Phantom Dancer :: 12:00pm 26th Dec 2023

Happy New Year! Enjoy this New Year’s mix of swing and jazz from 1930s-50s New Year Radio. And marvel at how Wynn the Astrologer on his live-to-air 1936 radio predictions got 1937 so wrong.

The Phantom Dancer is your weekly non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week.

LISTEN to this week’s Phantom Dancer mix (online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 26 December) and weeks of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

OOGIE BOOGIE

This week’s featured ‘artist’ is Wynn the Astrologer

Wynn the astrologer

SEER

This famous 1930s astrologer gives his prognostications for 1937 on this week’s Phantom Dancer. In fact, get ready for disappointment at the end of Set 1, where I play Wynn’s ‘wise words’ (and some musical excerpts) from the 1936 New Year’s Eve Rudy Vallee show.

You’ll hear most of what Wynn had to say about the year ahead. I cut it short for time. Think of the audience for the 1936 radio broadcast, they never got that time Wynn wasted back.

Wynn, born Sidney Kimball Bennett, wrote the stars for the New York Daily News. It seems he didn’t do it for a laugh. He was pompously serious about himself, as you’ll hear.

SPOOKY

His claim to fame was a prediction he made in the NY Daily News in 1932. He ‘foresaw’ financial turmoil for early March of 1933. That’s when President Roosevelt closed the banks for a week as the US struggled with the Great Depression.

wynn the astrologer

UNCANNY

Wynn’s predictions for 1937 are typically vague, and, well, predictable. More interesting is just a short list of what actually happened in 1937 out of the trillions of things Wynn’s charts failed to predict…

  • Safety glass in vehicle windscreens becomes mandatory in Great Britain
  • Bradman scores 270 Aust v England at the MCG, incl 110 singles
  • 2nd of Stalin’s purge trials; Pyatakov & 16 others sentenced to death
  • DuPont Corp patents nylon, developed by employee Wallace H Carothers
  • Initial flight of the first successful flying car, Waldo Waterman’s Arrowbile
  • Bradman scores 169 in 5th Test Cricket v England in 223 minutes
  • Mexico nationalizes oil
  • Pope Pius XI publishes anti-nazi-encyclical Mit brennender Sorge
  • Astronomer Fritz Zwicky publishes his research on stellar explosion in which he coins the term “supernova” and hypothesizes that they were the origin of cosmic rays
  • Spinach growers of Crystal City, Texas, erect statue of Popeye
  • Debut of cartoon characters Daffy Duck, Elmer J Fudd & Petunia Pig
  • German Luftwaffe destroys Basque town of Guernica in Spain
  • 1st commercial flight across Pacific operated by Pan Am
  • The Philippines holds a plebiscite for Filipino women on whether they should be extended the right to suffrage; over 90% voted yes
  • San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge opens
  • Spam, the luncheon meat, is first introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation
  • Japanese & Chinese troops clash at the Marco Polo Bridge, beginning the Second Sino-Japanese War
  • Buchenwald Concentration Camp opens
  • Isolation of pituitary hormone announced (Yale University)
  • 1st FM radio construction permit issued (W1X0J (WGTR) in Boston MA)
  • Date celebrated as the first International Hobbit Day and the birthdays of Bibo and Frodo Baggins
  • 1st Santa Claus Training School opens (Albion NY)
  • Balinese Tiger declared extinct
  • Dmitri Shostakovitch’s 5th Symphony premieres
  • Clifford Odets’ “Golden Boy” premieres in NYC
  • Japanese troops conquer and plunder Nanjing (Nanjing Massacre)
  • Bill O’Reilly takes 9-41 for NSW against South Australia
  • Constitution of Ireland (Irish: Bunreacht na hÉireann) is enacted and Irish free state is named Eire
  • Pan Am starts service between San Francisco and Auckland, New Zealand

Here’s some footage of the first successful flying car, Waldo Waterman’s Arrowbile. How did Wynn miss this one? Probably the same way he missed foretelling his own 1926 car accident…(gosh, on today’s Phantom Dancer he warns Rudy Vallee to be ‘careful of cars’, spooky!)

31 DECEMBER PLAY LIST

Play List – The Phantom Dancer
107.3 2SER-FM Sydney
LISTEN ONLINE
Community Radio Network Show CRN #633

107.3 2SER Tuesday 26 December 2023
12:04 – 2:00pm (+11 hours GMT)
National Program
5UV Adelaide Monday 2:30 – 3:30am
5GTR Mt Gambier Monday 2:30 – 3:30am
3MBR Murrayville Monday 3 – 4am
4NAG Keppel FM Monday 3 – 4am
2MIA Griffith Monday 3 – 4am
2BAR Edge FM Bega Monday 3 – 4am
2BRW Braidwood Monday 3 – 4am
2YYY Young Monday 3 – 4am
7RPH Hobart Monday 3 – 4pm
3VKV Alpine Radio Monday 6 – 7pm
7MID Oatlands Monday 3am – 4 and 6 -7pm
2MCE Bathurst Wednesday 9 – 10am
1ART ArtsoundFM Canberra Friday 10 – 11am
and Sunday 11pm
Reading Radio (QLD) Friday 1am – 2
2RRR Ryde Friday 11am – 12
2ARM Armidale Friday 12 – 1pm
5LCM Lofty FM Adelaide Friday 1 – 2pm
6GME Radio Goolarri Broome Saturday 4am – 5am
Denmark FM (West Australia) Saturday 10 – 11am
Repeat: Wednesdays 10 – 11pm
7LTN Launceston Sunday 5 – 6am
3MGB Mallacoota Sunday 5 – 6am
3BBR West Gippsland Sunday 5 – 6pm
2SEA Sapphire Coast Eden Sunday 9 – 10pm

Set 1
New Years Eve Aboard An Ocean Liner Raymond Scott Quintette Comm Rec
New York
21 Jul 1939
In The Mood Glenn Miller Orchestra ‘Chesterfield Show’
WABC CBS NY
27 Dec 1939
Never Should Have Told You + Predictions for 1937 + Chim Bomba + Close Rudy Vallee and Wynn the Astrologer ‘Royal Gelatin Show’
WEAF NBC Red NY
31 Dec 1936
Set 2
Open + Happy Holidays Bing Crosby (voc) John Scott Trotter Orchestra ‘Kraft Music Hall’
KFI NBC LA
30 Dec 1943
Rhapsody In Blue (theme) + Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Paul Whiteman Orchestra and Chorus ‘The Paul Whiteman Show’
WJZ ABC NY
1 Jan 1947
Poinciana + Close Bing Crosby (voc) John Scott Trotter Orchestra ‘Kraft Music Hall’
KFI NBC LA
30 Dec 1943
Set 3
Deep Forest (theme) + Dippermouth Blues + When The Saints Go Marching In + Tiger Rag Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines Club Hangover
KCBS CBS San Francisco
1 Jan 1957
Set 4
Auld Lang Syne + Newport Up + Together + Macarena + You Better Know It Duke Ellington Orchestra (voc) Jimmy Grissom and Ozzie Bailey ‘All-Star Parade of Bands’
Blue Note
WMAQ NBC Chicago
1 Jan 1958
Set 5
Sad Sack Harry James Orchestra (Hollywood) ‘New Year’s Dancing Party’
AFRS Hollywood
31 Dec 1945
One O’Clock Jump Count Basie Orchestra (New York) ‘New Year’s Dancing Party’
AFRS Hollywood
31 Dec 1945
Warsaw Concerto Freddy Martin Orchestra (Cocoanut Grove, Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles) ‘New Year’s Dancing Party’
AFRS Hollywood
31 Dec 1945
Woodchopper’s Ball Woody Herman Orchestra (Meadowbrook Ballroom, Cedar Grove NJ) ‘New Year’s Dancing Party’
AFRS Hollywood
31 Dec 1945
Set 6
Open + Stompin’ At The Savoy + Tea For Two Teddy Wilson Trio ‘All-Star Parade of Bands’
The Embers
WRCA NBC NY
31 Dec 1957
Stompin’ Down Broadway + Opus 1 (close) Dorsey Brothers Orchestra Meadowbrook Ballroom
Cedar Grove NJ
WCBS CBS NY
1 Jan 1956
Set 7
Afterthoughts + Canadian Sunset + Soft Summer Breeze + The Man I Love + Begin The Beguine Eddie Haywood Trio ‘All-Star Parade of Bands’
The Embers
WRCA NBC NY
31 Dec 1957
Set 8
Robin Hood Louis Prima Orchestra (voc) LP ‘New Year’s Dancing Party’
AFRS Hollywood
31 Dec 1945
Gotta Be This Or That Benny Goodman Orchestra (with Slam Stewart b, Red Norvo vibes, Boston) ‘New Year’s Dancing Party’
AFRS Hollywood
31 Dec 1945
Let The Zoomers Drool Duke Ellington Orchestra (Evansville, Indiana) ‘New Year’s Dancing Party’
AFRS Hollywood
31 Dec 1945

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