The Preservation of CECIL AND SALLY

Preservation comes in many forms. Thanks to historian Doug Hopkinson, the radio program Cecil and Sally has become almost as familiar as Vic and Sade to fans of vintage radio programs. Not just because of Doug's lengthy documentation on the program itself, published in a number of old-time radio club journals, but because of his pursuit to find as many recordings known to exist. 

“Cecil and Sally” were the air names of Johnny Patrick and Helen Troy, who developed the musical comedy routine while working together at KYA in 1928. The serial program debuted on the West Coast connection of the short-lived ABC network, and moved to KPO and NBC after the former network went bankrupt in 1929. Patrick wrote the scripts and sang; Troy sang and played the piano and organ. Her character, “Sally,” endeared herself to West Coast listeners with her girlish lisp, referring to her partner as “Theethil.” It is a cute program and -- historically -- fascinating to listen to.

The program ran on NBC until 1933, and was among the earliest radio shows to be nationally syndicated via electronic transcription. Those are large, long-playing phonograph discs produced by MacGregor & Ingram, a pioneering recording company. Syndication meant the 15-minute recordings were distributed to local/regional radio stations across the country. This meant a radio station in Kansas City could broadcast the series five days a week under the sponsorship of a local bakery, while a station in New Jersey could broadcast the series once a week under the sponsorship of a local furniture store. The first couple hundred broadcasts were never recorded for transcription so an estimated 1,300 episodes are (in theory) existing in recorded form. Whether the discs exist is another ballgame. Which leads us to the reason why I am presenting this blog post.

Up until now, an estimate 270 radio episodes (give or take) were known to exist in collector hands. Doug found a collector who has an estimated 633 episodes, most of them "lost" ("uncirculated") and after striking a deal that will cost Doug more than $5,000 out of his own pocket, Doug will later this year make those recordings available to collectors. Doug started a Kickstarter project to raise the funds so anyone contributing $100 will get a copy of all 633 recordings. (No one has to do the math to understand what a bargain that is.)

Doug's efforts to preserve the series has gone beyond documentation in magazine articles... he is now making more recordings available for the masses than has been available in decades. I pledged $100 to help the cause. 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1905033874/when-cecil-met-sally-the-cecil-and-sally-initiative