Philly Fifties: TV

(in surly, tough-guy style:)
Nothin’ ever happens here in Philly!
Living in Philly, what would you expect?
But just as long as we are stuck in Philly,
Then leave us show a little respect.

(now perky, Mermanish:)
Philadelphia, you’re my mania!
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania!
Your sparkling water is considered top-notch,
But only if you mix it with a bottle of scotch.
From the City Line down to Broad and Vine,
Any place you happen to roam,
Consider yourself lucky
If you live in Kentucky.
Unfortunately Philly is our home.

— Tom Figenshu, from the local musical “Kiss Me Kool,” c. 1960

It seemed an old town when I was young. The Declaration of Independence, the Liberty Bell… in the early 1950s, Philadelphia was sooooo 1776. It was the home of The Saturday Evening Post, one of America’s largest-circulation weeklies and a prime cheerleader for the starch-and-sentiment status quo. Each New Year’s Day the Mummers Parade commandeered Broad Street, as revelers in gaudy costumes marched and strummed “Oh! Dem Golden Slippers” on a thousand banjos; most of the participants wore blackface. The third most populous U.S. city at the time, Philadelphia appeared agreeable to being a sleepy sprawling suburb of New York.

And suddenly: surprise! The ’50s provided a pungent belch of pop culture from this nodding geezer of a metropolis. For a few years, in the infant media of television and Top-40 radio, Philadelphia was the happenin’ place, babycakes. People who would become famous elsewhere started shaking things up in the City of Brotherly Love. Ernie Kovacs was the host (and everything else) of our morning TV show. Dick Clark hosted “American Bandstand” from our town, and made the kids of West Philly national stars. Ed McMahon was a comforting voice on a dozen shows. We had a live, daily western drama, “Action in the Afternoon,” whose musical director was a 20-year-old named Dick Lester; he later went to England and directed a nice little musical — “A Hard Day’s Night.”

Next week I’ll be considering the place of Philadelphia in the explosion of rock ‘n roll as a radio (and, on “Bandstand,” TV) phenomenon. For now, though, try to see early television as the Childe Corliss did, through a 12-inch black-and- white Philco screen that revealed a world of new wonders.

On December 24, 1948, we got our first TV set. Ah, but this state-of-the-art Philco was more than a television; it provided full-service entertainment. The mahogany monster also housed an AM-FM radio, a three-speed record player and a storage cabinet (for LPs, I guess) that you could have parked your De Soto in. The first program we saw that night was a Christmas concert by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

By 1950 our TV was filled with dozens of kids’ programs. We had several puppet shows, courtesy of Paul and Mary Ritts and the Australian import Lee Dexter. Kindly cartoonist Pete Boyle (father of actor Peter Boyle) hosted the noontime “Lunch With Uncle Pete,” featuring “your favorite old-time movies”: Laurel and Hardy and Little Rascals (Our Gang). For some reason, this East Coast city also had a gaggle of western performers — Rex Trailer, Sally Starr, Chief Halftown — to give the kids advice about crossing at the green and drinking Ovaltine in their mugs with the Ranger Joe cereal logo.

Vagrant time slots would be filled by five-minute commercials for Charles Antell Formula No. 9, a hair product with lanolin. A chorus sang a frantic admonitory jingle (“Why are so many pee-ee-ple/ So rough and tough upon their hair?/ In beauty shops, in barber shops,/ It shouldn’t happen to a mop./ Men! Women! You’re ruining your hair!”); then a carny-campy pitchman promised follicle salvation through sheep oil. It could have been the first infomercial. If so, damn its eyes, and damn me for somehow remembering those lyrics 50 years later.

For many middling celebrities, just like normal people, Philadelphia was the place to set up stakes and stay forever. John Facenda was the new anchor on WCAU-TV, the CBS affiliate, from 1948 until 1973, by which time he was already lending his plummy baritone to the narration of NFL Films. Herb Clarke was WCAU’s weatherman for 39 years — close to a Guinness record. Larry Ferrari, the smiling organist, was a Sunday staple on WFIL, the ABC affiliate, from 1953 to his death in 1997. Chief Halftown, a Seneca brave who had a way with kids, lasted even longer; he joined WFIL in the early ’50s and, I believe, is still there. Another gentlemanly crustacean is announcer Gene Crane, who has haunted WCAU radio and TV since 1945. They’ve all been in Philly about as long as another area institution: TV Guide, which premiered in 1953 and, for most of the time since, has been America’s largest-circulation weekly.

I can’t immediately prove this, but I’d guess that in the early ’50s Philadelphia provided more programming to the three major networks than Los Angeles did — and, if you exclude soap operas, maybe as much as New York does today. “American Bandstand,” which at one time took up seven-and-a-half hours of the afternoon schedule each week, was the most famous. “What in the World” was an archaeological quiz show in which scholars tried to identify ancient artifacts. “Paul Whiteman’s Teen Club,” with Dick Clark as its announcer, showcased promising young singers; Eddie Fisher, Bobby Rydell, Leslie Uggams and Dion (of the Belmonts) DiMucci got their start here. Fred Waring also broadcast his national big-band show from Philly. (Read more about all these shows on the invaluable Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia website — a trove of early TV memories for Delaware Valley nostalgiaholics.)

In July 1953, WPTZ, the NBC affiliate, produced a 15-min. daily spy drama for the network: “Atom Squad,” a forerunner to “Mission: Impossible.” Each five-part story (written by Paul Monash, who later created the “Peyton Place” TV series) dealt with a supersecret government agency and its attempt to smash some dastardly threat to the American way of life: from mad scientists, cunning Russkies, remnants of the Nazi empire, plus the occasional extraterrestrial with an attitude dysfunction. The evil ones would hatch a plan to melt all the ice in the Arctic Circle, or make it rain at will, or create radioactive diamonds, or stop the moon from rotating around the earth — and good guys Steve Elliott (Bob Courtleigh) and Dave Fielding (Bob Hastings) would save the world by outthinking ’em or shooting ’em down. What our heroes couldn’t figure out was how to save the show. “Atom Squad” lasted only six months.

Producing a full-fledged spy show in the cramped Walnut Street confines of WPTZ seems a modest ambition compared to mounting an hour-long Western each day at WCAU’s City Line studio, where the back lot was also the employee parking lot. But Charlie Vanda, the station’s think-big president, did it anyway. Vanda had pitched “Action in the Afternoon” ad lib to CBS’s New York brass after his earlier ideas had been torpedoed. He said the Western would be set in 1884 in the Montana town of Huberle (which Vanda invented by combining the names of network execs Hubbell Robinson and Harry Ommerlee). CBS gave Vanda a few weeks and $7,000 to create the pilot and the first five shows. “Action,” whose main director was Bill Bode, starred singing cowboy Jack Valentine, who would ride off into the early sunset of suburban Bala Cynwyd.

Remember that there was no videotape, and “Action” didn’t use film. So the goof- ups went national. Outdoor scenes of the Old West could be anachronized by the view of a plane overhead or the rumble of a motorcycle. (Lester’s challenge as musical director was to find themes loud enough to drown out the sound of modern mechanical intruders.) Actors spoke into microphones hidden in tree stumps and hitching posts; if one mike went dead, the actor had to skedaddle over to one that worked. One day, the audio was rent by a horrible noise, whose source remained a mystery until the camera panned to reveal a horse trying to eat one of the mikes. Another day, live TV almost became dead TV. During a hanging scene, something startled the horse on which the condemned man was sitting. The beast bolted off and the actor nearly was strangled. The director cut away to another shot and the crew freed the poor fellow before he could become the star of television’s first real execution.

One member of the “Action in the Afternoon” stock company was John Zacherle, who played the Huberle undertaker. The show was canceled in early 1954, after a year’s run, but Zach’s personality and performance lingered in Vanda’s mind like, oh, the stench of death. Three years later, when WCAU bought the rights to Universal Pictures’ “Shock” package of vintage horror movies (“Frankenstein,” “Dracula,” “The Mummy’s Tomb,” etc.), Vanda had the notion to air the films two nights a week and have them hosted by a cadaver in a long coat. He hired Zacherle, who wore his old undertaker costume from the Western series but now was called Roland — pronounced Ro-LAND. “Shock Theater” premiered on October 7, 1957. And thus was born (if that is the word) Philadelphia’s first TV mania of the teen generation.

Roland would walk down a spiral staircase into the elegantly macabre crypt and introduce the evening’s feature attraction. But in this show, as developed by writer-producer Ed White, the true attraction was the host and his post-nuclear, post-mortem family. Roland’s wife, known only as “My Dear,” was kept just out of camera range; he would often curl up in their double coffin to watch the movie or, for diversion, drive a stake through My Dear’s heart “just to make her happy.” Their son, Gasport, hung in a large sack attached to the wall; his frequent moans were provided by crew members whenever Roland would whack the sack with a stick. At times during the films, Roland would be cut into a scene, making a face at the proceedings or uttering a snide aside, “Mystery Science Theater” style (but 30 years before). These “jump-ins” became the show’s signature bits.

“Shock Theater” was soon so popular with kids as well as adults that its slot was moved from Mondays and Tuesdays to Fridays and Saturdays. To promote the switch, WCAU thought to host an open house at its City Line facility, expecting perhaps a thousand people to show up. Instead, the crowd was more like 15,000, clogging traffic for hours and making mischief. (I know; I was there.) The incident got Zacherle an article in the Saturday Evening Post. Soon after, he demanded a raise in his weekly pay, from $90 to $100. (Heck, my mother earned that much at the time, and she was a first-grade teacher in the Philadelphia public school system.) The station refused, and he walked. For two shows he was replaced by an actress playing My Dear. The public expressed its outrage, and Zach returned the following week.

Thanks to the encouragement of Dick Clark (who dubbed Roland “the cool ghoul”) and his partner at Cameo Records Bernie Lowe, Zach would enjoy a Top 10 hit: “Dinner With Drac,” a novelty rocker with limerick lyrics (“For dessert there was batwing confetti/ And the veins of a mummy named Betty/ I first frowned upon it/ But with ketchup on it/ It tasted very much like spaghetti”). Now he was too big for the likes of Philly. New York soon wooed him, and for the next few years he graced WABC and WOR with similar shows, under his own name (now spelled Zacherley). Two short story collections appeared under his aegis. After the fad passed like a winter chill, he had long stints as a radio host in New York. Once in a while, for special Philadelphia events, Zach, now 82, stills puts the old mourning coat out of the closet.

At least Zacherle survived his brush with fame. Kovacs died in a car crash in 1962, ten days before his 41st birthday. He had gone to New York, where his comedy shows not only expanded the young medium but stretched it to the snapping point. (“It’s appropriate that television is considered a medium,” he famously said, “since it’s neither rare nor well-done”). Then Kovacs made the inevitable journey to Hollywood, where he made just enough money in middling movies to feed his gambling addiction and fall deeply in debt. But for those of us who remember — or think we remember — his work in Philadelphia, from 1950 to ’53, Ernie was at his best when he was breaking the rules faster than anyone else could make them up. For once, we benighted Philadelphians were the first people to latch on to something hip. We were in the vanguard of TV comedy. And we got it! The Kovacs morning show, “Three to Get Ready,” not only spurred kids, his most devoted acolytes, to school with a smile, it woke us up to what the strange box in the living room could do, could allow. We joined his fan club, the Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society, or E.E.F.M.S. We hummed his ricky-tick theme song, “Oriental Blues.” (I have it on an old 45: what’s that worth today?) We took his catchphrase — “It’s been real” — to the schoolyards. Before a commercial break on his morning show, a thug type would burst onto the set and shout, “Hold it! Don’ nobody move,” and then, after the break, “Re-sume!”; we would mimic that when leaving the dinner table.

For a blissful while in 1951, he was on WPTZ nearly 13 hours a week: two hours a day for the morning show, plus TWO cuisine programs, “Deadline for Dinner” and “Now You’re Cooking,” plus a 15-min. daily network show, “Time for Ernie.” Before school or work, Ernie was there; you came home mid-afternoon, Ernie was there. It made WPTZ a virtual one-man comedy channel. Who knows whether it was all great? But it was all distinctly Ernie. And most of it was ad lib. As the Broadcast Pioneers website notes: “Ernie would talk to the camera people and boom operator. He would wander into the control room and starting pushing buttons. He had been known to pull out a deck of cards and start playing gin with the director.” His two mascots were a papier-mâchè dog that looked like RCA Victor’s Nipper (during remote segments he might park it next to a fire hydrant) and a lifesize rag doll, nicknamed Gertrude, that a viewer had sent in when Kovacs mentioned that the total prop budget was $15 a week.

David G. Walley’s book “The Ernie Kovacs Phile” enumerates some of the absurdist camera tricks Kovacs devised with the help of a WPTZ engineer, Karl Weger. Some were simple: place a pane of clear glass in front of the camera, then paint the glass till the TV screen is black. Use the same pane as a shield, allowing Ernie to toss eggs or custard pies at the home viewer. Take an elaborate old Buster Keaton gag — in which by multiple exposures Keaton can play an orchestra conductor and his six pit musicians in the same frame — and have Ernie as all nine members of a baseball team, and the umpire, fans and hot-dog vendor. A Campbell’s Soup can with the ends removed and small mirrors placed inside it produced the effect of an upside-down set; that’s how Ernie was able to offer housewives hints on vacuuming the ceiling.

The morning show saw the birth of many of Kovacs’ acts of creative monkeying- around. Literally: he put himself and some of his crew in gorilla suits and Edwardian jackets, played the instrumental tune “Solfeggio,” and had one ape whack another at musically precise intervals — ladies and gentlemen, the Nairobi Trio! Some of us were actually watching when Ernie’s idea man Andy McKay tossed him a pair of goggle-eyed gag glasses and Ernie, on the spot, picked up a book and began declaiming verse in a silky lisp — your Philly poet laureate, Percy Dovetonsils!

Looking back, we could say that Kovacs was deconstructing TV’s rigid format before it had been constructed. “Three to Get Ready” might seem a parody, or insolent disregarding, of the morning-show precepts of seriousness and camaraderie — except there was no national morning show. When NBC developed the “Today” format, it pressured WPTZ to ax Kovacs, and he ended his tenure there on March 28, 1952.

The station’s decision to air the national show helped establish a franchise that extends to this day, on virtually every network and large independent station, but it was a crusher to Ernie’s Philly fans. To us, he was the morning- show tradition; why mess with a great thing? And the blithe, iconoclastic comedy, which we naively believed to be our television birthright, disappeared. It would not surface again for ages, not in the morning, not anywhere. Not only did “Three to Get Ready” vanish, but no record of it, on kinescope or even audiotape, is known to exist. Which makes the nine months of the Kovacs blitz more precious and poignant to those of us who experienced it.

The debut of the “Today” show linked Philadelphians with the rest of the country. Like TV watchers everywhere, we now got one morning view of the world: the network’s. The host, Dave Garroway, set the standard for folksy authority; the only irony a Philadelphian could savor was when the low ratings of “Today” were jacked up, in its second year, by the regular appearance of a chimpanzee named J. Fred Muggs. We could’ve told NBC: you can’t do a morning show without a monkey.

But that was small succor. For in a few years, Philadelphia was just about extinct as a regional producer of network entertainment. It was as if Ernie’s gangster had called out, “Hold it! Don’ nobody move,” and never said, “Re-sume.” Now the residents of the biggest small town in the country could ease back into our normal sulking posture and sing, “Nothin’ ever happens here in Philly.”