➦In 1911...Frank Brandon Nelson born (Died from cancer at age 75 – September 12, 1986). He was a comedic actor best known for playing put-upon foils on radio and television, and especially for his "EEE-Yeeeeeeeeesssss?" catchphrase.
He made numerous guest appearances on television shows, including The Addams Family, The Jack Benny Program, I Love Lucy, The Real McCoys, and Sanford and Son. He also provided voices for animated series such as The Flintstones, Mister Magoo, The Jetsons, Dinky Dog, and The Snorks.
 |
| Frank Nelson |
Nelson began his entertainment career in radio, and later moved into television and movies. In 1926, at age 15, Nelson played the role of a 30-year-old man in a radio series broadcast from the then-5,000-watt KOA-AM Dener. In 1929, Nelson moved to Hollywood, California and worked in local radio dramatic shows, usually playing the leading man. The first sponsored radio show he appeared in to reach a national market was Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel, a situation comedy radio show that aired from November 28, 1932, to May 22, 1933, starring two of the Marx Brothers, Groucho and Chico, and written primarily by Nat Perrin and Arthur Sheekman.
Nelson first found fame as the put-upon foil to Jack Benny on Benny's radio show during the 1940s and 1950s. Nelson typically portrayed a sales clerk or customer service worker.
Nelson performed on a number of Hollywood-based radio shows during this time, including Fibber McGee and Molly, and did radio work well into the late 1950s, on the few shows that remained on the air, including dramatic roles on such programs as Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.
Nelson continued to appear on Benny's television show in 1950, doing the same "rude clerk" shtick. His other catchphrase, that would be worked into every routine, would have Benny asking something mundane, such as, "Do these shirts come in a medium?", and Frank would bellow, "Oo-oo-oo-ooh, DO they!" He also appeared on several other radio programs. Nelson's sudden appearances usually led to spontaneous laughter or applause on the part of the audience.
 |
| Orson Welles |
➦In 1915...George Orson Welles born (Died – October 10, 1985). He was an actor, director, writer and producer who worked in theatre, radio and film.
In 1934, Welles got his first job on radio—on The American School of the Air
In 1937, Welles co-founded their own repertory company, the Mercury Theatre. The name was inspired by the title of the iconoclastic magazine, The American Mercury. Welles was executive producer, and the original company included such actors as Joseph Cotten, George Coulouris, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Arlene Francis, Martin Gabel, John Hoyt, Norman Lloyd, Vincent Price, Stefan Schnabel and Hiram Sherman.
Simultaneously with his work in the theatre, Welles worked extensively in radio as an actor, writer, director and producer, often without credit. Between 1935 and 1937 he was earning as much as $2,000 a week, shuttling between radio studios at such a pace that he would arrive barely in time for a quick scan of his lines before he was on the air.
In addition to continuing as a repertory player on The March of Time, in the fall of 1936 Welles adapted and performed Hamlet in an early two-part episode of CBS Radio's Columbia Workshop. His performance as the announcer in the series' April 1937 presentation of Archibald MacLeish's verse drama The Fall of the City was an important development in his radio career and made the 21-year-old Welles an overnight star.
In July 1937, the Mutual Network gave Welles a seven-week series to adapt Les Misérables. It was his first job as a writer-director for radio, the radio debut of the Mercury Theatre, and one of Welles's earliest achievements. He invented the use of narration in radio.
That September, Mutual chose Welles to play Lamont Cranston, also known as The Shadow. He performed the role anonymously through mid-September 1938.
After the theatrical successes of the Mercury Theatre, CBS Radio invited Orson Welles to create a summer show for 13 weeks. The series began July 11, 1938, initially titled First Person Singular, with the formula that Welles would play the lead in each show. Some months later the show was called The Mercury Theatre on the Air. The weekly hour-long show presented radio plays based on classic literary works, with original music composed and conducted by Bernard Herrmann.
The Mercury Theatre's radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells October 30, 1938, brought Welles instant fame. The combination of the news bulletin form of the performance with the between-breaks dial spinning habits of listeners was later reported to have created widespread confusion among listeners who failed to hear the introduction, although the extent of this confusion has come into question. Panic was reportedly spread among listeners who believed the fictional news reports of a Martian invasion. The myth of the result created by the combination was reported as fact around the world and disparagingly mentioned by Adolf Hitler in a public speech.
➦In 1922...KSL is Utah's oldest radio station, signed-on. The station KSL/KZN began as life as the radio arm of the Deseret News, a Salt Lake City newspaper also owned by the LDS Church. The station's first broadcast was talk by then-LDS Church president Heber J. Grant. In 1924 the station was sold to John Cope and his father, F.W. Cope, who formed the Radio Service Corporation of Utah. Earl J. Glade (later a four-term mayor of Salt Lake City) joined the station in 1925 and guided KSL's operations for the next fourteen years. John F. Fitzpatrick, publisher of The Salt Lake Tribune (owned by the Kearns Corporation) acquired a quarter interest of KSL for a modest price, as did the LDS Church. This was the Tribune's first business partnership with the LDS Church, though the Church later (re)acquired full interest in the station.
 |
| KSL first broadcast |
In 1924, it changed its call letters to KFPT for one year and then adopted its current call letters in 1925 after they became available, with the "S" and "L" standing for "Salt Lake." (Until that time the KSL call sign had been used by a radio station in Alaska.) A series of power boosts over the next decade brought the station to its current 50,000 watts (daytime broadcast power) in 1932. It spent time at several frequencies over the years before settling at 1160 kHz in 1941.
The station's owners made their initial foray into FM broadcasting in 1947 when they started the original KSL-FM on the then sparsely-populated FM band at 100.3. After simulcasting KSL for a number of years, the FM station switched to a beautiful music format, a contrast to the then-current KSL format of news and talk interspersed with middle of the road music. The FM station was sold to a private owner in the mid-1970s due to FCC regulations on multiple station ownership, since greatly relaxed. The station, now the adult contemporary KSFI, was reunited with KSL when Bonneville repurchased the station in 2003 in a deal that included classic rock station KRSP-FM (103.5) and then-hot AC KQMB-FM (102.7). In the mid-1980s KSL adopted an all-talk format, completely dropping music programming, aside from its Sunday broadcasts of the Tabernacle Choir.
On September 3, 2005, KQMB was converted to a simulcast of KSL, with the call sign changed to KSL-FM. Since then, the stations have branded as "KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM & 1160 AM," though the AM signal is the main station. FM 102.7's former branding, radio station, call sign, and hot adult contemporary format were later picked up an unrelated station, and an unrelated company licensed to Levan on a lower powered version of the station on 96.7 FM.
➦In 1935...KTM-AM in Los Angeles changed call letters to KEHE (now KABC)
➦In 1937...WLS-AM Chicago reporter Herb Morrison described fiery disaster of zeppelin Hindenburg ("Oh, the humanity!") at Lakehurst, NJ. Here's a corrected synch of Herb Morrison's recording of the event matched with footage from the Pathe newsreel and the Universal newsreel. Where film isn't available, pictures are substituted.
.png)
