Back when comedy albums were a thing, what speed did they typically play at?
that reminds me, back in 80’s in LA, there were 2 24-hr newstands on Hollywood Blvd
I had a few from the ‘70s (Richard Pryor, Steve Martin), and those were 33s.
my dad had a Plymouth Fury like that
Long play (“licorice pizza”) records with 6-8 songs on a side were nearly, if not always, 33⅓ RPM; single play (7" records with a large spindle hole) were 45 RPM. 16 RPM, as noted, were for spoken word or music where sound quality was less important than playing time. 78 RPM was a holdover from the time before LP when a typical record only held 3-5 minutes on a side.
In the 1960s, most daily newspapers were either morning or evening papers. My father worked for the Sunday Sun, and I remember as a kid looking up in the World Almanac (remember them?) and discovering that the Sun was one of only 19 papers in the country (among hundreds listed there) that published a morning, evening, and Sunday edition. Each one had a completely separate editorial staff.
My older brother bought a Magnavox console stereo in the early 1960s, and it had 16 rpm on it. “It’s a Gas” by Alfred E. Neuman was especially funny at that speed, though it was equally sidesplitting at 78.
For those too young to remember, “It’s a Gas” was a small disc on cardboard that came tucked into a special edition of “MAD” around 1964 or 65. I still have it. It still cracks me up at any speed.
We had a toy telephone in the house that took little records that were in 16rpm.
There were many more of us. Aging boomer her. 
Some things from my youth that are probably vanishingly rare for other dopers:
- There were entire beaches, public amenities, entertainment venues and public transport I could not use on pain of, well, pain. And imprisonment.
- Television was entirely in Afrikaans on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and alternating Sundays.
- There was just the one TV channel at first.
- There was no sliced bread available for sale on Sundays. Only rolls. And only from a bakery, because the grocery stores were shut just like most every store except the bakeries.
Same for me. One channel until 1980. Two channels until 1990. Three channels until 2000 (though by then I had moved from NZ to Aus).
Probably Kirby. I worked for them for about a week in around 1979. I was to learn the ropes from an experienced salesman. His name was Charlie Brown and drove an AMC Pacer. If someone let us to do a demo they’d get a free canned ham. We knocked on about 20 doors and never got in. I quit after that.
This is why I didn’t post about what my childhood in Pakistan was like. It is so outside the American cultural experience, it would be hard for others to understand.
I wonder if that influenced the line in “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”? 
Grew up in Ohio, and I remember the trading post. It was just like the classified section of a newspaper, wherein anyone could buy or sell stuff. Most ads consisted of just one or two sentenses, and I recall it wasn’t cheap to place an ad. Today’s online marketplaces are vastly superior.
The World Almanac was a fun read — just one huge rabbit hole.
I think the “noon time” version of The Sun I mentioned was just the 6AM edition with the front page updated.
I’m Gen X (born in 1967). My late teen years were so much different that the late teen years of our children. It was during the rock era, and countless weekends were spent partying, trying to score beer, going to rock concerts, more partying, etc. etc. Our chilren and their friends seemed to be much more straight-laced, which - I guess? - is better. But their generation also seems to have a lot more psychlogical problems. It seems that every Gen Z person I’ve met is on meds for this or that.
The last time I used in was in 1993/94, when I moved to New York City and didn’t need my car anymore. As I recall they old guy who bought it lived an hour and a half or so away, so it had a further reach than newspaper want ads. It was kind of like placing an ad in all the newspapers withing a fairly large radius, thus the higher cost.
Yes, most papers, morning, evening, or Sunday, would issue several editions each day, with, as you say, minor updates to the lead stories as new info came in.
The delay between when each edition was “put to bed,” ie, all the editorial changes were finished, and when it appeared on the streets, was several hours, to allow for the typesetting and printing a several thousand copies.
So the 6 am edition would have been put to bed at, say, 2 am, and the noon at 8 or 9.
Kolchak never got that by-line, did he? A shame. 