Posts Tagged ‘ventriloquism’
“What goes around, comes around”*…
Much as internet surfers — i.e. everyone in 2018 — enjoy sharing silly and picturesque JPEGs with one another that feature clever quips or inspirational sayings, Americans of a century ago passed around similar memes. They were called postcards, or souvenir cards, and mailing them to friends and relatives was immensely popular for sharing a gilded, snowy holiday scene or even a lolcat.
One hundred years before e-mail inboxes crowded with pictures of cats adorned with text like “I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?” and “CEILING CAT IS WATCHING YOU,” lolcats (and loldogs and lolrabbits) were already at the height of fancy. The rise of postcards at the turn of the century enabled Pennsylvanian Harry Whittier Frees to build a career out of photographing cute animals donning hats and britches…
More of Frees’ story– and work– and a reminder that there’s very little truly new under the sun: “The Cat Meme Photographer from a Century Ago.”
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As we pass it along, we might spare a thought for Edgar John Berggren– better known by his stage name, Edgar Bergen– he died on this date in 1978. Perhaps best known today as the father of Candice Bergen, he was a huge star in his own time, performing as an actor, comedian, and radio performer, most famously as a ventriloquist working with his side-kicks Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd.
Indeed, some attribute Bergen’s massive popularity with “saving the world”: on the night of October 30, 1938, when Orson Welles performed his War of the Worlds radio play, panicking many listeners, most of the American public had tuned instead to Bergen and McCarthy on another station. (Dissenters note that Bergen may inadvertently have contributed to the hysteria: when the musical portion of Bergen’s show [The Chase and Sanborn Hour] aired about twelve minutes into the show, many listeners switched stations– to discover War of the Worlds in progress, with an all-too-authentic-sounding reporter detailing a horrific alien invasion.)
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper”*…
Before the 18th century, most successful magicians were European, and white. Richard Potter– the son of a slave–changed all that. A magician, ventriloquist, and fire eater, he is credited with being both the first American-born and the first Black professional stage magician in the (then young) United States.
His extraordinary story at “Gravesite of Richard Potter.”
* W.B. Yeats
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As we say “Abracadabra,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1967, just days after the completion of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, that the Beatles returned to Studio Three, at EMI Studios in London to begin their next project, a film to be called Magical Mystery Tour. The group laid down the basic rhythm track and assembled the title track’s coach and traffic noises into a tape loop.
While the film was widely panned, the soundtrack album (a double EP in the U.K; an LP in the U.S.) went to #1 on the British and American album charts, and was nominated for a Grammy.
Say what?…
Trying to master a role in a Tennessee Williams play? Place someone by their accent? Steven Weinberger, a linguist at George Mason University can help. He’s created The Speech Accent Archive, where one can click on a map to hear some native, some non-native English speakers from all over the world– but in each case reciting the same short English paragraph, crafted to contain every sound in the Queen’s Language.
(C.F. also the previously-reported British Library Map of Accents and Dialects.)
As we smooth our sibilants, we might recall that it was on this date in 1938 that Northwestern University conferred an honorary degree on ventriloquist’s dummy Charlie McCarthy (whose “partner,” Edgar Bergen, had attended Northwestern, but never graduated).
Lest we doubt that Bergen and his wooden friend were worthy of the academic accolade, we might note that they have been credited by some with “saving the world”: later that same year, on the night of October 30, 1938, when Orson Welles performed his War of the Worlds radio play, panicking many listeners, most of the American public had tuned instead to Bergen and McCarthy on another station. (Dissenters note that Bergen may inadvertently have contributed to the hysteria: when the musical portion of Bergen’s show [The Chase and Sanborn Hour] aired about twelve minutes into the show, many listeners switched stations– to discover War of the Worlds in progress, with an all-too-authentic-sounding reporter detailing a horrific alien invasion.
Charlie McCarthy, BA (left), with his friend Edgar Bergen (source)
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