Event

Hoot Owls, Cobweb & Nuts: Portland Radio Nurtures Mel Blanc

This event is free!

"Today Is Yesterday & Tomorrow Is Today" was the motto for the KGW's "Honorable Order of Hoot Owls Roosting In The Oregonian Tower", the radio show which gave Mel Blanc his first paid employment as a voice artist. The Hoot Owls was a weekly hour and a half long show with more than one million listeners. It had been broadcasting for four years when Mel Blanc joined the cast in 1927. He moved to KEX, a KGW affiliate in 1933 to write, produce and star in his own hour long daily (Monday through Saturday) show, "Cobweb & Nuts". After two years of this exhausting schedule, he moved to Hollywood, well prepared for everything he found there.

Guest Speaker: Portland early radio historian Craig Adams will talk about Portland's "early adopters", who created radio stations here when radio was a brand new technology/artform. He'll talk about the radio Mel Blanc grew up with, and later came to help create. We hope Robyn Tenenbaum, producer of Live Wire radio show, will be able to provide an updated perspective of Portland radio.

Films: Dennis will show a WWII Army/Navy Screen Magazine, one of a series of music and comedy shorts made for soldiers. This one features Mel Blanc making a rare live performance as a voice artist. A very rare film! Also features Lucille Ball and Jerry Colonna. Dennis will also show I Wanna Singa (1936), a Warner Brothers cartoon spoofing The Jazz Singer which stars a young Owl Jolson.

This lecture is the fourth lecture in a series of four.

To buy a pass to all four lectures, go to http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/176017

To buy a ticket to the June 8 lecture, go to:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/176001

To buy a ticket to the June 15 lecture, go to:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/176009

To buy a ticket to the June 22 lecture, go to:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/176013