February 3 “Jack Benny Month” begins on TWTD. First time the program devotes an entire month honoring the beloved comedian.
February 3 Memory Movie is “Chandu the Magician” (1932) starring Edmund Lowe and Bela Lugosi.
FEBRUARY 24, 1979 Chuck, Ellen and Patty greet actor Kirk Alyn, who starred as the Man of Steel in those now-classic Superman movie serials.
February 24-25 “Salute to the Man of Steel,” a Special Event at North West Federal Savings. Actor Kirk Alyn, the screen’s original star of “Superman” serials appears to talk about his career and screens eight color “Superman” cartoons.
March 4 Chicago Tribune columnist Clifford Terry writes:
Remember listening to old-time radio? I mean, physically listening — same time, same room — to the same program, same station? Chuck Schaden does. “My radio years were from about 1941 to ’49. I loved it. I’d rush home from school. We’d lie on the living room floor. Our radio was the floor-model Zenith with the flickering green eye and all the call letters printed on the dial. …One of my most vivid Sunday-afternoon memories came when I was listening to my favorite program, The Shadow, in December of 1941, when it was suddenly interrupted. Well, I didn’t care about a place called Pearl Harbor. I just wanted to hear about what was happening to Lamont Cranston. I was 7 years old.”
Chuck Schaden is now 44 years old, a graduate of Steinmetz High School and Navy Pier, husband of one and father of two, director of public relations for North West Federal Savings, and, most significantly, host of a weekly four-hour Saturday-afternoon radio program, Those Were the Days.
Schaden has been on the air since 1970, the last two years at WNIB, a classical-music station, where his is the most-listened-to program. He estimates that 40 to 50 thousand persons are tuning in Saturday afternoons. “When I started out, people would say, ‘How long is this fad gonna last?’ “Actually, at that point, I didn’t know — although I never thought it was a fad. What it is, is a nice link to the past. I really believe that people wouldn’t be listening to my program if there wasn’t a solid entertainment value. I always hope that there’ll be someone after I’m gone doing some old radio replays. They’re too good to be lost.”
March 15 TV appearance: Noon Break WBBM-TV Channel 2, Chicago. Hosts Lee Phillip and Bob Wallace with guest Chuck Schaden.
April 28 Memory Movie is a double feature, “Charlie McCarthy, Detective” (1939) starring Edgar Bergen plus “The Gracie Allen Murder Case” (1939) starring Gracie Allen.
April 10 Chuck interviews actor Michael Rye in Hollywood, California.
May 5 TWTD begins a seven-week series presenting a complete 19-hour broadcast day — from sign-on to sign-off— of station WJSV, Washington D. C. on September 21, 1939.
May 15 When Radio Was Radio, the hour-long series, resumes sporadic re-runs on WBEZ, Thursdays, 8-9 p.m.
June 2 Memory Movie double feature is “Blondie’s Lucky Day” (1946) starring Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake plus “Ellery Queen, Detective” (1940) starring Ralph Bellamy.
July 22 Chicago Sun-Times Book Review: “Radio Comedy” by Arthur Frank Wertheim, reviewed by Chuck Schaden. Excerpt:
A book about radio comedy that sells for $18.95 had better be worth the money. This one is. Whether you’re casually nostalgic about the good old days of radio or a dyed-in-the-wool fanatic (and there are plenty of us), you’ll find it interesting, informative, entertaining and endlessly fascinating. The author, a history professor, has done his homework (there are 28 pages of footnotes) and his easy-to-read style offers an excellent view of comedians on radio from the early 1930s through the late 1950s.
We learn, for example, that Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, creators of radio’s all-time favorites, Amos ‘n’ Andy, started their broadcast careers by singing for their suppers on Chicago’s station WEBH.
We read about Bob Hope’s Pepsodent broadcasts during the war years (“How do you do, ladies and gentlemen, this is Bob-broadcasting-fromCamp-Cooke-Hope, telling all you soldiers to use Pepsodent and the girls will always give you eyes right because you’ll always have your teeth left!”)
There’s a nostalgic stroll down Allen’s Alley with Fred Allen as he and Portland Hoffa visit Senator Claghorn… Mrs. Nussbaum (“You are expecting maybe Ingrown Bergman?”) Ajax Cassidy… and Titus Moody.
September 7 Bob Kolososki, TWTD’s film historian, begins a year-long Film Festival at the North West Federal auditorium. Each week he introduces a complete film which highlights the work of six legendary motion picture directors: Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra, Howard Hughes, Busby Berkley, Preston Sturges and Ernst Lubitsch.
October 2-30 Chuck teaches a 5-week seminar on the history of radio and television programming for students at Elmhurst College
December 1 Metro Golden Memories opens a second location at 9004 Waukegan Road in Morton Grove, Illinois.
