Waiting for the Gong

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 486, 15 October 1948, Page 9

Waiting for the Gong

"TEN years ago, when 1ZB was very ‘" young and the staff was engaged in gathering up a stock of "props" for sound effects, one member was sent in search of a gong. And it had to be a "big, loud gong." In a second-hand shop in Upper Queen Street he found a Chinese hand-gong priced modestly at twenty-five shillings, and bought it. Since then it has had many uses and been heard thousands of times, by hundreds of thousands of listeners, It has

been an important piece of property in Yes-No Jackpots, Spelling Jackpots and the Housewives’ Laugh session, for instance. Many a contestant will recall having kept, so to speak, one eye on the microphone and the other on the hand of the announcer, with sfriker raised. In the last few months the old gong has. been used by the Productions Division ,in Albert Street for sound effects, but 1ZB has now reclaimed it for work in a new amateur vaude-

ville show being heard from the Radio Theatre on Mondays at 10.0 p.m. Items in this session last only as long as the gong permits, To ensure that the gong, but not the judges, might be seen, it had to be made automatic. With some odd pieces of wood, a sheet of three-ply and two or three rubber bands, the transformation was made. Now the striker hits the gong when a button in the judges’ room is pressed. From the moment an item starts, the eyes of the audience and performer are on the striker. Sooner or later it trembles, rises slowly towards the suspended gong, and then it is only a matter of seconds before the clang ‘comes, a light flashes and the act is Over, to the benefit or otherwise of audience and listeners, depending on the way you look at it.