Sheriff John's Lunch Brigade
A downside to the Winchell- Mahoney Show was it didn't start until school was over each day. That left me bored to tears the many times I stayed home from school faking illness, or the handful of times I really was.
Good cartoon show. Only wished it was on twice as long. Why I'd fake being sick to stay home from school for an hour or so of Sheriff John is still beyond me. I was too young to get into the soap operas.
Interesting info from Sheriff John's Wikipedia entry: The guy who played Sheriff John, John Rovick, came up with the idea for the show himself. He was also a radio operator and gunner in bombers during World War 2. He survived 50 missions, something few men did. He died in Boise, Idaho in October 2012.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 9:08 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Oh, you of the lost TV generation. Didn't even have a TV before 1951, so, when sick (a few bouts of pneumonia) I used to enjoy listening to the radio. Morning time was mostly women's shows like, Don McNeil's Breakfast Club. Still remember 'marching around the breakfast table' at the Palmer House in Chicago. Then came the soaps: Young Doctor Malone, Mary Noble Backstage Wife, Our Gal Sunday and a few others. I suppose today they would all be considered sexist. Only after about 3pm came the kiddie shows: Sgt. Preston of the Yukon (and his dog King), The Lone Ranger, and a bunch of other western themed shows. Lots more imagination employed listening to the radio then the "feed me" concept of TV.
I'm a bit past those radio days but back when I was a caretaker on a ranch up in Maple Creek, I had no electricity or running water. The only thing I had to do at night was listen to the radio.
Had some cheap am/fm transistor radio. Once it got dark about all I could do is sit in my cabin and listen to the radio. I got used to it as entertainment. None of the old radio shows as you refer to, but I could listen to music, news and maybe a talk show or two.
It was almost like a friend. I remember we had a big windstorm while I was up there. Power knocked out in some areas of Eureka for 3 days. Large branches were blowing through the air around my cabin and you could hear trees snapping and falling down. I was scared to death.
That radio was the only thing I could ground myself on. I felt a kinship with the lady DJ that was on that night. Once KMUD radio realized how bad the wind was, they decided to stay on air until the wind subsided. I forget her name, but she ended up doing TV news later on. I called her one evening and told how much it meant to me that she stayed on the air that night.
Could that have been Late Night Liz, who used to broadcast from the Ft Bragg area? She was before KMUD, however back in the early '80s.
That doesn't ring a bell. If I heard the name I'd probably remember it. I believe KMUD went off the air back then around 11pm or thereabouts. She was probably on from 3 to 11?
I saw her years later on either KIEM or KVIQ TV as a news gal. Seems to me she might have done that for a while. When I saw her on one night I called the station and spoke with her and thanked her for "being there" that night.
Sheriff John called me when I was like seven as part of a contest on the show. I was outside playing and did not hear the relevant part of the show to answer the question. He was nice enough to ask me another softball question, “What holiday is coming up?” I correctly answered Halloween and received a really cool matchbox 1952 Ferrari race replica. I watched the show religiously after that.
Loved Sheriff John, but was even more excited about Engineer Bill. Maybe that's where my lifelong love of trains came from.
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