Several people wrote to tell me that the lady I referred to in the last post, Hela Yungst, changed her name to Hela Young and went on to have a long and very sucessful career at the New Jersey Network, while Davey just drifted off to obscurity. I must admit, I had quite the crush on her while we were doing “The Wireless Anything Goes Notebook”. Of course, I was too yungst… er, young and stupid to do anything about it at the time. But I did get to sit next to her legs under the desk when we were doing our spots! Sadly, Hela passed away from cancer in February, 2002, after a long illness. Coleen Burnett says that the whole state went into mourning after that. But I’m happy to know that she’s remembered so fondly.

Next, Dave Mackey wrote to add a little historical correctness to my piece about NET. He writes:

Let the record show that New York’s Channel 13 (which was technically licensed to Newark, NJ) was known as WNDT until the last couple of years of the existence of NET, when it changed its calls to WNET to more closely ally them with the educational network.

Thanks, Dave!

Finally, Adrian Hickman asks if I have any insight into why Disney still won’t release “Song of the South”. Other than the obvious reason that it’s perceived as racist, I don’t have any special insight. Personally, I think films from the 30’s and 40’s should be seen. If they have to be placed into historical context for those that don’t understand the time period, then that’s fine.

In the late 70’s, at a time when the Our Gang films, or Little Rascals, as they were called on TV, were being butchered to the point of practically cutting the black kids out of them entirely, I talked to Matthew “Stymie” Beard. His take was that producer Hal Roach was way ahead of his time because he and Farina and Buckwheat were part of the gang. They were integrated long before the rest of the country. Were there racist gags in Our Gang? Yes, but again, they need to be viewed in the context of the times.

But getting back to “Song of the South”, there are two things I do know. It was definitely on the schedule to be released as one of the “Treasures” series, and Bob Iger, new head of The Walt Disney Company, recently sat down and watched it. It’s definitely not on the schedule any more.

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