A MCRFB VIEWING/READING TIP: To fully appreciate this ANN ARBOR SUN ‘Detroit’s Radio Desert‘ (David Fenton; September 3, 1975) feature — To enlarge this image FULL SCREEN — click image and open to second window. Click image again, twice, for EXPANDED, LARGEST VIEW. Click image anytime to return to NORMAL image size. (Click your server’s back button to return to MCRFB main home page).
A MCRFB VIEWING/READING TIP: To fully appreciate this ANN ARBOR SUN ‘Detroit’s Radio Desert‘ (David Fenton; September 3, 1975) feature — To enlarge this image FULL SCREEN — click image and open to second window. Click image again, twice, for EXPANDED, LARGEST VIEW. Click image anytime to return to NORMAL image size. (Click your server’s back button to return to MCRFB main home page).
From the MCRFB news archives: 1985
Former Detroit-based Comic Will Do Mid-days
NEW YORK — “Let’s just say that something funny finally came between Imus and Stern,” laughs WNBC New York program director Dale Parsons about the hiring of veteran comic Soupy Sales (and formerly TV funnyman Detroit ABC WXYZ television 1953-1966) as the contemporary station’s new midday personality.
Sales will be flanked by morning man Don Imus and afternoon drive host Howard Stern (formerly WWWW Detroit), and Parsons sees his role as “establishing consistency throughout our dayparts. Sales will further enhance WNBC’s image as New York’s personality radio station. With Soupy, we have three comedic geniuses on the air from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., but each has his own brand of humor.
“Soupy’s schtick will be familiar in format to Imus and Stern — I’ll expect he’ll play about six or seven records an hour,” says Parsons, who say’s he’s confident the humor that Sales was known for on television will translate well to radio.
While Sales spent several years in the medium before his rise to national prominence on the kiddy show –which carried such lore as when he asked the kids to go through daddy’s pants pockets and send him him all the pieces of green papers with pictures of presidents on them — Sales only connection with top 40 radio came through his lone record hit in 1965, “The Mouse.”
Frank Reed, who had been in the midday slot, moves to evenings when Sales debut April 22. Former evening talent Alex Beebe will exit the station.
(Information and news source: Billboard; April 13, 1985).
“Anybody could play oldies but there is only one Soupy Sales,” say Frank Cody, former director of programming at WNBC. “The baby boomers grew up on him. He’s a piece of Americana.”
The NBC Radio Entertainment weekly two-hour show launched on April Fool’s Day, 1986, on 124 stations nationwide. (source: Billboard; September 13, 1986).
Here are a couple of news clips from Larry Webb. His son Scott Webb
sent us a couple clips. Scott is in radio as a Production Director at BBGI Miami.
The Dick Clark Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show was Dick Clark’s second attempt at a prime time show. His first, a prime-time version of American Bandstand, ran only 13 weeks. The Beechnut Show was much more successful lasting almost 3 years.
The Dick Clark Saturday Night Beechnut Show was broadcast live Saturday nights from the Little Theatre in New York City. Every weekend, Dick Clark commuted from Philadelphia to NYC to do the “Beechnut” show. There was actually two shows done each Saturday. The first was a rehearsal show where the artists could sketch out their performances and Clark could line everything up. This would have a different audience then the second show which was the one that was televised.
Beechnut Gum was actually picked up as a sponsor for the third episode to the conclusion of the show’s run. The artists that appeared usually “lip-synched” to their records. Very few actually performed live.
This is the only show to be able to make the claim of having Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper as guests (though on different episodes). All three were killed together in a plane crash on February 3, 1959.
Amazingly, Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson, two of the biggest stars of the period, never appeared on the show. The first show aired on February 2, 1958 with guests Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Willis, Johnny Ray and the Royal Teens. The final show aired on September 10, 1960. MORE . . . .
Addendum: For our second installment four video posting of ‘Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show with Dick Clark,’ on MCRFB (August 6, 2013), go here.
Above information provided by TV.com. For the complete 1958-1960 Dick Clark Beech Nut Show summary and artist-appearance listing for every show, go here to TV.com.
Motor City Radio Flashbacks will be showcasing many of these *rare* Dick Clark video presentations here on this website from time to time. In this third installment, we present four video classics (below) from the Dick Clark Beech-Nut show as was first broadcast on national television during that memorable late-’50s rock and roll era:
Big Bopper (September 20, 1958). Paul Anka (September 12, 1959). Sam Cooke (March 14, 1959). Jackie Wilson (March 21, 1959).
