Superjock!

Doesn't that picture (above) of Larry Lujack just look like a DJ?  (The shot reminds me of Buster Poindexter for some reason.) He's got the coffee and cigarette, the open collar, the tousled hair and that smarmy smile that screams 100% rock n' roll, drink tickets, dirty cab rides and a hotels bars doing ludes with David Brenner.  If you've heard an aircheck before you know he's got that perfect 1970s rock DJ voice all the morning guys were still aping in the 1980s, and that includes me. 

Born Larry Lee Blankenburg, he changed his name to Larry Lujack for football hero Johnny Lujack. That Lujack played for Notre Dame, won the Heisman Trophy in 1947 and went on to play for da' Bears. Why would Larry think of that particular college football player? A man born in Pennsylvania, playing in Indiana?  You may not know it but Johnny Lujack had a radio program in 1949. The "Johnny Lujack of Notre Dame" program was a daytime adventure show, which aired as a Summer season replacement for Jack Armstrong. 

It aired three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 5:30 - 6:00 EST on ABC. Lujack starred as himself with Ed Prentiss as a sidekick. A few different radio show directories say that Boris Aplon provided music, but I suspect he may have actually been the announcer. He did radio and TV acting, but was mostly a Broadway actor but he had one of those resonant voices. I find nothing about him as a composer. An article about Chicago radio is one of the few sources that describe him at all, in this case, in a Chicago Tribute radio special [LINK]. 

"Our main villain at the time was Ivan Shark, played by a fellow of Russian descent named Boris Aplon, a fine character actor who was also a fop. He dressed fantastically, drove enormous, beautiful cars., sported a thin, sweeping mustache, and carried a cane." 

Prentis has a much longer radio career. He was the announcer on Jack Armstrong so there was some continuity there. Prentis later played Captain Midnight. More here. But let's get back to the younger Lujack.

Planters is not a sponsor, not yet anyway. 

Larry was born in Quasqueton, IA. That town had a population of 570 at the time of the 2020 census.  It's about 45 minute north of Cedar Rapids which is still not a whole lotta city. The family moved to Caldwell, ID when he was 13. It's not the big city but at least it has sidewalks. He was a small town guy that decided to go to Washington State University, probably to get the hell out of doge. But looking for work he took a summer job at 1490 KCID-AM in Caldwell, ID at the age of 18 in 1958. From there he did a stint at 1140 KGEM-AM, which is even recorded in the 1974 book Who's Who In The Midwest.

Though an influence on some of the biggest egos in radio, notably Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern, Lujack was not a shock jock. His own delivery leaned more onto sarcasm and cynicism. But that big ego was real. At the height of his popularity, his day his Midwestern popularity was probably second only to Dick Biondi; and only maybe. The Encyclopedia Britannica actually uses the word "braggadocio" to describe him. The 1977 book This Business of Radio Programming in a soliloquy about ego could not resist  the reference "disk jockey should enjoy being egotistical as does Larry Lujack..."  He was like Don Imus but kinda charming. 

So it's no surprise that his self-appointed nickname was Superjock, Which later became the title of his autobiography.  He had other nicknames: Lawrence of Chicago, Uncle Lar, and King of the Corn Belt app were used at different times. I've also seen "Superjerk" some were less polite.  But Superjock... he actually trademarked that one. No really.  [SOURCE]  [Didn't know you can do that? Yes, DJs can do that.  Let me know if you need help.] 

Superjock: The loud, frantic, nonstop world of a rock radio DJ

Between 1960 and 1964 Lujack managed to work at KNEW, KPEG, KRPL, KFXM, KJRB and then in 1964 landed at KJR in Seattle. [SOURCE] He used the Lujack name at KJR and in some ways it starts his big "rock n' roll" image. Then he switched coasts completely and worked at WMEX in Boston starting in 1966.  Lujack joined WCFL-AM in 1967 and moved to WLS-AM four months later. Lujack returned to WCFL for four years before going back to WLS for the next two decades. This time period was his golden era, mostly doing mornings. That's where all his famous bits happened, the best quotes, and most of the classic collectible airchecks. [More here]

In 1984 WLS-AM gave him a twelve year, $6 million contact, making him one of the highest-paid radio personalities ever. That's 18 Million in 2025 dollars. When their ratings declined in 1987, the station’s owner, Capital Cities-ABC, bought out his contract. The buy out was a motherlode, but it included a non-compete which locked him out of the Chicago market for 5 years. Lujack shrugged it off and retired to New Mexico. 

The end of WLS as a rock station was largely the end of Lujack's golden era. After moving to New Mexico in 1987 he only occasionally did radio work. R&R quipped "Lujack won't be able to work elsewhere in Chicago, but is accepting offers for foursomes at the golf links."  Rather than rehash the programming mistakes of Capital Cities I'll quote the FMedia Newsletter column "AM Happenings" from September 1989. They hit it on the nose. 

"WLS 890 AM is scheduled this month to switch from music to all talk. "It brings an end to what was once one of the Midwest's most popular and most successful AM rock stations. During its heyday in the '60s and early 70s, WLS was THE station for the most popular rock and roll hits of the day. It boasted such legendary disc jockeys as Dick Biondi, Art Roberts, Clark Weber, Ron Riley, Larry Lujack, Fred Winston, Bob Sirott, John (Records) Landecker and Yvonne Daniels. But it wasn't until the '80s that age and FM radio were starting to creep up to WLS. Younger listeners turned off by the station's conservative music mix defected to upstart WBBM-FM with its high-energy sound. By the mid-'80s, morning man Lujack switched to afternoons, and things went downhill from there. The station couldn't make up its mind whether to play music or to go all-talk. This ill-conceived middle-of-the-road format did in the 'Big 89'. And now, the owners of Capital Cities/ABC are finally going to switch the format to all-talk. I only wish they could've done it sooner. Everyone here in Chicago will have their own memory of WLS in its glory years as an AM powerhouse..." 

Locked out of the Chicago market by his buy-out deal he subsequently worked at a few other radio stations in new markets including a breif return to KJR-AM in Seattle. In 2000 long after the non-compete was expired, he tried a slot at WUBT in Chicago. Then in 2003, Larry and his long time partner Tommy took a show together at 1690 WRLL-AM. But that was short-lived.  Lujack did his show remotely from home, and the 1,000 signal barely covered Chicago. The older, more sedate Lujack didn't rekindle much fanfare. He still sounded great though. More here. 

Larry Lujack died in 2013 of esophageal cancer, probably from smoking. In a fit of irony, his own namesake outlived him by 10 years. Johnny Lujack died in Naples, FL in July of 2023, at the age of 98. Larry would have liked the irony.