November 22 Radio History

➦In 1899…Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America registered in New Jersey

➦In 1904...Actor Roland Winters was born in Boston.  He was the longtime radio announcer for John J Anthony’s Goodwill Hour.  In TV he had recurring roles on the series Mama, Door With No Name & Green Acres, as well as dozens of guest spots. He died Oct. 22 1989 after a stroke, at age 84.

➦In 1906...Actor & announcer Howard Petrie was born in Beverly Mass. He had many bigtime radio announcing assignments with Garry Moore, Jimmy Durante & Judy Canova, frequently taking part in the skits himself. In TV he had recurring acting assignments on Bat Masterson & The Edge of Night, plus scores of guest roles.  Howard died March 24 1968 at just 61.

➦In 1934...“Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” was aired on radio for the first time, on NBC’s Eddie Cantor Show.

➦In 1955...RCA paid the unheard of sum of $25,000 to Sam Phillips of Memphis for the rights to the music of a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi: Elvis Presley. Thanks to negotiations with Elvis’ manager, Colonel Tom Parker, RCA tossed in a $5,000 bonus as well — for a pink Cadillac for Elvis’ mother.

➦In 1963…Most U-S Radio stations suspended regular programming following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  The Number One song that week was 'Sugar Shack' by Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs.

More than three hours of KLIF 1190 AM audio from November 22, 1963, the day of President Kennedy's assassination.

Coverage begins at 11:30 AM (Dallas time) on 11/22/63, with Joe Long of Dallas radio station KLIF reporting live from Love Field Airport as President Kennedy arrives in "Big D".

Today 1190 AM is the home of Talk KFXR.

Kennedy coverage as heard on WBAP 820 AM Fort Worth:




And From The Big One, WLW 700 AM Cincinnati (then an NBC Affiliate):

Here is the initial bulletin heard on the NBC Radio Network about the shooting of President Kennedy in Dallas. Robert MacNeil reports live from a telephone located inside the Texas School Book Depository Building, which is where the gunshots came from.

This is the line feed from the ABC Radio Network News in the initial moments of the coverage of the JFK Assasination. Included is the ABC Log Book notes on what they were airing. Someone in ABC Master Control had to log literally everything that was broadcast each day. Also included UPI and AP wire copy which you can see the network anchors are relying on for information.

➦1963…The Parlophone label released the Beatles' second album in the U-K, "With the Beatles," and the single, "Roll Over Beethoven." Capitol Records in Canada issued the album as "Beatlemania! With the Beatles," which has the distinction of being the first Beatles album ever released in North America. Most of the songs from the album were not released in the United States until January 20, 1964 when Capitol Records issued "Meet the Beatles!"

➦In 1980...actress Mae West   died at her Hollywood home at age 87 following a stroke.



Famous for her double-entendres she had a sensational if brief radio career, appearing in two risque sketches on the Charlie McCarthy Show on a Sunday in Dec. 1937.  The listening audience was so shocked that West did not appear again on radio for another 31 years.

➦In 2002...actor Parley Baer died at age 88 after a stroke.  He was active in bigtime radio, playing Chester on Gunsmoke, and dozens of supporting roles on The Lux Radio Theater, Escape and Suspense.

Baer in the 1930s served on radio as director of special events for KSL. His first network show was The Whistler, which was soon followed by appearances on Escape (notably narrating "Wild Jack Rhett" and as the title patriot in an adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet's "A Tooth for Paul Revere"), Suspense, Tales of the Texas Rangers (as various local sheriffs), Dragnet, The CBS Radio Workshop, Lux Radio Theater, The Six Shooter, and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, to name a few.

Parley Baer

In 1952, he began playing Chester, the trusty jailhouse assistant to Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, eventually ad-libbing the character's full name, "Chester Wesley Proudfoot" (later changed to "Chester Goode" in the televised version of the series, which featured Dennis Weaver in the role of Chester). Baer's portrayal of Chester was generally considered his finest and most memorable role, and as he often said, the one he found most fulfilling.  Baer also worked as a voice actor on several other radio shows produced by Norman MacDonnell, performing as Pete the Marshal on the situation comedy The Harold Peary Show, as Doc Clemens on Rogers of the Gazette, and as additional characters on Fort Laramie and The Adventures of Philip Marlowe.

Other recurring roles included Eb the farm hand on Granby's Green Acres (the radio predecessor to television's Green Acres), Gramps on The Truitts, and Rene the manservant on the radio version of The Count of Monte Cristo. His later radio work included playing Reginald Duffield and Uncle Joe Finneman on the Focus on the Family series Adventures in Odyssey in the 1980s and 1990s.

Radio playwright and director Norman Corwin cast Baer as Simon Legree in the 1969 KCET television reading of his 1938 radio play The Plot to Overthrow Christmas.

On TV he was seen in everything from The Andy Griffith Show to Star Trek: Voyager. Six decades of character roles in broadcasting.

Gunsmoke "The Stage Holdup" CBS 1/2/54 Oldtime Radio Drama Western
Matt Dillon: William Conrad...Kitty: Georgia Ellis...Chester Proudfoot: Parley Baer

➦In 2011…Lead anchor for 25 years at CNN Radio Stan Case was killed in a traffic accident in Birmingham AL, as he was driving to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving. He was 59.

➦In 2015…Charlie Boone, the WCCO Radio host who was the voice of mornings in Minnesota for nearly 40 years, died at age 88.

Charlie Boone, Roger Erickson

“Boone and Erickson,” Boone’s 37-year collaboration with Roger Erickson, was one of the most popular shows on radio from the 1960s to the 1990s. The partnership ended in 1998 when Erickson retired, but Boone continued to host a Saturday morning show until 2010.

Born in Newfoundland, he started at WCCO in 1959 and was the station’s first disc jockey.

His show at WCCO, “Boone in the Afternoon,” followed Roger Erickson’s program each day, and the two struck up a friendship.

The weekday morning show started in 1961 and would last 37 years. Boone was more of the straight man and Erickson got most of the gags. The two were famous for their skits and voices. Boone could impersonate a bellicose Southern senator or a New York cop. Erickson, a Minnesota native, handled the Scandinavian accents.

Boone and Erickson poked fun at politicians, lampooned current events and parodied old radio shows. One of their most popular bits was “Minnesota Hospital,” billed as “the best place to get sick in.”

Boone liked to say that he and Erickson treated their relationship like a marriage.



Right before he arrived in Minneapolis, Boone was scheduled to emcee a show by Buddy Holly and Richie Valens in Moorhead, Minn., and was waiting at the airport when he learned the rock star had been killed in a plane crash. Needing a replacement act, he scrambled to enlist a local band called The Shadows, headed by 15-year-old Robert Velline, who later became known as Bobby Vee.