[Dave A]

James,

Ding, ding, ding again. The show was a summer sub for the Berle/Buick Tuesday night show...along with his Buick sponsorship. It started on Tuesdays and somewhere moved to Thursday during it's short run. The Buick commercial in the middle of this show is awful. Long shots of the car (I wish I could own now) with no narration early on. It is painful to watch for it's three uncoordinated minutes of air.

This show was on its own that summer as a sub. They seem to have resurrected the "Hellzapoppin" format from the O/J stage version. Stone was listed in the credits as "production supervisor". He was the theatrical director of this show in the vaudeville style and the tv director just flew along with Stone's staging...and it shows. Stone does not appear in the later version which is directed by a Mack Sennett veteran from the 30's. Eddie Cline. This may have been a one-off for Stone.

I do not know what happened to the original kinescope. I do not know how this VHS came to be. That is lost to the family history and I am going to let it alone after all this time and as I have no contact with them. In the case of this show, Ezra's participation may have been short lived as this form of programming was not to survive. Vaudeville was gone and tv wanted to be like it's big brother...Hollywood. All in a few short months.

We are not done. The clues continue. Where did the show title come from? "Now a word from our sponsor."