Decision in Oshkosh

For U.S. radio, the Presidential campaign is a bonanza. The industry stands to make several million dollars selling broadcast time to the political parties. Last week Station WOSH of Oshkosh announced a novel way of boosting the ante. WOSH decided that President Roosevelt's recent radio report on his Pacific journey (TIME, Aug. 21, Sept. 4) "was political in its entirety." Consequently, from now until Election Day Franklin Roosevelt, like his opponent, will have to pay WOSH for every radio speech, political or otherwise, made over the station.

Loudest Voice

The U.S. Government last week dedicated "The loudest voice in the world"--the $1,500,000 short-wave transmitters, near Cincinnati, built by the Crosley Corp. for the Government to make the "Voice of America" heard anywhere in Europe, Africa, South America. Designed to compete with Axis propaganda, the three transmitters (up to 200 kilowatts) are probably the most powerful ever built. Private industry despairs of running them at a profit after the war, but the Government may have enough to say to the rest of the world to keep them from rusting.

100% Irma

Baby Snooks had grown old. So had Fanny Brice, who mothered the brash radio moppet a generation ago and has made a consistently good living out of her (radio salary: $5,000 a week). Said Fanny, now 52: "When you get old, you have to worry. You might get ooglie-booglie." With this thought in mind, Fanny last week trotted out a new character on her new Post Toasties show (CBS, Sun., 6:30 p.m., E.W.T.).

The newcomer's name is Irma Potts. Fanny describes her: "If we could record what we say all day long, and it was played back to us at night, we'd hate ourselves. We mean 10% of what we say. Irma is different. She says 100% what she thinks and is always in trouble."

Irma's debut was promising, if not exactly auspicious. A trustful shopgirl with a protruding lower lip and a slight lisp, her first mistake was leaving her boss's drug store untended while she rushed off to help a man who had been kicked by a horse. In her absence someone rifled the cash register. Equally unfortunate were her attempts to find a nice young man to go out with.

Irma: "The only reason I ask is 'cause I'm a total stranger in town. Not that I would mind meeting some nice young feller to go out with. Separate checks, of course."

Man: "Why don't you try the Canteen? I'm sure the servicemen would welcome you."

Irma: "Do you think so?"

Man: "Certainly. Those fellows haven't passed anything since their physical."

"Listen, Kid!" Irma has been rattling around in Fanny Brice's brain ever since she was Fanny Borach of Forsyth Street, daughter of a saloonkeeper. She had risen to singing dialect songs in the Columbia Burlesque when Florenz Ziegfeld, who knew a good thing, hired her for his Follies. Once, asked about her career, she roared:

"Listen, kid! I've done everything in the theater except marry a property man. I've been a soubrette in burlesque and I've accompanied stereopticon slides. I've acted for Belasco and I've laid 'em out in rows at the Palace. I've doubled as an alligator; I've worked for the Shuberts; and I've been joined to Billy Rose in the holy bonds. I've painted the house boards and I've sold tickets and I've been fired by George M. Cohan. I've played in London before the King and in Oil City before miners with lanterns in their caps. . . . So what is it you'd like to know?"

Married and divorced from 1) a Springfield, Mass. barber named Frank White ("God, he smelled nice!"), 2) Nicky Arnstein, 3) Billy Rose, Fanny is now a Hollywood homebody, recently affected by inner-ear trouble which bothers her equilibrium. Her principal hobby is painting--her home swarms with relatives, in-laws, friends, all painting away like mad. Of her own works, Fanny complains: "They always come out primitive."

Now that Comedian Frank Morgan has left her show for his own (TIME, Jan. 17), Fanny has the whole half-hour to herself. Irma should help. But Baby Snooks is still there--just in case.

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