Retro: Chicago Wed, Apr 18, 1956

[Bluenoser]

from TV Guide-Chicago edition

Channel numbers listed after Chicago channels indicate network programs relayed by:
13 WREX Rockford
34 WSBT South Bend
39 WTVO Rockford
46 WNDU South Bend
52 WSJV Elkhart

This was also the day of Grace Kelly's wedding to Prince Rainier, with wire photos (and later in the day, film) airing during the day at various points
Programs listed CST, add 1 hr for CDT/EST

WBBM 2-CBS Chicago
6:40 Thought for Today
6:45 Farm Daily (Menard)
7:00 Good Morning! (also relayed on 34; Will Rogers Jr shows a special film shot at Albert Einstein's home on the day of his death a year earlier, more from the baseball series, and Will also tells the story of the US Mint during the San Francisco quake...local news 7:25-7:30 and 7:55-8:00)
8:00 Captain Kangaroo (also on 34; news 8:25-8:30/8:55-9:00)
9:00 Garry Moore
9:30 Arthur Godfrey Time (34)
10:30 Strike It Rich (13/34)
11:00 Valiant Lady (13)
11:15 Love of Life (13/34)
11:30 Search for Tomorrow (13/34)
11:45 Guiding Light (13/34)
noon News (Frank Reynolds)
12:15 Luncheon Show (Lee Phillip)
12:30 As the World Turns (13/34)
1:00 Robert Q. Lewis (13/34)
1:30 Linkletter's House Party
2:00 Big Payoff (13/34)
2:30 Bob Crosby (13)
3:00 Brighter Day (13/34)
3:15 Secret Storm (13/34)
3:30 Edge of Night (13/34)
4:00 Early Show "Pablo's Well"
4:30 Gene Autry "Twisted Trails"
5:00 Famous Playhouse "Uncle Jack"
5:30 Shopping with Miss Lee (banker Stuart Watson talks about his new venture-a record company)
5:45 CBS News (34)
6:00 Sports (Bob Elson)
6:15 News (Julian Bentley)
6:30 Patti Page
6:45 News (Paul Harvey)
7:00 Godfrey & Friends (13/34; from the Kenilworth Hotel in Miami Beach)
8:00 Millionaire "The Jane Costello Story" (13/34)
8:30 I've Got a Secret (13/34)
9:00 20th-Century Fox Hour "Mr. Belvedere"
10:00 News/Weather/Sports
10:15 In Town Tonight (Jim Conway welcomes singer Betty Madigan)
10:30 News (John Harrington)
10:45 Kup's Show (Irv Kupcinet)
11:00 Playhouse "Surprise Party"
11:30 Movie "Man of Conquest"

WTMJ 4-NBC Milwaukee
6:45 Farm Report (Hoeft)
6:55 Today Milwaukee
7:00 Today (local news at :25/:55)
9:00 Ding Dong School
9:30 Ernie Kovacs
10:00 Home
11:00 Tennessee Ernie Ford
11:30 Feather Your Nest
noon Hot Shot Review
12:30 Bob Heiss (John Deidrich talks about birdwatching)
12:55 Weather (Bill Carlsen)
1:00 Let's Look at the News
1:15 What's New in the Kitchen (Breta Greim)
2:00 Matinee Theater "The Century Plant" (c)
3:00 Beulah Donahue (c/Dr. Mortimer M. Borton talks about artificial kidneys; also, a performance by flutist John Giraudeux)
3:30 Queen for a Day
4:00 Pinky Lee
4:30 Howdy Doody (c)
5:00 Foreman Tom "Call of the Canyon"
6:00 Sports (Lloyd Petti)
6:15 News (John Drury)
6:25 Weather (Bill Carlsen)
6:30 Eddie Fisher
6:45 Camel News Caravan
7:00 Screen Directors' Playhouse "Rookie of the Year"
7:30 Father Knows Best "Adopted Daughter"
8:00 Kraft Theater "No Riders"
9:00 This is Your Life
9:30 Theater "Train to the Sea"
10:00 Weather (Bill Carlsen)
10:05 Patti Page
10:20 Let's Look at the News
10:30 Great Gildersleeve "Gildy Pulls the Switch"
11:00 Tonight Show
mid. News

WNBQ 5-NBC Chicago
6:40 Today's Meditation
6:45 Town & Farm (c)
7:00 Today (also on 39/46; local news at :25/:55)
9:00 Ding Dong School (39/46)
9:30 Ernie Kovacs (39/46)
10:00 Home (39/46)
11:00 Tennessee Ernie Ford (39/46)
11:30 Feather Your Nest (39/46)
noon Noontime Adventure (c)
12:30 Kenny's Klub (c)
12:45 Bob (Murphy) & Kay (Westfall) with (Chef Eddie) Doucette
2:00 Matinee Theater "The Century Plant" (c 5/39; bw 46)
3:00 Date with Life (39)
3:15 Modern Romances (39/46)
3:30 Queen for a Day (39/46)
4:00 Pinky Lee (39/46)
4:30 Howdy Doody (c on 5 and 39/bw on 46)
5:00 Elmer the Elephant (c)
5:30 Adults Only (c/Tom Mercein; sports with Joe Wilson 5:45-5:50, weather with Clint Youle 6-6:05, and news with Jack Angell 6:05-6:10)
6:25 Les Paul & Mary Ford
6:45 Camel News Caravan
7:00 Screen Directors' Playhouse "Rookie of the Year"
7:30 Father Knows Best "Adopted Daughter"
8:00 Kraft Theater "No Riders"
9:00 This is Your Life (39/46)
9:30 Midwestern Hayride
10:00 Weather (c/Clint Youle)
10:10 Dorsey Connors (c)
10:15 News (c/Dreier)
10:25 Sports (c/Barry)
10:30 Variety Show (c/Tom Mercein)
11:00 Tonight Show
mid. Movie "Search for Danger"

WBKB 7-ABC Chicago
8:20 News (Ulmer Turner)
8:25 Time for Uncle Win
8:30 Paul Fogarty
9:00 Play House "Donald Duck-Prize Driver" (let's see him drive in Montreal ;D)
9:25 News (Ulmer Turner)
9:30 Norman Ross "The Roof"/Yesterday's Newsreel/"This Little Pig Cried"
11:00 Mid-Week Cooking School
noon Happy Pirate
12:45 Smile Club (Dr. Neimark)
1:00 Mid-Day Matinee "No Other Love"
1:55 News/Weather (Ulmer Turner)
2:00 Afternoon Film Festival "I Believe in You" (52)
4:00 Little Rascals
5:00 Mickey Mouse Club (52)
6:00 Kukla, Fran & Ollie
6:15 ABC News (52)
6:30 Disney "Adventureland: People & Places" (visiting Sardinia, Morocco, and the Arctic)
7:30 MGM Parade "The Pirate" (pt 1/simulcast on 52)
8:00 Masquerade Party (panelists Bobby Sherwood, Barbara Britton, Ogden Nash, and Mary Scott- Mary pinch hits for Ilka Chase)
8:30 Break the Bank (52)
9:00 Boxing: from Chicago, hometown boxwe Bobby Boyd (38-6-2, 20 KO) takes on DC's Holly Mims (39-13-5, 10 KO) in a 10-round middleweight tilt, simulcast on 52
9:45 News (Ulmer Turner, who seems to have had a long day )
10:00 Confidential File "Pigeon Drop Rocket"
10:30 Foreign Intrigue "The Spy Ring"
11:00 This is the Day (Norm Ross speaks on Clarence Darrow on the famed attorney's birthday)
11:15 Buddy Lester
mid. Movie "Flying Blind"

WGN 9-Ind Chicago
8:30 Paul Fogarty
9:00 Showtime (Fontaine)
9:30 Route '56 (Pat McCaffrie pinch-hits for Frazier Thomas)
10:00 My Little Margie "A Horse on Vern"
10:30 Stu Erwin "Weighty Problem"
11:00 Romper Room (guests Cheryl Stern and Bonnie & Allen Stern)
11:55 Carol Banning Comments (plastic styles for walls and ceilings)
noon Lunchtime Little Theater
12:45 Baby Time
1:00 TV Showcase
1:30 Movie "Nobody's Baby"
4:00 Bandstand Matinee (guests from the Lincoln Park Riding Club; news with Les Moneypenny 5:05-5:10)
5:30 Garfield Goose & Friend (Frazier Thomas is on vacation, Buddy Black is Garfield's straightman)
6:00 Curbstone Cut-Up (Simon)
6:15 Sports (Vince Lloyd)
6:30 News (Spencer Allen)
6:45 Chicagoland Newsreel
6:55 Tony Weitzel
7:00 TV Showcase
7:30 Frank Yankovic
9:00 TBA
9:30 Liberace
10:00 Movie "The Sundowners"
11:30 News (Les Nichols)

WTTW 11-Edu Chicago
4pm House of Skills
4:15 Fairytales on Film "Little Red Riding Hood"
4:30 Totem Club "The Fantastic Blanket" (Dick Cromer of the Chicago Board of Ed does experiments and talks about the earth's atmosphere)
5:00 World of Music (selections from Verdi's Otello)
6:30 Outdoor Fun "The Fabulous Five-Hundred" (scenes from the Indy 500)
7:00 Chicago Dynamic "Road to Renewal-Neighborhood in Action/Lincoln Park Conservation Association" (housewife Mrs. Pierre Blouke and LPCA prez George Proctor discuss community plans for renewal with host Maynard Wishner)
7:30 Nature of Life "Living and Non-Living" (Dr. H. Burr Roney, Western Reserve U)
8:00 Camera Club "Unusual Effects with Color Slides and the Work of Winners"
8:30 Modern USA "America Goes Back to Europe"
9:00 Anywhere USA "Man in the Window"
9:30 Time for Religion "The Catholic Charities" (Chicago's RC Archbishop Samuel Cardinal Stritch and Catholic Charities Superintendent Msgr. Vincent M. Cooke discuss the organization's work)
10:00 Tomorrow (Fred Lewis)

 

[bpatrick]

Interesting to see some of the names here; John Drury and
Frazier Thomas were Chicago legends for decades, and then
I see two who went on to some national recognition: Frank
Reynolds and Lee Phillip (she and husband Bill Bell created
"Young and the Restless" and "Bold and the Beautiful," and
she had a CBS daytime show briefly in 1963).

 

[Braves2005]

WBBM - 2 (CBS) - Chicago

Noon: News (Frank Reynolds)

6:45 PM: News (Paul Harvey)

Is this the same Frank Reynolds who later appeared on the first World News Tonight on ABC in 1978 with Peter Jennings and Max Robinson? Also is this the same Paul Harvey who for years gave us "The Rest of the Story"?

 

[Bluenoser]

WBBM - 2 (CBS) - Chicago

Noon: News (Frank Reynolds)

6:45 PM: News (Paul Harvey)

Is this the same Frank Reynolds who later appeared on the first World News Tonight on ABC in 1978 with Peter Jennings and Max Robinson? Also is this the same Paul Harvey who for years gave us "The Rest of the Story"?

Based on a quick check on the Web, yes on both counts...Reynolds worked for ch 7 until 1965, when he joined ABC; Harvey began working in Chicago in 1944.

 

[KeithE4]

WBBM - 2 (CBS) - Chicago

Noon: News (Frank Reynolds)

6:45 PM: News (Paul Harvey)

Is this the same Frank Reynolds who later appeared on the first World News Tonight on ABC in 1978 with Peter Jennings and Max Robinson? Also is this the same Paul Harvey who for years gave us "The Rest of the Story"?

Yes, and yes.

I'm surprised that Fahey Flynn isn't shown as anchoring any of Channel 2's newscasts. Perhaps he was on vacation that week and Harvey was subbing for him. I find it a bit hard to believe that he'd be allowed to work for CBS-TV and ABC radio at the same time, unless it was as a fill-in.

 

[Ultimajock]

WBBM 2-CBS Chicago

12:15 Luncheon Show (Lee Phillip)
5:30 Shopping with Miss Lee (banker Stuart Watson talks about his new venture-a record company)

...might both of these have been Lee Phillip programs? I know that around this period, Phillip also had a daily program on WBBM Radio with legendary chauvanist Paul Gibson titled The Lady & The Tiger. And does anyone have any idea what the record company that Watson cranked up would have been?...

6:45 News (Paul Harvey)

...I seem to recall that Paul Harvey's television work was always separate from his radio work for ABC. Although he did occasionally run his TV commentaries on WENR-TV/WBKB/WLS-TV, they actually ran longer on then-independents WFLD/32 and WSNS/44...

7:00 Godfrey & Friends (13/34; from the Kenilworth Hotel in Miami Beach)

...which Arthur Godfrey owned in part at the time. Bogus allegations of anti-Semitic beliefs still pop up against Godfrey, but in fact Godfrey was personally responsible for the Kenilworth scrapping its "No Jews Allowed" policy (which had been put into effect in the 1920s, before Godfrey even got into broadcasting)...

WTMJ 4-NBC Milwaukee

...interesting that TV Guide listed WTMJ-TV in its Chicago edition but not WISN-TV/12, the other VHF station in Milwaukee at the time...

WNBQ 5-NBC Chicago
12:45 Bob (Murphy) & Kay (Westfall) with (Chef Eddie) Doucette

...not to be confused with the future voice of the Milwaukee Bucks, Eddie Doucette...

10:15 News (c/Dreier)

...this would be Alex Dreier, later anchor for WBKB and, after moving to Los Angeles, KABC-TV/7 and KTTV/11 there before going into acting on such series as Land of the Giants and What's it All About, World and the theatrical movie The Boston Strangler...

 

[bpatrick]

I wouldn't be surprised if "Miss Lee" was Lee Phillip; she was
apparently quite popular in Chicago into the '70s. I had heard
of her and her noontime show but the name didn't really register
with me until I learned she was Bill Bell's wife (I'm not from Chicago,
after all).

Regarding Godfrey's alleged anti-Semitism, I had never heard that
about him; I know he was something of a tyrant running his three
CBS shows, but anti-Semitism doesn't seem to have been one of his
faults. Many of the '50s-era personalities had to take criticism because
they supported African-American performers (Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen,
and Ted Mack among them, and Godfrey had an African-American quartet,
the Mariners, on his shows) and Jewish performers as well (Allen was one
of the first supporters of Lenny Bruce). Sullivan, OTOH, did take some
criticism for taking part in the blacklisting of performers deemed to be
somehow disloyal to the U.S. for their liberal beliefs (the most famous
example being tap dancer Paul Draper, in 1950). But on the whole, I
think that Sullivan, Godfrey, Allen, and Mack adhered to a credo that it
didn't matter if they were little green Martians, as long as they could
sing, tell jokes, dance, play an instrument, or whatever.

 

[Ultimajock]

Regarding Godfrey's alleged anti-Semitism, I had never heard that
about him; I know he was something of a tyrant running his three
CBS shows, but anti-Semitism doesn't seem to have been one of his
faults. Many of the '50s-era personalities had to take criticism because
they supported African-American performers (Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen,
and Ted Mack among them, and Godfrey had an African-American quartet,
the Mariners, on his shows) and Jewish performers as well (Allen was one
of the first supporters of Lenny Bruce). Sullivan, OTOH, did take some
criticism for taking part in the blacklisting of performers deemed to be
somehow disloyal to the U.S. for their liberal beliefs (the most famous
example being tap dancer Paul Draper, in 1950). But on the whole, I
think that Sullivan, Godfrey, Allen, and Mack adhered to a credo that it
didn't matter if they were little green Martians, as long as they could
sing, tell jokes, dance, play an instrument, or whatever.

...Eddie Fisher made the bogus anti-Jewish allegation against Godfrey in his autobiography. Of course, Fisher still had no idea what the hell he was talking about (you could just as well hang a neon sign reading "JERK" over Fisher's head at any given moment, but that's another thread). And another African-American performer that Godfrey gave a start to was Johnny Nash, who eventually had the hit records "I Can See Clearly Now" and "Stir It Up" in the early '70s. Of course, Godfrey always had massive hip pain from his 1931 auto smash-up, and the lung cancer that he worked through, so it's understandable why he wouldn't be Mister Nice Guy backstage. If you wanted to work for Mister Nice Guy, you got a job on Garry Moore's shows ;D ...

 

[Bob1370]

"Godfrey always had massive hip pain from his 1931 auto smash-up, and the lung cancer that he worked through, so it's understandable why he wouldn't be Mister Nice Guy backstage. If you wanted to work for Mister Nice Guy, you got a job on Garry Moore's shows ..."

Of course, Godfrey also gravitated to people who had an edge to them, as he did. Two of his best friends in the world were Harry Reasoner and Andy Rooney. Reasoner was a feisty, difficult guy all his life (just ask Barbara Walters). And Andy Rooney? Well, he'll be the first to tell you he's a man of strong opinions and views.

Garry Moore deserved his reputation as a nice guy, especially supportive of emerging talent--just ask Carol Burnett, she thought the world of him and still can't say enough good things about him. He was one of the most respected and well liked guys at CBS--Walter Cronkite was another.

 

[Ultimajock]

WBKB 7-ABC Chicago
11:15 Buddy Lester

...just noticed this. I wonder if this show was a straight-out clone of older brother Jerry Lester's Broadway Open House or closer to a copy of Steve Allen's Tonight running directly opposite on WNBQ...