March 9 TV appearance: “Eyewitness News” WLS-TV Channel 7, Chicago. Gary Deeb interviews “Chicago’s Guru of Old Time Radio” in his Morton Grove broadcast studio.
March 17-22 On an interview visit to Southern California, Chuck records conversations with actresses Virginia Gregg and Fran Allison; actors Parley Baer, Herb Vigran, Jim Backus, Willard Waterman, and Tyler McVey; bandleader Horace Heidt, and actor/producer Sheldon Leonard.
April 28 Talman Home Federal Savings ends sponsorship of TWTD after slightly more than two years following their merger with North West Federal. Saturday night Memory Movies continue to be presented in what is now called the Talman Cinema Auditorium on Irving Park Road, but film schedules are no longer carried in Nostalgia Digest.
May 5 Cragin Federal Savings becomes a major participating sponsor of TWTD.
May 5 TV appearance: You Magazine WMAQ, Channel 5, Chicago. Hosts Sheila Gibbons and Peter Karl visit Chuck Schaden’s Morton Grove studio for a look behind the scenes of old-time radio. Also, a quick stop at Metro Golden Memories on Irving Park Road in Chicago.
May 18 WCFL Radio Theatre final broadcast after 180 programs.
June 28 Chicago Tribune radio columnist Eric Zorn writes:
Monday marks the return to the daily airwaves of Chuck Schaden, whose nostalgic Radio Theater program of old dramas lost its home when WCFL changed hands and switched to a religious format last month. Schaden will appear from 7 to 11 p.m. weeknights, simulcast on WAIT and Aurora’s WMRO. When you add on Schaden’s 1-5 p.m. Saturday show, Those Were The Days, on WNIB, it will make for 24 hours a week of radio drama on the big-time Chicago dial, not even figuring in the frequent special dramas on WBEZ. Schaden, who turns 50 Friday, has been collecting tapes of old comedy, variety and adventure broadcasts since the mid-1960s and had a regular program since 1970, when he premiered on now-defunct WLTD in Evanston. His four-hour nightly gig on WAIT/WMRO will allow him to run many of the programs at the same prime times they used to run in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s.
June 30 Radio appearance: Sixty Years of Radio WGN, Chicago. From WGN’s Pierre Andre Studio and “an abandoned master control room,” Chuck hosts and produces a special program commemorating the 60th anniversary of the legendary Chicago radio station. This informal “documentary” includes comments from WGN veteran Quin Ryan, who was the station’s first staff announcer; Henry Salinger, who became the station’s first musical director and later program director, and early musician Leon Lichtenfeld. The program features clips of local and Mutual programs carried on the station and includes rebroadcasts of Captain Midnight Lone Ranger, The Shadow, Franklyn MacCormack, Jack Armstrong, Chicago Theatre of the Air.
July 2 Radio Theatre premieres on WAIT, Chicago, Monday thru Friday, 7-11 p.m. (Program is simulcast for approximately one year on station WMRO, Aurora.)
July 11 Variety, the show-biz publication, reports: Chuck Schaden, veteran collector and programmer of old-time radio shows, has his own show, WAIT Radio Theatre on the station of the same name Monday-Friday 7-11 p.m.
September 22 “Tuxedo Junction,” a 1940s night club featuring nostalgic musical revues, becomes a sponsor of TWTD.
October 7 TV appearance: Two on Two WBBM-TV Channel 2, Chicago. Reporters Harry Porterfield and Bob Wallace talk about “unusual bookstores” and visit Chuck Schaden’s Metro Golden Memories shop, a U.S. Government bookstore and a Railroad & Transportation bookstore.
October 21 Chuck interviews actress Shirley Mitchell in Beverly Hills, California.
November 24 First appearance on TWTD of the Mighty Metro Art Players, written and created by announcer Ken Alexander for the Metro Golden Memories Shop.
December 10 WAIT Radio Theatre begins a five-night Tribute to Glenn Miller on the fortieth anniversary of the bandleader’s disappearance. Karl Pearson co-hosts.
December 24 Chuck hosts a special Christmas Eve Open House program on WAIT from 3 p.m.—midnight for a nine-hour Christmas Eve Special, with most of the station’s regular personalities as “drop-in” guests: Eddie Hubbard, Rick Patton, Len Johnson, Ken Alexander and others. Program features vintage radio Christmas shows and music.
December 31 Chuck hosts a special Countdown to Midnight program of big band remotes on WAIT from noon-midnight for a twelve-hour New Year’s Eve Special.
