A string of last Year’s Christmas tree ornaments provides the clank of the sailors’ chains as the clamber aboard Captain Pegleg’s ship in the Polly Pops Pirate Thriller program over KWK at 6 o’clock Tuesday and Friday.
A deft wielding of a folded newspaper makes the sound of paddles of the canoe to conjure up romantic pictures. An empty cigar box tapped gently on the table represents the soft footfalls of the attackers.
Cajoleries and cries of Poll Parrot, the inseparable companion of Pegleg, are provided by Austin Cottrell, a staff member of KWK. In fact, he is the one-man sound effects man (sic) who furnishes the sound of the waves and the yells and shouts of the sailors. When the continuity reads “The steady rolling noise of the surf” or “The ship’s bells sounded through the deadly clear,” Cottrell leaves off being the parrot and rattles the property chains or imitates noisy sailors.
Squawks, cheers, applause, shrill sounds, parrot lingo are all a part of the sound background which he supplies to make the yarns that Pegleg spins sound more realistic.
Pegleg is played by Robert Vaughan, the original “Bat” when that production played in New York.
(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 4/17/1932).