Date:    Sun, 24 May 1998 20:09:24 EDT
<br>From:    Bapopik <Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM>
<br>Subject: Variety terms; Meet the Press
<br>
<br>"VARIETY" TERMS
<br>
<br>    A few antedates here; it's not rock and roll, but I like it.
<br>    This is from "Lefty's Notebook" by Joe Laurie, Jr., VARIETY, 17 March
<br>1943, pg. 6, col. 4:
<br>
<br>Dear Joe,
<br>     There's a lot of words show folks use every day of their lives that they
<br>don't lnow how they originated to apply to the things they are used for.  For
<br>instance the word matinee; how it came to be applied to afternoon performances
<br>is not generally known.  Matinee, meaning "morning time" or "forenoon."
<br>     Some 75 years ago concerts of classical music became popular in Paris,
<br>and were given at 11 in the morning, and therefore called "Matinees
<br>Musicales."  But the fashionable ladies soon found this hour too early and too
<br>exacting following so closely soirees, balls and theatricals of the previous
<br>night.  The hour was changed to noon, then to 1 o'clock and later to 2 p.m.
<br>The success of these concerts prompted the theatre directors to try day
<br>performances also, and they were called "Matinees Theatrales."  From Paris the
<br>custom passed to London, then to America, the name "matinee" being retained.
<br>Of course later on the "small time" added "morning shows" which actors called
<br>"Milkman's matinees."  (not in RHHDAS--ed.)
<br>     _Origination of Phrases_
<br>     Talking about "small time," "Variety" was the first to use expressions
<br>like "big time" and "small time."  _Jolo_, when he didn't care very much for
<br>an act, would finish up his reviews with the line, "Good for the Small Time."
<br>Later on "Four-a-day," "Three-a-day," "Smallest Time," "Intermediate Time,"
<br>were all expressions originating in "Variety."
<br>     (...)
<br>     It was 1936 when the Show World lost three great artists:  Marylin (sic)
<br>Miller, Roxy and Irving Thalberg went "Upstairs."  (RHHDAS has 1969 for "Man
<br>upstairs.")
<br>
<br>     We knew that Variety used "big time" and "small time," but I didn't know
<br>that Jolo coined these phrases.  I'll have to read it again for his reviews,
<br>and check my old papers to find Jolo's full name.
<br>     This is from VARIETY, "Lefty's Notebook" by Joe Laurie, Jr., 7 April
<br>1943, pg. 6, col. 4:
<br>
<br>Dear Joe:
<br>     Well, according to the calendar, spring is here and the circus will soon
<br>be in town.
<br>     I've always been a pushover for a circus.  I knew a lot of the gang in
<br>the old days and their slang used to get to me.  Here are some real circus
<br>expressions that might be interesting to you.  The number one question in the
<br>craft is:  "Who is the man with the shoes?," meaning who's the boss.  (RHHDAS
<br>?)  "The mill" is where one works.  (carnival use not in RHHDAS)  "Fire Up"
<br>means to eat.  (carnival use not in RHHDAS)  "Cutting up jackpots" is small
<br>talk.  (RHHDAS has Sept. 25, 1943)  "Ironclad" means working with protection.
<br>(carnival use not in RHHDAS)  "On the sneak" is working without protection.
<br>(not in RHHDAS "on the--"; "sneak" ?)  "T. B." is a blank or bloomer, a bad
<br>place to work.  (RHHDAS ?)    "Red one," a good spot to work.  (RHHDAS ?)
<br>"Fuzz" is a copper.  (RHHDAS 1929; this is first carnival citation and is from
<br>"old days")  "A Skin Show" is dancing girls.  (RHHDAS ?)
<br>     "Patch" is a legal adjuster.  (RHHDAS ?)  "Hershey bars" are colored
<br>entertainers.  (RHHDAS has 1945 WWII Gen. Hershey only)  "Geek show" is a
<br>snake show.  (RHHDAS 1928)  "Mitt joint," a fortune teller.  (RHHDAS 1921)
<br>"Working slum," selling novelties.  (RHHDAS ?)  "Punk worker," one who sells
<br>to children, balloons, etc.  (RHHDAS ?)  "Nose trouble" means eavesdropping.
<br>(RHHDAS 1971, 1966, 1964--backwards cites?)  "Donniker" is, of course, the
<br>rest room.  (RHHDAS 1931 "donnicker")  "Putting up paper" is boosting a pal.
<br>(RHHDAS ?)  "Cannon, whiz, or fooster," a pickpocket.  (RHHDAS "cannon" 1909,
<br>"whiz" ?, "fooster" no entry)  "Cat rack queen," girl who runs ball game
<br>concessions.  (RHHDAS no entry)  "Punkins," county fairs.  (RHHDAS ?)
<br>"Gilly," small traveling show.  (RHHDAS 1796 meaning "yokel or ignorant
<br>countryman," but no entry as "gilly show")  A broad is known as a "bree"
<br>(RHHDAS no entry), a guy a "gee" (RHHDAS 1907), a shill is a "stick" (RHHDAS
<br>?), and a sucker is a "monkey" (RHHDAS 1922, from Variety).  "Grind or bally"
<br>means does he have to talk all the time or only before each show.  (RHHDAS
<br>1926 for "grind," 1921 for "bally")  "What's the line?" means how much salary?
<br>(RHHDAS ?)  "Pickle Punks" means a spieler for "live" shows.  (RHHDAS ?)
<br>"Lame brain" worker is a spieler for freak shows.  (RHHDAS 1919)
<br>    (...)
<br>    Of course you heard the one about the dame in a circus who was a
<br>sharpshooter's assistant.  She quit when he got St. Vitus dance.  (RHHDAS ?)
<br>
<br>     This is from VARIETY, "Lefty's Notebook" by Joe Laurie, Jr., 26 May 1943,
<br>pg. 6, col. 4:
<br>
<br>     Of course, Willie Hammerstein wad the pioneer of the "freak acts."
<br>(RHHDAS has no entry for "freak act")  ...  Harry Hershfield started as a
<br>"chalk talk" artist and became one of the top story tellers of show business.
<br>When vaudeville went, Harry scrammed to the dinnertable and radio.  Talking
<br>about "chalk-talkers"...many cartoonists played vaudeville...  (RHHDAS no
<br>entry)
<br>
<br>     This is from VARIETY, "Lefty's Notebook" by Joe Laurie, Jr., 12 May 1943,
<br>pg. 6, col. 4:
<br>
<br>     Me and Aggie have been reading in the New York papers about a lot of the
<br>movie stars, that used to be vaudevillians, stopping at the top-notch hotels
<br>in New York with suites of rooms.  Which is as it should be, but it reminded
<br>us of the old vaudeville days when the actors weren't so particular where they
<br>"pecked and padded" (meaning eat and sleep to you muggs who don't understand
<br>vaudeville English).  (RHHDAS ?)
<br>
<br>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<br>-------------------------------------------
<br>SWING SHIFT; AROUND THE CLOCK
<br>
<br>     In VARIETY, 13 January 1943, pg. 36, cols. 1-4, an ad for the United
<br>Press:
<br>
<br>It Swings along
<br>with the Swing Shifts
<br>   American industry is working 24 hours a day to win the war.  A third of the
<br>men and women making this total effort work at night.  They compose the swing
<br>shifts, who breakfast at bedtime and dine at dawn.  They miss much of normal
<br>life.  But United Press sees to it they do not miss the news.  United Press
<br>24-hour radio news swings along with them. keeps them as accurately, quickly
<br>and completely posted as it does listeners during the seven-to-eleven peak
<br>radio hours.  No matter in what part of the nation or at what time Americans
<br>work, United Press across-the-country and around-the-clock radio service
<br>assures them of the world's best coverage of the world's biggest news.
<br>
<br>U.P. Around-
<br>The-Clock
<br>RADIO NEWS
<br>
<br>    The OED has "swing shift" from 26 March 1943.  I can't find "around-the-
<br>clock" (meaning 24 hours, as in "rock around the clock") in the RHHDAS.
<br>Stuart Berg Flexner's I HEAR AMERICA TALKING has "around-the-clock bombing" on
<br>page 425, but doesn't give the WWII date.
<br>
<br>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<br>-------------------------------------------
<br>MEET THE PRESS
<br>
<br>     On 7 November 1997, MEET THE PRESS celebrated its 50th anniversary.  It
<br>declared itself the longest-running program in television history.  (see
<br>www.msnbc.com)
<br>     It was the title of a radio program at least four years before the tv
<br>program.  This is from BILLBOARD, 30 January 1943, pg. 8, col. 3:
<br>
<br>     "Meet the Press"
<br>  Reviewed Saturday (Hey!  Wait a minute!  SATURDAYS!  "If it's Sunday, it's
<br>Meet the Press."--ed.)  11-11:15 a.m.  Style--Dramatized interviews.
<br>Sustaining on WMAQ (Chicago).
<br>  For some reason, the public attaches a certain amount of glamour to the
<br>newspaper business, and _Meet the Press_ provides an interesting and
<br>entertaining quarter-hour of information about outstanding newspapermen and
<br>women who gather, write, edit and publish the news.  Cleve Conway, NBC
<br>announcer and newscaster, capably conducts the interviews.
<br>  (...)  On subsequent broadcasts cartoonists, columnists, writers and
<br>photographers of papers in the Chicago region will be interviewed.  Program
<br>has excellent possibilities.  _Nat Green_.
<br>
<br>    William Safire was on again today--it must be Sunday.
<br>