Hello Neighbor on KOA

For a series of years in the 1960s "Hello Neighbor" was carried on both radio station 850 KOA-AM and KOA-TV Channel 4.  Through it, KOA sponsored a community cookbook based on the call-in show. It ran 10:30 to noon Monday through Friday for most of it's existence. It had two hosts over those years. Host Merrie Lynn began in 1966 and was preceded by the original host Maxine Mulvey who did the program until 1962. Merrie stuck with the show for 10 years and ended up in the Colorado Broadcasting Hall of Fame. She also married a former governor of Colorado.She went on to have her own "Merrie Lynn Show" on KOA-TV. She is probably the same Merrie Lynn that was on 630 KHOW-AM prior to 1963 also in Denver.

 The cook books came out starting in 1960 and continued until about 1968. The one pictured above is from 1966.  The ones below from 1960, 1962, 1965 and 1967. The program began in about 1960, and was broadcast usually from the Elitch Gardens amusement park. It still exists but is somewhat modernized.  The show had guests including the unexpected like Charleton Heston. It wasn't exclusively about cooking, it was also about other household-related paraphernalia.

 The show ran until at least 1968 as there are no cook books that date after that. But other information puts the show as running until as late as 1974. Cooking shows are among the most poorly documented radio programs, so in these cases the most information we have is typically from the cook books they sponsored.

DJ Alan Berg Esquire

Esquire is a term of British origin with Latin roots in the word scutarius in the sense meaning "shield-bearer." It's an unofficial title of respect, or high social status. Here in the U.S. it's used mostly by lawyers. I apply it to Alan Berg in both senses of the word, with no irony. Alan Berg was an attorney and radio talk show host. He was assassinated June 18, 1984 by Christian White Supremacists attached to the Christian Identity Movement.  Gifted with a dark sense of humor he once said:

"Hopefully, my legal training will prevent me from saying the one thing that will kill me." 

He passed the Illinois bar exam at the age of 22 in the year 1956. He practiced law in Chicago for 10 years, once defending none other than comedian Lenny Bruce.  . He had no intention of going into radio. But then he began to have grand mal seizures. Stricken with neuro-muscular seizures he became an alcoholic. His wife convinced him to go into rehab in Denver. After rehab the cause was diagnosed as a brain tumor. It was successfully removed but left large surgical scars covered with a bowl haircut. None of that has anything to do with the radio-theme here except that it's how he ended up in Denver... which is how he met Larry Gross, (Son of radio man Jack Gross) a talk show host at 1150 KGMC-AM in Englewood. Berg guested on Gross. When Gross left for a gig in San Diego at KNSD-TV, Alan Berg took over his radio slot.

In 1977 KGMC, which changed its call sign to KWBZ, (now KNRV) and owner Robert Bruce McWilliams and Lee Mehlig sold out to Grady Maples. Maples didn't take to Berg's aggressive, inflammatory style and liberal politics. They made his childhood nickname "Bambi" all the more ironic.  Berg crossed the street in 1977 landing at 630 KHOW-AM Denver. It was in the studio of KHOW that KKK leader Fred Wilkins threatened to kill Berg. Death threats aside, KHOW is the far bigger station so ultimately it was a coup for Berg... except that they fired him a few months later. (Some versions say he quit.)  He went back to KWBZ now owned by John Mullins Jr.  His new slot was mornings, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm. He ramped up his show and began to get more threats from White Christian Supremacy groups such as the KKK, the Arizona Patriots, and a few Christian Identity Groups, most notably Brüder Schweigen (aka The Order) led by Minister Gordon Kahl. Alan stayed at KWBZ stayed until 1980 when the station flipped to Oldies.

He was unemployed for a stretch in the early 1980s but was rescued by an offer for an afternoon slot at the biggest AM station in Denver, the 50,000 watt 850 KOA-AM. He continued to be inflammatory and outspoken. He was suspended in 1982 for berating Colorado Secretary of State Ellen Kaplan. The suspension was brief, but Berg returned somewhat calmed, still bullish but less abusive. Berg's popularity grew. In June of 1984 he was interviewed on the TV Program 60 minutes. His success only served to further inflame the KKK and Brüder Schweigen. On June 18th at 9:30 PM Berg was shot in his own driveway 34 times with a semi-automatic Ingram MAC-10. He was 50 years old. More here.

The killing attracted the ire of the FBI who mercilessly raided the bunkers of Christian Identity Groups (CID) in the Midwest and North West.  they arrested more than 25 members. In 1987 four members of The Order were indicted by the FBI but only two were convicted of violating Berg's civil rights shooter Bruce Pierce and getaway driver David Lane. Lookout Richard Scutari was acquitted but later served time for racketeering. Jean Craig, who stalked Berg to plan the hit was also acquitted. their combined sentences add up to over 500 years in prison. More here.

The Optimistic Doughnut Hour

There was a saying about optimism and pessimism. "The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist sees the hole". I was surprised to find a radio show named after it. There's also a poem about it called "the foreman's Grist" but that's 0ff topic. Let's skip ahead to the bit about radio.

I've had to place this together from many sources over a couple years. the program was sponsored by the Davis Perfection Bakery and was a variety stage revue show. There were skits, comedy and a little music of course. If you look carefully, you can see the bakery logo on that truck in the pic.

The house band "The Optimistic Do-Nuts" included Isaac McVea, who unwittingly became the first black radio host in Los Angeles. His son Jack McVea played ukulele in the same band. The program began in the early 1920s. In the cast was a little known actor Sam McDaniel, who played a preacher character, Deacon McDaniel in 1926.

In the book Don't Touch That Dial, author J. Fred Mac Donald makes a single short reference to the program

"Although they did not flourish on radio, black comedians were also an ingredient of early broadcasting... Thus Ernest Whitman and Eddie Green appeared as a "coon act" on the Maxwell House Show Boat Program in it's first season on NBC. Hattie McDaniel brought her Mammy personality from the Optimistic Doughnut Hour over KNX (Los Angeles) in 1932 to the Show Boat series in the early 19302. "

Hattie McDaniel was a regular on the program as the character Hi-Hat-Hattie. Today she is better remembered for playing a similar Mammy character in the movie Gone With The Wind. It's off topic but of the 300 films she appeared in before her death in 1952, she only got credit for about 80. On the upside she's the only person who has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was on a postage stamp. But I dwell here because her career began singing with the Melony Hounds on station KOA-AM in Denver.

Other guests on the Optimistic Doughnut Hour included an unlikely list of people: Morey Amsterdam, Minnie Pearl, Willie Best. Hattie McDaniel joined the show in 1931 after her brother Sam McDaniel got her an audition. Her success on the program led to her own show Hi Hat Hattie and Her Boys. She did a saucy late vaudeville comedy and sang. The boys of course were just Sam McVea's Jazz band.

The Davis Perfection Bakery who sponsored all this was just a bakery. Actor Dalton Trumbo worked there briefly as a bread wrapper . The bakery was big enough to appear on a 1932 map of L.A. near Los Angeles City Hall on Temple Street. Another souce lists it at the intersection of 1st. and Beaudry and another location in Sacramento. It was probably a regional chain since it was dolling out cash for radio ads.

The First Free-form DJ

It's a hard point to argue. Before there were formats, technically everything was free form in a way. Really before about 1935 it was hard to tell who was taking radio seriously and who was not. In 1947 It was abundantly clear that Jim Hawthorne was not. NOTE: not to be confused with James Hawthorne of the BBC or the other Jim Hawthorne a well-known but unrelated sportscaster.

Many operate under the assumption that free-form radio as we know it today began on 94.1 KPFA Berkley, CA. The first NCE licensed station in America and crown Jewel of the Pacifica Network. But it was not so. Before they took to the air Jimbo was running amok. On his show at 1110 KXLA-AM, he played a blizzard array of Buddy Baker, Spike Jones, Red Ingle, Slim Coates, and all without regard to genre and format. That was way back in 1946! Some sources, like and AWA Journal cite the start as in 1948, but there is an announcement [SOURCE] in the May 13, 1946 issue of Broadcasting which confirms. Variety magazine announced it over a year later in August of 1947 which probably is the source of the confusion.   (Note: KXLA became KRLA in 1959.)

 

His popularity was such that in 1950 he managed to score a late night talk show on KLAC-TV it was kind of a predecessor to NBC's Saturday Night Live according to the Los Angeles Times. He landed some spots in some movies and even did some pre-3-stooges reels for film. Everything he did was counter to radio culture at the time.

His effect was barely noticed while he was active in broadcasting. It's only now that in looking back you can see the effects ripping outward. His zany all night weekend show on KOA radio was the stuff of legend. WFMU has a little tribute page here. and his fan club is here.

He's got a radio pedigree a mile long. This is far from complete...

• KMYR Denver 1941 - 1946
• KXEA - 1946 - 1946? 
• KXLA Los Angeles, 1946 -1948
• KECA Los Angeles, 1948 -1950
• KNX Los Angeles, 1950-1952
• KCBH Los Angeles, 1952 -1955
• KYA San Francisco 1957 -1959
• KDAY Los Angeles, 1959 -1960
• KFWB Los Angeles, 1960 - 1963
• KOA Denver, 1974-1981-1984
• KIEV Los Angeles, 1991

Today Jim Hawthorne is 88 years old, living in a retirement home in Santa Barbara, California. He's grown comicly cantankerous bemoaning the state of modern radio, it's voice-tracking and control by megacorporations. He still does a local TV show in Santa Barbara four times a year