The KID Signs On: The Way It Was, 16 January

1929---KID (those are the actual call letters, kiddies) signs on in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Today it is owned by Clear Channel Communications and holds to a predominantly news format.

CHANNEL SURFING . . .

1943: IN FEAR AND TREMBLING---A clifftop mansion wreaks a supernaturally ruinous effect upon a formerly happy couple, after the wife's half sister (Mary Astor) comes to live with them, on tonight's edition of Suspense. (CBS.) Based on a story by J. Donald Wilson.

1947: UNPLEASANT SUBJECTS---Such is the appellation affixed to Edgar Bergen's birthday by his ever-trenchant marionette about town, Charlie McCarthy, on tonight's edition of The Charlie McCarthy Show (as announcer Ken Carpenter calls it). (NBC.) Co-stars: Nelson Eddy, Anita Gordon. Additional guest: Billie Burke. Music: Ray Noble.

1949: FRED PALMER'S DOCK RACKET---In a story paralleling Malcolm Johnson's shattering New York Sun series on waterfront crime, Blackie (Dick Kollmar) gets drawn in when a new dockworker hungry just for a job learns the hard (and fatal) way just how much control Fred Palmer has over life and death on the Boston waterfront, on tonight's edition of Boston Blackie. (Mutual, syndicated by Frederick W. Ziv Company.) Co-stars: Jan Minor, Maurice Tarplin, Herbert Vigran.

PREMIERING TODAY . . .

1893---Katherine Cornell (actress: A Tribute to Ethel Barrymore, Kate Smith Sings), Berlin.
1901---Chester Morris (actor: Boston Blackie, The Great Merlini), New York City.
1903---Edgar Bergen (ventriloquist/comedian: The Chase & Sanborn Hour, The Charlie McCarthy Show), Chicago.
1909---Hugh Beaumont (actor: known to have appeared in various radio roles in the early 1930s), Lawrence, Kansas; Jeffrey Lynn (actor: Lux Radio Theater, Hallmark Playhouse), Auburn, Massachussetts.
1910---Jerry Lester (actor: The Life of Mary Sothern), Chicago; Del Sharbutt (actor: Hobby Lobby, Victory Theatre, The Jack Benny Program), Fort Worth, Texas.
1918---Patty Andrews (singer, with the Andrews Sisters: The Andrews Sisters Revue, Lux Radio Theater, The Big Show), Minneapolis.
1926---Vera-Ellen (born Vera-Ellen Westmeier Rohe; actress: The Martin & Lewis Show), Norwood, Ohio.