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.

Senator Fishface and Professor Figgsbottle

Elmore Vincent, played the part of “Phinus Stonewall Peabody,” on the radio program Lum &Abner. The character was Abner’s father. Lum & Abner aired on radio from 1931 to 1954. But Mr. Vincent was born in 1908... his radio resume goes back further than that.

Elmore started out working at a saw mill, then tried repeatedly to find work singing on the radio. He was hired first at KJR-AM. He yodeled and sang lumberjack songs and did the Irish tenor bit. He was 21 years old. Things went well and he began performing on the 90-minute variety show Mardi Gras. His comedy shtick was a sort-of-comedic, stream-of-consciousness word-mangling satirical speech. He had a few he'd developed in school.

KJR program director Ivan Ditmars named his new character “Senator Fishface.” When NBC bought the station in 1934, they wooed the young Vincent onto the program Carefree Carnival on KFRC-AM in San Francisco. Vincent capped off the peculiar presentation with the visual of a bad fake mustache, a crushed top hat and an ill-fitting necktie. Later in his career Vincent refused to revisit the character. Even when he was doing it he wanted to focus on his singing career and pressured NBC execs to let him have more airtime as a vocalist.

The programs sponsor at the time was a quack medicine named Crazy Water Crystals, which was promoted as a cure for more or less everything. Then the FCC stepped in and ordered the crazy quack sponsor to stop airing false advertisements. Without a sponsor the program was immediately cancelled. But Vincent was able to work with a former writer from Mardi Gras, Don Johnson and but together another program "Senator Fishface and Professor Figgsbottle."  The new program ran for two and a half years. It's orchestra leader was Norman Cloutier. The program Senator Fishface and Professor Figgsbottle was so popular, albeit briefly, that it was used in an experimental TV broadcast in 1937. More here.

Vincent appeared on the Charlie McCarthy Show, and the Al Pearce program but finally found a home on Lum &Abner in 1944. He played that role for about a year then played the character Durwood Zinkafoose, an attorney who was basically Senator Fishface in the courtroom. That repurposing of his old shtick led him to record comedic speeches for RCA Victor, under the name “Senator Bolivar Gassaway.” You might even have noticed a tinge of the old fishface in his dialog as the hermit in the TV show Little House on the Prairie.

Captain Dobbsie

Captain Dobbsie was better known as Hugh Barrett Dobbs.  He was originally hired as a fitness instructor by KPO-AM to do an early morning exercise program. Previously he'd sold player pianos for a living. The gig morphed into a radio show called the “Ship of Joy” program. This was syndicated on the Pacific Coast network which also included KFI, KGW, KOMO, KHQ and KSL. The show was schmaltz and cheesy, and trite and people loved it. Captain Dobbsie called his listeners shipmates, and happytimers and to himself in third person as Captain Doobsie or as skipper. Try to imagine if Richard Simmons was a pirate and had a radio show. It was like that. More here.

The program began in 1926, originally sponsored by Del Monte Coffee, as an imitation of the Maxwellhouse Show Boat program. The Ship of Joy program ran 8:00 - 9:00 AM and was popular on the West Coast. It became sponsored by Shell Motor Oil and eventually changed it's name to Shell Happytime. The Walt Roesner orchestra played, poetry was read, exercises performed and smiling contests held. They even rigged up a remote broadcast ship-to-shore in 1933 from the cruise ship Malolo en route to Honolulu.

Dobbsie wrote a book about the program complete with naff poetry in 1931. In 1932 he picked up a new orchestra led by Horace Heidt, and theAlemite Brigadeers. the new sponsor was Alemite Motor Oil. Horace Heidt's later went on to his own schmaltzy radio career.. The Ship of Joy program continued until 1935 at which point it's listed as a sustaining NBC program without a sponsor by Forum magazine. The Ship of Joy sailed for 9 years. He died in 1944 after a 3-year stint on KJR-AM in Seattle. He was only 50 years old. More here.

KEX and the Castle Jazz Band

It's a tale of a conflict of interest. Some of this relates to another post here, but I'll summarize briefly. The basic story is a to and fro for KEX-AM. They moved repeatedly from a member of a network to a station without one.It begins in Portland, OR. 1250 KEX-AM began broadcasting on December 23rd, 1926. It's important to note that date because from that time until October 3rd, 1928 all programing on KEX was local. After that date they syndicated some programming from KJR. that was when they joined the Northwest Network. The next week ABC started working with CBS and KEX was able to syndicate some of those programs as well. In August the Northwest Network folded. KEX was back into local programming (and moved to 1080.)

But in 1931 they were bought by NBC and were back into a very syndicated schedule. In January 1942, KEX's was caught up in an antitrust lawsuit and NBC had to divest KEX. They sold it to Westinghouse. (Who moved the station to 1190) Westinghouse already owned WOWO who shared the 1190 frequency. But WOWO has the clear channel license. Their interest in the property was partly to protect WOWO. KEX had to operate as a daytimer.

The Castle Jazz Band were not the only band playing on KEX. Live music was a huge focus in radio well into the 1960s. Seems quaint now, but it was once the meat and potatoes so to speak. Which brings us to the Castle Jazz Band. This band came together in about 1944: Monte Ballou, banjoist, and vocalist put the first incarnations of the band together. Early members included Bob Gilbert, Freddie Crews and Bob Short, Bob Scobey, George Brunis, Don Kinch, Chris Tyle and most importantly George Edward Bruns.George Bruns (sometimes Brunis or Burns) was born July 3, 1914 in Sandy, Oregon. He played trumpet, trombone, clarinet, piano, string bass, and tuba. He was also the Music Director for KEX and simultaneously the the Music Director at 970 KOIN-AM. More here. He'd already played in the Jim Dericks Orchestra, Jack Teagarden's band and Harry Owens' Hawaiian Band. This must have impressed some people at the job interview. George joined the Castle jazz band at the end of 1945 when he returned from WWII. I dont' know which came first, the radio gig or the jazz band.. but he made it work for him.With this direct connection to radio the band exploded in Portland. Their success was so great that they opened their own club in 1949. In 1951, after the cooperative dissolved, Ballou opened a second club in Portland, with a new band which included Bob Gilbert, Freddie Crews and Bob Short. But Bruns only stuck with the band for 4 years. He left Oregon for Los Angeles in 1949. Eventually he ended up working for Disney scoring films such as Sleeping Beauty. His best work was obviously behind him. More here.

The Full Linden

Adolph Frederik Linden (aka prisoner #14851) did it all. He owned a bank, a hotel, a record label and a radio network. But a lot of it was luck. He married well and inherited most of it. He was born in 1889 in Iowa but moved to Seattle as a youth. In high school he worked at a lumber camp, at a deli, and eventually Puget Sound Savings & Loan bank. He married the bank presidents daughter and the rest is history.

It's a great leap from banking into media. He began in 1927 with two moves, the purchase of KJR from Vincent Craft and the founding of the Northwest radio Network. At KJR he expanded the station with a full orchestra and a load of live talent. It was good for ratings, but not at all profitable. In 1929 he'd taken on so many loans form his own bank it became unseemly. He stepped down as president of the bank and focused on radio. In quick succession he bought KEX in Portland, KYA in San Francisco, and KGA in Spokane. Around this time he also began calling the network ABC, the American Broadcasting Network. Strangely, this is of no relation to the ABC network of today. More here.

By the Fall of 1929 it was in free-fall. Linden owed almost 100 grand just to the phone company for the networked programming. At the last second Twentieth Century Fox sent him a note that they'd like to buy up the beleaguered ABC network. Linden piled the family in the car and headed off to New York City to do the deal. It was the rescue he desperately needed. If you remember your history, you know what's coming next. While he was literally in transit to NYC on Tuesday, October 29th the stock market collapsed. It was Black Tuesday. The bank he just left went bankrupt. By the time he got to Manhattan the deal was dead.

Linden was broke. He sold his car, and borrowed money from a friend to open a small restaurant. It flopped. His wife took a floor job at Macy's. He was arrested on a grand jury warrant on charges relating to the bankruptcy of the Puget Sound Savings & Loan bank. There woudl be three messy dramatic trials. In 1932 he was convicted of grand larceny. [I wish we still arrested bankers] He served 5 years at Walla Walla State Penitentiary making acetate recording discs on an assembly line. More here.He was paroled in 1938 whereupon he started a business in vanity and short-run recordings. This time the honest business took off. By 1943 he opened Western Recording studios to supplement the field recording he'd been doing. By 1946 they were issuing commercial recordings on 78s. He had a few hits and worked his way back into radio from the programming side. His label put out over 200 albums even lasting long enough to see vinyl pressings in the 1950s before he sold it off. More here.