Bells & Whistles

A director at Schenectady's WGY wanted a noise that sounded like a door slamming--so he slapped two pieces of wood together. That was probably radio's first sound effect. Since then (1922), harried, inventive technicians have livened up many a drooping air show with ingenious noises. Last week, one of them got better effects than he bargained for.

CBS Soundman Carl Pezzuto forgot to close his third floor Manhattan window before testing the Texaco Fire Chief siren and bell. A crowd gathered in the street below and two cops with guns drawn barged into the sound studio. Few radio sound effects get such startling results, but radio's noises today are often as well known as its stars.

P: Fibber McGee's cluttered closet is one of the best known. NBC's Tom Horan of Chicago invented it. He used a set of studio chairs resembling a back stoop, piled each step high with old shoes, bowling pins, tennis rackets, bird cages, roller skates, broken dishes and iron scraps.

P: Jack Benny keeps three soundmen hopping every time he enters the mythical safe-deposit vault beneath his house. The soundmen squeak doors, blow sirens, ring bells and toot horns to further the legend of Benny's penny-pinching. Studio audiences find it sidesplitting.

P: Toughest sound to fake is applause. And no hocus-pocus has yet matched the true click of a closing door. Result: studios keep large collections of various-sized doors to open & shut on cue.

P: Most up-to-date sound: an atomic bomb explosion, as used in Mutual's The Human Adventure. This was a synthesis of three recorded noises: a dynamite blast, escaping steam and the clatter of a boiler room.

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