FEBRUARY 15, 1974 The production team for Fibber McGee and the Good Old Days of Radio — from left, announcer Larry Thor, producer Todd Kaiser, “actor” Chuck Schaden, director Jim Dolan, actor and star Jim Jordan, writer Phil Leslie, agency rep Bill Watson.
February 15 After recording the final program in the series Fibber McGee and the Good Old Days of Radio, Chuck, in Hollywood, California, interviews Jim Jordan, Gale Gordon, Phil Leslie and Hal Peary about the original Fibber McGee and Molly program.
February 23 Townhouse TV and Appliances becomes a long-time sponsor of TWTD.
April 18 Chicago Tribune Radio-TV columnist Gary Deeb writes:
Chuck Schaden was scared. Here he was, the King of Oldtime Radio. The Guru of Nostalgia. The man who parlayed his longing for the past into some measure of fame and good fortune. And yet he was having a problem holding off shakes while taping a radio program. “I never have any trouble being myself on WLTD,” said Chuck. “But being myself in Fibber McGee’s living room is another story. I was dumbfounded and awestruck by him. But I just dug my fingernails into the table and somehow pulled thru.”
Sharing a microphone with 77-year-old Jim Jordan, the man millions knew as Fibber McGee for a quarter-century, was pretty frightening, all right. The project, dubbed Fibber McGee and the Good Old Days of Radio, consists of seven one-hour programs being nationally syndicated to 50 cities. In Chicago, the seven-week series is broadcast over WGN at 8:05 Sunday nights starting April 28. Schaden produced the programs, and Phil Leslie, an ex-writer for Fibber McGee, did the script.
Luckily, the corny words stuffed into the mouths of Jordan and Schaden are more than compensated for by the richness of the old radio shows. The premiere segment features some rollicking comedy with Jack Benny & Co. and a lengthy, chilling excerpt from the 1938 “War of the Worlds” shocker.
April 28 Fibber McGee and the Good Old Days of Radio with Jim Jordan and Chuck Schaden premiers nationally and is heard locally on WGN, Chicago.
June 5 Chicago Daily News “Insight” article by George Harmon is headlined “Dial your radio for nostalgia” and acknowledges:
Four years ago, the man who has been the best possible friend of Jack Armstrong and Sgt. Preston of the Yukon… walked into Evanston’s WLTD with an idea. He’d play his collection of thousands of old radio shows for today’s listeners.
That man was Chuck Schaden, a 39-year old with contemporary beard and eyeglasses, the memory of a history professor and a drive to take the past into the future. Bent toward the microphone in a room full of records by the likes of Axel Stordahl and Pat Boone, a tiny gold microphone in his lapel, Schaden presides over 20 hours of old-time radio each week.
And the wide use of tape recorders has given rise to a genus of “tapeworms” who studiously copy the broadcasts. Schaden operates a “cassette-of-the-month” club that offers tapes for a price.
Schaden — his catch phrase is “Ah-ah-ah, don’t touch that dial” — has become a radio personality so popular that he can get away with talking for 20 minutes about the prom he attended at Steinmetz High School in 1952.
June 8 Special Radio Event on WLTD. Chuck’s Those Were The Days (1-5 p.m.) and Karl Pearson’s Jukebox Saturday Night (5-6:30 p.m.) combine to present a rebroadcast of a four-hour June 5, 1945 tribute to bandleader Glenn Miller from the Paramount Theatre in New York on behalf of the U. S. Government’s Seventh War Loan Drive.
June 15 Chuck resigns as WLTD General Manager, but remains as Program Director and continues his weekday morning and Saturday afternoon programs on the station. Cummings Communications hires Robert Larson, as General Manager.
June 18 Chicago Daily News Marketing Columnist Joe Cappo writes:
Bob Larson, former head of an executive search firm, is joining WLTD in Evanston as general manager. He replaces Chuck Schaden, who asked out of the job to devote more time to his old-time radio broadcasts and his own company.
June 29 Chuck celebrates the first anniversary of his 39th birthday by offering old time radio shows dated June 29 from other years.
July 4 Special 6-hour Independence Day broadcast of Chuck’s Hall Closet program on WLTD from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
August 30 Chuck interviews actor Marvin Miller during a Hall Closet broadcast on WLTD.
August 31 Actor Marvin Miller makes a surprise appearance at the Memory Club, where he talks about his long career in radio and television, signs autographs, and enjoys a series of clips from his many movie roles.
September 14 TWTD begins an 11-week hiatus for Northwestern football broadcasts on WLTD.
October 4 Chuck begins a three-semester stint teaching a weekly class on the history of radio and television programming at Columbia College, Chicago.
October 17 Chicago Tribune columnist Gary Deeb writes:
Chuck Schaden salutes the Mutual Broadcasting System on the network’s 40th anniversary with a four-hour parade of famous Mutual programs beginning at 1 p.m. Sunday on WLTD. Chuck’s old-time special includes The Lone Ranger and The Shadow. Schaden, of course, is Chicago’s Guru of Radio Nostalgia.
October 20 40th Anniversary Salute to Mutual Broadcasting System, produced and hosted by Chuck on WLTD, a Mutual affiliate.
November 3 Earliest announcements to listeners of the forthcoming monthly Nostalgia Newsletter.
December 1 Nostalgia Newsletter and Radio Guide debuts as a six-page, gatefold, monthly subscriber-based publication sent by first class mail. Chuck is editor and publisher.
December 2 Hall Closet Special premieres on WTAQ, LaGrange, Mondays, 8-10:30 p.m.
December 24 Christmas Eve in the Hall Closet is a ten-hour, all-day special program celebrating the holiday on WLTD.
