A Slight Change of Dinner Plans: The Way It Was, 7 August

FEATURED BROADCAST
VIC & SADE:
NO DINNER TONIGHT
(NBC, 1944)

"I was beginning to say there's something radically wrong about here," Russell (David Whitehouse) says, and he isn't kidding: Vic (Art Van Harvey) and Russell are stuck fixing their own dinner (which is what they refer to as lunch, folks), which they'll probably think is broken, because Sade (Bernadine Flynn) giddily got lost in the details of a new dress pattern and forgot to prepare it, and she can only hope her men can survive her lapse until she can make it up to them for the evening meal.

"Soup and sardines don't sound like such a hot meal," warbles Vic fatalistically . . .

Writer/director: Paul Rhymer.

AIRWAVES . . .

1886---One of radio's most important inventions---the neutrodyne circuit, neutralising the noise rattling most radio receivers of the time, and proving an imperative step toward broadcast radio as we would come to know it---is introduced by Louis Alan Hazeltine.

Thirty-eight years later, Hazeltine will form the corporation bearing his name, selling it his neutrodyne patent for stock and cash, and by 1927 it will be believed that ten million radio receivers using the Hazeltine neutrodyne circuit are operating.

1942: IT MAY BE A QUIET DAY IN LAKE WOBEGON . . . when future Prairie Home Companion mastermind/humourist Garrison Keillor---whose program will evoke the spirit and, in many cases, the style of old-time radio, over the better portion of three decades---is born in Anoka, Minnesota.

1969: SORRY, CHARLIE---Charlie Greer performs his final show for WABC-AM, New York.

1974: KICKIN' COUSIN---Fed up at last with the station's notorious seven-song playlist (actual or alleged, and so much for the Top 40, right?), Bruce Morrow (that's Cousin Brucie to his listeners) performs his last show on WABC, before jumping to then-rival WNBC.

CHANNEL SURFING . . .

BOB & RAY PRESENT THE CBS RADIO NETWORK: WALLY BALLOU AND FAMILY (I CAN'T IMAGINE, 1959)---An empty Friday with no picnic equals that intrepid reporter bringing his family aboard. Writers: Alleged to be Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding.

PREMIERING TODAY . . .

1883---Reinald Werrenrath (baritone: Old Company Program), New York City.
1884---Billie Burke (comedienne: The Billie Burke Show; Gay Mrs. Featherstone), Washington, D.C.
1902---Charles Cornell (composer: Boston Blackie; A Date with Judy), Budapest.
1903---Hilda Hopkins Burke (soprano: WBAL, Baltimore), unknown.
1904---Ralph Bunche (political scientist/diplomat/Nobel laureate: The Big Show), Detroit; Herbert Colin Rice (creator/producer/writer: Bobby Benson), Guilford, U.K.
1906---Ernestine Wade (actress: Amos 'n' Andy), Mississippi.
1907---Alexander Turner (writer: Coat of Arms), London.
1908---Dave Bacal (organist: staff, CBS), New York City.
1909---Sheldon Stark (writer: Columbia Workshop; Straight Arrow), New York City.
1910---Freddie Slack (pianist/conductor: Kraft Music Hall), Westby, Wisconsin.
1913---George Van Eps (jazz guitarist, with the Freddy Martin, Benny Goodman, and Ray Noble orchestras, among others, and inventor of the seven-string guitar: numerous radio remotes), Plainfield, New Jersey.
1914---Clifford Thorsness (sound, including and especially The Closet: Fibber McGee and Molly; The Charlie McCarthy Show), unknown; June Travis (actress: Girl Alone; Arnold Grimm's Daughter), Chicago.
1920---Mel Diamond (writer: Kate Smith Sings; The Milton Berle Show; The Bob Hope Show), New York City.
1921---Poni Adams (as Jane Adams; co-hostess: Darts for Dough), San Antonio; Warren Covington (trombonist/conductor: CBS staff; numerous remotes as a member of the Les Brown and Tommy Dorsey orchestras), Philadelphia.
1926---Stan Freberg (comedian: That's Rich; The Stan Freberg Show), Los Angeles.
1927---Carl Switzer (Alfalfa; actor: Thirty Minutes in Hollywood), Paris, Illinois.