Word: cats
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Detroit's WWJ was born August 20, 1920. Broadcasting was then mostly stutter and static, and reception was mostly a matter of cat's whiskers and crystals. When the station was just eleven days old, its listeners were invited to hold "wireless parties" in their homes, to hear the first U.S. broadcast of election returns. A month later, WWJ (then called 8MK) aired radio's first vocal program, a soprano singing The Last Rose of Summer...
...Baths of Caracalla, the huge (160 x 120 ft.) stage was set against two towering piles of ancient ruins. During the great second act 1,194 singers and actors were onstage, accompanied by a 140-piece orchestra. Artists, sets, costumes were roundly cheered-and so was a black & white cat which swaggered across the stage during the act's tense first scene...
...cat's appearance recalled a memorable prewar performance of the same opera when a bull, led on stage for the Triumphal March, committed a nuisance downstage center. In subsequent performances, an extra bearing a silver platter was assigned to follow the bull...
...Cheshire Cat: There, there, my dear, you go right ahead and try to make sense out of nonsense, if you really think...
Never in any sense a czar, he was at best what George Eastman called the "cat's whiskers" of the industry, at frequent worst a whipping boy whose weapons for achieving order in the chaotic young industry were persuasion and patience...