Brian,
I stumbled on to your web page while looking for a photo of Walter Tetley. Although your photos are small, they are better than anything I had seen before. After a thorough read of the page I must say I was both delighted and disappointed.
For the past year and a half I have been collecting “Old Time Radio” off the net, in MP3 format. My collection is now quite respectable and huge compared to when I was doing something similar with cassettes. In order to keep the collection in a usable form, I burn the programs to CDs and put them into jewel cases. I usually try add photos of the voice actors from my books or the net. I recently did a cover for the CBS series “Escape” (1947-54) and used photos of the two most-frequent hosts and stars: William Conrad and Paul Frees. I suddenly noticed the Bullwinkle connection! I guess I will have to put a picture of Boris Badenov on the back cover.
Your page delighted me because I am also a great Jay Ward-Bill Scott fan. I still use drinking glasses purchased at Dudley Do-Right’s Emporium. Jay Ward’s sense of humor twisted high school career!
I was disappointed because your page is not really a Walter Tetley page. For years, Walter was just a name in the Bullwinkle credits. It wasn’t until I started listening to OTR that I realized what a large role he played in that, primarily in The Great Gildersleeve (1941-57) and the Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show (1946-54). Many people consider Gildersleeve to have been the first true sitcom. Tetley played Gildersleeve’s young nephew, Leroy. I read that Walter did a cameo in one of the Gildersleeve movies. As he was not a child, he did not appear as Leroy. Although I have it on video tape, I did not know that when I first saw it.
The Phil Harris-Alice Faye show was one of the best written radio sitcoms programs and holds up very well today. In the Phil Harris show, Tetley was also Julius Abruzzio, the grocery boy. Julius showed up during the second half of the show to laugh at the mess Phil and Frankie had made for themselves.
You might be particularly interested in one Gildersleeve broadcast (2/25/45). As the start of the live program is interrupted by a war bulletin, star Hal Peary and Walter Tetley entertain the audience as themselves. I can send you that segment if you like.
I see from your bio that your spent time in Sevilla. I have also been there a couple of times but my Spanish is just good enough to get into trouble. I understand that scenes from the next Star Wars film will be shot at Plaza de Espana.
Jonathan:
Yes, please do send me the link of Walter Tetley and Hal Peary entertaining the audience as themselves. We would like to inform the readers about that.
I can understand your disappointment, since we advertised this as a Tetley page, that he is only one small part of the whole package. Really what it is, is a Jay Ward cartoons tribute/page, but I wanted to dedicate it to Walter Tetley because he did not get a whole lot of recognition, in Jay Ward cartoons, since typically he played only one character, in Ward/Scott’s many cartoon series.
I also wanted to give him the honor, of having our website named after him, as a way of saying that I am sorry that he was the one voice artist, whom I really wanted to write to, but missed out on………..because I was too late……..Just about everyone else, from those shows, whom I really cared about, I did get to write to.
If he had lived a little longer, I think that maybe I would have eventually tracked him down, because I was persistent in making contact with all these folks. Since I will never have the chance to talk to him, or write to him, this is my way of saying “I really am a fan of yours, Walter………Since I was too late to touch base with you, I want to do at least a ‘ little something ‘ in your honor.
Naming the web page after him is also my way of recognizing him, for the hard, difficult, long road, that he must have gone through, in the last years of his life, after his motorcycle accident……..and a kind of posthumous way of saying to him how very sorry that I am, that he had to go through that……..
And as a fan, I wish that I could have been a small part of his life, those last years, to do a little something to cheer him up, when he was down or in pain…….I know that I could not have done very much, but maybe I could have brought a little smile to his face, or a mild chuckle, with a greeting card, a juvenile drawing, from my teenage years, or some kind, words of good cheer, in a letter.
If you have not already done so, you would probably really enjoy reading some of the emails from our PEABODY’S PONY EXPRESS feature, which talk about his Radio career in more detail. We also have a link, under the feature, LINKS, which takes you to some broadcasts of the Great Gildersleeve. You would probably really enjoy visiting that, if you have not already been to that site.
I actually did start this page out as just a Walter Tetley Page. But then my partner, Greg, who knew that I had a much broader interest, in voice artists, encouraged me to go beyond that, and dedicate the page to voice artists, in general, from Jay Ward Productions. I never really did want to change the name of our site, however, because of that special place, in my heart, for Walter Tetley.
We are trying to key our website up, in a way that will eventually attract folks searching for related topics as well. We hope to eventually have The Walter Tetley Web Page come up, as an option, for search topics like June Foray, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Jay Ward, etc., etc., etc. But I will NEVER change the name of the site…….And that’s a promise!
About Sevilla, Spain…….If you did not already know (and I am sure that you probably do know), the movie, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2 was filmed partly in Sevilla, at least the first 15-20 minutes or so. The scenes set in Sevilla, Spain, are among the most charming of that whole movie. Rent it, if you have not already seen it!!
Brian