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Lad Greinit Radio Sho ••••••••••• teip Th inside of ne work great tprop_ 41111 Dennis Hart Monitor The Last Great Radio Show Dennis Hart Writers Club Press San Jose New York Lincoln Shanghai Monitor The Last Great Radio Show All Rights Reserved 0 2002 by Dennis Hart No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher. Writers Club Press an imprint of iUniverse, Inc. For information address: iUniverse, Inc. 5220 S. 16th St., Suite 200 Lincoln, NE 68512 www.iuniverse.com ISBN: 0-595-21395-2 Printed in the United States of America Monitor . .. TO the men and women who made Monitor Foreword This book took about 40 years to write—and if that seems atad too long, let me hasten to explain. Iwas about 12 years old when, one Saturday in the living room in my California home, Iwas twisting the dial on my parents' big Grunow All- Wave Radio, looking for my favorite rock-radio station. What Iheard was, well, life-changing. Some strange, off-the-wall sound coming from that giant radio compelled me to stay tuned to aprogram I'd never encountered before—a show that sounded Very Big Time. For one thing, aguy Iknew as "Mr. Magoo" was hosting it—Jim Backus. What in the world was be doing on the radio? He was hosting Monitor, of course. And the sound that beckoned me was, of course, The Beacon—the Monitor Beacon. It introduced me to a whole new world of radio—to big-time hosts introducing big-name guests and going to awhole lot of different places all over the world. And all of this came from something called "Radio Central"—which sounded to my vers' young ears like the largest, most important radio place in the entire world. Actually, it was. Istarted living a"double life." During the week, I'd take Inv transistor radio (with its tiny ear plug) to school and pretend Iwas actually listening when my teachers lectured about sentence structure and about Washington's winter at Valley Forge and about all those math equations. Of course, my ear (the left one) was really hearing the Beatles, the Stones and even Peter and Gordon. But on weekends, Iforgot all about rock radio—I was fixated on Monitor Ibegan listening so much that Iwould plan my Saturday and vii viii • Monitor Sunday activities around the show. Ididn't want to miss asecond of Gene Rayburn and David Wayne and Ed McMahon and Barry Nelson and Frank Blair and Frank McGee and Henry Morgan and all the other big-name per- sonalities who transported me to worlds I'd never even thought of. Iloved Monitor. And Ieven dragged afew of my friends into aserious relationship with the program. Not, of course, as serious as mine—no way. In college, Imajored in broadcasting because Iwanted to work on Monitor. And when, to my great dismay, NBC canceled the program before Icould "get there" (for some unfathomable reason, they just wouldn't hire this newly minted college grad)—I did the only thing Icould. Iwrote amasters thesis about it. That's how Igot to meet Pat Weaver, who, simply, was the most cre- ative genius in American broadcast history. He had created Monitor for his NBC Radio Network—and he was happy to talk about it with me, for several hours, in his Santa Barbara home. (No, his daughter Sigoumey was not there at the time.) By 1978, the thesis was done, but my interest in Monitor wasn't. Over the years, as Ipursued acareer in broadcasting and university teaching, I never lost interest in Mr. Weaver's creation. Icontinued researching the program—to the point where Ihad loads of material about Monitor, with no place to use it. Then along came this new thing called the Internet—and a16-year old son who could care less about radio but who spends every waking moment on the World Wide Web. Ihad the Monitor material, Ile had ability to magically put it "up there"—and the Monitor Tribute Pages were born in October 2000 (at http://www.monitorbeacon.com). Yes, Iwas surprised no one had done it before. In my wildest dreams, Inever thought we'd receive more than acouple of hundred "hits" on the site in its first year. Imissed the mark by nearly 10,000. Dennis Hart • ix Apparently, there are lots of "you" out there who are just like me—you grew up (or grew older) listening to Monitor and somehow, in ways that I don't try to understand, you found the Tribute Pages. You began sharing your stories with me—and some of you urged me to write abook. Again. Iwas surprised that no one had done it yet. So now, 40 years after the Beacon and Jim Backus lured me to Monitor —you are holding awork that Itrust will give you as much pleasure to read as it has given me to put together. This book can by no means claim to be the "total" source of informa- tion about Monitor, but it is, Ithink, the best collection of information and anecdotes yet compiled about that wonderful show. And rest assured that this work is not designed to make me any money—indeed, any author proceeds will go toward establishing ajournalism scholarship at my alma mater. Ihope you enjoy it, and that it brings back some great memories of our times on the Monitor Beacon. And one more note—should you want to hear some of the sounds of it onitor, or see what Radio Central looked like, or look at some of Monitors' communicators over the years, check out the website at www.monitorbea- con.com. You won't be disappointed. Acknowledgments Ihave many to whom Iam in great debt for their efforts on behalf of this book. They include several who had direct ties to Monitor and who generously offered their time for interviews: Pat Weaver, Melissa Blanton, Hugh Downs, Bud Drake, Charles Garment, Monty Hall, Jim Lowe, Bob Maurer, Tedi "Miss Monitor" Thurman, Steve White and Bob Wogan. In addition to speaking with me, Mr. White gave me awonderful Christmas present years ago—a considerable amount of archival matter from NBC Radio, including tapes and print material. And there have been many others who have contributed greatly to this project, including Jack Burns, Gary Dibble, Bob Dreier, the Rev. Douglas Drown, Thomas Frieling, Gene Games Sr., Gene Games Jr., Ralph Gould, Kenneth Johannessen, Earl Jones, Peter King, Don Kennedy, W.T. Koltek, Terry Morgan, Matt Ottinger, Joe Pugliesi, Ken Smith, Don Spuhler, Jim Willard and Bradley Hart. And then there's Jim Wilson. Once the program director of an NBC Radio affiliate, now a university professor. Jim has urged me for more years than Icare to remember to write this book. Once Idid, he made valuable suggestions about how to make it better. Thank you, Jim. Iappreciate everyone who has helped make this book areality, and in the process, helped preserve areally important part of broadcast history. xi Introduction It became the greatest show in network radio history, the forerunner of talk radio and one of the most-copied formats ever. Its creator, the brilliant NBC President Sylvester L. "Pat" Weaver Jr., described it as a"kaleido- scopic phantasmagoria." Critics called it "Weaver's Folly." To the rest of us, it was simply, and wonderfully, Monitor. It was a program born out of inspiration and desperation. When Monitor made its splashy NBC Radio debut on Sunday, June 12, 1955, tra- ditional network radio, with its half-hour and hour comedy, drama and variety shows, was in desperate shape. Television was stealing—had stolen—most of network radio's audience. In city after city, the arrival of TV resulted in drastic declines in the audience for the national radio shows. In addition, many local radio stations were finding increased success with disk jockeys who played lots of music and mixed it up with frequent time and temperature checks—success that came at the expense of the for- merly dominant radio networks. It was clear that network radio needed something new and different— fast. And if anyone could deliver that, it was Weaver. Already in his brief NBC career, he had created the Today, Tonight and Home shows on his TV network—as well as the concept of "spectaculars," those 90-minute pre- sentations that pre-empted regularly scheduled shows with big-name stars performing in showcased productions. So Weaver went to work and came up with aformat so audacious and grandiose that nothing like it had ever been heard on radio. He called it Monitor. xiv • illonitor On that premiere Sunday in 1955, Monitor aired on NBC Radio from 4p.m. to midnight Eastern Time, with the first hour broadcast simultane- ously on NBC-TV. Starting the following weekend, the program ran con- tinuomly for 40 hours, from 8a.m. Saturday to midnight Sunday. It had everything—news, sports, comedy, interviews, remote pick-ups from around the world, music—a true magazine of the air. It became asmash hit. The lure of Monitor was that listeners could tune in or out at any time during the weekend wherever they were—in their homes, cars or on the beach—and not feel they had "missed" something. During any Monitor hour, dozens of different people, places and things were presented—all presided over, live, by hosts Weaver called "communicators" broadcasting front mammoth New York studios that NBC named "Radio Central." Over the years, Monitor hosts included some of broadcasting's best and brightest stars—Dave Garroway, Frank Blair, Hugh Downs, David Brinkley, Gene Rayburn, Bert Parks, Mel Allen, Hal March, Frank McGee, Monty Hall, James Daly, Jim Backus, David Wayne, Ed McMahon, Barry Nelson, Henry Morgan, Jim Lowe, Joe Garagiola, Garry Moore, Durward Kirby, Murray the K, Bill Cullen, Cindy Adams, Art Fleming, Don Imus, Wolfman Jack, Robert W.