Items From The ZB’s

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 126, 21 November 1941, Page 25

Items From The ZB’s

eet O highly organised is Tin Pan S Alley these days that seldom does a song hit reach the public without benefit of "plugging" in a Hollywood film. There is, accordingly, a vast selection of compositions from which to choose for a session such as Music From the Films presented by Eric Bell on the Novachord every Thursday evening from 2ZB and originating in 1ZB’s radio theatre. Occasionally he features a song which has appeared in an Australian film, one of these being an appealing number "On the Isle of May," from Forty Thousand Horsemen, and sung by Jimmy MacFarlane, who frequently appears as Eric Bell’s guest artist. * % * ILTON CROSS, announcer and com mentator in the feature Betty and Bob, heard from all ZB stations every week-day at 2.0 p.m., is the commentator in a coloured travelogue of Singapore recently released in New Zealand. He describes the sights of and curiosities of Singapore "melting pot of the East,’ in a pleasant voice which is nevertheless: not as distinctive as that of the inimitable James Fitzpatrick. Another voice well known to ZB listeners, at any rate in Auckland, is frequently heard in news reels. It is that of Peter Bathurst who was formerly on 1ZB’s announcing staff and is now doing free-lance radio and film work in Australia. PETER the Pilot’s "Wise Owl" session, a quiz for children, has been playing for nearly two months now, and the number of alliterative word trios. in the English language is still far from running out. Children seem to take naturally to "naming threes." One example reported is that of the small boy, who, when asked to name three things you eat for dinner beginning with "S,"’ replied "Sausages, saveloys and stew-pie." Another small boy gave three flowers beginning with "R," as "Raspberries, rhubarb and _ radishes." And, of course, there was the little girl who, when asked to give three things at the beach beginning with "S" replied quickly, "Sandwiches, sand-castles and sandflies. The "Wise Owl" session is heard from 1ZB, 2ZB and 3ZB on Tuesday and Thursday at 5.30 p.m. and from 4ZB on Tuesday and Saturday at 5.15 p.m. * * * "HE "Morning Star’ at Station 2ZB on Sunday, November 23 at 11.30 am. is a celebrity who will be well known to many New Zealanders. He is Billy Costello, "the voice of Popeye," who toured the Dominion about two years ago with an Australian vaudeville’ company. Records made by him are still going the rounds. They consist of monologues in the Popeye manner (complete with exclamations of "Blow Me Down" and volleys of strange laughter) and songs, some nautical and some not so nautical. He broadcast from 2ZB’s studio during his visit to Wellington. ;