100 Years full book 4 - Buffalo Stories Archives & Blog

For the Kiddos on Ch.4

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting

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 full text of the book is now online.

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.

Buffalo’s Last Staff Organist, Norm Wullen

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting

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 full text of the book is now online.

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.

Buffalo’s Polka King

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting

As the 1950s wore on, Stan “Stas” Jasinski would become known as Buffalo’s Polka King with his daily programs first heard on WWOL and WXRA, and then on powerful WKBW. The platform and his mix of Polish and English songs and commercials gave him a voice heard by the Greater Buffalo community as well as Polish-Americans.

Jasinski went on to found WMMJ Radio, which became WXRL when he sold the station to the Schriver Family as he began plans to sign-on WUTV Ch.29. Jasinski eventually sold Ch.29 as well, but continued playing polkas on the radio for a total of 60 years when he retired in 2000.

Like many other immigrant Rust Belt cities, foreign language broadcasts were very popular in Buffalo. Matt Korpanty spent more than 40 years broadcasting in Polish, primarily on WHLD, starting in 1940. His Polish language show was produced from his private studio in the heart of Polonia at 761 Fillmore Avenue.

The Rico Family

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting

Willis Conover might have been the world’s favorite jazz disc jockey, but in 1950’s Buffalo, Joe Rico was tops.

He started spinning what Buffalo Evening News radio reporter Ray Finch called “smoking hot discs” in 1947 on WWOL Radio, before moving to WEBR in the mid-50s, WUFO, and then WADV-FM through the 70s.

A steady, smooth deep-throated delivery and a knowledge of and love for jazz made Rico “the epitome of cool,” according to critic Gary Deeb.

Rico’s influence mattered to the musicians of the jazz world. Stan Kenton’s “Jump for Joe” was named with Rico in mind, as was Count Basie’s “Port o’ Rico.”

As much as he was known for bringing jazz to Buffalo’s radio dials, he was just as involved in bringing the top musicians in the country to perform in Buffalo.

As a promoter, Joe Rico’s greatest triumph was the Buffalo Jazz Festival—a nearly impossible to imagine lineup over two days at Offermann Stadium in 1960.

Joe Rico was raised in radio. His parents were the heart and the voice of Buffalo’s Italian-American community. For 50 years, Emelino Rico — known to listeners of “Neapolitan Serenade” as “Papa Rico” and the head of “Casa Rico” — broadcast Italian music, in Italian, for Italians, from his home on Seventh Street on Buffalo’s Italian West Side.

For most of five decades, come 10:30am, the Liberty Bell March would open another program of cultural pride, personal warmth and a taste of the old country. While he was heard on many stations through the years, often two or three stations at the same time, for 45 years the Ricos were heard on WHLD 1270AM.

Emelino came to America as a movie producer in 1922. Ten years later, on a stop in Buffalo, he met Mary Pinieri, who was destined to become the West Side’s beloved Mama Rico.

Mama Rico told listeners to their 50th anniversary celebration on WHLD in 1985 that their lives were spent highlighting the best in Italian music and culture, “helping others, and doing charitable work.”

The Ricos worked to bring some of Italy to Buffalo, and some of Buffalo to Italy, with many trips and exchanges. Papa liked to tell the story of a 1967 audience with Pope Paul VI, when His Holiness greeted him immediately by saying, “You run the Italian program in Buffalo.”

Many of Buffalo’s most famous Italian-Americans said the time spent at Casa Rico helped jump start their career — folks like Tony Award-winning choreographer Michael Bennett and pianist Leonard Pennario.

This page is an excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon

The full text of the book is now online.

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.

Buffalo’s Willis Conover

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting

Willis Conover with Louis Armstrong, in the VOA studios in Washington.

When Benny Goodman wanted to quote a jazz expert, Willis Conover was the man he quoted. In 1960, The Courier-Express called the Kenmore High alum Conover “the most popular disc jockey in the world.” But even then, no one in Buffalo—or even the USA—had heard of him.

With 30 million people listening to his program every day, Conover was the definitive voice of American Jazz all around the world on The Voice of America– a federal-government operated series of shortwave radio stations beamed everywhere but our part of North America.

Through the years, his hometown had quick tastes of Conover’s abilities– like a series produced by John Hunt on WBFO in 1980, showcasing the man and the music he loved.

But mostly, the kid from Villa Avenue who attended Bennett and Kenmore High Schools and became the man described by President Carter as “devoted… to the story of American music” and called “the world’s most popular American” has gone mostly forgotten in the city he considered home.

*Buffalo’s Willis Conover, Voice of America*

Buffalo’s Forgotten TV Pioneers: WBES-TV & WBUF-TV

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting

For five years, WBEN-TV Ch.4 was Buffalo’s only television station.

Then in 1953, two more stations came to the market—but most Buffalonians needed special equipment to watch them.

Buffalo’s WBUF-TV Ch.17 and WBES-TV Ch.59 took advantage of the federal government opening up a much wider spectrum of television broadcasting frequencies. Ultra High Frequency or UHF channels 14-83 were opened up in 1952.

Up until then, televisions were built only with VHF receivers, and could only pick up channels 2-13.

Encouraging sales of special converter boxes was only part of the uphill battle for WBUF-TV and WBES-TV.

Sales of new televisions and converter boxes skyrocketed in 1953.

VHF stations 2-13 offered much better reception, and there were a number of interested parties in Buffalo petitioning to become the license holders for stations on Ch. 2 and Ch.7, which allotted to Buffalo, but not yet assigned to licensees.

As those cases were being made in Washington, two local investment groups rolled the dice on UHF here– but those two groups had entirely different stomachs for gambling.

WBUF-TV was founded by a couple of friends looking to strike out on their own.

Sherwin Grossman was a 28-year old Lafayette High and UB grad working in his family dry cleaning plant and Gary Cohen was managing his family’s movie theater business at Tonawanda’s Sheridan Drive-In. (That family business is now run by Rick Cohen at Lockport’s Transit Drive-In).

The pair first set sights on bringing television to Jamestown—until an investor convinced them to aim for a bigger market just to the northwest.

On December 18, 1952, the FCC granted them the construction permit for WBUF-TV, Ch.17 in Buffalo.

Further up the dial, the group that founded WBES-TV had much more on the line, both reputationally and financially.

Western Savings Bank President Charles Diebold, Davis Heating & Refrigerating President Joseph Davis, and attorney Vincent Gaughan were the leadership team who were granted an FCC permit for WBES-TV, Ch.59 in Buffalo, five days after WBUF-TV on December 23, 1952.

In less than a week, Buffalo went from a one-station market to what promised to be a three-station market.

Up until the time that new stations signed-on, Ch.4 was in the catbird’s seat—having the prime pick of programming from the CBS, NBC, ABC, and DuMont television networks.

Ed Sullivan’s Sunday night staple— known as “Toast of the Town” before it was renamed “the Ed Sullivan Show” in 1955– was one of many nationally popular shows which Ch.4 chose not to air. In the time just before WBUF-TV signed on, Ch.4 was running game show “the Big Payoff” during the Ed Sullivan time slot.

Ch.4’s owners, The Buffalo Evening News, covered developments at WBUF and WBES with the paper’s usual reserve. But over at the Courier-Express, daily blow-by-blow developments were compared and contrasted, and it was made into a race to which station might go on the air first.

“Buffalo’s two new UHF stations open a hopeful new chapter in the Western New York television story,” reported the Courier-Express as both stations were poised to begin broadcasting. “UHF means considerably more free home entertainment, and a delightfully specific opportunity to turn the dial.”

WBUF-TV purchased 184 Barton Street—later the home of WGR-TV and then WNED-TV– dubbing it “Television City.” There, they built and equipped a full television studio complex.

When the station first signed on, WBUF-TV’s mascot was Buffalo Bill.

WBES-TV moved into the penthouse at the Lafayette Hotel, and built a tower on the roof—which at the time, was Buffalo’s tallest structure. The lower portion of that tower still stands on the building today. The space inside the station was limited—but included offices, a small studio, and the station’s transmitter plant. There were also promises to put the hotel’s ballroom to use as the home of a huge, audience participation kids show.

“We think we have found the three keys to ultimate success and public acceptance,” Gaughan, the father of Buffalo attorney and regionalism proponent Kevin Gaughan, announced. “They are power, personnel, and programming. With these assets, WBES-TV can offer the people of Western New York the very best in television.”

Ch.59 made splashy hires of known and beloved Buffalo personalities. Roger Baker, who was still occasionally announcing sports, was also WKBW’s General Manager when WBES-TV hired him to run the new station and to be the station’s newscaster. Woody Magnuson, longtime WBEN announcer and children’s host, was hired to become the station’s program director.

“Life begins at 59” was the headline sprawled across a full-page ad in the Courier-Express. “The best in television… a great range of fine programs to delight and interest your entire family (through) the miracle of UHF.”

WBUF’s staff hires weren’t quite as newsworthy, but they also had a full-page ad that was just as over-the-top, billing themselves as “the modern miracle that gives you what you want — when you want it — in your own home” and “solace and comfort, laughter and joy, tears and sighs, company in loneliness and solitude in crowds, escape and challenge, fact and fiction… Aladdin and his wonderful lamp, Alice and her miraculous mirror, Jack the Giant Killer, Paul Bunyan the Great American.”

It was WBUF-TV Ch.17 that made it on the air first by a month, with a schedule of mostly network programming starting August 17, 1953. WBES-TV Ch.59 signed on September 23, 1953.

In the WBUF-TV control room, with coffee from Your Host restaurants.

Ch.59, however, fell out of the gate. Technical problems delayed the station’s signing on, and sponsors were slow to sign up. WBUF-TV had many of the same issues, but WBES-TV’s investors soured immediately to the station’s hemorrhaging of money, and on December 18, 1953—less than a year after being awarded the station and 13 weeks after signing on—WBES-TV, Ch.59 returned its license to the federal government.

Being alone as “Buffalo’s other TV station” helped Ch.17 a bit, but it, too was losing money. The station’s saving grace came in the form of the National Broadcasting Company, trying to outfox the federal government’s limit on the number of VHF stations that a television network could own.

Jack Begon was an NBC foreign correspondent who was brought to Buffalo as a news anchor on WBUF. He spent much of his career stationed in Rome for NBC and later ABC.

In 1956, after WBES-TV signed off and WGR-TV Ch.2 had already signed on, NBC bought WBUF-TV as an experiment to see whether the network would be able to build a UHF station which rose to the standards of its other VHF properties.

NBC built a state-of-the-art television facility at 2077 Elmwood Avenue, and brought in network-level talent from around the country to staff local programs.

Like Ch.4, Ch.17 also carried live wrestling from the Aud.

The Today Show broadcast live from WBUF’s new 2077 Elmwood studios, shown here. Less than four years later, the building would be home to WBEN and Ch.4.

After two years, the network called the experiment a bust, with the station still losing money and Buffalo’s ratings on network shows lagging well behind the network averages.

WBUF-TV’s Mac McGarry gives a weather report, 1957. McGarry covered President Truman’s inauguration for NBC in 1948. After leaving Buffalo, he returned to Washington, and anchored NBC News updates through the 70s and 80s. He also hosted the Washington DC version of “It’s Academic” on NBC-owned station WRC-TV for 50 years.

WBUF-TV went dark on October 1, 1958. NBC donated the license to the group that formed Buffalo’s educational public TV broadcaster, WNED-TV.

With public broadcasting on Ch.17, Buffalo would be without a commercial UHF station until WUTV Ch.29 signed on in 1970.

Frank Frederics was the only on-air personality who was seen regularly through most of WBUF-TV’s tumultuous history. He was the News Director when the station signed on, and was the only original announcer retained when NBC bought the station. During the NBC years, he anchored a newscast sponsored by Milk For Health. Live commercials during the newscast were hosted by Jan Okun— who later spent more than 40 years as the Food Editor at The Buffalo News.

It’s not the end of the story, though. Even if we don’t remember their call letters, the legacy of Buffalo’s UHF pioneers lives on.

Ch.17 operates as a public service in Buffalo to this day.

The studios built by Ch.59 at the Lafayette were the first home of Ch.2 and then the home of WNED-TV.

WBUF-TV’s Barton Street studios were the second home of Ch.2, and in a familiar pattern, became the home of WNED and Western New York Public Broadcasting when WGR-TV moved to Delaware Avenue.

And the Elmwood Avenue studios built by NBC have been the home of Ch.4 since 1960.

Rick Azar was WBUF-TV’s Atlantic Weatherman.

Both stations also served as the dial spot where a handful of later well-known Buffalo television personalities got their first chance in front of the camera, most notably, WBES-TV’s 20-year-old staff announcer Tom Jolls (below) and WBUF-TV’s sports reporter and “Weathervane” host, Rick Azar.

And at least one local star of Buffalo’s early UHF stations has been seen on local TVs over the last several years. Doris Jones—who was Doris Sherris as your “Phoenix (Beer) All Weather Gal” on WBES-TV continues to help on pledge drives on WNED-TV.

This page is an excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon

The full text of the book is now online.

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.

Brought to you by…

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting

Two advertisers of the 1950s live on in the memories of Western New Yorkers not only because of the product—but because of the song.

I’m the Jolly Little Baker, and you’ll find me on the label, of Kaufman’s Rye Bread!

The Kaufman’s Bakery stood on Fillmore at Main Street.

Kaufman’s Rye Bread’s animated little baker danced across Buffalo televisions from the 50s through the 70s. As much as the unique, dense rye bread still sparks life in the palates of Western New Yorkers, our yearning for Kaufman’s rye is tied to the fact that the taste is forever linked to that 18-second jingle, permanently implanted in the subconscious of generations of Buffalonians– which many of us could still sing on demand.

Then there’s the address that many of us know even though we never stepped foot in the store which closed in 1982.

Shop and save at Sattler’s… 9-9-8 Broad-WAY!

While the (in)famous jingle indeed helped Buffalo remember that now iconic address, more than that, without the jingle– we might not have known Sattler’s at all.

Despite decades of heavy print advertising and growing from a single store front to an entire block across from the Broadway Market, Sattler’s couldn’t seem to bust through as much more than a neighborhood Broadway/Fillmore store.

It was the first-ever advertising jingle created for a department store, written by New York City’s “Singing Sweethearts” Lanny and Ginger Grey in 1941. There were different versions, but they all ended in those five syllables that are permanently etched into the memories of generations of Buffalonians, “nine-nine-eight Broad-WAY!”

The radio singing commercials did something that years of print ads just couldn’t do. People from all over Buffalo, especially more elusive wealthy customers, started shopping 998, where they were buying everything from canaries to thuringer sausage to mink coats at Sattler’s.

In 1948, the Sattler’s store was completely rebuilt, complete with escalators and air conditioning. Sattler’s executives called called it “the store that jingles built.”

Those iconic jingles filled Buffalo’s airwaves in 1950, playing 102 times a week on WBEN, WGR, WKBW, WEBR and WBNY.

Sattler’s was at the forefront of over-the-top, cutting-edge marketing and self-promotion.

It was nearly impossible to listen to the radio for any extended period of time without being reminded to “shop and save at Sattler’s, 998 Broadway!”

The original Sattler’s, 998 Broadway across from the Broadway Market. Sattler’s closed in 1982, and the building was torn down to make way for a Kmart store in the late 80s. In 2012, an Aldi supermarket opened at the fabled address.

This page is an excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon

The full text of the book is now online.

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.

Husband & Wife teams and For the Ladies…

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting

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 full text of the book is now online.

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.

Wrestling from Memorial Auditorium

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting

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 with Ralph Hubbell & Chuck Healy*

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 full text of the book is now online.

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.

Radio & TV in 1950

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting

From the 1949 Buffalo Area Radio-Television Guide, here are some of the names and faces from radio stations just outside of Buffalo. Stations included are Lockport’s WUSJ, Olean’s WHDL, Niagara Falls’ WHLD, and WJTN & WJOC, both from Jamestown.

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 full text of the book is now online.

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.