January 29 When Radio Was Radio final broadcast, WBEZ, after 122 programs.
February 5 When Radio Was Radio begins series of re-run broadcasts on WBEZ, Thursdays, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.
MARCH 1, 1976 Metro Golden Memories — Proud owners Chuck Schaden and Dave Denwood, waiting for customers on Irving Park Road.
March 1 Metro Golden Memories, a show biz nostalgia shop owned by Chuck Schaden and David Denwood, opens at 5120 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago.
March 6 Memory Club movie is “Those Were The Days” (1940) starring William Holden, Bonita Granville, Ezra Stone, Alan Ladd.
March 17 Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bill Granger writes:
Some people in broadcasting are little treasures in our lives. Treasures to share. They bring too much of themselves to a very small area of broadcasting (and our lives) and, suddenly they illuminate their subjects as brightly as monks illuminating their manuscripts. They are deep when we are willing to be satisfied with a shallow, surface amusement.
One [is] Chuck Schaden. Improbable young man. Dark beard, eyeglasses, the smiling, self-assured manner of an undertaker. Except, he talks too much. I always told him that. He is too wrapped up in his interest. Sometimes you want to say, “Chuck, be quiet and put the program on.” And he always does.
He is an improbable hustler, but that is what he does: He hustles his radio programs of old tapes on a variety of FM stations all across the Chicago radio spectrum. His two biggies are radio reprises… Monday through Friday on high-powered WXFM …and his Saturday show …on WNIB.
For a while, Schaden hustled his incredible hobby on low-powered WLTD in Evanston. When that station went to a beautiful-music format, Schaden and others …were hustled off the air. It was the best thing that ever happened to Chuck Schaden and the rest of us.
Schaden is a treasure because he cares so much about his collection and sharing it with us. He is a librarian who reads his books. And they are very rare and very much taken for granted.
April 26 Hall Closet Special, final broadcast on WTAQ after 65 programs.
May I Memory Club movie is “Look Who’s Laughing” (1941) starring Fibber McGee and Molly, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy and Lucille Ball.
May 29 Memory Club movie is “Who Done It?” starring Abbott and Costello. May 30 Old Time Radio and All That Jazz, last of 53 programs on WWMM.
July 31 Chicago Tribune Perspective page article: “A Lament for Radio’s Golden Age” by Chuck Schaden. Excerpt:
The trend to news-music-talk on radio was born in the late 1940s, grew in the 1950s, and matured in the 1960s. Before then, every radio station in the country had a personality of its own and sounded different from every other radio station in the country. The four major radio networks — NBC, CBS, ABC, Mutual — each offered a variety of programs and services. And that is exactly what is absent from radio today: variety. We didn’t have to choose from news, music, or talk. They were there for us, but we could also select comedy, mystery, adventure, and drama. And no single station would offer a single programming format 24 hours a day. But why can’t we have some new, original radio variety [today]: comedy, mystery, adventure, music? Too much money, they say. Costs too much to produce those kinds of radio shows. But if both the networks and the sponsors were to spend a little less on TV and a little more on radio, radio might make a comeback. And listeners might come back to radio. And our imagination might come back to us all.
August 2-12 In Southern California, Chuck interviews writers Norman Corwin (Thirteen by Corwin) and Arch Oboler (Lights Out); announcers Bill Baldwin, Charles Lyon, and Art Linkletter (People are Funny); actors Dennis Day, Jim Boles and Russell Thorson (I Love a Mystery), Hugh Studebaker (Fibber McGee and Molly), Bob Arbogast; actresses Lillian Randolph (Great Gildersleeve), Alice Frost, Florence Halop, Alice Reinheart, Anne Seymour, Betty Lou Gerson; and producer Greg Garrison.
August 21 Final round of Monopoly Tournament is held in TWTD studio with move-by-move coverage during broadcast.
September 1 Hall Closet V, the Monday thru Friday morning show on WXFM, moves from 8-10 a.m. to 7-9 a.m.
September 11 Memory Club movie is “The Big Broadcast” (1932) starring Bing Crosby, Kate Smith, Burns and Allen.
September 26 Chicago Sun-Times Book Review. Chuck Schaden reviews “Vic and Sade: The Best Radio Plays by Paul Rhymer” edited by Mary Frances Rhymer. Excerpt:
Vic and Sade and Rush and Uncle Fletcher – and Jake Gumpox the garbage man; Rishigan Fishigan from Sishigan, Michigan; identical twins Robert and Slobert Hink; Mr. Keefer, the Brick-Mush Man and Bess and Walter Hemstreet of Carberry — have not been on the air for over 30 years, but radio fans who remember (and they are legion) can rejoice in this written rebroadcast of 30 of the late Paul Rhymer’s classic scripts. Rhymer was raised in Bloomington, II. [He] set his show in the Bloomington-like fictional Illinois town of Crooper. Proctor and Gamble did not gamble on the new show, but NBC did, placing it on the Blue Network unsponsored. That was in 1932. In two years, with ever-growing Hooper Ratings, his Vic and Sade were so popular that Proctor and Gamble finally bought the program and sponsored it until Vic and Sade left the air in 1945. By 1938 the show had over seven million daily listeners and the cast received thousands of fan letters every week. Rhymer died in 1964, after writing more than 3,500 of these radio plays. The 30 scripts in this book show that Paul Rhymer’s Vic and Sade and family and friends are just as much fun now as they were then. Get ready to smile again.
October 6 Chuck is emcee for an evening of the Chicago Comedy Festival at the University of Chicago and moderates a panel on Vic and Sade. He interviews actress Bernardine Flynn (“Sade”) by phone in her home in Clay City, Illinois.
October 29 Chuck interviews actress Mercedes McCambridge backstage at the Drury Lane Theatre in Evergreen Park, Illinois.
November 4 Chuck appears on stage at the Chicago Theatre with a presentation about vintage radio during the Theatre’s 55th Anniversary celebration, sponsored by the Chicago Area Theatre Organ Enthusiasts.
