Through the 50s and 60s, WBEN AM-FM-TV was thought of as a single unit, The Buffalo Evening News Stations. Talent and technicians often moved between the stations to where they were needed, and the product in each place was reflective of each other.
In 1968, when Phil “Bucky” Buchanan and John Eaton (left) would arrive at WBEN around 4am to begin writing news for Jack Ogilvie, the most you’d hear from them is a mention from Jack about who was sitting at the Editor’s desk.
Soon thereafter, news gathering operations for WBEN Radio and Ch.4 were made independent for the first time. The newsrooms were at opposite ends of the same hall at 2077 Elmwood Avenue, and information was freely shared— but editorial decisions and staff were structurally separated. Five full-time writers and a news director were assigned to WBEN Radio, as separating the newsrooms allowed for a change in union rules which barred writers from reporting on air, and announcers from writing.
One immediate change was to hear the voices of long-time “news editors” Marty Gleason and Fran Lucca on the air at WBEN, after the two men had spent decades writing scripts for Ogilvie, Lou Douglas, Ward Fenton, and others to read.
Marty Gleason, right, at the editor’s desk
Fran Lucca spent more than 60 years in Buffalo media, starting with a column he wrote for the Buffalo Evening News as a Boy Scout in 1939. After returning from active duty in the Navy following World War II, Lucca spent 23 years at WBEN AM-FM-TV as a writer, reporter, and producer, and then another 14 years at WNED-TV creating documentary-style reports on local subjects for Ch.17.
Fran Lucca takes a quick smoke break in the WBEN-TV newsroom.
The change went both ways. Some longtime news “announcers” couldn’t handle the role of journalist.
Longtime announcer Lou Douglas loved it.
The Korean War vet came to WBEN-AM/FM/TV in 1957 and his unflappable, smart, level-headed approach to news anchoring and interviewing was part of the fabric of the station for 30 years.
In his early years as a junior announcer at The Buffalo Evening News stations, television still played second fiddle to AM radio. Many of his early assignments were on Ch.4, including regular 6pm walks from WBEN’s Statler studios to The Buffalo Evening News’ building near the foot of Main Street. He’d read– as announced at the beginning of each newscast, “From the Editorial Floor of the Buffalo Evening News” — the 6 o’clock television news as prepared by the newspaper staff.
Douglas would continue to appear as a reporter, host, and announcer on TV through the 1970s, but he is best remembered for his work at WBEN Radio. It was his voice that anchored radio coverage of President John F. Kennedy’s visit to Buffalo in 1962. He broadcast from inside the prison complex during the Attica uprising over WBEN Radio, as well.
Living in Kenmore, his home was closest to the WBEN’s Elmwood Avenue studios– which meant extended duty for Lou during the Blizzard of 1977.
In spanning three decades, Douglas really had two separate careers at WBEN– one as a staff announcer, and one as a journalist. He was one of the few to excel at both.
As civil unrest and student protests rocked the UB campus through the late 60s and early 70s, WBEN’s Lou Douglas (standing) was one of the voices of reason, using his evening news interview program to bring together school administrators and dissident students.
Al Fox brought humor and insight to the WBEN Farm Report show, which he hosted during the 5am hour on WBEN for 28 years, starting in 1947.
“I learned that you’ve got to spend time with the farmers to know what they are thinking,” he said in 1961. “Only then can you provide them with the kind of program they want and need.”
This page is an excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon
The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York.
In the early days on Ch.4, Woody Magnuson brought his popular “Uncle Ben” character from radio to TV. Here, he helps Shriners reward the boy who won a contest to name the zoo’s new gnu in 1950.
Ch.4’s Uncle Jerry & pianist Aunt Annie Fadale on “Uncle Jerry’s Club.”
Uncle Jerry’s Club started on Channel 4 in 1955, and ran on Sunday morning through the rest of the decade. Jerry Brick was the floor director of “Meet the Millers” during the week, but on Sunday, he filled the Statler Hotel Ballroom with kids ready to show their talents in exchange for prizes like Parker Brothers board games and tickets to the latest Disney films.
Becoming Uncle Jerry’s next star was easy. “He holds open house every Thursday, at 4 in the WBEN studios in Hotel Statler. Jerry’s booming voice and winning smile —emanating from a 6-2, 243-pound frame—welcome all youngsters, age 6-14.”
From 1958 to 1974, husband and wife puppeteers Bob and Ellen Knechtel brought whimsy and fantasy to Ch.4’s kids shows with marionettes and puppets they’d create and perform with. The sets for shows like “Storybook Land” and “Puppet Carnival” were built and designed by Ch.4’s talented artist Ted Patton, who also built sets for Meet the Millers and the Santa show.
The Knechtels’ most famous creation was Uncle Mike’s sidekick Buttons.
One of WBEN’s most versatile and high-profile talents, Mike Mearian came to the Evening News Stations from WKBW in 1952.
An Army boxing champ and multiple Purple Heart winner during World War II, Mearian was a talented and imaginative writer and actor in both radio and television, and a warm friendly personality on the housewives-focused Luncheon programs he hosted with Virgil Booth on WBEN.
The announcer and program host is best remembered for his role as “Uncle Mike” (and later Captain Mike) on Children’s Theater, which started on Ch. 4 in 1952.
Buttons was Uncle Mike’s constant companion on those shows— the puppet was created by Ch.4’s puppetmasters Bob and Ellen Knechtel specifically for Mearian and the type of show he wanted to produce.
When he left WBEN for acting roles in New York City, some were concerned that kids might get the wrong idea about “Uncle Mike’s” first big acting gig: The spokesman for Tareyton Cigarettes. He had steady work through the 90s, when he was cast several times as a judge on “Law & Order.”
Through the years, the sets—and therefore the names—changed on Mike Mearian’s Children’s Theater. When Popeye cartoons became part of the show, he became “Captain Mike” with “Buttons the Cabin Boy.” The final set for the show before Mearian left Ch.4 was in “Uncle Mike’s attic.”
Before WBEN Program Director Bill Peters would become known to a generation of kids as “the real” Santa Claus on Ch.4, he hosted cartoons as Little Wally on Sunday mornings. Peters also frequently appeared with Van Miller’s radio show as “Norman Oklahoma.”
Like every other member of the WBEN announcer staff, Virgil Booth just about did it all on Ch.4 and the AM and FM radio stations, from disc jockey to TV and radio newscasts from the time he joined the station in 1950.
With Mike Mearian, Booth was the announcer on the long-running line of midday shows for housewives that were broadcast live from hotel restaurants and department store tea rooms.
News TV critic J. Don Schlaerth called him “a cheerful broadcaster with a reserved manner.” That, along with his background as an English teacher, made him the perfect man to become the host of “Fun to Learn” and programs with Clayton Freiheit at Buffalo Zoo and Ellsworth Jaeger at the Buffalo Museum of Science starting in 1951.
He had his turn at hosting kids cartoon programs, too, as “the baggage master” on “The Big Mac Show” and “Mischief Makers,” and then in the title role on the afternoon program “Mr. Bumble’s Curiosity Shop.”
Aside from Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons—which were beckoned by Mr. Bumble’s ringing of an invisible bell, Booth would also narrate old silent-film era Our Gang shorts and other more educational short films as well.
Mr. Bumbles takes about 30 minutes putting on makeup and costume each Saturday afternoon,” reported The Buffalo Evening News in a profile. “He becomes a man in his 70s who uses the language of children to heighten their inquisitiveness during the 5 to 6 PM Saturday program.”
Virgil Booth was WBEN’s Mr. Science, the soft-spoken and gentle soul who educated children while entertaining them on shows like “Your Museum of Science.”
“Fun to Learn” was an educational show that dated back to the earliest days on Ch.4. Buffalo State’s Dr. Howard Conant was one of the hosts of the show when the focus was art.
Grumbles the Elf, Santa, and the unforgettable Forgetful the Elf.
From 1948 to 1973, the children of Buffalo knew who the one, true Santa was — and it was the guy who read their letters on Ch.4.
During most of the 25 years the show aired, Hengerer’s sponsored the show to run from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve for 15 minutes on weekdays, a little longer on Saturdays. In 1956, the show that delivered approximately 50,000 letters to Santa through its run became Buffalo’s first locally-produced show regularly presented in color.
Ed Dinsmore as Santa, with Grumbles, Freezy, and Mrs. Claus.
Two different men played Santa on Channel 4. Announcer Ed Dinsmore was the first St. Nick from the show’s inception until his death in 1954.
Station program director Bill Peters — who was also known on the Van Miller Show as Norman Oklahoma — played Santa from 1954 until the program ended with his death 19 years later.
Santa, however, was barely the star of the show.
Forgetful the Elf, played memorably by WBEN copy writer and librarian John Eisenberger, was there for the entire run of the show from 1948-73.
Not only was the elf he played forgetful, but he was silly. Most shows revolved around Forgetful trying to paint Santa’s sleigh with polka dots, or trying to convince Santa to get rid of his “old fashioned” red suit for something a bit more modern.
Forgetful helps Santa (being played by Bill Peters) map out his route for Christmas Eve.
Hundreds of times through the show’s quarter century, Forgetful was seen greasing up the reindeer’s antlers, with the hopes of making them go faster.
The show’s theme song was Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride,” which was also frequently used during the Christmas season by WBEN’s legendary morning man Clint Buehlman.
No full episodes or even short clips of this show — which ran for 25 years — are known to exist. The show was usually presented live, and recording was a more costly and difficult endeavor than it is today.
Santa and Forgetful had plenty of helpers through the years, all of whom — just like Peters and Eisenberger — had other jobs around the station.
Grumbles the Elf was played by executive director Gene Brook and then floor manager Bud Hagman. Another director, Warren Jacober, played Freezy the Polar Bear. There were countless other puppets and guest stars, but none rising even close to the popularity of Eisenberger’s Forgetful.
The show ended when Bill Peters died in 1973. Eisenberger died in 1984 at the age of 72.
John Eisenberger was truly a man of many talents. From his time as one of Smilin’ Bob Smith’s “High Hat Trio,” to acting on Broadway, to his time on WBEN playing country music as “Old Saddlebags,” Forgetful was only the tip of the iceberg.
This page is an excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon
The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York.
His lasting fame might be as the Memorial Auditorium organist for the Sabres and the Braves, but that was Norm Wullen’s retirement job– after spending decades as one of Buffalo’s highest profile radio and TV organ and piano men.
Norm Wullen plays as the show goes on, on Ch.4
He grew up on Buffalo’s East Side as the son of a piano tuner. His music career started just after World War I at the age of 15, behind a drum kit on the Crystal Beach boat. He soon moved on to piano, playing over the silent movies at the old Shea’s Court Street Theater. From there, he could be heard as the organ backdrop for the vaudeville circuit at the 20th Century and Shea’s Hippodrome theaters, appearing through the years with Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, George Burns, Jack Benny and Edgar Bergen.
Teamed with his brother Charley, he gained his first radio plaudits on WBEN in 1934. “The Wullen Brothers” act was a dueling piano team.
Norm replaced Bobby Nicholson as WBEN’s staff organist in the 1940s, and was constantly heard on WBEN and seen on Ch.4. On TV, he accompanied Rollie Huff, and later Dick Rifenburg, as they did their morning exercises.
On the radio he was a fixture on the live midday “breakfast” shows that broadcast live from the restaurants and tea rooms of department stores and hotels like the Yankee Doodle Room at AM&A’s, the Turf Room at the Sheraton, and the Grover Cleveland Room at the Statler.
Dick Rifenburg, John Corbett, & Norm Wullen
By the end of the 1950s, Norm and staff musicians at all the local radio and TV stations were being squeezed out by a change in musical taste, but while he was still playing, Wullen took his task of “setting the mood” for housewives during their morning coffee break very seriously.
“I deplore rock ‘n’ roll,” said Wullen in 1957, “not because it’s riding a crest of popularity, but because it lacks any real melody.”
The News called Wullen “the flower of WBEN’s Musical world,” even as Top 40 began to take a strangle hold of Buffalo radio.
“Radio listeners dialing about in search of good music these weekday mornings have been finding their quest satisfied by nothing more tried-and-true than harmonious organ music,” said Wullen.
Even as times changed, Wullen and crew evolved. A little, anyway.
Like the time in 1962, toward the end of the Breakfast Show’s run that host John Corbett called out for “a little Twist music.”
Wullen was ready. It wasn’t Chubby Checker, but Norm’s musical meanderings fit the bill, “bouncing out pleasant notes,” if not a Twist.
Along with fellow radio pioneer Elvera Ruppel, Norm Wullen was also a Buffalo television pioneer, playing piano and accompanying the soprano on the “Miss Melody” show, Thursdays through the late 40s and early 50s on WBEN-TV.
Elvera Ruppel and Norm Wullen on Ch.4 in the early 1950s.
Ruppel sang at Shea’s Buffalo with the BPO, with those concerts frequently sent out around the country on the various radio networks. She was a regular star of the musical programs with pianist Al Erisman on WMAK Radio through the 1920s, and as a favorite of WGR musical director David Cheskin, her voice was heard frequently on Buffalo radio through the 30s and 40s as well.
Her most critically acclaimed moments in the spotlight came when she was half of “Buffalo’s Radio Sweetheart” team, as partnered with Smiling Bob Smith—later of Howdy Doody fame—on WGR.
This page is an excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon
The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York.
It was vestige of the Vaudeville days—wives and husbands as co-emcees on radio and television, usually hosting otherwise normal shows, only with a special kind of schtick to fall back on.
The successful and beloved team of George Burns and Gracie Allen, the married stars of one of radio’s most successful network programs from 1936-50, was all the blueprint local radio programmers needed.
Billy and Reggie Keaton were among the earliest married teams on Buffalo radio starting in the mid-40s, but soon they weren’t alone.
When Budd Hulick– half of the sensational Stoopnagle & Budd comedy team of the 1930s—returned to Western New York radio in the late 40s, he was joined by his wife, Helen. They first appeared on WHLD in her native Niagara Falls, before moving to WKBW for a few years on the “Mr. & Mrs.” show. They moved south in the mid-50s, hosting a show on WPTV Ch.5 in Palm Beach starting in 1956.
The Hulicks chat with Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz on a press trip to Buffalo.
Mary Jane and Seymour Abeles hosted “The Shopper’s Guide” on Ch.4.
Both Buffalo natives, Mary Jane was billed as Buffalo’s “first and only” female disc jockey during the war years on WGR, and Seymour was a longtime radio actor on all the stations in Buffalo—and received a Bronze star and Purple Heart in the Pacific during World War II.
Bernie and Norma Jean Sandler were well-known for hosting programs showcasing the talents of young people. Future radio stars Danny Neaverth, Tommy Shannon, and Joey Reynolds were all guest teen deejays on Sandler’s “The Young Crowd” on WEBR.
Bernie Sandler was a teenaged bandleader while still at Bennett High School, playing gigs at The Colvin Gables and the Glen Casino. After serving in North Africa and Italy during World War II, Sandler moved to radio—first at WBTA in Batavia and then Buffalo’s WEBR–where he’d replace Ed Little as the emcee of the Town Casino show in 1953—before moving onto WBEN AM-FM-TV in 1959.
After Bernie had gone to work full-time in marketing for the Iroqouis Brewery and Norma Jane was the director of the Studio Arena School of Theater, the couple hosted “The Sandler Style” on WADV-FM starting in 1969. They were also trusted spokespeople thought the years, often seen together in TV commercials for everything from applesauce to carpets. At the time he died in 1992, Bernie was still on the air weekly at WECK, playing big band music over the radio for the same folks who danced to his live band performances 50 years earlier.
Buffalo’s best remembered husband and wife started a 21-year run on Ch.4 on Jan. 17, 1950, with a little cooking, a couple interviews, and a lot of bickering.
“Meet the Millers” with Bill and Mildred Miller was a Buffalo television staple, weekday afternoons for more than two decades.
The program was a melding of the couple’s skills. They’d spent more than 20 years entertaining together on the Vaudeville circuit. He was a dancer — even once on Broadway – and she was his piano playing accompanist.
They retired from stage work to Buffalo for health reasons, opening a turkey farm in the Town of Colden—only to answer the call to TV after a handful of very successful cooking segments around Thanksgiving time in 1949.
From the onset, “Meet the Millers” was nominally about “using economy in preparing food,” but housewives tuning in around Western New York were just as likely to be entertained by the sometimes-hostile relationship between Bill and Mildred and Mildred’s tendency to put Bill in his place regularly. For better or worse, they were Western New York’s quintessential quibbling couple.
The show grew to include interview segments which aired Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with cooking segments on Tuesday and Thursday.
The big-name stars who came through Buffalo stayed at the Statler, and that’s where Bill and Mildred did their show through the 1950s.
Stars like Elizabeth Taylor and Tony Bennett were guests through the years.
Starting with their first summer on the air, the Millers made bringing Western New York’s agricultural fairs to TV viewers a priority.
As the owners of a 350-acre farm, and Bill’s role as past president of the state turkey growers’ association, the Millers became closely associated especially with the Erie County Fair, from which their show was broadcast live every year.
The Millers were in the inaugural class of the Erie County Fair Hall of Fame in 1989.
After the couple retired from television, Bill was elected Colden supervisor and served through the early 1980s.
The couple moved to Florida, where they passed away in the early 1990s.
Bill and Mildred didn’t necessarily cook all the food they showed on TV, and they certainly didn’t do the dishes—most of the real kitchen work was done by women like Margaret Teasley, seen here offering some of the shows leftovers to the “Meet the Millers” crew, including Producer Bernie Ross, cameraman Art Lester, floorman Bud Hagmann and studio supervisor Gene Klumpp.
“Rising enthusiasm in FM listening throughout Western New York is expected to continue in 1952,” started a story in The Buffalo Evening News. Although WBEN first started experimenting with FM on W8XH in 1934, WBEN-FM was Buffalo’s first frequency modulation station when it signed on in 1946. Other FM stations signed on the air quickly, and by 1950, there were plenty of choices on the FM dial—although programming was slow to develop for the much clearer sounding band.
It wouldn’t be until the late 60s and beyond when many of these still-familiar frequencies would come into their own with programming beyond “whatever was left over” from AM sister stations.
WBEN-FM changed frequencies from 106.5FM to 102.5FM in 1958 so that the station could increase its power.
The Four Quarters were regular entertainers on WBEN-TV. Bass player Bassie Atkinson was the only Buffalonian—a Central High grad. Kenneth Strother was on piano; Reggie Willis, guitar; and Eddie Inge, clarinet.
Akron’s Miller Bros. Band, shown with Ted Mack as contestants on the Original Amateur Hour, a network program which aired on Ch.4.
Marion Roberts was the hostess of Ch. 4’s Plain & Fancy Cooking weekday mornings through much of the 1950s. Her “timely tips make homemaking easier and cooking more exciting,” according to a 1955 ad. Ch.4’s mid-50s weekday local lineup included Roberts, John Corbett, and Mildred & Bill Miller, all with shows aimed at the housewife.
He came to Buffalo as Ch.4 first signed on— and over the next 30 years, there weren’t many radio & TV personalities who saw more airtime than WBEN’s John Corbett.
Through the 1950s, he was hosting 11 weekly radio shows and was Ch.4’s “Speaker of the House” host weekdays at 12:15pm. Through the 60s and 70s, his duties turned more to news, and in the early 70s, was one of the most seen faces of TV news in Buffalo.
His contract was left to expire in 1977. He was approached about running for mayor, and even considered it— but ultimately did not, and instead, that election saw James D. Griffin begin his four-term stretch in Buffalo’s City Hall.
Celebrating the fifth anniversary of WBEN’s Breakfast at the Sheraton with engineer Peter Koelemeyer, organist Nelson Shelby, producer Gene Brook (who also played “Grumbles the Elf” on the Santa show), baritone Harry Schad, and emcees John Corbett and Ed Dinsmore in 1954.
Four years later, John Corbett and Dick Rifenburg celebrate the show’s anniversary.
In 1959, the Sheraton Gang included organist Norm Wullen, Dick Rifenburg, and John Corbett.
By the following year, the Sheraton breakfast show had given way to The Statler Luncheon Club, in the hotel’s Grover Cleveland Room. Virgil Booth and Mike Mearian were the hosts.
Ed Dinsmore was everywhere on Ch.4 in the station’s earliest days, as one of the station’s primary newscasters, playing Santa on the Santa show, and host of Breakfast at Sheraton on the radio. Dinsmore might have been Buffalo’s most familiar local TV face when he died suddenly in 1954.
Ed Dinsmore (left) and crew get ready for a newscast from the Statler studios of Ch.4, 1954.
Van Miller joined the staff at WBEN-TV as a summer relief announcer in 1955, and didn’t leave for 43 years. In this mid-50s shot, Van is anchoring the news while Chuck Healy anchors sports. The pair would play the opposite roles on the same newscast together through much of the following decade.
The first Buffalo scientist to talk meteorology regularly on Buffalo TV was Buffalo Weather Bureau Chief Barney Wiggin.
“Weather with Wiggin” ran Monday evenings in the early 1950s on Ch.4.
This page is an excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon
The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York.
Starting in 1949, Friday night meant Ralph Hubbell, Chuck Healy, and TVs tuned to live wrestling from Memorial Auditorium—with the action and antics of folks like Gorgeous George, Ilio DiPaolo, Dick “The Destroyer” Beyer, Coco Brazil, and the Gallagher Brothers and dozens of others.
During pre- and post-match interviews, the athletic Healy would often find himself somehow entangled with the wrestlers he was trying to interview— handling the headlocks from “bad guys” with the grace of a professional broadcaster.
There’s little question—especially in Buffalo, wrestling helped make TV and vice-versa in those early years.
In 1951, Ed Don George was promoting wresting in 30 cities, including Buffalo. “Let them try to besmirch the wrestling profession as much as they’d like,” said Ed Don, “But what other form of sporting entertainment gives as much to the fans as wrestling?”
He was proud of wrestling’s showmanship, which had blossomed since he had been the world’s heavyweight champ 20 years earlier. “Sure, there is showmanship in wrestling. We try to dress up our business just like the downtown merchant decorates his shop windows to attract customers.”
Wrestling, of course, goes way back in Buffalo. Crowds sold out Friday night matches through the 30s, 40s, and 50s; first at the old Broadway Auditorium (now “The Broadway Barns” and the home of Buffalo’s snowplows) and then Memorial Auditorium when it opened in 1940.
“This was a shirt and tie crowd,” said the late Buffalo News Sports Editor Larry Felser, who remembered when Wrestling at the Aud was one of the biggest events in Buffalo.
“Not that many people had TV sets back then,” remembered Felser in 2001. “People were crowding into Sears and appliance stores to try to see this thing on TV, because the place was sold out.”
And with all those big crowds, there was no wrestler who could draw them in like Gorgeous George.
“When Gorgeous George would wrestle, they’d pack the Auditorium for this guy,” said Felser.
“The Human Orchid,” as George was known, was the first modern wrestler, said retired Channel 7 sports director Rick Azar, saying he “changed the face of professional wrestling forever.”
As someone who called himself “Hollywood’s perfumed and marcelled wrestling orchid,” it’s clear that George knew how to make sure he set himself apart.
“He had an atomizer, and he’d walk around the ring with perfume, supposedly fumigating his opponent’s corners,” said Felser, who also remembered George’s flair for marketing outside the ring.
“His valet drove him around in an open convertible around Lafayette Square, and he’s got a wad of one-dollar bills, and he was throwing money to people. It was a show stopper. He landed on page one. TV was just in its infancy then, but they were all over it. It was like World War III. That’s how big a story it was.”
Gorgeous George is credited with ushering in the Bad Boy era of sports– and even inspired Muhammad Ali, who told a British interviewer, “he was telling people, ‘I am the prettiest wrestler, I am great. Look at my beautiful blond hair.’ I said, this is a good idea, and right away, I started saying, ‘I am the greatest!’”
Wrestling was cheap, flashy and easy to televise — and Gorgeous George was the performer that people loved to hate. It was said that in TV’s earliest years, Gorgeous George’s appearance on TV sold as many televisions as Milton Berle’s.
Another of TV’s favorite early sports was bowling. Chuck Healy was the host of “Beat the Champ” through the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Nin Angelo and Allie Brandt would become among Buffalo’s most popular athletes because of their feats of bowling prowess on the show. All-American Bowler Vic Hermann’s family still proudly talks about the day Vic rolled the first 300 game in the history of the show.
Chuck Healy also hosted “Strikes, Spares, and Misses,” Buffalo’s show for lady bowlers. Phyllis Notaro was just as popular as any of her male counterparts as one of the program’s great champions. Her family ran Angola’s Main Bowling Academy, and from there, she became one of the country’s top amateur bowlers and a US Open champ in 1961.
The WBEN sports team included Chuck Healy, Dick Rifenburg, Ralph Hubbell, and Don Cunningham.
This page is an excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon
The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York.
In 1950, television bore little resemblance to what beams into our homes so many decades later.
The test pattern was a regularly scheduled part of the broadcast day, which on most days didn’t start much before noon.
Still, the growing number of television sets and the wonder of it all was putting dents in the entertainment powerhouse of the previous three decades.
“Radio, facing stiff TV competition, continues to seek means of holding its position in program ratings during the evening hours,” wrote the Courier- Express in 1952.
Among the general similarities between then and today is the popularity of sports on TV. But Buffalo’s favorite television sports in 1950 were live and local.
A look at two days’ worth of programming on Ch.4 in 1950.
This page is an excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon
The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York.
For the few thousand with TV sets that could pull in the new station, the wait was excruciating.
On February 27, 1948, WBEN-TV started telecasting daily—but only a test pattern for several hours a day.
Eleven weeks later, on May 14, 1948, Buffalo entered the television era with the sign-on of Ch.4, WBEN-TV. The station was among the first 25 to sign on in the country.
“Edward H. Butler, editor and publisher of The Buffalo Evening News, stepped before a WBEN-TV camera at Memorial Auditorium on May 14, 1948—and a new era in mass communications and home entertainment began on the Niagara Frontier,” read an announcement from the station.
The station’s first-day, four-hour lineup offered a taste of what television would be like over the next couple of years in Buffalo—a little bit of everything.
After the somber address by Mayor Dowd and Mr. Butler, there was a Town Casino Variety Show, including the Town Casino chorus, acrobatic dancer Dorothy Deering, and network singing star and emcee Mary Jane Dobb.
And the show that would be the station’s most popular for the next decade was also on Ch.4 that first night —There was wrestling live from Memorial Auditorium.
“The marceled master of mayhem, Gorgeous George, will take over the spotlight when the tele-cameras shift to the auditorium’s wrestling ring at 9:30,” read Buffalo’s first TV program guide.
Just as radio had been a truly pioneering experience 25 years earlier– with no one exactly sure what to do because no one had ever done it before, the first few years of programming at Ch.4 were an exciting and sometimes weird hodge-podge of adapting things that worked on radio for television mixed with completely new ideas for the completely new medium.
South Buffalo’s Fred Keller, who first joined WBEN as an announcer in 1942, was the creative spirit behind many of the shows on Ch.4.
Remembered as a sportscaster from the day WBEN-TV signed on in 1948 through 1977, Chuck Healy was also Buffalo’s most watched TV news anchor on Ch.4 through the ’60s.
The versatile announcer was also a versatile athlete as a boxing and football star at Syracuse University.
Television’s first ever cop drama, “The Clue” was written and directed by Buffalo theater icon Fred A. Keller, and starred Evening News Radio-TV columnist Jim Trantor as Private Eye Steve Malice. It was as an actor on “The Clue” that Canadian radio announcer Lorne Greene—later famous as Ben Cartwright on Bonanza—made his first television appearance.
This page is an excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon
The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York.
The year that the map we’ve been plotting out was published was also the year The Buffalo Evening News was founded by Edward H. Butler with headquarters at 200 Main St.
A few successful years later, a much-lauded News headquarters building was built a few doors down at 216-218 Main St. The spot is at the northern tip of the One Seneca Tower footprint, just south of Seneca Street.
The building was The News’ headquarters for 77 years.
The passerby might not have noticed anything extraordinary outside the building, save perhaps the founder’s daughter-in-law’s Rolls-Royce parked on the sidewalk in front of the building. Mrs. Kate Robinson Butler served as president of The News and later publisher after her husband’s death in 1956.
Her car pulled right up to the front door was a sign to the staff that the publisher was in the building. In her 90s, she was still a force at The News until her death in 1974.
Longtime News reporter, editor and columnist Jeff Simon remembers first setting foot in the building as a copyboy in 1964.
“That marble counter on the first floor and all of the brass atop of it was impressive,” said Simon. “You knew you’d walked into a serious place. I loved the old building as a copyboy. My favorite place in it was the ugliest and most unsavory – the sports department on the mezzanine floor between one and two.”
If you were impressed by the Rolls-Royce and the marble, the inverse was true on that sports mezzanine. Simon’s memories of the place make it sound like a film noir version of a newsroom, starting with the fact that it was the only place in the whole building where men could smoke at their desks.
“With the low ceilings the place was dense with cigarette and cigar smoke. You’re lucky if you could see two feet in front of you. On the floor – even in the early ’60s –there were spittoons. And they were used.”
When downtown progress pushed The News out of its longtime home, Mrs. Butler said cost wasn’t an option as she wanted a showpiece building designed and crafted in honor of her late husband’s memory. She wasn’t well enough to step inside the building that still serves as News headquarters at One News Plaza, but was able to take a car ride around the grounds as the structure neared completion, giving her seal of approval.
One News Plaza opened in 1973. Mrs. Butler died the following year.
We’re opening up the Buffalo Stories audio archive vault in search of Christmas memories today.
Up first are two selections from the John Otto collection. These recordings were found in Otto’s personal files. The first is a series of Christmas stories told by listeners during the Christmas season in 1986.
The stories are great, and of course, listening to John listen to the stories is great as well.
These all come from Otto’s short-lived Nightcall program on WWKB radio. He returned to WGR the following year.
The second Otto selection is a WGR Production from 1963. This radio play has John Otto as “Live in Bethlehem,” and covers the birth of Christ as if it were being covered by modern journalistic means. Featured are many voices of WGR in the early 60s.
Another selection is a listener submission, audio as aired on WBEN-TV on December 24, 1955, featuring the Sylvania Choraliers.
Jonathan Kinney writes:
My grandfather, Edmund Koval, graduated Penn State as an Electrical Engineer, did a stint in the Navy at the end of WWII. My grandparents moved to The Town of Tonawanda from Franklinville in 1955 when they built their new house in the suburbs.
He got a job as an electrical engineer at Sylvania. The chorus rehearsed at the Wood & Brooks Building on Kenmore Ave near Ontario-had the big ivory tusks on it. (See that Riverside landmark here.) He was always very proud of this recording, and he’d play it for me as a child near the holiday season.
Here are a few selected highlights from the audio only recording from Channel 4:
Other sights and sounds of Buffalo Christmases past from Buffalo Stories:
We Buffalonians don’t bowl anywhere near as much as we used to, but just like we still consider ourselves a blue-collar town (even though most of the blue-collar jobs have been gone for decades) we still sentimentally feel a link to the game our parents and grandparents enjoyed over pitchers of beer in leagues all across the city.
While for many bowling was a game that was as much about smoking and drinking and socializing as it was about rolling a ball down the lane, it was also serious business in Buffalo.
There was a time when Channels 2, 4, and 7 all aired local bowling shows– and Channel 4 had two shows– “Beat The Champ” with men bowlers and “Strikes, Spares, and Misses” with lady bowlers. WBEN-TV’s Chuck Healy was in homes six days a week for two decades as Buffalo’s bowling emcee as host of those programs. This 1971 ad describes “Strikes, Spares, and Misses,” which aired daily at 7:30pm, as “Buffalo’s most popular show.”
When local TV bowling was at its zenith in the 1950s, even radio stations promoted their coverage of the sport. Ed Little, who spent 62 years working in radio, most of them in his hometown of Buffalo, read the bowling scores on WEBR Radio before he took the drive down Main Street to host live broadcasts with the stars performing at the Town Casino.
Buffalo’s best bowlers became celebrities– well known from their exploits as televised. Nin Angelo, Allie Brandt, Phyllis Notaro, and scores of others became some of Buffalo’s best known athletes.
Sixty years later, families still beam with pride when relating the stories of their family’s greatest athletes, even when an elder has to explain most of the fuzzy details. All-American Bowler Vic Hermann’s family still proudly talks about the day Vic rolled the first 300 game in the history of “Beat the Champ.”
We live in an era where we’re watching the numbers of Western New York bowlers and bowling alleys dwindle rapidly. But five or six decades ago, it wasn’t just bowling alleys that were plentiful: The sports pages of The Buffalo Evening News and Courier-Express were regularly filled with ads for the all the accouterments of bowling.
Bowling was big, and judging by the pages of the city’s newspapers, there was big money to be made as well. The run up to league time in 1960 saw no fewer than five decent-sized ads for custom bowling shirts…. because it wasn’t just about your score, it was about looking good at the social event of the week at your neighborhood bowling alley.