Hello there, I'm Peter Schickele, and this is Schickele Mix, a program dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal, or as Duke Ellington put it, if it sounds good, it is good. And there's good news and bad news today. The good news is that our bills are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by this wonderful radio station which lets me do my thing, which is then distributed by PRI, Public Radio International. The bad news is that things are pretty bleak on the public radio front. It's getting harder and harder for stations like this one to keep their collective heads above water. But I have got an idea that is so great, I don't want to be immodest or anything, but I think that this just may be the idea that saves public radio in this country, not only for the immediate future, but well into the year 3000. You know, I've been doing Schickele Mix for several years now, and I love doing it, and I hope I get to keep doing it for a long time. But a fellow likes to spread his wings. At least a fellow with any intellectual stuffing in him does, and I've got an idea for another radio show that I could easily do without dropping Schickele Mix. A show that, as far as I'm concerned, is the reason that Marconi invented radio. It's a quiz show and it's called You Heard Me. It's a musical quiz show but it's not like an oral exam at Harvard or anything like that. I mean it's not like what effect did the Council of Trent have on Palestrina's eating habits or how many string quartets would Bartok have written if he were Brahms. This show will really be entertaining and fun for everyone.
Now, I must admit that, well, there's not an epidemic of enthusiasm for this show around this station. But I have made a deal with them. The powers that be have agreed that if I can bring in ten million dollars in pledges to the station during Schickele Mix today, they'll let me do a pilot for You Heard Me and put it on prime time. So let me tell you how it works, folks. I've picked a saying, like, Haste Makes Waste or Once Burned Twice Shy. And I've edited together a statement of that saying in which every word comes from a different song. Isn't that neat? But the thing is that sung words are not always easy to understand when they're taken out of context. So I'll play the songs first and then I'll play the saying. If you can understand the saying on one hearing you're doing very well.
Okay, here we go. Our first saying has four words, and here are the four songs they come from.
[music: Lennon/McCartney, "Penny Lane" (Magical Mystery Tour); The Beatles]
[music: Bloom/Mercer, "Fools Rush In" (Nice ’n Easy); Frank Sinatra]
[music: Gilbert/Sullivan, “Iolanthe,” “If you go in you’re sure to win”; D'Oyly Carte Opera Company]
[music: "Young & Foolish" (The Portrait Edition); Jo Stafford]
Penny Lane, Frank Sinatra, and Fools Rush In, then If You Go In from Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe, that was The D'Oyly Carte Company, and finally, Jo Stafford singing Young & Foolish with a very prominent harpsichord in the arrangement there. Okay, are you ready for the saying that I've extracted from those four songs?
This goes by very fast, so concentrate, here it is: penny wise, pound foolish.
Did you get it? Like I said, you have to be on your toes, here it is again: penny wise, pound foolish. Penny wise,
pound foolish. Isn't that great? Penny wise, pound foolish, with each word taken from one of the four songs we heard. I'm telling you, this is the greatest thing to happen to radio since Edward R. Murrow. Let me play it one more time: penny wise, pound foolish. It wasn't easy editing this thing together, you know.
Penny wise, pound foolish.
Now remember folks, if I bring in ten million dollars worth of pledges during the show today, the station will let me make a pilot for You Heard Me, and they'll give it everything they've got, ads in the supermarket, tabloids and everything. So if you're not a member, please call now, and if you are, maybe you'd like to give a little extra to become part of broadcasting history. Even if you don't share my opinion that You Heard Me is going to be the Gone with the Wind of musical quiz shows, you might want to give something just to make sure that Schickele Mix continues to raise your spirits and knowledge to Elysian heights.