Professor Schnitzel Live On Air!

Some coincidences in radioland are just utterly baffling.  There have been two different men who played a character named "Professor Schnitzel" on the radio at different times and places. Both milked a faux Dutch-German accent and behaved like a rural yokel. They have no connection whatsoever and their careers were separated by about 2,800 miles and two decades. There is no reason to think that either was ever aware of the other. One played the character in the late 1920s, on the west coast. The other in the mid-1950s through early 60s in central Pennsylvania. (One could argue that Larry the Cable guy does his own updated version today.)


The first man to portray the character on air was Clarence Coleman. He was a realtor in San Francisco before the great depression.  He created the character "Professor Herman Schnitzel" in 1927 for a bit on the program "Blue Monday Jamboree" which aired  on KFRC-AM. You can see a group photo from the program here.  The program debuted on January 10th 1927 as a 15 minute short and continued to run weekly. It popularity was such that by February it was 2 hours long. They were scrambling for content to fill the time. 

By June of 1930, the program was syndicated across the entire Don Lee Network, and by the end of the year, it was syndicated nationally on CBS. It's emcee was Harrison Holliway. But Clarence Coleman never worked the character into a regular on the Blue Monday Jamboree. Around 1929 he performed the same character on KYA-AM and even the ABC Western Network. More here

The second Professor Schnitzel was played by Theodore L. Rickenbach. He was a Pennsylvania native and grew up in Reading, PA. He did mostly live comedy and is best known for a series of five 45-rpm comedy discs that were recorded for Butch Records from 1961 to 1968. He also did an LP in 1964 that recycles some of that material. You can see his discography here.

Rickenbach started a radio career in 1932 with the program "Schnitz and Earl." Earl was Earl Shappel on WEEU-AM.  In 1950 he changed co-hosts, needing a classic straight-man and the program became "Professor Schnitzel and Al," with co-host Allen Lane on WHUM-AM Radio. They worked 6 days a week, Monday through Saturday starting at 6:00 AM. He died in July of 1969 in his hotel room. More here and here.

The Philco Radio Dial tells All

This is a picture of a nice old Philco I saw at a yard sale. What's interesting about old radio dial presets is that you can use them to determine where the radio came from, and how old it is even without the model number of the radio. The stations listed here are  WOR, WEEU, KYW, WHUM and WRAW.

From even that short list we can limit our time line. 710 WOR-AM signed on in 1922, and is still on air so that's not useful. They encompass the entire consumer-grade history of radio. KYW-AM is in the same bucket. At first I thought WHUM was actually WHOM, but there was actually a WHUM in reading, PA. WHUM-AM changed calls to WAGO-AM in late 1986 and then WIOV-AM in  about 1990. So we know this device had to have been set up prior to at least the mid 1980s. Seems late but you'd be surprised.

The real  deal closers are WEEU and WRAW. There is a 1340 WRAW-AM in Reading today; where they have been since before 1950. WEEU has a tenure in reading just as long.  So what we have here are two clear channels stations audible anywhere in the north east (KYW, and WOR) and three much smaller AM stations providing local service to the Reading area. I'm pretty confident this radio spend most of it's life on a kitchen table in Reading probably prior to 1960.

Through PEO to MLI

I crossed part of Indiana on the way to Peoria, and stayed over in Morton, IL because I saw a hotel and I was too tired to press on. I was starting to get a little weird in the dark and it was raining hard making it hard to see and hard to steer. There had been a lot of strangeness on the radio I've not fully identified. I took 65 North to 74 West and sorted out what happened from notes and exit markers.

While crossing Indiana I caught a few minutes of 91.3 WNDY Wabash College, our near Crawford. They were arguing if their microphone was working. Then they p0layed an Aerosmith tune and had a second discussion on whether it was a Led Zeppelin cover or not. Honestly it was awful.

In Covington, IN I caught 98.3 and figured out later that it was just W252BY a repeater for WHUM. I know very little of WHUM, just that they were having some kind of bluegrass jamboree when I passed through. Also caught 91.5 WFWR near Attica and the one and only 91.5 Flash FM WRFT.
Across the border into Illinois I caught WEFT in Champaign which was just running news, but also WHOW 1520 one of the last remaining Farm stations. Then out near Edinburg, IL I caught WESN who was playing pretty bad ass garage rock at that moment, I never caught the ID though.

I stopped over in Morton, IL where WWCT 99.9 is a nice AAA stand by, but I restocked the stereo with an old White Stripes CD and that Entrance album that came out on Fat Possum, "Wandering Stranger." It's easy to believe it when Jack White sings"The truth doesn't make a sound." But that Entrance album was more appropriate for the prairie somehow.

I stopped in Galesburg when the rain got too hard to see past the next set of tail lights and I found an antique shop with the best selection of 78s I have ever seen bar none. It was called Ziggys, but there was no sign. There is a second shop, more famous down the road, three stories tall but I didn't bother, not after finding a thick stack of Edison Jazz 78s.

I made Moline within the hour and bedded down expecting another long wet day.