Recognize the photo? It's Fred Maher and Skinney Dugan. Mr. Maher created the now famous Maher ventriloquism home study course.
Fred and his wife, Madeleine, began Maher Studios in Detroit, Michigan in 1934.
As a kid, I remember seeing the little classified ad in the back of 'Popular Mechanics' magazine for their course. It ran in the magazine for decades.
Fred passed away unexpectedly in 1952, and Madeleine continued the business until she sold Maher Studios to Clinton Detweiler in 1969.
The original course has been out of print for over 30 years (Clinton released his own revised version of the course in 1975).
But recently, Clinton re-released a very limited number of copies of this original course.
My copy of the 1948 Maher course arrived yesterday. What a great package. Clinton did a superb job putting this together.
As I began flipping through the pages, all of my old memories of the course began to come back. I recognized a lot of the artwork, and even remember some of the verbiage used in the text.
I never took the whole course when I first signed up in the mid 1960's. I was on the payment plan, I think, and I guess I couldn't save up the $5 a month needed to get the next set of lessons. I believe I only made it about half way through the original course.
This course had so much information in it. It certainly was the best on the market - even then.
All of the bonuses (the photos, flyers, letters, forms, etc) are a great addition. It's like the whole history of the Fred Maher course (and how it was marketed) in a 3 ring binder.
I was also pleased that the photo copies of the original pages came out so well. It's going to be a real pleasure reading the entire course again.
The $75 price tag was a very small investment for this historical and still extremely useful information.
Everyone interested in ventriloquism should have a copy of this in their library. But, I know that won't happen. as Clinton is only producing a limited number of these for sale.
I feel lucky to be one of the few to get a copy.
