Looking Back - Reminiscing with Jack Lebo
The Ritz Brothers And...Some Smelly Memories
There aren’t too many readers around blessed with a memory like our Bryn Mawr, PA man-on-the street, Erwin “Mickey” Green. How he comes up with these various subjects is beyond me.
Mickey seems to specialize in show biz folks. When we think of entertainment teams, we doubt that not too many readers will recall the Ritz Brothers. The usual comedy teams, we come up with are “Laurel and Hardy,” “Abbott and Costello” or “Martin and Lewis.”
The Ritz Brothers followed in the footsteps of the Marx Brothers and stumbled a bit in doing so, but this slapstick trio, comprised of Al, Jimmy and Harry, were troopers al the way. They did their part in helping American audiences forget about the Depression and World War II
All three brothers were born in Newark, New Jersey, Al in 1901, Jimmy in 1903, and Harry in 1906. They were the sons of an Austrian haberdasher, whose last name was Joachim.. Raised in Brooklyn, the boys developed an early interest in show business and pursued solo careers at the onset — with rather lackluster success. Following Harry’s graduation from high school, they decided to band together in 1925, and put together a song-and-dance act they could take out on the road. Building up their reputation in various nightclubs and vaudeville houses, they appeared in George White and Erol Carroll revues to great success.
Their act remained fairly constant for four decades, which included precision dancing, tongue-twisting patter songs, ethnic humor and physical schtick. They managed to break into films in the mid 1930s and earned a contract with 20th Century-Fox as specialty items in Alice Faye and Sonja Henie musicals.
Slowly evolving into stars of their own, some of their better-known vehicles would be, “The Three Musketeers” (1939), “The Gorilla” (1939), and “Argentine Nights” (1940), which also featured The Andrews Sisters. Their hyperbolic style and unsubtle brand of insanity, however, were not always complemented in their films. They were an acquired taste, or an acquired lack of taste, and their critically-drubbed clowning never achieved the box office distinction of Groucho, Chico and Zeppo.
Unhappy with Fox for not promoting them into an “A” film attraction, they left and tried their hand at Universal in 1940. Things not only didn’t improve, their films grew even more inferior in quality. In the end, their forte would be as supper club headliners and once their film career was finished in 1943, they went back to the night club circuit, occasionally finding work on television.
Eldest brother Al’s death of a heart attack in 1965 put a serious cog in the team wheel. Harry and Jimmy continued for a time, but floundered and eventually settled into semi-retirement, appearing on talk shows or in cameos for Mel Brooks. Brooks was a huge fan of their work. Jimmy died of heart failure and Harry of cancer within a year of each other in the mid-1980s. Though they remained in the comic shadow of the Marx Brothers, Al, Jimmy and Harry certainly made their broad mark in comedy and have found new legions of fans with every passing year.
Ritz Trivia: The three Joachim brothers supposedly got their stage moniker from a laundry truck. Another brother, George served as their agent/manager. The Ritz Brothers were awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures.
*
Our crack Secane, PA newshawk Barbara “Babs” Daniels is always on the lookout for seldom-discussed items for the Looking Back column. She never fails us, with unique subjects such as... smelly memories.
Babs writes: “It is amazing how certain odors and aromas can evoke memories of our childhood, whether good or bad. All you have to do is open a jar of Vick’s Vaporub, hold it under your nose, and you are immediately transported back to 1944, when you were five years old and your mom rubbed it lavishly on your chest when you had a nasty cold. Voila! In the morning you were cured!”
Can anyone ever forget the fragrance of floating in the bathtub with that mild bar of Ivory Soap that your mom would bathe you with? During the 1940s, our mothers had washing machines with rollers that were used to manually wring out the clothes that gave off the strong odor of bleach. Whenever mom unwrapped a bar of chemical-smelling Fels-Naptha soap, you knew that the linoleum floors would soon have that squeaky-clean aroma, after she scrubbed them on her hands and knees.
The smell of burning leaves brings back memories of Halloween when you went trick-or-treating, dressed in your ballerina costume or your Superman cloak, in the 1940s. The smell of freshly cut grass brings back memories when we slept outside in our back yards, just to keep cool on those sweltering summer nights during the 40s, because in those days, not too many folks could afford air conditioners.
Today, cutting open an orange, and smelling that luscious citrus fragrance, and having the juice squirt in your eye, brings back memories of Christmas, when an orange may have been your only gift. An that brings us to the unforgettable scent of that wonderful Christmas fir tree.
Aromas from the kitchen were so numerous: If you came home from school in 1950 and smelled apple pie in the process of baking, you just knew you would also be served vanilla ice cream on top of it for dessert — a double treat. Many times, if we came home a bit rambunctious, our moms would say, “Don’t jump up and down in the kitchen! I have a cake in the oven and I don’t want it to fall!” This was before we had timers on fancy ovens. We could smell the delicious fragrance of chocolate cake, so we immediately obeyed her.
Today, the odor of simmering ham and cabbage still reminds us of the depression days of the 1930s, when that was a filling meal for all of us, and we were happy to have it.
Splitting open a fresh peach and savoring the oozing juice brings back memories of 1945 when our dad would borrow Grandpop’s big car and we would drive over the bridge to but baskets of fresh Jersey peaches and mouth-watering Jersey tomatoes. Opening a box of “Whitman’s Chocolate Sampler” takes us back to 1945, when the delightful scent of luscious chocolate wafted past your nose.
If you are of Italian descent, the smell of simmering tomato sauce and meat balls assured you of a wonderful Sunday dinner at Grandma’s house. Then, there is one unpleasant odor — yes, that of the old-fashioned “stogie,” a short Italian cigar, whose smell permeated even the upholstery of grandpop’s 1937 Plymouth automobile.
In conclusion, Babs writes, “However, probably, the most classic olfactory treat is that of Thanksgiving Day in the 1950s, when we came home from winning our high school football game, only to be treated by the wonderful mouth-watering smell of our turkey and stuffing that our moms had most lovingly prepared.”
After all this, are you readers hungry yet?
*
Before this day of computers, cell phones, video/DVD players, giant screen television sets, 3D, and a host of modern conveniences, there was a simpler, uncomplicated time. Let’s visit those days of yesteryear.
Your memory is in Class A form if you can recall...When the toll on the Burlington-Bristol Bridge was just five cents. You could also walk across the bridge for free.... When there were two mail deliveries daily, morning and afternoon.... When your milk and eggs and other dairy products was delivered to your doorstep, via the milkman driving a horse and buggy.... Speaking of milk delivery, do you recall how the bottle of milk froze during those bitter cold winter days, pushing the cap off the bottle.... And when automobiles had no turn signals, and you had to open your window to signal by hand to let the driver behind you know your intent in miserable weather?
A Camden, New Jersey reader recalls during the late 1930s “a roller coaster for autos,” located on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden, where drivers would pay ten cents to drive on its dangerous dips and curves. The operators claimed it was “good for your springs.” The obvious potential for serious accidents cut this enterprising venture short and they soon closed shop.
*
According to the late actor/dancer/singer Fred Astaire, “Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young!”
*
How many readers remember when: Catching fireflies could happily occupy and entire evening? It wasn’t odd to have two or three “best friends?” The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was “cooties?” Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot? A foot of snow was a dream-come-true? Saturday morning cartoons weren’t 30-minute commercials for action figures? “Oly-oly-oxen free” made perfect sense? Baseball cards in the spokes transformed a bicycle into a motorcycle? Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin? Water balloons were the ultimate weapon? The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
More Remember Whens: Do you remember when you could purchase a Klein chocolate bar for two cents? Kids wearing knickers? A wooden top that was spun around with the use of a string? Duncan Yo-Yos were all the craze of the neighborhood? During that time, the Duncan Company would send Yo-Yo champs out to various stores to demonstrate their expertise. Those wooden paddles, with a rubber band and a small rubber ball attached? Contests were held to see who could continue to hit the ball with the paddle the longest. When on the road to Atlantic City via Route 30, produce stands dotted the highway, selling whole water melons for 25 cents, sugar corn for five cents an ear, and apples for 25 cents a basket? Australian Dolph Harris and his recording of “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport?” When the boy singer with the Freddy Martin Orchestra was Merv Griffin?
From the Past: The Horn & Hardart automats which dispensed food through a small window after you deposited your nickels in a lot. Beef or chicken potpies were five nickels, baked beans were two nickels, vegetables, were two nickels each, a hard roll was one nickel, a meat or chicken platter was three nickels, and that famous H & H coffee was just one nickel. A person could have a full meal and be well satisfied for about 50 cents! We also recall those women who sat in a booth making change. It seems that after an hour or so, their fingers were always gray, from continuously handling the nickels.
*
It’s not here anymore, but it was on Business Route One, Old Lincoln Highway in Penndel, PA. Jim Flannery’s restaurant opened in 1928. He added the 1954 Lockheed Super G Constellation airliner to the roof in 1967. Its interior was left intact and used as a 72-seat cocktail lounge known as the Constellation Lounge. The Lounge closed in 1979, because of leaks, but the diner below remained open. It operated as “Amelia’s” (named after the famed female flyer, Amelia Earhardt) from 1981 to 1991, then as the “Airplane Diner” until 1995.
“Connie” the plane’s nickname, fell into further disrepair and was trucked away in 1997 to the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. It was laying in pieces across the street, behind a barbed wire fence for about a year. They plan to repair it some day. The restaurant was razed in 1997 and replaced with an Amoco Service Station.
There were plans to put a 6-foot replica of the plane on top of the station’s roof, but a smaller model plane was mounted on the station’s sign instead. Although it is now a BP station, the memorial aircraft is still there atop the sign.
*
Bryn Mawr, PA reader Glamorous Gladys Warwick contributes the following chuckle: The scene, A library...One patron approaches another, “Do you like Kipling?” “Don’t know, I never Kippled!”
*
Looking Back appears each month. Do you have a memory you’d like to share? Drop a line to: Jack Lebo, Looking Back, 37 Locust Lane, Levittown, PA 19054, or call (215) 943-8870, email: jacklebo@verizon.net.
*
There aren’t too many readers around blessed with a memory like our Bryn Mawr, PA man-on-the street, Erwin “Mickey” Green. How he comes up with these various subjects is beyond me.
Mickey seems to specialize in show biz folks. When we think of entertainment teams, we doubt that not too many readers will recall the Ritz Brothers. The usual comedy teams, we come up with are “Laurel and Hardy,” “Abbott and Costello” or “Martin and Lewis.”
The Ritz Brothers followed in the footsteps of the Marx Brothers and stumbled a bit in doing so, but this slapstick trio, comprised of Al, Jimmy and Harry, were troopers al the way. They did their part in helping American audiences forget about the Depression and World War II
All three brothers were born in Newark, New Jersey, Al in 1901, Jimmy in 1903, and Harry in 1906. They were the sons of an Austrian haberdasher, whose last name was Joachim.. Raised in Brooklyn, the boys developed an early interest in show business and pursued solo careers at the onset — with rather lackluster success. Following Harry’s graduation from high school, they decided to band together in 1925, and put together a song-and-dance act they could take out on the road. Building up their reputation in various nightclubs and vaudeville houses, they appeared in George White and Erol Carroll revues to great success.
Their act remained fairly constant for four decades, which included precision dancing, tongue-twisting patter songs, ethnic humor and physical schtick. They managed to break into films in the mid 1930s and earned a contract with 20th Century-Fox as specialty items in Alice Faye and Sonja Henie musicals.
Slowly evolving into stars of their own, some of their better-known vehicles would be, “The Three Musketeers” (1939), “The Gorilla” (1939), and “Argentine Nights” (1940), which also featured The Andrews Sisters. Their hyperbolic style and unsubtle brand of insanity, however, were not always complemented in their films. They were an acquired taste, or an acquired lack of taste, and their critically-drubbed clowning never achieved the box office distinction of Groucho, Chico and Zeppo.
Unhappy with Fox for not promoting them into an “A” film attraction, they left and tried their hand at Universal in 1940. Things not only didn’t improve, their films grew even more inferior in quality. In the end, their forte would be as supper club headliners and once their film career was finished in 1943, they went back to the night club circuit, occasionally finding work on television.
Eldest brother Al’s death of a heart attack in 1965 put a serious cog in the team wheel. Harry and Jimmy continued for a time, but floundered and eventually settled into semi-retirement, appearing on talk shows or in cameos for Mel Brooks. Brooks was a huge fan of their work. Jimmy died of heart failure and Harry of cancer within a year of each other in the mid-1980s. Though they remained in the comic shadow of the Marx Brothers, Al, Jimmy and Harry certainly made their broad mark in comedy and have found new legions of fans with every passing year.
Ritz Trivia: The three Joachim brothers supposedly got their stage moniker from a laundry truck. Another brother, George served as their agent/manager. The Ritz Brothers were awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures.
*
Our crack Secane, PA newshawk Barbara “Babs” Daniels is always on the lookout for seldom-discussed items for the Looking Back column. She never fails us, with unique subjects such as... smelly memories.
Babs writes: “It is amazing how certain odors and aromas can evoke memories of our childhood, whether good or bad. All you have to do is open a jar of Vick’s Vaporub, hold it under your nose, and you are immediately transported back to 1944, when you were five years old and your mom rubbed it lavishly on your chest when you had a nasty cold. Voila! In the morning you were cured!”
Can anyone ever forget the fragrance of floating in the bathtub with that mild bar of Ivory Soap that your mom would bathe you with? During the 1940s, our mothers had washing machines with rollers that were used to manually wring out the clothes that gave off the strong odor of bleach. Whenever mom unwrapped a bar of chemical-smelling Fels-Naptha soap, you knew that the linoleum floors would soon have that squeaky-clean aroma, after she scrubbed them on her hands and knees.
The smell of burning leaves brings back memories of Halloween when you went trick-or-treating, dressed in your ballerina costume or your Superman cloak, in the 1940s. The smell of freshly cut grass brings back memories when we slept outside in our back yards, just to keep cool on those sweltering summer nights during the 40s, because in those days, not too many folks could afford air conditioners.
Today, cutting open an orange, and smelling that luscious citrus fragrance, and having the juice squirt in your eye, brings back memories of Christmas, when an orange may have been your only gift. An that brings us to the unforgettable scent of that wonderful Christmas fir tree.
Aromas from the kitchen were so numerous: If you came home from school in 1950 and smelled apple pie in the process of baking, you just knew you would also be served vanilla ice cream on top of it for dessert — a double treat. Many times, if we came home a bit rambunctious, our moms would say, “Don’t jump up and down in the kitchen! I have a cake in the oven and I don’t want it to fall!” This was before we had timers on fancy ovens. We could smell the delicious fragrance of chocolate cake, so we immediately obeyed her.
Today, the odor of simmering ham and cabbage still reminds us of the depression days of the 1930s, when that was a filling meal for all of us, and we were happy to have it.
Splitting open a fresh peach and savoring the oozing juice brings back memories of 1945 when our dad would borrow Grandpop’s big car and we would drive over the bridge to but baskets of fresh Jersey peaches and mouth-watering Jersey tomatoes. Opening a box of “Whitman’s Chocolate Sampler” takes us back to 1945, when the delightful scent of luscious chocolate wafted past your nose.
If you are of Italian descent, the smell of simmering tomato sauce and meat balls assured you of a wonderful Sunday dinner at Grandma’s house. Then, there is one unpleasant odor — yes, that of the old-fashioned “stogie,” a short Italian cigar, whose smell permeated even the upholstery of grandpop’s 1937 Plymouth automobile.
In conclusion, Babs writes, “However, probably, the most classic olfactory treat is that of Thanksgiving Day in the 1950s, when we came home from winning our high school football game, only to be treated by the wonderful mouth-watering smell of our turkey and stuffing that our moms had most lovingly prepared.”
After all this, are you readers hungry yet?
*
Before this day of computers, cell phones, video/DVD players, giant screen television sets, 3D, and a host of modern conveniences, there was a simpler, uncomplicated time. Let’s visit those days of yesteryear.
Your memory is in Class A form if you can recall...When the toll on the Burlington-Bristol Bridge was just five cents. You could also walk across the bridge for free.... When there were two mail deliveries daily, morning and afternoon.... When your milk and eggs and other dairy products was delivered to your doorstep, via the milkman driving a horse and buggy.... Speaking of milk delivery, do you recall how the bottle of milk froze during those bitter cold winter days, pushing the cap off the bottle.... And when automobiles had no turn signals, and you had to open your window to signal by hand to let the driver behind you know your intent in miserable weather?
A Camden, New Jersey reader recalls during the late 1930s “a roller coaster for autos,” located on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden, where drivers would pay ten cents to drive on its dangerous dips and curves. The operators claimed it was “good for your springs.” The obvious potential for serious accidents cut this enterprising venture short and they soon closed shop.
*
According to the late actor/dancer/singer Fred Astaire, “Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young!”
*
How many readers remember when: Catching fireflies could happily occupy and entire evening? It wasn’t odd to have two or three “best friends?” The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was “cooties?” Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot? A foot of snow was a dream-come-true? Saturday morning cartoons weren’t 30-minute commercials for action figures? “Oly-oly-oxen free” made perfect sense? Baseball cards in the spokes transformed a bicycle into a motorcycle? Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin? Water balloons were the ultimate weapon? The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
More Remember Whens: Do you remember when you could purchase a Klein chocolate bar for two cents? Kids wearing knickers? A wooden top that was spun around with the use of a string? Duncan Yo-Yos were all the craze of the neighborhood? During that time, the Duncan Company would send Yo-Yo champs out to various stores to demonstrate their expertise. Those wooden paddles, with a rubber band and a small rubber ball attached? Contests were held to see who could continue to hit the ball with the paddle the longest. When on the road to Atlantic City via Route 30, produce stands dotted the highway, selling whole water melons for 25 cents, sugar corn for five cents an ear, and apples for 25 cents a basket? Australian Dolph Harris and his recording of “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport?” When the boy singer with the Freddy Martin Orchestra was Merv Griffin?
From the Past: The Horn & Hardart automats which dispensed food through a small window after you deposited your nickels in a lot. Beef or chicken potpies were five nickels, baked beans were two nickels, vegetables, were two nickels each, a hard roll was one nickel, a meat or chicken platter was three nickels, and that famous H & H coffee was just one nickel. A person could have a full meal and be well satisfied for about 50 cents! We also recall those women who sat in a booth making change. It seems that after an hour or so, their fingers were always gray, from continuously handling the nickels.
*
It’s not here anymore, but it was on Business Route One, Old Lincoln Highway in Penndel, PA. Jim Flannery’s restaurant opened in 1928. He added the 1954 Lockheed Super G Constellation airliner to the roof in 1967. Its interior was left intact and used as a 72-seat cocktail lounge known as the Constellation Lounge. The Lounge closed in 1979, because of leaks, but the diner below remained open. It operated as “Amelia’s” (named after the famed female flyer, Amelia Earhardt) from 1981 to 1991, then as the “Airplane Diner” until 1995.
“Connie” the plane’s nickname, fell into further disrepair and was trucked away in 1997 to the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. It was laying in pieces across the street, behind a barbed wire fence for about a year. They plan to repair it some day. The restaurant was razed in 1997 and replaced with an Amoco Service Station.
There were plans to put a 6-foot replica of the plane on top of the station’s roof, but a smaller model plane was mounted on the station’s sign instead. Although it is now a BP station, the memorial aircraft is still there atop the sign.
*
Bryn Mawr, PA reader Glamorous Gladys Warwick contributes the following chuckle: The scene, A library...One patron approaches another, “Do you like Kipling?” “Don’t know, I never Kippled!”
*
Looking Back appears each month. Do you have a memory you’d like to share? Drop a line to: Jack Lebo, Looking Back, 37 Locust Lane, Levittown, PA 19054, or call (215) 943-8870, email: jacklebo@verizon.net.
*
