhandle," recalled Morse. "It was then I brought them through the perils of the turn-of-the-century rail transportation to the virgin farm lands of the Rogue River country in Southern Oregon. The trials and tribulations of this memorable trek were manifold. A few instances of our misadventures may be imagined when I make it clear that my father in early married life was a reluctant man with money, which though negligible, he had come by the hard way. The idea of adding a gratuity, more vulgarly known as a tip, to a service charge revolted him right down to the tendrils of his grassroots. Once in a generous moment he expansively left four pennies for a large colored waiter, and only was saved from outright mayhem with a most odious looking straightedge razor by throwing my innocent young body in my father's arms and crying out, Brutalize me if you will, but save my dear papa.

He attended Ashland, Oregon High School beginning in 1915; two years later the family left Oregon and moved to a twenty acre ranch in the Carmichael district of Sacramento, California. Carlton's brother, Wilbur, would eventually practice law there and his older brother, Melvin, would sell insurance. Morse's father became the Superintendent of the now-defunct National Rice Mills of Northern Sacramento. Carlton wanted to go out on his own and make a living for himself. From time to time, he helped unload rice for his father. 

At Sacramento High School, Morse played on the basketball team and was on the staff of the school paper. He graduated in 1919. After high school he attended Sacramento Junior College and played on its basketball team also. In 1922, Carlton E. Morse was twenty-one years old. In that same year he enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, where he once recalled having heard President Wilson speak. The students knew Morse as a guy with a sly sense of humor. 

At the University of California at Berkeley, he was exposed to drama classes and writing courses, that became the inspiration for a career in journalism. According to "many" sources it was here during drama classes that Morse made life-long friends with students who would later star in One Man's Family and I Love A Mystery, including Michael Raffetto, Barton Yarborough, and J. Anthony Smythe. 

About 1990, Morse told ILAM fan Jim Harmon in a face to face conversation that newspaper stories about his being friends with his future actors at the University were not true. He had met Raffetto, Yarborough and the rest when they "walked through the door" to audition for his early radio dramas like House of Myths. 

Carlton's journalism career was jumpy, to say the least. He was supposed to graduate with the Class of 1923 at the University of California but never did. But as Morse explained, "On my second year I got thrown out because I flunked military. On those days it was right after the first World War and everybody was coming back from Europe and here I was, a little country boy, never wore a uniform (always wore overalls) and so I got thrown out of the University. I went up to Sacramento where my folks were living and got my first job writing for the Sacramento Union." He began at the bottom floor, as a newspaper reporter for the Union from 1920 to 1922, covering radio and police news. 

"Now I reached out into wider fields, namely 'The Press'," recalled Morse. "I was kindly received, but miserably paid, receiving the munificent sum of twelve dollars a week, that is on the weeks where there was money left over after the printers and the managing and city editors had got theirs. However I was not pleased being quite away that this same sheet, the Sacramento Union, had pandered to the geniuses of both Brett Harte and Mark Twain. Perhaps I was even working at the very desk and with the very typewriter these two stalwarts had used for some of their masterpieces. This might well have been, for both were of vintage stock, the desk on weary and trembling legs and the typewriter wrote with all the keys only when laid upon its left side. I understand that since, and perhaps because of, my days of service there the Sacramento Union has flourished. I always am glad to lay the magic touch on any institution which is tolerably responsive." 

Discouraged with his meager pay, Morse went to work for the copy desk at the San Francisco Chronicle, where he remained until 1925. It was five years of hard work that finally paid off, when he acquired the position of a columnist at the San Francisco Illustrated Daily Herald (1925-27), and it was this position with which he established his writing style. From 1927 to 1928 he wrote for the Seattle (Washington) Times, and from 1928 to 1929 he wrote columns for the San Francisco Bulletin. 

Author's note: Morse wrote columns for numerous West Coast newspapers during the twenties, including the Portland Oregonian, the San Francisco Illustrated Daily Herald and the Vancouver Columbian. One source reports that he wrote for the Vanderbilt Arrow, but I have yet to find any documents proving this; if he did that must have been a very short stint. 

Biographical trivia – Morse was a Republican, a member of the Bohemian Club, San Francisco Food and Wine Society, and the Hollywood Lakeside Golf Club. 

It was this last job as a columnist that providence rewarded Carlton for all his hard work. While working at the Bulletin, he met Patricia Pattison De Ball, who would become his first wife on September 23, 1928. Months later, the Bulletin was bought out by the San Francisco Call to become part of the expanding Hearst Empire and Carlton, along with other employees, found he was no longer needed. Working at the Bulletin also gave him the advantage of reading the new employment ads, before the public caught wind of such notices. One of these said advertisements, listed job openings of scriptwriters for radio serials at the National Broadcasting Company. 

Morse later recalled: "From the Union I invaded the editorial rooms of the now-defunct San Francisco Call, the San Francisco Bulletin, the Vanderbilt Herald and the still thriving Chronicle. From this pinnacle of forty dollars a week on the rim of the copy desk, I transferred my subtle touch and driving energies to the Seattle Times. But with all, my deepest instincts were suggesting that the day and era of the metropolitan press, as a great mass communication medium and a voice of the people, was drawing to a close. With this thought in September of 1929, the very month of the Great Crash, I dug myself a nice little foothold with the National Broadcasting Company, then entrenched in several floors of the Hunter-Dillion Building, at a hundred and eleven Sutter Street, San Francisco." 

Soon after being hired by N.B.C, Morse began writing a series of scripts entitled One Man's Family. The story of how that radio program became successful is another story, but needless to say, Morse later went on to create numerous radio programs including I Love A Mystery, Adventures By Morse, I Love Adventure, Split Second Tales, Pigskin Romances, The House of Myths, and many other radio programs. 

In 1966, the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters (PPB) was founded to preserve the memory of West Coast broadcasting in the "golden age" of radio. Over 10,000 individual scripts are housed at the Thousand Oaks Library, which were previously housed for many years at the PPB headquarters in the Washington Mutual Building at Sunset and Vine in California. The American Radio Archive, established in 1984 by the Thousand Oaks Library Foundation, presently houses a large collection of radio scripts to I Love A Mystery, including I Love Adventure, Adventures By Morse, One Man's Family and His Honor the Barber. Stanford University – the same Stanford which Claudia and Cliff attended in the television version of One Man's Family – houses the largest collection of Morse material. 

To be honored with a star on the world's most famous sidewalk, is a tribute as coveted and sought after as any of the entertainment industry's equally prestigious awards – including the Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Mike or Tony. And, because it recognizes a life-long contribution of both public and peer appreciation, it is an honor uniquely in a class by itself. The Walk of Fame is a permanent monument of the past, as well as the present. Envisioned in 1958 as a lasting tribute to the personalities who helped make Hollywood the most famous community in the world, the Walk continues today as a superior asset to the city, perpetuating the aura that has made the name "Hollywood" synonymous with glamour. The Walk remains one of Hollywood's most widely visited tourist attractions. Carlton E. Morse was honored with a star of his own, in front of 6445 Hollywood Blvd. 

In the introduction to the short story compilation Beyond the Gates of Dream, published in 1969, author Lin Carter recalled how the radio program I Love A Mystery inspired him as a youth to write fantasy stories. The book was the production of that inspiration. In 1945, Brett Halliday wrote a short story entitled "Murder with Music" and in the story is a brief mention of I Love A Mystery being aired over the radio – part of an alibi for murder. In the 1994 film Radioland Murders, the opening began with short sound snippets of various radio programs including the classic signature theme for I Love A Mystery. 

Noted author William Goldman featured a character named Doc in his novel Marathon Man (1974). In chapter nineteen, the nicknamed was explained: ". and 'Doc' was our name. From I Love A Mystery. That was his favorite. He was always going on about Jack, Doc and Reggie, and for a while I called him Reggie but he said, 'No, I'd rather be Doc,' so that was it." 

On Monday, May 24, 1993, at the age of 91, Carlton E. Morse died of natural causes. His family was with him. He was survived by his second wife, Millie, of Carmichael, California; a daughter, Noel Canfield of Fair Oaks, California; two brothers, Wilmer and Harry, and two sisters, Lucille Chastine and Anne Morse, all from the Sacramento area. His memorial service was held in Los Angeles, California with several members of the One Man's Family cast in attendance. According to Morse's obituary as reported in the June 14, 1993 issue of Variety, and the May 28, 1993 issue of the New York Times, Morse had at one time, worked on plans to revive I Love A Mystery. 

Some time before his passing, Morse wrote an epitaph for himself. "When I am gone think this of me: He truly was what he seemed to be."

Adventures by Morse

From January 16, 1939 to January 26, 1952, stories from the pen of Carlton E. Morse graced the airwaves: Adventures by Morse.

This series takes its place alongside I Love a Mystery, One Man's Family and other works by prolific author Carlton E. Morse. Produced after I Love a Mystery, this transcribed and syndicated show continued the earlier program's preoccupation with the eerie and the exotic.

Adventures by Morse is a syndicated adventure series produced, written and directed by Carlton E. Morse in the mid-1940s, shortly after NBC canceled his I Love a Mystery series. Morse produced 52 episodes of the program, each 30 minutes long.

Captain Bart Friday and his trusted companion Skip Turner ranged throughout the world in their quest for dangerous challenges to overcome. Undaunted by Nazis, murderers, vampires, deadly serpents, zombies and disciples of the dark arts they made their way through story lines with such titles as "Land of the Living Dead" and "Cobra King Strikes Back." John Dunning notes in On the Air that "there was usually a near-rational explanation" for the events that took place. Seldom did it come, however, until the listener's imagination had been enthralled by instances of the dreadful and even unthinkable.

All told, there were eight serials comprised of a total of fifty-two episodes, each thirty minutes in length. They originally aired in syndication for a year beginning in October, 1944. All have been preserved in high quality sound for those enticed by the show's signature opening to enter a world of "high adventure," "the stealth of intrigue" and "blood and thunder."

The series consisted of eight serials that ran from October 26, 1944 to October 18, 1945. The first serial, "City of the Dead", consisted of ten episodes. The second serial was done in three episodes. The remainder of the series alternated between ten and three 30-minute episodes.

The adventures cover the world as well as the world of adventure. They take place on a South Pacific island, South America, Cambodia, and South Carolina plus other locations. They deal with murder, espionage, Nazi secret bases, kidnappers, voodoo and even snake worshipers. If you're looking for adventure, you'll find it in this old time radio show.

Beyond Midnight

 

Beyond Midnight was a 30-minute radio mystery program and radio horror anthology series that ran from 1968 to 1970 on Springbok Radio. The program "was a replacement series for SF'68. Michael McCabe served as producer, and adapted stories for both series. Unlike its sci-fi predecessor, Beyond Midnight served up stories with a supernatural bent." The show was sponsored by Biotex and futured the tagline "Just Soak, Just Soak, Just Soak in Biotex."

 

This series was produced in South Africa. It was a replacement for another series McCabe produced, called SF68. That series adapted famous Sci-fi stories to radio, and it seems to have been the place where McCabe honed his craft. The subject matter to Beyond Midnight was more horror oriented, including madness, murder, and supernatural sleuths! What survives today doesn't involve a horror host per se, but a few include framing narration (by someone involved in the plot) while others just start up the story with no announcer or lead-in whatsoever. So it's possible regular host or announcer was left off the recordings.

 

There is no much more information about this radio show, though its number of chapters is about 70.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

 

 

A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer Walter M. Miller, Jr., first published in 1960. Based on three short stories Miller contributed to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, it is the only novel published by the author during his lifetime. Considered one of the classics of science fiction, it has never been out of print and has seen over 25 reprints and editions. Appealing to mainstream and genre critics and readers alike, it won the 1961 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. 

 

A monk novice, Brother Frances discoveries a fall-out shelter 600 years old, containing the tooth and skeleton of the wife of the Blessed Liebowitz, the founder of the order who taught his monks to collect books and  memorize them and or pass them along AKA  Bookleggers.

 

Blessed Liebowitz had been a nuclear engineer who sought refuge in Holy Mother Church. He is later betrayed by a friend and was martyred.

 

Hope is carried by the bookleggar monks but the ending is cyclically chilling but hopeful in the stars.

 

Set in a Roman Catholic monastery in the desert of the southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the story spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself. The monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz take up the mission of preserving the surviving remnants of man's scientific knowledge until the day the outside world is again ready for it. 

 
Inspired by the author's participation in the Allied bombing of the monastery at Monte Cassino during World War II, the novel is considered a masterpiece by literary critics. It has been compared favorably with the works of Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and Walker Percy and its themes of religion, recurrence, and church versus state have generated a significant body of scholarly research. 

 

This old time radio show is based on the novel. The book won the Hugo award winner for best science fiction novels of all time.  

 

This may be the best-produced audiobook dramatization of a novel in the English language.

Fred Allen

 

 

Fred Allen (May 31, 1894 – March 17, 1956) was an American comedian whose radio show (1934–1949) made him one of the most popular acts of the so-called Classical Era of American radio. He became famous for his sketches with actor Jack Benny. His performances influenced comedians such as Stan Freberg.

 

His real name was John Florence Sullivan, and he was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to an Irish Catholic family. His mother, Cecilia Herlihy Sullivan, died of pneumonia when he was three years old. His father, James Henry Sullivan, struggled with alcohol after the death of his wife, so Allen was cared for by a maternal aunt, with whom he decided to remain after his father remarried.

 

Early in his career, while working at a bookstore and a piano company, Allen began performing in amateur nightclubs, taking the stage name Fred St. James. Later, he was able to quit his jobs and pursue a career in vaudeville, performing comedy routines and juggling. He began touring and eventually decided to change his stage name to Fred Allen.

However, Allen's wit wasn't well-suited to vaudeville audiences, and after one unsuccessful performance, he quit the show.

Allen left vaudeville and went on to work in Shubert Brothers' theatrical productions such as The Passing Show in 1922. The show ran for ten weeks at Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre. In that show, he met one of the chorus girls, Portland Hoffa, whom he married.

He earned critical acclaim for his comedic work in several of the productions in which he appeared, particularly Vogues and Greenwich Village Follies. He also wrote a humor column for Variety called "Near Fun."

Fred Allen's first exposure to radio came when he and his wife performed on the Chicago radio show WLS Showboat. Later, the couple landed a spot on Arthur Hammerstein's musical show, Polly. The show also featured a young Cary Grant. Other programs he appeared on included The Little Show (1929-30) and Three's a Crowd (1930-31), and from that point on, he began to dedicate himself to radio full-time.

 

Allen hosted The Linit Bath Club Revue on CBS, later taking the program to NBC, under the name The Salad Bowl Revue. 

 

The most lasting change premiered on December 6, 1942, and was the formation of "Allen's Alley," inspired by the newspaper columns written by O. O. McIntyre (1884-1938), one of the most popular columnists of the 1930s.

Good friends in real life, Fred Allen and Jack Benny unintentionally created a gag in 1937, in which each disputed with the other from his own program. The back-and-forth between them became so successful that both continued with it for a decade.

After their show ended, Allen became a regular guest on NBC's The Big Show (1950-1952), hosted by Tallulah Bankhead. He appeared on 24 of the show's 57 installments, including the inaugural, proving that he had not lost his trademark wit. In some respects, The Big Show was inspired by Allen's old show: former Texaco Star Theater host Jimmy Wallington was one of The Big Show's hosts, and Portland Hoffa also made several appearances.

Allen attempted three television projects that were short-lived, including an adaptation of "Allen's Alley" to the new medium. The other two were game shows. One of them, Judge For Yourself (subtitled "The Fred Allen Show") was a game show that incorporated musical numbers.

Allen also worked in his later years as a newspaper columnist and humorist. He wrote Treadmill to Oblivion (in 1954, recalling his years in radio and television) and Much Ado About Me (in 1956, about his childhood and his years in vaudeville and Broadway). The first of the books was one of the best sellers about the classic radio era. But before finishing the last chapter of the second, Allen suffered an acute myocardial infarction that caused his death at the age of 61. His death occurred in New York City. Allen is buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne.

Fred Allen has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one for his radio work at 6709 Hollywood Boulevard. And another for his television work at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard. 

 

Fred Allen was also inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1988.

Fred Allen

 

 

John Florence Sullivan was born on May 31, 1894, known as Fred Allen, was an American comedian. His absurdist topically-pointed radio program The Fred Allen Show (1932–1949) made him one of the most popular and best humorists in the Golden Age of American radio.

 

Fred Allen worked his way to radio fame from a New England upbringing that seemed to predestine his eloquent wit. 

 

His father was a amusing storyteller who worked at the craft of bookbinding. Intelligent sharp witted humor seemed to run in the family. Fred wanted to be on the stage from an early age. Getting started as a juggler, by the early 1920's Fred was on the road, and began performing in New York City.

 

His big break came when he appeared on Broadway in The Passing Show in 1922. In this show, he met the lovely Miss Portland Hoffa, who he asked to become his wife and radio partner (ala Burns and Allen). Together they developed a wonderful give and take rapport, with Portland serving up the bubbly straight lines for Fred's witty rejoinders. They got on the radio in 1932 with a show called, improbably, "The Lintit Bath Club Revue." Other shows followed quickly, including The Salad Bowl Revue (1933), The Sal Hepatica Revue (1933-34) and The Hour of Smiles (1934-35). One of the featured segments in the early years was a segment where amateurs came up to do their bit, harkening back to the days of regional vaudeville itself when Amateur Night was a staple of the local theatre.

 

Allen's comedy was almost always topical and satiric, and throughout his career he was famed for being as sharp with the quip as any live radio comedian. He wrote most of his own stuff, loved to comment on the daily foibles of the day, his sponsors, and the world of entertainment. In the New England spirit, he saw his show as something of a town hall gathering, and hit upon the name "Town Hall Tonight" as the show from 1934-39.

 

In 1939, Texaco sponsorship began, and the show was renamed in truly modern fashion, "The Fred Allen Show - Texaco Star Theater." One of his funniest and most popular regular segments, Allen's Alley, premiered on Sunday, December 6th, 1942. Allen strolled along in an imaginary neighborhood, knocking on the "doors" of various neighbors, including average-American John Doe (played by John Brown), Mrs. Nussbaum (Minerva Pious) pompous poet Falstaff Openshaw (Allan Reed), Parker Fennelly as Titus Moody("Howdy, bub"), and boisterous southern senator Beuregard Claghorn (announcer Kenny Delmar.)

 

Allen's widow, Portland Hoffa, married bandleader Joe Rines in 1959 and celebrated a second silver wedding anniversary well before her own death of natural causes in Los Angeles on Christmas Day, 1990. Allen and Hoffa are buried alongside each other in section 47 at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.

Barbara Jo Allen

Barbara Jo Allen was born on September 2, 1906 and she was an American film, television, and voice/radio actress.

Born in New York, she was known by the name Vera Vague, the spinster she created and played on radio and screen in the 1940s and 1950s, and for whom she was inspired by a person she met in real life, a woman who was giving a lecture on literature and who spoke in a confusing manner. As Vague, she popularized the catchphrase "You dear boy!"

Allen's acting talent already emerged in the plays performed at school. After graduating from high school, she went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. Concentrating on the study of languages, she became fluent in French, Spanish, German, and Italian. After her parents died, she moved to Los Angeles, where she lived with her uncle.

In 1937, she made her radio debut, playing Beth Holly on NBC's One Man's Family, and later appearing on Death Valley Days, I Love a Mystery, and other radio series. After appearing as Vera in 1939 on NBC's Matinee, she appeared regularly alongside Bob Hope beginning in 1941.

Allen acted in at least 60 films and television series between 1938 and 1963, often under the stage name Vera Vague instead of her own. The character she created became so popular that she eventually adopted her name as her professional moniker. From 1943 to 1952, as Vera, she made more than a dozen comedy shorts for Columbia Pictures.

In 1948, she did not work as hard as an actress, instead setting up an orchid business while serving as Honorary Mayor of Woodland Hills, California. In 1953, as Vera, she hosted her own television series, Follow the Leader, a CBS audience participation show. In 1958, she was Mabel in the rerun version of the Jeannie Carson sitcom Hey, Jeannie!, which aired for only six episodes.

Allen was also a voice actress in animated films, most notably as Fauna in Sleeping Beauty (1959) and the scullery maid in The Sword in the Stone (1963).

Allen's first marriage was to actor Barton Yarborough, with whom she had one son. In 1946, the couple starred in the short comedy Hiss and Yell, which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short. From 1931 to 1932, Allen was married to Charles H. Crosby, and in 1943 she married Bob Hope's producer, Norman Morrell. They had one son and were married until her death on September 14,1974 in Santa Barbara, California. Her remains were cremated and her ashes given to her loved ones.