SCOTCH & SODA - How it happened!

By Leonard Buzz Blair

Simply enough. I was in my Boss Hall dormitory room. My roommate, Jere McMann, was off somewhere, doing something. Like many such ordinaries, a song insinuated itself into my brain.  It wasn't just any song, but a special one entitled 'East of the the Sun and West of the Moon' ---- we'll build a dream house for two dear, and more and more. It was lovely, charming, simple, enthralling.

I liked it.

It's gentle bewitchery made me concentrate on the music, on the lyrics. Because of my attraction, I learned that it was originally written for a Princeton University Triangle Club student-musical and, in an unusual turn of events, it had caught public fancy and became a big-band hit!

Further musing led me to the thought, wouldn't it be fun to create such a club and write a student-musical under the Carnegie Tech banner where I was a sophomore. YOIKS!

It seemed like a pie-in-the-sky vision, but my conceit exerted itself enough to warm my cold feet.

Aspiration became determination.

My thinking ---- first things first. I've got to have a script! Everything begins with the word. and with pencil ready to hit the page, I dreamed up a format. A revue ---- sketches; satirical, topical, acerbic, collegial. The passion of determination in its rawest transformation drove my college studies to a "low". Drive led me to late night writing, cut classes, unshaven appearance. But from that nightmare of activity, came a revue with music and I spawned a made-up word which I felt fitted the effort ---- a revusical! The title I gave the show grew out of the show idea, which was NO STRINGS. It was based on a college magazine editor and his staff controlling the substance of articles and cartoons by stifling fresh and innovative student editorial content. A revolution by the dissenters cut the strings of expression compression ---- NO STRINGS!

All seemed to be going swimmingly until my completed script ran counter to my concept for the "club"! I wanted writing and producing, everything to be open to any student in any discipline; drama, engineering, Maggie Murph, music, architecture. And here I had written the book, music, lyrics ---- the works! What conceit!

After a wrestle with my conscience, I edited out half of my script, music and lyrics and let it be known that the musical was open to every student on campus!  The talent pool was unleashed and new fresh material, singers, actors came aboard. I had one idea, which I thought was a doozer (of course!) Instead of a separate event which was the annual tradition, I wanted to stage the coronation of the elected campus queen as the closing highlight of the show NO STRINGS --- a kind of Busby Berkely extravaganza. I broached the idea to Carnival Chairman Paul Games and he liked it ---- a lot.

With student Harry Schofield, I wrote lyrics to ALL HAIL THE QUEEN and Ed Sweadner to compose a majestic musical compliment. As it turned out, Ed's melody was as grand as the beauty and personality of Queen Jane Ferguson.

From the beginning I had a name in mind for the "club". It was catchy, colloquial, saucy, and rolled trippingly off the tongue ---- a natural: SCOTCH & SODA! But it wasn't a shoo-in. It seems the SCOTCH & SODA name had found its way to Dean Green, Dean of Women, AND when I was unceremoniously invited to her office ---- I shook!

Dean Green did not have a reputation for mincing words. The formality of our greeting was as cursory as a curse; precipitate, slapdash. The dean used words like Roman soldiers of old use sword ---- provocatively! What she laid on my championing of SCOTCH & SODA as the club name, was mischievous, vexatious, fractious, caustic, feisty - and topped it all off with RACY!

There is an old cliche ---- grim and bear it, (my version). all I could do was appear as benign as possible. When she was spent, I said, "Yes Ma'am" ---- turned and left. What she could not hear, was my dismay which roiled, unspoken in my mind ---- matching her, adjective for adjective; pummeled, chafed, fragmented, anguished stung! 

The Dean threw down her glove, but my frustration immediately generated and idea!  Plan B! I went directly to the office of THE TARTAN to see my friend Walt Ellis, the editor of our college newspaper. I recounted the events and told him of my idea to hold a campus contest to name this new organization. Two tickets to the winner. His latent revolutionary spirit sputtered, "Great Idea! A contest! Vox Pop! Democracy at work! Let's do it!"

Three popular professors, Miss Dennison, Mr. Dawes and Dr. Gregg agreed to judge the contest which was a notable campus journalistic happening! And the results? HOP & SCOTCH came in second followed by THE WHISTLING THISTLE  and HOOT MON, a weak fourth. Guess which was #1?!

I raced around campus enlisting friends and acquaintances, badgering every dress and pair of pants that could make a mark on a ballot. It wasn't difficult. Everybody we approached thought it was a natural, a roller coaster! My only concern was that we'd end up with more SCOTCH & SODA votes than there were registered students!

We showed the votes to Dean Green. Her answer was a blow. "NO! Scotch & Soda is an intoxicating drink. It has no place in a University"! We pleaded. "NO!," three times!, "NO!"

Our last hope was an approach to the chairman of the SPRING CARNIVAL. Paul Games was sympathetic and chanced a visit to University President Dougherty. A hallelujah should accompany the President's answer, "If as you say the name SCOTCH & SODA polled more than four times as many votes than any other submission ---- we will let it go that way."

And? That's the way it happened.

What ever happened to me?! With the recommendation of Drama Department head Henry Boettcher, I got a job as assistant director of the Charleston, West Virginia Kanawha Players, a community drama group. Near the conclusion of my first year there, I received a letter from President Franklin Roosevelt (I didn't even know him!) It was 1940! I was drafted! Private to Major in the 16th Combat Camera Squadron of the 14th Air Force The Flying Tigers, five years in China! Wounded severely, 3 months in a Calcutta, India hospital. After discharge, I was lucky to land a job as an assistant director at ABC, New York.

An offer from CBS to produce a General Mills soap opera was too good to refuse. Another offer
(scary, because my base was Madison Avenue in Manhattan) to move to CBS Hollywood. A big decision because our young son and daughter were in good schools and we loved our home in Westport, Connecticut.  But things turned out well and I became CBS Director of Program Development. Translation: I hired and worked with top writing talent, developing new shows for the CBS schedule 18 months in advance. Excuse my parading my credits, but I was executive producer of the pilots. A few of my notable ones were MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, HAWAII 5-0, PERRY MASON, CANDID CAMERA. Life, and my work were good. We were happy.

Behind the camera personalities usually take a bow by association with the actors who have become stars, so here are a few of mine: as producer-writer, a year with Marlene Dietrich, Carol O'Connor, Shelly Winters, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. Also shows starring Jane Fonda, Ann Sheridan ---- but that's enough to exhibit my ego! Wowsie! I always wondered whether I could bundle my life into a few pages ---- I think I just did!