Radio Days v 1.0
March 10th, 2004
This is a rambling and I’m just trying to organize thoughts. Theoretically it will be transformed into something better. Right.
The Beginning
My heroes are old Jewish guys. The Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, George Burns. That sort of thing. Naturally my father fits in there, and really, it’s all his fault.
The Moment of Arrival
San Diego, California, 1984, KNX 1070 news radio on your AM dial. 9 PM, Sunday night. “The Jack Benny Program!” Jack was fighting with guest star Fred Allen, and was telling Fred how Jello was going to have eight delicious flavors: strawberry, grape, cherry, orange, lemon, lime and black and blue! Thirty minutes later, I was forever hooked on the humor of a man who had been dead for ten years.
Things I want to mention
Thursday nights, ice skating and Sgt. Preston.
The Cisco Kid and Pancho. Oh Cisco! Perhaps my first HoYay! show.
X Minus-1: the most terrifying show ever!
The Black Museum: Why Orson Wells never scared me, but made me think.
The Third Man: How Orson Wells, again, brought the dead to life.
Sherlock Holmes: Nothing like the books!
Categories: Written Word
“The Jack Benny Program!†Jack was fighting with guest star Fred Allen, and was telling Fred how Jello was going to have eight delicious flavors: strawberry, grape, cherry, orange, lemon, lime and black and blue!
Jell-O sponsored Benny’s program from 1934 to 1942; because General Foods simply could not make enough Jell-O to meet the demand, they switched him to Grape-Nuts and Grape-Nuts Flakes. So stuck in the public mind was Benny’s association with Jell-O, though, that when Lucky Strike picked up the program in 1944, the first few shows had Benny interrupting announcer Don Wilson’s commercials, reminding Wilson (and the listening audience) that Lucky Strike didn’t come in six delicious flavors.