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The older RONN Owens gets the more he looks like IRA Blue.

Thanks for checking in from time to time to trash KGO, mred.

Be nice - Ron's about 60. I'm a few years younger, and starting to look like Ira Blue myself. I'd be happier if I looked more like Don Bleu (a handsome older guy), but those are the breaks.

Maybe I should start doing commercials for Niagara Cyclo-Massage like Ira did in his final years.
 
mred said:
maybe he should remote broadcast from the Purple Onion?
Click to expand...

Gosh, you must be old enough to collect Social Security! How old are you anyway? I think I've heard Ira Blue twice in my life and have no idea what he looked like, except that my mom once said he had big ears and used to be a sportscaster.
 
DavidKaye said:
mred said:
maybe he should remote broadcast from the Purple Onion?
Click to expand...

Gosh, you must be old enough to collect Social Security! How old are you anyway? I think I've heard Ira Blue twice in my life and have no idea what he looked like, except that my mom once said he had big ears and used to be a sportscaster.
Click to expand...

You must have missed Ira's Niagara Cyclo-Massage commercials, David. They were all over LA television in the late 60s (Dial "RIchmond 9-5171 Today!". I remember wondering who the heck Ira Blue was anyway, since I'd never heard of him, and he wasn't an LA radio-TV guy.

He did appear old - I figured that's why they used him...figuring if this old guy can be helped by cyclo-massage, so can I.
 
I never lived in the bay area, but I remember hearing Ira Blue on KGO from the "Hungry Eye" in 63--64 when I was visiting.
Never did see him though.
 
Lkeller said:
You must have missed Ira's Niagara Cyclo-Massage commercials, David. They were all over LA television in the late 60s (Dial "RIchmond 9-5171 Today!". I remember wondering who the heck Ira Blue was anyway, since I'd never heard of him, and he wasn't an LA radio-TV guy.
Click to expand...

Sorry, Llew, but you're ... wrong! As any fan of the Los Angeles Thunderbirds would know, RIchmond 9-5171 was the phone number for the Olympic Auditorium box office! If you wanted to see Roller Games action live and in person, that was the number to call.

Are you sure that the TV pitchman wasn't Dick Lane or Bill "Hoppy" Haupt, the T-Birds broadcast team?

Photo of Dick Lane: http://www.socaluncensored.com/hof/lane.htm

Photo of Ira Blue: http://www.bayarearadio.org/kgo/images/ira-blue.png
 
BossRadioDJ said:
Lkeller said:
You must have missed Ira's Niagara Cyclo-Massage commercials, David. They were all over LA television in the late 60s (Dial "RIchmond 9-5171 Today!". I remember wondering who the heck Ira Blue was anyway, since I'd never heard of him, and he wasn't an LA radio-TV guy.
Click to expand...

Sorry, Llew, but you're ... wrong! As any fan of the Los Angeles Thunderbirds would know, RIchmond 9-5171 was the phone number for the Olympic Auditorium box office! If you wanted to see Roller Games action live and in person, that was the number to call.

Are you sure that the TV pitchman wasn't Dick Lane or Bill "Hoppy" Haupt, the T-Birds broadcast team?

Photo of Dick Lane: http://www.socaluncensored.com/hof/lane.htm

Photo of Ira Blue: http://www.bayarearadio.org/kgo/images/ira-blue.png
Click to expand...


Whoa, Nelly! You're right, DJ. It's so depressing when my mind - filled with a couple decades of useless LA radio and TV trivia - searches and picks up the wrong item. I'm sure Niagara's number was "RIchmond 9"...something...that was the exchange all the SoCal TV commercials used for orders, because you could call collect or direct in those days before 800 numbers. The announcers would repeat the phone numbers endlessly. I also remember that Ralph Williams Ford ("The world's largest Ford dealer") was "TRiangle, that's T-R on your dial, 2-1880." If I remember correctly, old Ralph went to prison for awhile.

For some reason, the Los Angeles TV hucksters held onto the old fashioned name/number system for at least a decade after all digit dialing was the norm...because it was catchier, I assume. Proved by the fact that I can remember these numbers 40+ years later.

It occurs to me that I should throw away my TV and not let my daughter ever watch again...
 
Lkeller said:
For some reason, the Los Angeles TV hucksters held onto the old fashioned name/number system for at least a decade after all digit dialing was the norm...because it was catchier, I assume. Proved by the fact that I can remember these numbers 40+ years later.
Click to expand...

I can remember some old word prefixes, but few if any from ads. Let's see, I can remember....

TUxedo 5-4311 (KPEN), HIgate 4-2833 (KSAY), YUkon 2-7012 (KCBS), UNderhill 3-1077 (KGO), THornwall something (KPFA), and KEWB had a TEmplebar number. I understand that Oakland's TEmplebar exchange was named after a bar the Pacific Telephone workers used to frequent.

But no ads I can think of. I do remember "Furniture Discount House, 40th and San Pablo, easy credit terms."
 
DavidKaye,

With all due respect it was "30th and San Pablo Furniture Warehouse, where the name is the address. 30th and San Pablo in Oakland." Does anyone remember "Bruce Furniture at 7211 East 14th street in Oakland" and about a thousand other locations in the '60s. EZ credit!
 
pard said:
DavidKaye,

With all due respect it was "30th and San Pablo Furniture Warehouse, where the name is the address. 30th and San Pablo in Oakland." Does anyone remember "Bruce Furniture at 7211 East 14th street in Oakland" and about a thousand other locations in the '60s. EZ credit!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was confusing it with another credit furniture place.
 
BossRadioDJ said:
BossRadioDJ said:
Photo of Ira Blue: http://www.bayarearadio.org/kgo/images/ira-blue.png
Click to expand...

Oh, and the point I neglected to make: Ronn (With Two Nn's) don't look nothin' like Ira Blue.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're....right, DJ! I saw Ronnnn the other night on KOFY - doing one of those Retro TV introductions for The Rockford Files. He looks about the same as he always did, just a little older...nothing like the wizened Mr. Blue.
 
Niagra was over by Planters peanuts, that' were I got my chair. The acoustics at the Onion were bad and Blue had to yell at people to shutup in the restuaRant. Did you ever see the girl in the fish tank at the grotto?
 
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