Doc's Dazzling Diamonds
Photos from the good doctor, Mike Biel
Our bearded buddy from Kentucky, Mike Biel has sent us 33 fantastic photos, all in glorious Black & White. Mike tells a story with his pictures. This page is rated R.
A long time ago at a radio station far, far away...
The first 22 pictures are from the 18th Annual WRTI-FM Banquet. Circa May, 1966
Photo #1 - "Now here's Bob and Jerry."
Photo #2 - Bob, Jerry, and Walter (who?)
Photo #3 - Walter Mocrytzki. In the background are Walter's date and Steve Tannenbaum.
Photo #4 - "Well, Jane, boys will be boys, but don't you just love it!"
(I forget the name of the fellow who is watching, but I have a better picture of him elsewhere and we might be able to identify him.)
Photo #5 - This features Jane Lessner and Dave McLaughlin.
"Well, Jane, boys will be . . . BOY! And don't you just LOVE it!!!!!! Hey, Jane! Dave! Be careful! You have to ANNOUNCE with those tongues!"
Photo #6 - Laurence C. Blenheim
"Now, Mike, is it La Ch'aiam? Lay Kaiam? L' Chiam?"
Photo #7 - Laurence C. Blenheim, Barry Berg, and Bill Stock
Photo #8 - William C. Stock (a.k.a. Quietly Proud Billy)
"I'm just too, too quietly proud."
Photo #9 - Bill Stock and Barry Berg
"Pardners"
Photo #10 - Edward L. Sciaky
"Look what they've done to my show, Ma."
Photo #11 - Bill Stock and Marlene Patrick share a quiet moment.
Photo #12 - Mike Muderick and ??????
At first I thought this was Marlene, but it isn't. But she looks so familiar. Who is she?" Anyhow, from the looks of this picture, Mike Muderick had the best time at the banquet than any of the rest of us."
Photo #13 - Mike Muderick and our mystery woman again.
"Mike is still at it. Watch those hands, Mike!"
Photo #14 - Our mystery woman has moved onto another, and he turns out to be the person I think is the mystery man on the right of the picture of Marlene Patrick at the typewriter, from the yearbook. Who are they???
Photo #15 - Mike Muderick AND our Mystery Man have both moved on to yet another Mystery Woman, and this time Mike Catches a Smoker!
Photo #16 - Our original Mystery Woman has moved on to yet another, and . . . Whoa! It's Mr. Roberts!!! Way-To-Go John B. And notice how he is carefully checking out all the moves of our all time champion Cassanova, Mike Bove, as Bove makes his move!
Photo #17 - John B. Roberts
"As I was telling Mort Farr just the other day . . ."
Photo #18 - Michael Biel
"Leah! Stop laughing! Now you know why your dad wears a beard. And guys, give me back the camera so I can take more embarassing pictures of everyone else!"
Photo #19 - Unidentified and Barry Berg
"The Scridge arrives and Barry is there."
Photo #20 - Bob Cirillo, Jane Lessner, and someone's knockout of a date do the twist while Marlene Patrick and others look on in amazement. "Shake it up Bobby, Twist and Shout! Hey! This is Rock 'n' Roll. No Rock 'n' Roll allowed!"
Photo #21 - Bob Cirillo, Douglas Perry, John Roberts, and other head table guests.
"I'm the station manager, dammit, why do I have to set up the podium. Why the hell isn't Muderick or Biel doing it."
Photo #22 - Bob Cirillo, Douglas Perry, John B. Roberts and other head table guests.
"Now what is going on under here? Mr. Roberts!! MR. ROBERTS!!!!!!!!!!"
A recreation using HTML of the 1966 Annual Banquet Booklet
These now are pictures from what appears to be an all-night program, Spring '66.
Photo #23 - Steve Most and Ed Sciaky
"No Ed! Don't do it! Don't drink Harold's water straight from the bottle!!!"
Photo #24 - Mike Bove and ?
"Hey guys! Come here. We've been looking in the wrong place. This is where to find them!"
Photo #25 - Dave McLaughlin on the air for a special marathon from Master Control B.
Note that the ITA cart machines and the cartridge rack have been brought in from Studio C.
Photo #26 - Dave McLaughlin and a guest (Jazz Legend Rufus Harley) broadcasting from Studio B.
Photo #27 - Ed Sciaky and our Grad Assistant (what is her name?) at the studio door.
"Is the coast clear?"
Photo #28 - Bob Donze, Secret Agent Man.
"OK, the coast is clear."
Photo #29 - Mickey Saperstone, Ace Reporter
"Walter Winchell, eat your heart out."
Photo #30 - Nels Hobdell in a casual pose. (Bob Rothstein with his back to the camera)
"Show us a little leg, Nels."
Photo #31 - Nels Hobdell
"Losing it."
Photo #32 - Nels Hobdell, R.I.P.
Photo #33 - Mike Biel, R.I.P.
Item #34 - In a note from Barry Cooney to Mike Biel, "Sciaky breaks the transmitter key"
The link below takes you to The Jerry Klein Annex for more Mike Biel Photos.
Mike Biel Photos of the 1967 Banquet
From Gerry Wilkinson....The GA in shot #27 is Judith Helder. I was trying to remember why I didn't remember all this stuff going on at the 1966 banquet, and then I remembered...I wasn't there. I was back at the station running the tapes.
From Mike Muderick....In Mike's photo nuimber 7, I don't think that's Bill Stock with Blenheim and Berg. I think it's Rich Russakoff. Wasn't Stock wearing glasses in all the other pix?
From Mike Biel....No he wasn't. Check out numbers 8, 9, and 11. Appaently he was wearing his contacts that night. What the hell is a nuimber??? I forgot to mention, notice that in pics 23 and 33, Ed and I are wearing our blazers with the WRTI patch!!!
From Gerry Wilkinson....What the hell is the wurd APPAENTLY????
From Jane Lessner....The mystery woman in the new pictures is Sharon (Shanie) Wolov, now Waldman. She was/is a friend of Marlene Patrick. She lives in the greater NE Phila. area!
From Mike Biel....
I have been forgetting to tell you this story. THIS should start the tongues wagging (including Jane and Dave's) Early in my WRTI-FM career I was engineering the weekly airing of a program "H,S,and R: The Health, Science, and Religion Report" produced by Gary S. Aptaker. The opening was on cart but was dubbed onto the tape each week. It started with Gary shouting in a huge echo "H--S--AND--R" and then saying in a quiet voice "The Health, Science, and Religion Report is presented each week . . ." Each week as I cued up the tape I found that the letter H (or AACH) backwards is "SCHIT!" Since the opening that Gary used was on cart, he had never cued up the tape and didn't know this. One day as I cued up the tape he happened to walk by. I called him over to Control C and played it for him. He was rather surprised. A year or so ago Home Box Office broadcast a program called "Shock Video" which told the story of how the camcorder has become a commonplace enough item to be in many places to record unusual things. Near the end of the program they started to do a whole section on homemade amateur sex tapes. They interviewed a gentleman who was laying on a longue chair out by a pool behind a lavish home. He was the founder of the oldest and largest distributor of this genre of entertainment, Homegrown Video. As he spoke, underneath his picture was the identifying name Gary S. Aptaker.
From Gerry Wilkinson to Mike Biel via e-mail....You refer to Gary S. Aptaker. According to the 1967 Templar, Gary's middle name is ROBERT.
From Mike Biel to Gerry Wilkinson via e-mail....I had not checked the original tape when I did it (sent the information to you), I might have put the wrong initial. I was just one off. I'll try to dig up the tape.
Mike Biel offers some thoughts on some photos that Jerry Klein has posted. Is Dr. Biel the only one that remembers stuff like this??
From Mike Biel....I noticed that you mentioned that Ronnie Barton was the hostess for Cocktails for Two. Well, so was Joni Minsky. I have the tapes of all of the carts for that program and they're on my list to be dubbed. I had completely forgotten the format of that program till I played those tapes. There was a whole variety of different carts by both of them for openings, closings, and mid-show IDs.
From Mike Biel in an e-mail to old.time.radio@broadcast.airwaves.com....
Marty wrote: Radio did it better. Even WITHOUT the "sound patterns"."Sound patterns"? Was Gunsmoke the only program that called "sound effects" by that term? Or used TWO people to do them? Max Schmid wrote: The first time I remember hearing the term was at the end of Three Skeleton Key on Suspense. I wonder if "sound patterns" was a CBS term, or just one that came into favor toward the end of dramatic radio. In the mid 1960s those of us at Temple University were being taught radio dramatic production techniques by a master of them, Dr. Delwin B. Dusenbury. Sound Patterns was the term he used not only for sound effects but for the general artistic integration of voice, music, and sound. For example, when an announcer or a disc jockey skillfully uses the rhythm and melody of music to integrate his spoken announcement into it like they had been written for each other--that's a sound pattern. Properly done it's more than just sound effects. It includes using music to set mood, pacing, location; and transforming the voice into music and sound. All are part of the pattern of sound: the Sound Pattern. For the past month I have been going thru the tapes of WRTI-FM from the mid-60s for the web site several friends have put up, and again I realized how well we did this for even simple promotional announcements. The music bed has a beginning and an end, it just doesn't fade out when the spoken copy ends. The copy was written to fit the music, and the music occasionally was edited to fit the copy. You don't hear that on radio spots and commercials anymore. They just slap on a piece of background music, start talking, and then fade the music out whenever the copy ends. We started and stopped our reading to fit the music, we didn't just start reading and plow through till the end like they do now. Listen to the announcers on OTR programs. Listen to how the announcements fit the music. Notice how there are certain points in the music when the announcer will either start or pause. Listen to The Lone Ranger and see that every time a piece of music is re-used it is used exactly the same way. It starts, establishes itself, and at a certain point the announcer or the establishing sound comes in. The same place every time. And it fits the rhythm and the melody. It is not random. Look at a script today and they give a direction like "Music In for 5 Seconds, Then Under" and the director or announcer looks at the clock and starts the announcement at 5 seconds no matter how it fits or doesn't fit that point in the music. For those of you who wonder why modern productions of radio drama don't seem to have the same quality feel of real OTR, this is a big part of the reason. A director holding a stop-watch (and many of them do) is like having an orchestra conducted by a train conductor. The full integration of voice, music, and sound. THAT is the Sound Pattern. Even the rock DJs of the 50s and 60s could do it--not many can do it today. This is the WRTI Web Site!
