Radio Scout

We have been unable to find a copy of this short film although we have a captured song sequence. Bob Nolan & Tim Spencer's "Moonlight on the Prairie" has been altered to fit the plot and we hear the four Sons of the Pioneers sing it as "Moonlight in the Valley". The short was originally filmed as "Hill Billy" but was released in 1934 as "Radio Scout".

El Brendel
Joan Wheeler
Russell Simpson
Howard Hickman
The Sons of the Pioneers

(from cue sheets courtesy of Laurence Zwisohn)

Moonlight in the Valley (Bob Nolan / Tim Spencer)
She'll be Comin 'Round the Mountain
I Like Mountain Music
The Dying Cowboy
Little Brown Jug
Turkey in the Straw
Shuffle off to Buffalo
By a Waterfall
Oh Dem Golden Slippers
Forty Second Street

El Brendel, in the character of an on-location radio announcer, hides behind a tree listening to the Sons of the Pioneers singing Moonlight in the Valley. One at a time, each one of the Pioneers is "shot" and falls over dramatically until only Len is left singing. When he, too, is shot, Brendel exclaims in a heavy Swedish accent, "They’re all good singers but they don’t last long!"

Left: El Brendel talking to his radio producer on his telephone or walkie talkie Right: The four Sons of the Pioneers singing "Moonlight in the Valley".