Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 1050 CHUM: Toronto Mike'd #1050
Episode Date: May 13, 2022In this 1050th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike dives deep into the history of 1050 CHUM as a top 40 station with Roger Ashby, Jim Van Horne, Chuck McCoy, Dave Williams, Scott Carpenter, Amber Payie an...d Doug Thompson. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Duer Pants and Shorts.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
1050 CHUM!
Welcome to episode 1050 of Toronto Mic'd.
Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery.
A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer.
Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA.
StickerU.com.
Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business.
Palma Pasta.
Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville.
Dewar, the world's most comfortable pants and shorts,
save 15% with the promo code TMDS.
Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921.
And Canna Cabana, The lowest prices on cannabis.
Guaranteed.
Over 100 stores across the country.
Learn more at cannacabana.com.
I didn't listen to 1050 Chum when it was a top 40 radio station.
But I know how much that station meant to so many of you.
When people of an older vintage
drop by and start
talking about 1050,
they light up.
Suddenly, they're a
teenager again.
This episode is
dedicated to every chumbug
FOTM.
There are two parts to this episode 1050.
First, a Zoom call I hosted with several voices you'll recognize.
Then, a 1050 Chum retrospective with Doug Thompson.
Let's listen.
Welcome everybody, episode 1050 of Toronto Mic'd and this is our
loving, our celebration of 1050 chum. We're going to go around the horn, the van horn,
if you will. We're going to go around. See what I see? I've been writing.
I caught that.
See what he did there? Did you see what he did there?
Yeah.
So I'll show you out one by one and then introduce yourselves and let us know what years you spent at 1050 Chum.
And then we'll basically hopefully start telling stories and sharing memories of your time there.
I'm going to start in the order I see you on my Zoom.
So it's kind of random.
Maybe it's the order you arrived, actually.
But let's start with recent FOTM, Scott Carpenter.
Scott, how are you doing, buddy?
I'm doing just absolutely great.
Great.
And thank you, because you were a big help in organizing this thing.
A lot of the people on the Zoom are here because you said, join us.
Yes, indeed.
Well, you know, when I say something,
people listen immediately.
They respond instantaneously.
Oh, there's Chuck.
Yeah, I was going to say,
if listeners hear bells and whistles
throughout the episode,
that's kind of an exciting thing.
That means, well, it could be exciting.
It means somebody showed up
and we're going to have a new person to talk to
or somebody got sick of all this and went to bed or something.
So, Scott, what years were you at 1050 Chum?
I started on New Year's Day, 1971, and I left on New Year's Eve, 1977.
So I was there exactly seven years.
And recently there's a deep dive with
you, but we're going to capture even more stories.
But let me just make sure I get
everybody intro'd here before we dive in.
This gentleman,
I haven't seen him in a while.
He showed at my door years ago and he said,
Mike, I've got 30 minutes.
That's all I've got.
And I said, I said, Mike, I've got 30 minutes. That's all I've got. And I said, Roger, this thing's like,
ask Jim Van Horn, this thing's like 90 minutes. And he was like, no, I got 30 minutes,
but it was all killer, no filler. Welcome back to the show, Roger Ashby.
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Sorry I did that to you, but it's nice to be here.
When was I at CHUM? Well well i started in august of 69
uh three days before woodstock and i left am in 1985
five went over to fm and you went to fm okay and does that all happen oh pardon my ignorance i'm
going to learn a lot on this uh recording but that's happening at the same building, 1331 Yonge Street. Well, I was in that building for 40 years from 69 to 2009.
And then we moved down to Queen Street when I was there until I retired in 2018.
Wow. And I think they only opened that building in 59. So that's something else. So Roger-
You know what? I got 10 bricks from the building when they tore it down. opened that building in 59 so uh yeah that's something else so roger what i got i got uh i
got 10 bricks from the building when they tore it down oh you bugger yeah well i got i got one of
them he gave me one yeah pat's got one of them but i would have gladly given you one dave except uh
i have lost touch with you but um i got 10 i had i saved one for myself and I gave some Dave Charles, Dave Masmanian,
Brad Jones, people like that. But I put a little plaque on mine. I had a little plaque made. It
said 1050 Chum, 104.5 Chum FM, 1959 to 2009. And that's on prominent display in my home. I'm very
proud of that. And then the guy who was behind the development, tearing the
building down and putting up the condos that are now there, I got to know him quite well. And I
spoke at the opening of their condos as someone who had previously worked in the Chum building.
And I also, when they demolished it, I got a light, a lamp that was just outside the front door and it was up in the roof overhanging the front door.
And I got jealous. I had it rewired and I've got it on the wall here.
Says chum when it's lit up. Roger. Well, welcome back.
I'm going to follow up with you later. I'm going to introduce everybody and then we're going to get into some of this, but nice to see you again. And next in the order I see you is David Wolfe. David,
welcome to Toronto Mic'd. Thanks, Mike. I was actually Dave Williams in 1977 on Chum,
and it's great to see faces. And actually, Roger, I don't know, Roger, if you remember,
but you were the one that really helped me get into CHUM.
Do you remember us meeting at some Canadian record conference somewhere?
I do. I don't remember it vividly, but I do remember that.
I think it would have been around 76 somewhere.
So I was in Kitchener at the time, met Roger and then came in and got interviewed by J. Robert Wood.
and then came in and got interviewed by J. Robert Wood.
And so for the year in 77, I was at Chum,
and then I went to Chum's Halifax station,
and eventually Chum's Montreal station before going to the U.S.
Maybe as we introduce, I'll find out if it's a fake name or not.
So Scott, I know that's a fake name because you're a Pat.
Pat Bergen is my real name.
Pat Bergen is your real name.
And Roger, you're one of the guys who got to keep his real name that is your real name yeah i i wasn't asked to change it and i was
glad i wasn't because i i really didn't want to and that sounds pretty cool roger ashby like why
would you change it if you had that name well i don't know because i don't know it could have been
richards or michaels or right but having said that actually david wolf is a cool name uh but I don't know. I don't know. It could have been Richards or Michaels. Right.
But having said that, actually, David Wolf is a cool name.
But why did you have to change your name to Dave Williams?
Because at that time, Wolfman Jack was doing Sunday night graffiti on Chum from, I think, 9 to midnight Sunday nights.
So two Wolfs in a row.
Wolfman somehow won out on the names.
wolves in a row, Wolfman somehow won out on the names.
So Jay Robert asked me to pick a few and include my middle name,
which is William.
So guess which one they settled on?
It became Dave Williams,
which my dad could never figure out and never really liked for some reason.
The fact that we changed the family name on the air,
but that's what it was.
And then I changed it back to Wolf after I left Toronto.
Well, you got to blame the Wolfman for that one yeah there you go right I cannot believe that this woman is making her uh Toronto mic debut now because we've been corresponding for what feels like
I don't know like a decade maybe is that possible but Amber Amber pay where the heck are you right
now and how are you doing I'm doing well I am currently unemployed and that's because I,
I,
I recently got married and followed my husband to sunny Arizona,
which is where I am now.
You,
you quit a gig at the region,
right?
Is that your last job?
Okay.
Yeah.
With FOTM and Romer.
Yes.
And Romer would come in and she'd come in just one or two days a week and do her side gig of a show that she had on called The Feed with Ann Romer.
And it was nice to reconnect with her because I hadn't seen her since I was booted out in 2017 from Chum.
So Amber, what years were you at 1050 Chum?
At 1050, I started with 1050 at the International Auto Show,
the Canadian International Auto Show, and that was 1994.
So I guess that was February 1994 until 1050 Chum was gone in 2009, like Roger.
Well, Amber, I'm going to have to kick you out of the Zoom.
Just kidding.
But originally I was thinking we focus on 1957 through 1986,
but you're so amazing and so lovely.
You have to stick around so you're not allowed to depart.
But thank you for being here.
That's awesome. Oh, thank you.
I'm listening.
I can't wait to hear all the stories.
I can't wait to hear how my buddy Jim Van Horn is doing because it's been too long and
he's paid at least two visits to the home studio here.
He even kicked out the jams.
How are you doing, Jim?
I'm good.
Don't you mean Dave Melnick?
Wait a minute.
That's not your real name, Jim van horn it's never has been no and
dave like your like your dad my my father wasn't too happy that i uh changed my name either but
he got over it pretty quick in fact when he was yeah just a quick story when he was 80 years old
he was living up in elliott lake and he had to get a have his driver's license test. So he did his test and he
failed. And the testing guy said to me, he said, I'm sorry, Mr. Melnick, you didn't qualify for
your license. I'll tell you what, he says, you give me my license and I'll give you a picture
of Jim, an autographed picture of Jim Van Horn. And he did, and he never got the picture.
So you're a Dave Melnick.
I was at Chum from 72 to 80 and then moved out to Calgary to do television.
Okay, amazing, Jim.
We're going to be catching up with you shortly.
Chuck, so is this, again, I can't see you, Chuck, but this is Chuck McCoy?
Well, listen, that's to your advantage that you can't see me, I think.
But I don't know.
I left and I went to the website where you test your camera and everything,
and it all worked fine.
So I don't know why it's not working here.
Yeah, maybe at some point during the convo, like unplug the USB,
plug it back in, and see if a miracle happens.
But how are you doing, Chuck?
I'm doing well.
I'm doing well. I left sunny Arizona and I moved to less sunny Portland.
Not as hot there.
Not as hot there. What years were you at 1050 Chum?
I went to Chum in the fall of
1968.
And was on the air there until December 31st, 1973.
And in fact, I did my last show on CHUM on New Year's Eve.
Got on a plane and went to Vancouver as PD to see fun and, uh,
arrived there at nine 30 and went to a New Year's Eve party.
Amazing.
Amazing.
Okay.
So again,
I'm,
this is not about me.
You won't hear it.
Hopefully you won't hear too much of my voice.
I'd love it if you guys did the heavy lifting cause you were there,
but I am of course curious about things such as,
did you listen to 10 50 chum before you got the gig there?
And how the heck you ended up at 1050 Chum?
Anything you can share with me in that regard would be awesome.
Well, I'll give you the story.
It's an old story.
I've told it many times.
But the truth is, I always wanted to be in radio my whole life and I was on a trip I lived in
came to Toronto with my parents visit my cousins and I heard 10 50 chum for the first time
should be about oh I don't know 1964 and I said to my dad I said, would you just drive me to 1331 Young?
I just want to have a look at this station and see what's, and he dropped me off, and
I stood at that window, and I was, you're old enough to remember that window, that chum
used to go right through the control room you could see the DJ on the
air and there was a guy on the air and I didn't even have a radio with me and I
watched him working and kept watching him and looking at him and staring at
him and eventually he gave me the wave and said you want to come in and sit
down for a minute well yeah of course and so I you want to come in and sit down for a minute? Well, yeah, of course.
And so I did, and I sat in there for a half an hour
and watched this chum DJ do this thing.
And I've been very grateful to Duff Roman ever since.
That's who was on the air at the time.
And Duff always hates me telling the story because I tell it that I was like a nine-year-old child and this gentleman was on the air.
Duff would have been about three years older than me.
But yeah, that was the day I said, because I haven't listened to radio all my life, but I heard Chum and was in Toronto. I thought, well, that's where I've got to be.
Two questions, Chuck. Two quick questions. One is
actually not a question, but when I mentioned you were coming on this program, I got
a message from listener Brian Shelley, who loves Toronto Mic'd,
and Brian said, say hi, that's my dad's first cousin.
That's right. That's right.
He is, yeah.
In fact, when I said I went to Toronto to visit with my relatives,
the Shelleys were the people I stayed with.
That's wild because I've been hearing from him for years.
That's amazing.
Now, and my last question for you, and then, of course,
many more as we proceed here.
I want to get some other voices on.
But did you always have those pipes?
Like, when you were nine years old?
Well, you know, you're not as aware of them, of course, when they belong to you.
You hear about other people.
But, you know, I never really thought about it.
It had nothing to do with me wanting to be in radio.
I always wanted to do that.
I managed to follow a remote around somewhere at a supermarket when I was eight years old
and got inside and read my first commercial at age eight so I always wanted to do it and um
yeah one day I was in grade 11 and uh I was singing along with Blue Moon, and all of a sudden I went, Blue, and I thought, oh my God, something happened here.
And so I don't think it got in the way of me getting a job,
but I never thought of it as being, I thought I was funnier than I was,
deep-voiced.
Right, Roger?
Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Chuck.
Well, Roger, now let's hear from you.
Was 1050, was that your target?
This is where I want to be?
Like, were you a listener, Will, before you were on the air there?
Well, I was a listener from the time I was about 10,
and I started there three days before my 20th birthday.
So, yeah, I was very much influenced by Chum.
It wasn't really my ultimate goal. My goal was just to get into radio. And before I was at Chum,
I was at CKOC in Hamilton for a year. And I thought I'd be there for longer than a year.
I enjoyed it there very much. But I was fortunate enough to get the call from J. Robert Wood. They
needed somebody overnight. And would I come down and audition?
And I said, of course I would.
So, you know, I'm grateful for all of that.
But I was very much familiar with the station before I ever got there.
Roger, I'd heard a story that you had a mock radio set up in your basement before you got into radio and used to play disc jockey in the basement.
Is that true? I did from the time I was 10 until I was 17. Other kids would be at the high school
football game or whatever. And I'd be at home sitting in the basement talking to the four walls.
And my dad set it up for me in a horseshoe shape. So I had the microphone in front of me. I had a
tape recorder to the left, a turntable, two turntables to the right. And I would just sit there and play radio. And I,
I do that for hours on end. And then my dad hooked up the radio so that it, or yeah,
hooked up my microphone to the radio in the kitchen. So my mother could listen.
So she was, she was my only audience, but yeah, I had seven years experience before I got my first
job. I realized I like this better. Like, you know, Jim, sorry, Dave, I had seven years experience before I got my first job.
I realize I like this better.
Like, you know, Jim, sorry, Dave, I'm going to call you Jim Van Horn because.
Yeah, that's what everybody calls me.
Jim, just you guys.
So feel free to take this thing over because I would just ask the same question to you, Jim.
Were you a fan of the station well before you worked there?
Well, being born and raised in Toronto, I grew up listening to Chuck.
I listened to Chuck.
I listened to Roger before I got hired.
I listened as far back as Albalisca. Are you hitting the microphone?
Just making sure you don't touch that microphone.
Oh, I don't know.
Anyway, I used to listen to Albalisca and Mike Darrow and John Sprague and John Gilbert and Larry Solway.
And the guy that I listened to the most that I absolutely loved and I got to know him pretty well later in life was Bob Lane.
And I'd go to bed at night and one of the last things I would hear before I would fall asleep was,
Hello world, this is Bob Bo. Hello Bob Bo, this is world. And then he was off to his all night show. And so I grew up listening to the
radio station and I was very much like Chuck. I always wanted to be in radio. I wanted to get
paid for playing records because I figured it was an easy job. And eventually after two years of
slugging it in the hinterland, I made it.
Bob Wood called me very much like he called Roger and asked me to come in.
And I did.
And I had eight unbelievable years there.
It was just, it was the time of my life.
It's like getting called up to the big leagues.
It's like you're in AAA and the phone rings and it's like, we need you in the big club.
Well, I've been in Hamilton.
I was in hamilton at
cham at the time which was a rock station a pop station it's i think it's now country i'm not sure
but i'd only been there for two weeks and they had paid for my move from regina and i got the
call just i just got off the air and the receptionist said dave there's a a call for you from Toronto. Would you like to?
So I took it in the jock lounge. I answered the phone. He says, is this Dave Malik? I said, yeah.
He says, hi, it's Bob Wood from Chum in Toronto. I said, yeah, right. Sure. I didn't believe it
was him. He said, and he laughed and said, we'd like you to come in for an interview to see if
you'd like to work. I said, are you serious? He said serious he said yeah i said when can you be here i said well tomorrow and so we set up the time and i went and
two weeks after starting in hamilton i gave two weeks notice that i was leaving leaving to go to
chum and they were they were really pissed because they had paid for my move and all and bob wood
said don't worry about that we We'll take care of it. And
paid me, I think it was, I don't know, maybe 13,000 a year to start. Maybe, I think it was
about 13,000 a year to start. And I thought I was in heaven. I thought, man, if I can make 13,000
a year for the rest of my life, I'd be, it's nirvana. And that started an incredible journey.
Well, Jim, I just want to add one more thing.
Anything.
For people who are listening to this for the first time, about 1050 Chum, that was a golden era of radio in North America.
Chum was highly influential, not only in Canada, but the United States.
They had some of the best disc jockeys in the world working at the radio station.
And it was like, it was, it was incredible. We were true disc jockeys. We used to pick our own
music, you know, with guidelines. It was, nothing was computerized and it was just,
it was a marvelous time. It was a great time to be a disc jockey in radio.
Amazing. Yeah. And I'm going to ask for your origin story there,
Dave Williams.
And then when I come back to you,
Scott,
I'm hoping you'll help explain this Drake format that,
you know,
people we talk about all the time,
but Dave Williams,
what,
how'd you end up at Chum?
And were you a listener beforehand?
No,
I definitely,
I was listening to Chum and CFTR.
But prior to that,
I had worked around the Southwestern Ontario region at CHIME
and Kitchener, also at CKOC with Nevin Grant at the helm. He was music director, but he was really
program director. I could never really figure that Armadale system out too well. But I was in
Hamilton, also in Guelph for a while at CJOY and at CHIMime three different times. And it was kind of interesting.
Roger did that deal in the basement, and I had almost the same thing.
I ended up doing a basement radio station and put stanchions around the front
because my brother would bring his friends downstairs to take a look at the deal.
And I got a Heath kit for Christmas back then, and I remember opening it up,
and there were like 1 a thousand electronic experiments you could
do. But the one that caught my eye was that if you attached wires a certain way, you could actually
transmit right from your house. So of course there were rules. And in the little handbook,
there was in black bold letters that you were never allowed to put an antenna more than 10
feet long from this little electronic board, circuitry board. So, of course, I immediately hooked it up to the TV tower on the house,
on the roof outside.
And my mother was driving home with groceries one day and said,
what the hell's going on?
Basically, you blacked out all the stations on my little car radio here.
So I was really getting a good signal off of that TV tower.
So I wonder I didn't blow the whole joint up.
I had no idea what I was doing, but it did get me a great signal.
So that was my prior life. But I did listen to Chum. I went to Conestoga College for radio and TV arts in Kitchener in the Dune area there, if they still call it Dune. Larry Solway was a speaker. Actually, he was a teacher. Once a week, he would come in and tell us about his days and his great book, The Day I Discovered Sex, which I guess ultimately led to his demise at Chum, from what I recall. Maybe some others know that a little
history. And I believe, anybody want to jump in on this? John Gilbert, I think, replaced Larry
Solway. That's right. He came in. Yeah. Larry pretty much sealed his fate with that book.
Yeah. And then the next thing you know you've got john
gilbert was an entirely different personality by the way that changed the show 180 degrees
much better be honest i can tell you i can tell you a good john gilbert story go oh that's a good
one um he uh well first of all they had they had daily meetings to discuss what they were going to do the next day
on the show. And I was never part of those, except one time they asked me to come in because
somebody was away. So I went in, I was in on the meeting and everything went well. And I thought,
oh, this is fantastic. The next morning I'm in the office. I had a little desk in an office,
Warren Cosford and I shared an office and I hear footsteps coming
down the hall and it's John Gilbert. And I said, good morning, John. He says, good morning. And
then he says, he says, by the way, I know you were in the meeting yesterday, but I've forgotten.
What's my topic today? This is five minutes before he's due to go on. I said, it's capital
punishment. Are you for it or against it? Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sorry.
Thanks.
So I hear him walk down the hall and then he stops and he comes back and he says, am
I for it or against it?
I said, John, you're against it.
Oh, okay.
Great.
Thanks.
Five minutes later.
I think we should discontinue Capital One Law.
Larry Solway's name has come up a couple
times here, and it's funny because
when I started at Chum,
Jay Robert Wood was
not the program director of the station.
Larry Solway
was the program director.
And I
don't think that
he had any
great desire to hire me to go to Chum,
but between Bob Wood and the consultant at the time, Ted Randall,
they talked Larry into hiring me so I can call clearly as it would happen today,
walk into Larry's office, and I'd never met him before.
And he said, well well they tell me I've
got to hire you so you're hired
that's
just a great way to kick off
my career at show Larry thanks very much
and I think he was gone shortly
shortly thereafter
as he did the David Rubin sex
show he had a
yacht and
he parked it over at Center Island.
Well, no, right over where Ontario Place, where that marina is.
Guess what the yacht was called?
I'll tell you.
Bingo player.
Because of his audience, you know, that was the kind of the term that he used to describe his listeners, bingo players.
That was the kind of the term that he used to describe his listeners, bingo players.
Does anybody happen to remember the jock meeting that was called the day after John Gilbert showed up at the station around midnight and decided to go on the air and play rock and roll DJ for about half an hour?
I never even heard about that.
Not familiar with that.
Not sure who was partying where, uh yeah he he rolled into the station and uh whoever i was not on that all night show but i certainly heard about it and i had to
be at the chalk meeting the next day because uh jay robert kind of read the riot act that that
would never ever happen again but it was great radio and john gilbert came right out of his
normal personality and just went crazy on the air. He might've done like four sets or something. There is the tape around on that. And just while
I'd love to hear that one. Oh yeah. It's around. And by the way, I have to ask Scott,
I remember before joining Chum, one of the legendary air checks that was making the rounds
was you were on the air with a caller and I can't believe, I guess it was live at the time.
Yeah, it would have been probably. and i think that the caller had to identify maybe what the name of the song oh yeah
they i said that told me to take a half way through and i remember the supremes come on
the record was beautiful right afterwards and you were right there but i was wondering if you
recalled that that was like pretty wild that one yeah yeah that was yeah it was a bit of a shock to me but uh yeah that sort of thing does happen and you
you have to kind of have the presence of mind to come up with something you know and those calls
were live right nobody was uh no nothing was taped well they did they started taping them later i
think i might have been the genesis of that because if I recall correctly,
yeah, we were starting to tape phone calls not long after that.
So maybe that was what, you know, started that.
Well, Scott, you were never,
you were never afraid to do anything on the air.
No.
They called you the boogeyman and you certainly were.
I can remember once there was,
there was a situation where you had said something on the air
or had performed in a way that Bob Wood didn't appreciate.
Well, which day are you talking about?
Yeah, one of those days.
That happened once a week.
And he took exception and he told you how he wanted you to present.
Oh.
And you took it for the next week.
You took it to the absolute extreme.
Actually, I'll tell you, that's how the whole thing.
I'll tell you the story about that.
I was on the air, and I was not feeling well.
I had the flu or something.
And I guess I must have sounded a little down or something.
And he called me up.
And you will know, if Bob Wood called you, and he called you by name,
and in my case it was Scotty my case, it was Scotty.
He said, Scotty, you knew you were in deep shit.
And he said, you're sounding a little down today.
I wonder if you could pick it up a little bit.
Well, I felt off.
I mean, I was sick, right?
And I thought, oh, I feel terrible.
And he's trying to get me oh i'll
fix him yeah oh so the next set i went on the air and i was yelling and howling and jumping up and
down and pulling my hair out and all of that and uh i sat back down after i did the intro you know
and i'm waiting sure enough bat phone rings uh scotty that's just the way I like it.
And I was stuck
with that from that day on.
There's one common thread
I think through
most of us guys here.
It is J. Robert
Wood, of course.
I worked with J. Robert
Wood at three radio stations. I worked with him at with three radio stations.
I worked with them at my first station in Winnipeg, CKY,
and then he brought me to CHLO in St. Thomas and then over to Chum.
So he was a mentor and a leader of a radio station,
a radio station that really took on his personality and I think everybody would agree that he was,
he had great insight.
He was dedicated to the station and to the job
and he took risks.
He would, you know.
Well, you had to take risks. mean the one thing about bob what you you you were you wanted to talk about the drake format i'll give you a little background on
the drake format the drake format was uh designed to um kind of stylize radio a little bit it had
been uh a little herky jerky you, the guys would be yapping away.
And it was kind of cluttered, basically, is what it was.
And what Bill Drake did was he designed a format that streamlined the whole thing.
And there were very particular ways that you would address doing your bits on the air.
They had to fit in a certain kind of a formatic style.
You know, you had to, you couldn't talk
over X number of seconds, and
there were all kinds of ways
that he had of eliminating
any superfluous
talk so that he could get more
music in. And there was always
a forward momentum with
the Drake format.
So, you know, what we did at chum
bob wood came into chum to kind of institute something similar to the drake format so he put
it in place but he always said you got to take this one step further and i'd never heard that
before i'd worked for some of the most strict programmers.
Mike Joseph was even more strict than the Drake format, you know, and I came from Joseph when I
went to CKLW. But Bob called me into the office and he said, if you're going to succeed on this
radio station, you've got to become a personality. And I, what the heck are you talking about?
And he kind of coached me and he did with everybody
here as well he had a collection of one-liner books robert orban one-liner books and he gave
them to everybody to look at and he was absolutely right because a one-liner is the is the is the most
basic form of humor you have a beginning a middle and an end you can do that one-liner in 10 seconds
and it'll work or you can stretch that out to
a two-minute bit, and as long as the beginning,
the middle, and the end are there, you've got it.
And so, he
coached us all. He also said, and this was
the smartest thing I think he ever did in terms of
content, always watch the
Carson monologue, okay?
Because those
writers are tuned in
to what people are aware of.
They are never too hip for the room.
If he talks about something in his monologue, people are aware of it and you can make a
make a bit out of it.
And boy, I'll tell you, I took that to the bank.
I mean, he was very good at that and he insisted that you be an entertainer.
And that's the difference between Chum and everybody that you're looking at here or listening to,
that's the difference between us and the other stations.
We were a family.
We were, without question, zeroed in on Toronto.
We were the Toronto radio station.
If you remember CFTR, you didn't hear much Toronto on CFTR,
but you sure heard it on Chum.
We focused in on that city, Toronto, alone,
and I think that probably was one of the biggest reasons
that we were successful and are remembered to this day,
and that's J. Robert Wood.
I mean, that's what he wanted.
You know, he was probably one of the most, in radio,
he was the most influential person for me.
He was truly, as Chuck would say, he was a real mentor to me.
And I'll never forget, I was doing the all-night show,
and my job was to call J. Nelson in the morning at 4 o'clock.
Morning, Mr. Nelson.
It's 45 degrees outside.
It's raining.
You might want to put on a raincoat when you're coming in today and then hang up the phone. So one morning and I
lived directly behind the radio station. Like I was a two minute walk from the radio station to
my apartment. So I handed it off at the, at six o'clock at 6.00 AM so that the news would come
on and then it would be the Nelson show. I hand it off. I go home.
I climb into bed. The phone rings and it's Bob. Jim, you're supposed to be here until the next
guy comes in. Jay Nelson is not here and there's nobody on the air. This is six o'clock in the
morning and I'm in bed. I said, OK. So I hung up the phone, threw on my clothes, went back to the
radio station,
jumped into the studio as the news was ending, and Jay Nelson walks in.
And I said, good morning, turned around and left, walked by Bob's office,
and he's sitting in the office at 6 o'clock in the morning,
and he was writing something on one of his famous full-scap pieces of paper.
He had these full-scap notes that he kept all the time. And he just lifted his head and he looked at me and he said, don't ever let
this happen again. He went back to his work and I went back to bed. Never happened again. And it
was those kinds of lessons that he taught that he demanded,
not perfection, but he demanded you to be the best that you could be
every second that you were on the air.
And I learned so much from him over the years.
But Roger Ashby always followed me on the air,
and he was always there on time.
But I would try and get out of that station pretty quick once Roger got there.
Do you remember that, Roger?
I do.
It would be because you would choose your last song that was long enough
that you could get home before the song ended.
You lived over near Casa Loma, I think.
Yes.
So you'd play Hey Jude, for example,
which gave you seven minutes to get out of the studio and get home.
And when you got home, there were no cell phones.
When you got home, you would call me to tell me you were home and the song was still playing.
Roger?
Just a little game we would play.
And we played a lot of games, I think, at the radio station and you know working with some of the
people there was a big thrill for me and I obviously learned a lot and you know
I'm just thinking here during my tenure there Bob Lane, Jane Elson, Terry Steele, Jack Armstrong, Tom Rivers,
all were a big part of Chum when I was there.
And sadly, those people have all departed.
I don't know if I missed anybody else that was there when I was there.
Well, Daryl B., Dude Walker.
Yeah, they were after me worked with Daryl in Winnipeg
in my first job
and
Daryl worked for me in Vancouver
as an
after-meet-up when I was VP
Hal Weaver too Chuck
that's right
I worked with Hal in St. Thomas with Bob.
Hal was, I think he was brilliant.
I mean, I just think he was just God-given talent, this man had.
Yeah.
But he was a rascal.
Yeah.
He did things and wrote checks.
Yep, for Cadillacs.
He didn't even have a bank that wrote a lot of that check.
But I remember one time I was working in the music department,
and a police officer came to the door at Chum and said,
oh, Hal Weaver has left the tape for me.
He's promised to record some music for my mother and father's wedding anniversary.
I wonder if I can pick it up.
And I said, well, Hal's here, so I'll go talk to him.
I said, Hal, there's a couple out here that you recorded some music for their parents' wedding anniversary.
And he said, oh shit,
I forgot to do that. Okay, well,
what do I tell him?
He went to the
cupboard, pulled out a tape,
and said, just give him this tape.
And that was
how. But he was brilliant.
He was, I mean,
all these guys were, I mean, working with Jack Armstrong was a. He was amazing. All these guys were.
Working with Jack Armstrong was a real treat too.
I mean, I loved working with Jack.
He was a real character.
Man, that guy loved radio too.
And he ended up, I don't know where,
I think he probably worked at 30 stations.
Yeah. He didn't stay long. LA was the I think he probably worked at 30 stations. Yeah.
He didn't stay long.
LA was the last place he worked.
KTLA?
LA.
Yeah, LA.
Los Angeles.
And then he basically retired to Pennsylvania
or somewhere on the East Coast there.
And sadly, he had a heart attack.
Yeah.
Good. and sadly had a heart attack. Yeah. May I ask about a couple of other departed colleagues of yours?
Bob McAdory.
Can anybody tell me about Bob?
I only, Bob was gone from the station by the time I got there,
but I certainly listened to Bob McAdory on an afternoon drive.
And I got to know Bob as just a guy, you know, and so on.
Good guy.
Had a lot of ups and downs in his life.
But he was, in my mind anyways, between the Toronto Telegram
and Chum and Bob McIndoe.
That was kind of, this is early 60s, you know.
How about John Major?
He left us far too soon.
I never knew John, but.
John was a great guy, I can tell you.
He was a fabulous jock, but he was also a really, really good friend.
And Sandy and I went down to visit with him when he was in South Carolina, not long before he died. And he was, you know, programming a station down there.
We went to dinner.
It looked fine to us.
I mean, we didn't know anything was wrong.
And sure enough, it wasn't that much later that he died.
He also had a great time on City TV doing television, right?
Well, yeah, he was.
Toronto Rocks.
Yeah, he was part of the original group of VJs on that.
Yeah, he was a major personality. As a matter of fact, I think when he left Toronto,
he did it to do TV in the States.
And he was doing some kind of a show there, and something happened.
I don't know what happened, but he wound up back in radio.
I got him a job at KLAC in Los Angeles, and he was there for a while.
I visited with him in Los Angeles, and he had just finished a demo for a show,
and that was when I happened to connect with him,
and he was waiting to see if it got approved or what the –
I think they gave him 13 weeks or something on that TV show.
That was the last time I saw John.
Prior to that, though, back in 1977, we'd often get together over at his place.
I think he was up past i was
like around uh uh well north york i guess if i remember that area he had a house up there so
he and his wife dion i want to say anybody yeah yeah that's a great great uh couple to hang out
with for sure major major was a guy he he i think he was wise beyond his years in very, very many ways. I remember one night I was following him on the air and he was in there and I went into the studio, we started commiserating and I was really young. I mean, I think I was 19 or 20 when I was there, when John was there.
about, you know, the job and I'm not going to get any chances to move up and everybody's been there for so long and all the rest.
And he just sort of listened for a few minutes and then looked at me and he said, who the
hell do you think you are?
He said, do you think these people owe you a living?
Do you think that they are here to serve you and your goals?
He said, you want something, you better go after it yourself and you better start to
man up.
And if you really want to be successful at this job,
you better start working your ass off.
And I just sort of looked at him.
And at the time, it was like, I didn't get it.
But I thought about it for like five minutes and he was right.
He was dead right.
I mean, it was part of the growing process.
I mean, it was part of the growing process. But he had that gravitas that a lot of young people didn't have.
He'd had a career that started in, was it Yankton or Rapid City?
I guess South Dakota.
And so he came up that way.
He came up from the ground up.
There weren't any, you know, medium markets or anything like that.
You're talking little tiny bergs with a little stick in the air for, you know, 250-watt, 1,000-watt radio stations.
And I assume, I don't know this for sure, but I would guess that he probably bounced around quite a few of them and learned quite a few lessons early on.
You do. I did. You know uh you know 250 watt radio stations i had to work part-time at dawn donuts making donuts to make ends meet so i know what that's like and and you know if you do that and you get
somewhere you appreciate it hey how about pat riley anybody ever in touch with Pat Riley? Nope.
I don't know whatever happened to Pat.
Yeah.
Don't forget there was the Duke.
We had Duke Roberts.
Yeah, Duke is down in Florida, and he's kind of a recluse, I understand.
He is a recluse for sure.
But he came back on the air at Chum Roger when we did one of those Chum.
On the phone. He was on the air at Chum Roger when we did one of those Chum. On the phone.
He was on the phone.
And Johnny Mitchell, another name.
He died here recently.
A couple of years ago.
Yeah, he was Sonny Fox.
He was doing XM, I think.
Yeah, yeah. And Johnny Mitchell and J. Michael Wilson.
Yeah.
J. Michael was a pretty talented guy, really.
But, you know, unlike the other bunch of us that are talking about great passion
he had for radio, J. Michael Wilson had no real love of radio.
He was good at it.
He came out of Keener in Detroit.
But I visited him once in Washington when he was good at it. He came out of Keener in Detroit.
I've visited him once in Washington when he was at WRC.
He was just kind of
waiting to get out of the business
and get doing something legitimate.
He won't even talk about it now.
Last time I heard anything about
J. Michael Wilson, they tried to get him to do
something. He wouldn't even comment on radio,
let alone take part in it.
We would have some.
Jim Nettleton, who worked at WFIL in Philadelphia.
And WABC.
Yes.
And he worked at Chum on the weekend.
Yeah.
And one of my jobs was to drive him to the airport.
Howard Stern came up looking for a job at Chum.
I met with Bob Wood in the early 70s.
Late 70s.
Was it the late 70s?
He was talking to him to replace me.
Nobody could replace you, Scotty.
Wait, wait, wait. Hold on.
I could name about a thousand
that could replace me pretty easily.
Let's understand this. I believe
I have seen Howard telling Brian Linehan about this.
I feel like I've seen footage of that.
But so are you telling me, Scott, that Howard Stern interviewed to replace you at 1050 Chum?
Well, that's what I understand.
He came up to talk to Bob.
I mean, probably have to ask Bob Wood about it, but it was right after I left.
And they didn't, I guess they didn't wow somebody
permanently for that and howard was working in detroit at the time so bob had him come up to
toronto they had dinner at the ports of call and and bob felt that he wasn't suitable for it so
i don't know who i don't know who they got but they didn't they didn't hire howard well speaking
of okay people who are famous for other things, does anyone have any stories
about a young Rick Allen
working at the station?
Didn't know him.
That's Rick Moranis.
That's Rick Moranis. I actually, my last
recording, again, this will air later, but
I just talked to Dave Thomas
just a couple
of days ago. So Rick Moranis,
a lot of Rick Moran's talk in that one.
But Rick Allen, which Allen was his middle name,
definitely did some shifts, right, Roger, at 10.50?
He did. He did some on 10.50,
and then he was on FM as well for longer than he was on AM.
I never really knew him all that well,
but you could tell he had a lot of talent.
I'd see him in the morning coming off the all-night show,
so he was on Chum FM, I guess, doing the morning show,
and we'd meet in the jock lounge briefly back then.
But you have to remember Chum FM in 1968 or 69.
When did you write a show, Roger?
69.
69.
That's where you went if you weren't cutting it.
And Bob Woodward threatened, you know,
you're going to end up on Chum FM, you know.
Because Chum AM was everything,
and Chum FM at that time wasn't really anything.
And somehow Roger took the bait and went to Chum FM and built somewhat of a career out of it.
Somewhat.
Yeah, that's what it was.
I mean, Chum FM was just the back there, that's all.
And it wasn't really, none of the FM's had any real ratings.
I think Chum FM had more listeners at night than they had in the morning because it was that kind of a station.
You know, it wasn't really a morning radio station.
And I remember when I did the all-night show,
I would go to the men's room and maybe Tim Thomas or somebody who was on the
air at FM would be in there and we'd be chatting and he'd be asking me what I
was playing.
And I'd say, sugar, sugar by the Archies.
And of course he'd roll his eyes as if
to say you poor
guy I'm playing Frank Zappa
you know they thought
they were they thought they were better than us
David Pritchard you know
he had a certain attitude about
him and David
Marsden
yeah
I remember the time Frank Zappa
walked into my control room when I was on the air.
I brought him in and all of a sudden he was sitting on
Sugar Sugar was probably playing.
How embarrassing.
One of the funniest bits I ever heard on radio was with Pete and Geetz in the morning on Chum FM.
They were having people
phone in and they were
some kind of contest. They were giving something away.
And this guy finally got through and he was
so excited. He said, you have no idea how long
I've tried to get through to you. I've called
every day for years and years and years. And now I'm
finally on the air with Pete and Geetz.
And without missing a beat,
Pete says, thanks for calling.
Bye.
Bye.
Yeah, I think Geetz, David Hayden,
he's one of my longest friends in the radio business.
He and I worked together at CKFH before I came to Chum.
And he was in the production department then.
And then eventually we ended up at Chum together.
He's an amazing guy, multi-talented, and just a lovely man, lovely man.
Now, Amber and gentlemen, I'm going to throw a name at you.
John Belmont.
Oh, yeah.
I know John from, well, John worked at Chum in the newsroom.
And then I – they sent me up to Vancouver to be program director at CFUN.
And I needed a news director.
And so I hired John Belmont to be my news director.
And he was good.
I mean, he knew what he was doing.
He just wasn't going to last long because he wanted to get to ABC or
something like that.
So we lost him.
He was,
he retired from ABC,
I think just recently.
Yeah,
I think that's true.
I think that's right.
Yeah.
But yeah.
I asked for a reason because he submitted some audio.
So I'm going to ask,
and I like this expression,
Amber and gentlemen,
I'm going to,
I just like that.
I'm going to use that for the rest of this chat here, but I'm going to ask, and I like this expression, amber and gentlemen. I just like that. I'm going to use that for the rest of this chat here.
But I'm going to play some John.
So the next voice you hear, and this is going to run a few minutes,
but it's worthwhile.
Let's hear from John Belmont.
Hi, it's John Belmont.
I was at Chum News in the mid-70s,
and if I have any claim to fame there,
it's that I was sent to London to fly
back to Toronto with the Bay City Rollers in first class up in the old upstairs bar
of a 747.
They were coming to T.O. to record an album, and that, of course, led to Bay City Roller
Day on Nathan Phillips Square.
The jocks were up
on stage introducing the group. They didn't play, they just came out and said
hi. And I was down on the square behind the police line watching girls faint and
cops pick them up and carry them away. It was quite a day. 65,000 people there that day, far more than greeted the Beatles at Kennedy Airport in 1964.
Dick Smythe was an amazing news director.
I worked for his understudy, Byron McGregor, at CKLW before Dick brought me to Toronto, and he was a wonderful boss and a great teacher.
He also was a heck of a personality personality as you know from listening to him. One story I'd like to share with you is the night we went to
one of these medieval type restaurants where they didn't serve you with utensils but they put your
food on a slice of bread and you ate it off that with your fingers.
It advertised free wine unlimited.
And so as our news meeting went on and we drank more and more free wine,
Dick decided to stand up on his chair and offer a toast to the queen.
At that point, the management of the restaurant decided our unlimited wine
would be limited for the rest of the evening.
Dick used to sing a song that was a takeoff of Ed Walker and Willard Scott
when they worked at WMAL in Washington.
They had a song called The Joy Boys
of Radio. Dick changed it to The Glad Boys of Radio and once recorded it on the Chum Sports
Line for everybody to hear. Here in my off-key version is how it went. We are the Glad Boys of radio. Hello, hello, hello, hello.
We're here to entertain you and sing a song.
Hello, hello, hello, hello.
Then he modulated up a key and repeated it,
and that was the end of the Glad Boys of radio.
Dick, I love you. Thank you for the opportunity.
Folks, have a good time on the podcast.
I have to ask Roger
about Charlie Tuna.
Bob Wood also encouraged us to listen to tapes
of other radio stations. And I think
Roger, you and I took that very seriously.
We listened to tapes all the time.
He was the master of the one-liner.
He could throw so much personality into a seven-second song intro that,
you know, other people would take three minutes to do it.
He could do it in seven seconds.
You know, we did.
And I would get a tape or we would get a tape, or we would
get a tape
in the job
lounge there
every day,
and you know,
you come in
an hour and
you listen to
them,
and I'd
write them
down in a
book which
Roger sent
me.
He found
it somewhere.
He sent
me a couple
years ago
that book
that I'd
written all
this thing
about.
I listened
to Charlie
Tuna my
first day in
radio.
He was
working in
Oklahoma City doing evenings,
and I would listen on my way to do my L.A. trip.
And then I would listen to Charlie Tuna when he went to Boston
and get tapes and listen to Charlie in Boston.
And then, of course, we'd listen to tapes in L.A.
And I listened to tapes of Charlie Tuna long after I was off the air.
I was B.D.
And I was still, like you said, Roger,
I was just enamored by this guy and how he could do it
and how he could put all that content in such a small place.
Every break.
Every break.
And you'd play 15 songs an hour.
The interesting part of the story,
I was going to say to make a long story short, too late for that, but it was about four years before I retired.
I retired in 2008, I guess, and I was working with some consultants. up at KBIG in Los Angeles and we were going to meet with Chachi Deans who was the program
director at KBIG
about
doing some work
with him and so we
met in the morning
at 9 o'clock and he said
do you mind if I
bring my morning team in because I'd like them
to be part of any discussion we have
yeah sure bring them in.
And they came in, and Chachi said, Chuck McCoy, this is Charlie Tuna,
and this is so-and-so.
We're going to talk about something.
I just said, whoa.
Whoa.
We're not talking about anything.
I've been following Charlie Tuna since K-L-M-A in Oklahoma City,
and I listened to him
everywhere he's worked
and I still listen to him
and I'm going to talk to this guy
so I talked to him and I didn't talk
and it was probably because
nobody had ever talked to him about Oklahoma City
or you know
small town radio stuff
that he did and he was pretty keen
on listening to me talk about him and
the gentleman
I was with
David you know Reg
and I was with Reg
and I said Reg that was
great so the next morning
I'm listening to the radio Charlie Toons
on the air
he mentioned my name on the air
in Los Angeles he mentioned my name on the air in Los Angeles.
He mentioned my name.
And I said, Reg, he mentioned
my name. And Reg's line,
which I think is great, he said,
well, Chuck, you were gushing.
KOMA probably was more
it was the most
influential radio station in that part of the country by far.
They had a 50,000-watt signal that went everywhere.
1520 on the dial.
1520 on the dial, clear channel, and 50,000 watts.
I'm sure they did.
I don't know what they did, but it must have been illegal because that thing went everywhere.
I used to listen to it constantly.
J. Michael Wilson was there.
Charlie Tuna was there.
When I was stationed in Minot, North Dakota
at night, you could get KOMA and that's
what I listened to. I'll tell you, that was one
great radio station and some of the
greatest talents in the history of this business
went well. And great jingles.
Yeah, good jingles too.
Here's truly KOMA.
Amber, can I just check in with you briefly here?
How are you enjoying it so far?
I want to know what it's like from your perspective.
What, this?
Yes, this.
All of this?
Yes, yes.
Oh, no, it's amazing.
It's unbelievable.
And I never worked with J. Robert Wood.
I certainly heard a lot about him.
I've met him at some of the, every year,
where he used to be anyway, we have a chum gathering in May, towards the end of May,
May 27th time, for the, I guess that's chum's anniversary, May 27th. And I have met him there,
but, you know, some of the stories of the people that you're speaking about, I have known later on than everybody else.
I used to write for Dick Smythe at 680 News and CFTR, and I worked for Bob Lane.
And, you know, certainly know Duff Roman, and I know Geetz.
I never met Pete, but, you know, all of these names.
And, of course, I mean, I'm just looking at stars that I listened to
growing up as well I mean I worked with Jim Van Horn when he was said at the team and that's how
I got to know Jim of course I know Roger a lot well and I I know Scott or Pat through all of
those chum gatherings that we have in in. But I don't know, David.
I don't know if I've even seen you before.
But so all the stories that you're saying,
I don't actually know some of the people,
but then others I do
because CHUM was such an amazing place to be
where you started
and you had this wonderful, long, generous, fun career
and some of us longer than others
so it's, the stories
are incredible, they always are so
I'm very silent and very happy to be silent
You don't know me
but now you don't even know what I look like
because the camera doesn't
Well you know Chuck, I think I've actually met you before
Oh really?
and I'm not sure
it's some sort of party or maybe it was the 50th anniversary or
perhaps one of the
times when Chum was going
off the air or something
like that but I know I've met
you. I wasn't much of a party guys
Amber is
kind of the connecting
thing between the old Chum
and then the rebirth
of it when it went back from the team to a music
station. And Amber, it's so wild meeting
you this way for the first time upside down.
You know what? I'm no different in person. I am
a little bit off. This is normal for Amber. She does this
all the time. But I've got to throw in a couple
of events that I was thinking about
today with the podcast coming up
that maybe some people will remember.
And there were, even in that
one year that I was at CHUM in Toronto
in 1977,
it was just an amazing year because
it was the year Elvis died. And I remember
the quick preparation. I was on
the air and got a call from Bob Wood and it was the year Elvis died, and I remember the quick preparation. I was on the air and got a call from Bob Wood,
and it was to start promoting the Elvis special,
which I guess was being worked on in the back studio somewhere.
That was in 77, but also 77 was the year that the Rolling Stones played at the El Macombo.
And that was just an unbelievable event.
I remember Bob saying to me that I could take the night off
and that I should be in the front bus.
And what I heard, and some may be able to clarify this more, they had to bring in special thinner buses to be able to fit in the back alleys to get to the back door of the El Macombo.
So they could throw some of the people off that were trying to figure out where the Stones were playing for that one concert.
And I guess there were about six or seven buses i got in the front row i still to this day believe in life magazine if you look up that edition of that particular show you can see
the back of my head but the bigger news was certainly that margaret truda was waiting in
the back of the room to meet mick afterwards anybody happen to recall some of that oh i remember margaret very well from that show
i remember the whole thing with margaret i got charlie watts drumsticks he threw them right out
i was in the front rows but the thing about that promotion was that nobody knew it was the rolling
stones everybody thought it was a band a brand new band called the cockroaches i missed that part
yeah and that's well we couldn't say the rolling stones
were going to be at the elma combo there are 200 people maximum that you could get into place
so they gave away tickets to the cockroaches and they should have known that with april wine as the
opening act maybe that maybe this wasn't really a brand new band called the cockroaches and uh
boy i'll tell you something it was amazing
and i was never a huge rolling stones fan frankly i didn't really like them much but as soon as they
started that show at the elmo i was there with terry steel we were very close to the front of
the stage and as soon as they started that show i knew immediately why they were called the greatest bar band in the world, because they just tore the roof off that joint.
We did that a couple of times in Toronto.
Once at Phoenix, I saw them at the Phoenix nightclub.
And what's the name of that club that's on the lake shore by the tennis club?
Halle Royale.
Halle Royale.
Halle Royale Palais Royale
and it was about 41 degrees
Celsius
and
I had a ticket to go
but my young son was with me
he was about 12 and I said no I can't
go I gotta look
after my son he's visiting me from Vancouver
and he said well I'll get you
another ticket so I took my 12 year old-old son to the Palo Alto.
And it was so hot.
And he collapsed.
He collapsed and we had to carry him out.
It was so hot.
But, yeah, and the Rolling Stones used to –
I used to live right behind the Masonic –
what's the name of that?
The concert hall, 888 Young.
Yeah.
Masonic Temple.
Masonic Temple, which became,
what was it again? The concert hall.
Whatever it was,
that's where they would rehearse.
Not for Toronto, but for their whole tour
they would come in. and I would walk back from
when I was working at Rogers and walk back to my house which was right
behind that temple and
if I was coming back at 5 o'clock they'd be getting
out of their bus and
walking in at the same time I'd see them every day
for about two weeks
I can add one thing about the El Macombo I was part of walking in at the same time. I'd see them every day for about two weeks.
I can add one thing about the El Macombo.
I was part of the organizing committee for that.
Duff Roman headed it up.
And I knew all along how it was progressing.
And we didn't have email or anything like that in those days. So they asked people to write in why they would want to see April Wine, I think it was.
Because they figured anybody who wanted to see April Wine would be a Rolling Stones fan.
And I think his name was Paul Wasserman, their publicist.
He came up from New York and sat in the boardroom and went through every single letter
and hand-selected 300 for the first night, 300 for the second night.
Really?
They played two nights in a row.
And another little tidbit, the buses, there were 10 buses lined up,
ready to take everybody down to the Elmo.
And it was so secretive that only the first bus driver knew where he was going.
Wow.
The other nine followed him.
Wow.
That was the bus to be in.
And was that not the concert where Keith Richard got nailed coming across the border with drugs
and had to come back and do, I believe, a concert for the blind?
That's right.
He did that in Oshawa at the stadium out there.
They did a concert for the blind, yeah.
Okay, Amber and gentlemen, I have some very specific items,
and then it's going to be a free-for-all.
Thought it was already a free-for-all. And anything goes. I thought it was already a free-for-all.
Pretty much.
Sounds like a political debate.
And Amber's still upside down.
I'm still upside down.
I've got a headache.
She's like a vampire bat.
Is it the bat set her upside down there?
Okay.
That's true.
In the 70s, one of the big stunts at 1050 Chum I'm aware of is the Mike Cooper CNE stunt where he was riding the Ferris wheel.
Can anyone here speak to that in any way?
Because then I have to read a statement from Mike Cooper
who visited me a month ago and sat here for 90 minutes.
But then I invited him on the Zoom and he sent in a statement,
but I'll read it after I hear if anyone has a story about the Ferris wheel stunt.
I don't have a story about it, but the only thing I know is
he didn't stay on the Ferris wheel the whole time.
He actually did get off in the middle of the night.
Well, he got beat up, right?
He got beat up, yeah.
That's right, that's yeah. That's right.
That's part of the Guinness rules.
They allowed him to get off and use the potty and do that sort of thing.
But he was on it.
Other than that, he was on the darn thing all the time. Yeah, it's funny.
A lot of these people that claim these long streaks of being on the air.
When I ran the fan in Toronto,
what's his name?
I've
lost his name now.
Who worked
play-by-play
on the Blue Jays?
Jim.
His name's up on the
board because he worked 2, on the board.
Cause he worked 2031 games.
You mean Tom Sheik?
Yeah.
4,000 and something.
Yeah.
2030 games.
The truth is he didn't,
he actually,
he actually missed the game and went to his daughter's graduation,
but they,
you know,
who's going to know.
Is that true?
Is that true? This is scandalous.
What a rotten thing. They should take that
out of the Guinness. They should take
that right out right now. I think it's
closer to 4,600 or something.
I can see it in my mind's
eye. If that's true,
we have a scandal in our hands. Holy smokes.
You can always get Jerry
to bring it forward. Those two detested each other with a have a scandal in her hands. Holy smokes. You could always get Jerry to
bring it forward. Those two
detested each other with a
passion.
I heard that too.
I would meet with Tom Cheek
sometime. I guess this shouldn't be public.
I shouldn't say this.
It's too late now. You've got to finish the thought.
Tom would come in my office
and he would actually
rise from the chair he was so mad yeah they were not uh they were not close compatriots
off the air so when coop started in the ferris wheel it was literally an open chair. He got on the chair. He had no protection to the elements.
And it was nothing to drink, nothing to eat.
It was very, very poorly planned.
And it took a couple of days before they finally jerry-rigged some kind of a
protective shelter for him so that he could stay up there and started feeding
him and all the rest.
But the first couple of days that he was up there,
he was totally exposed to the elements, literally sitting there.
And it was really something to see for him.
For him to last the first three days before he got shelter
should have been considered a Guinness record.
What about the prank?
There's the April Fool's Day prank where he...
You're not going to prank.
Tell me about that.
That was without question the best bit that ever happened on that radio station.
Absolutely.
I was on the air before Coop came in that night, and he said to me,
he said, listen on your way home.
You're going to hear something different.
So I started listening, and he'd get this call.
I said, yeah, can you please stairway to heaven?
He goes, yeah, okay, we'll get it on for you.
And it went on for a couple of hours.
And every time this person would call back,
would get even more and more agitated and angrier.
And eventually, he showed up in the studio.
And he walks in, and it's between records,
and you hear him turn around.
He goes, who are you?
What do you want?
I told you.
And he's muffled in the background.
I told you to play Stairway to Heaven, blah, blah, blah.
And he's cursing and swearing and all this.
And all of a sudden, you hear this bang.
His gun go off.
The door closed.
Coop goes, you hear him fall off the chair.
The door closes.
A couple of seconds later, Richard Maxwell comes running in.
He was doing news.
He goes, oh, my God, somebody help.
Mike's been shot.
Cooper's been shot.'s been shot and it goes
silent and what seemed like an hour later actually was probably about five or six seconds eric
clapton comes on well i shot the sheriff and and cooper says april fools wow well within that time
from what i recall the SWAT team, fire engines showed up at the station,
they closed off Yonge Street, and the next morning the assistant police chief
came in and wanted to charge Cooper with all kinds of various charges.
And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but at the jock meeting that morning,
Bob Wood read the riot act and he said,
I don't ever want to hear anything like this again on the air
at this radio station ever.
And two seconds later he said, that was the greatest fucking bit I've ever heard.
Yeah, he did.
I remember that well.
And if you'll remember, they basically said, Bob Wood said to Mike,
I can't protect your job because of this.
You know, and sure enough, they bounced him.
But we all I don't know if you remember this, but we all conspired and none of us were available to do his shift.
So they had to bring Mike back.
Wow.
Yeah.
What do you say, Dave?
Huh?
Oh, sorry. Dave Williams you going to say, Dave? Huh? Oh, sorry.
Dave Williams was about to say something.
I was just going to say that I remember that a few days after that,
or the days following that, that Cooper was doing the morning show all of a sudden.
And if my recollection is right on that,
and I thought that was brilliant of Bob to put him right on the morning show
because it was in the newspapers.
It was everywhere around Toronto, that whole story.
Wow. Now, do you want to on the morning show because it was in the newspapers. It was everywhere around Toronto, that whole story. Wow.
Now, do you want to hear the – go ahead.
I do remember us saying, okay, you know, we can fix this.
And so nobody – everybody was sick when it was time to get somebody in to do Mike's shift.
It was a great bit.
Probably the best.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
So I mentioned Coop.
He paid me a visit, like actually in the studio.
This is like a month ago.
So he tells all these great stories.
And then I said, hey, I'm doing a Zoom for episode 1050.
I'd love you to be on it.
So I'll read the statement from Mike Cooper for everybody.
And you can respond if you wish.
He writes, no, thank you.
I don't live in the past anymore.
This is the official statement from Mike Cooper.
Any response from you?
Fine people.
Too bad.
Yeah, it's a shame.
But he, you know, I mean, I'm not positive what it is with Mike.
The last time I saw him, he was very, very congenial.
And we had a nice time. And then after that, he didn't want to speak to me
anymore. I just don't quite get it. Well, I can really understand since his wife
died. Yeah, since Debbie died, that's very, very possible.
You know, I mean, living in the past, you know, it's true.
Many of us live in the past.
But every generation says
their music
is better than all the
other ones but in our case
it's actually true
it is true I mean if you
look what happened to radio
there are no lunatics in
radio anymore okay and
lunatics are like me crazier
six bricks short of a load thank
thank you very much and uh you know and like van horn and like all of the other people that you've
talked to coop especially um we our job was to be six bricks short of a load on the air our job was
to be entertainers the what's happening in radio today, there are no entertainers.
Maybe a couple. Is it too safe?
Is it simply that the risk is too
high? No, no.
It's because of the corporate situation.
They don't pay anybody anymore. Nobody
wants to do it.
Jim will do it for $12,000 a year, I think I
heard earlier.
That was 40, 50 years ago.
I know. I joke. I know. I'm joking.
I joke.
Yeah.
I mean, I know guys that were working up at WMZQ with me back in Washington, D.C.
We're talking top 10 market, okay?
And it was a six-share radio station show.
It had extraordinary ratings.
And they were great on-air talent, fabulous on-air talent.
They're in little tiny small markets now because they got pushed out.
As soon as the conglomeration occurred and as soon as all of these radio
stations were bought up by these conglomerates,
they started throwing these guys out on the street.
They're working right here in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
You know, we got a guy right here on the oldie station in town.
He was with he was on Sirius XM.
He was on WBIG in Washington, D.C., which was a huge radio station.
And now he has to work in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Well, let me speak to somebody on the
Zoom right now who was on the air for 50 years in this market, Roger Ashby. There was much fanfare
made when you left the Chum FM morning show. I need to know now because we haven't talked since
then. Do you wish you were still on that morning show? You know, I'll tell you what I miss.
I miss the off-air banter.
Like Marilyn and Rick and Larry, our creative director, Tom, our producer,
we were all pretty close.
But I miss that.
I miss all the chatter off the air.
I really don't want to be on the air in that regard anymore.
I don't like today's music.
I'm not a great social media person.
So I just wouldn't fit anymore.
So the time was right for me to leave.
I am doing a weekly oldie show that's on a few stations and the iHeart app.
That's all I want to do.
So do I miss doing the morning show as such?
No, but I miss all the people and the camaraderie we had.
Okay, but a follow-up, if I will, if I may, did you decide that it's time to go because I don't
like the music, it's time to go, or did you get a tap on the shoulder and it was like, Roger,
it's time to go? No, it was an agreement we came to two years before.
Okay. You know, how long do you want to stay? And we tossed it around and I was,
you know, I knew for the reasons I just mentioned
that I wasn't going to be there five years from now. So we agreed on two years and then they
stuck to it. And they also, they promised me that they would arrange for me to do an oldie show,
took them a year to do it after I left, but they came through. So they treated me really well.
Amazing. Now, Jim, how's your health? We need a health update on Jim Van Horn.
I'm good. I just, I had, well, I had the cancer surgery five years ago. It'll be five years ago
in May. And I've got a schedule with my oncologist. I've been seeing him every six months or so.
And I've been clear for five years. So I would imagine the next appointment,
he's going to give me a clean bill of health and tell me,
hopefully tell me he never wants to see me again.
Now you,
you quit all the social media platforms.
So this is my opportunity to,
to,
to find out what you,
what you're up to these days.
I,
yeah,
first of all,
I quit social media because it was getting too,
I was getting too negative.
I was really following into the trap of negativity and all the rest.
And I woke up one day and I said, wait a minute, this is not how I want my life to go.
I want to be more positive than, you know, because I was sort of enveloped in this anti-Trumpism and all this kind of stuff.
And it was it was driving me nuts. So I decided enough's enough.
So I quit it all. I quit the whole batch. And now I'm probably 99.9% retired.
I'm still doing a little bit of work for Accessible Media,
which is catering to the blind and handicapped people,
which I really enjoy.
And other than that, I'm taking care of my wife
and I'm riding my bicycle like crazy.
A little more on the bike thing.
What kind of distances are you doing these days?
Last year, I did 8,000 kilometers.
Wow, good.
In 12 months, I was in Hawaii in January for a month,
and I did 800 miles, and I climbed 25,000 feet.
Wow.
Well, good for you.
I love hearing about that.
And I'm totally addicted to cycling.
I'm a serious advocate of cycling.
I'm what you'd call a mammal, middle-aged male in Lycra.
Jim, I have the exact same addiction every single day. And every year I've got to hit
10,000 kilometers. If I don't ride outside, I ride inside.
Good for you. Okay. So before the free-for-all,
and I know you think this was all a free-for-all,
and maybe it was,
but I just need stories on two individuals
who are no longer with us.
We did mention them,
but I'm hoping anybody will speak up
with further stories about these two people
that I remember well
when I was listening to radio as a younger man.
Dick Smythe and Tom Rivers.
So anybody, maybe one by one, just any Dick Smythe or Tom Rivers so anybody maybe one by one
just any Dick Smythe or Tom Rivers
stories that you have would be amazing
my favorite Dick Smythe story
is
those who know Dick Smythe
know how
irascible the guy can be
and how
crazy he can get
but I love the Detroit Red Wings,
and I went up to the upstairs,
and I got these tickets for the Detroit Red Wings Maple Leafs hockey game.
And I was there, and all of a sudden,
Dick Swayth comes in and sits behind me,
and I sort of say, oh, hey, Dick, you got something?
And he stood up in front of all the people and the guy said, you son of a
bitch, you stole my tickets, you stole my goddamn tickets, I'll get you
for this. And all the people, and our pictures were in the program
at that time too. And of course what had happened was I had gone
months before to the Slim Rice and got the tickets for the game
and then Dick came up because he was from Windsor and he loved Detroit.
And she just said, geez, I don't know what happened to him.
Somebody must have stolen them.
And then Dick.
But the only thing I remember is Dick, he did send me a note.
He said, well, I found out about the tickets.
And sorry for the kerfuffle.
Remember Dick's wife?
Sorry for the kerfuffle sorry for the kerfuffle
at the Maple Leaf Gardens the other night
but he was something else
that's for sure and I loved him
and worked with him
and worked with all his people
there in the newsroom it was great
I have a couple of stories I can tell you one anyway
I don't want to hog the microphone
but he had a
trailer not a cottage but a trailer on Nut Lake,
which was very apropos.
It was on Nut Lake.
And he invited my wife and I to come up for the day.
So we went up and we sat in the trailer for a while.
And then he said, let's go for a boat ride.
So we get in the boat and we're on our way to Port Carling,
which wasn't far from where he had this trailer.
And he's looking for a place to. So we get in the boat and we're on our way to Port Carling, which wasn't far from where he had this trailer. And he's looking for a place to dock the boat and he sees a spot and he heads toward it. And just before we got there, some young hotshot came up in his boat, zoom,
past Dick's boat and got the spot. And Dick stands up and yells, thanks a lot, asshole. I'll do the same for you sometime.
And he was, you know,
the voices, they echo off the water.
I'm sure the whole town of Port Carlin heard him.
Can we get that second story?
I don't want you to keep these in the,
you know, the chamber.
All right.
Okay, well, he was interviewing somebody
from the Mental Health Association of Canada.
Remember this one?
A meek and mild little guy.
And they're in the studio, and outside the studio, they're doing some construction,
and there's a guy with a jackhammer.
And Dick starts the interview, and you hear the jackhammer, and you hear Dick stop.
He pushes his chair away from the mic.
He walks out to the hallway and he says,
this is a goddamn radio station, not a fucking workshop. We'll be broadcasting for 15 minutes.
I want no further noise. And he comes back in and sits down. And this guy from the mental
health association looks up at him and says, think that'll fix him?
And meanwhile, the guy with the jackhammer,
if his head wasn't already shaking from using the jackhammer,
I thought the guy was going to explode.
So any more Dick stories before we get maybe hopefully a Tom Rivers story or two?
And Amber, I know you knew Dick.
You can chime in with a Dick story too.
He was lovely when I worked with him. I think I got a calmer Dick Smythe than
maybe everybody else here, but I worked with him
when I was coming out of college.
I interned at
680 News and I had the 2 a.m. to
10 a.m. shift.
I wrote for Dick Smythe,
Marlene Oliver, and David Craig.
I was terrified because I'd
heard the stories about Dick Smythe
because on the weekends I was working for 1050 Chum and during the week I was writing at 680 News
and I was terrified absolutely terrified to work for him but he couldn't have been sweeter he was
lovely we talked opera he was a big opera fan and uh he would come up and let me know.
I didn't have cable.
I was 23 years old and living with my grandmother.
And he just said, this is going to be on television.
Labo M is going to be on TV.
So make sure you watch it.
And I said, I just don't get the channel.
I also did work with Tom Rivers.
And that's when he returned to 1050 Chum.
He was, I think what a lot of people like to talk about with Tom Rivers and that's when he returned to 1050 Chum. He was, I think what a lot of people like to talk about with Tom Rivers and me is that he was voice tracked and we somehow could have a conversation
while he was voice tracked and I was starting to go into traffic. So working with Tom Rivers was
probably the biggest, one of the biggest joys of my life because I listened to Mike Cooper and Tom Rivers and they were my people.
Those are horrible hours, Amber, 2 a.m. to 10 a.m.?
2 a.m. to 10 a.m.
And Amber, just to be clear, and Scott, I think you were involved in this too,
but okay, so 1050 Chum, after it's top 40,
it becomes Golden Oldies or whatever.
And then the team, Jim.
It became a
sports station.
Yeah, yeah. Jim, close your ears for this part,
please.
Let's not talk about that.
After that unfortunate experience,
it comes back as a
kind of a Golden Oldies thing.
And then is that
iteration where the voice
tracking of people like you, Scott?
I did that show right here in this studio here in Fredericksburg every week.
And that's how I knew Scott.
Okay, gotcha.
Now I'm up to speed.
Okay, and that basically goes until TSN radio takes over, I suppose.
No, no, that's not right.
It went into CP24 radio.
Right.
Okay. Lest we forget, CP24 radio. Right. Okay.
Lest we forget, CP24 simulcast on 1050.
I'm curious.
I've never even heard of that one.
I would be curious, like, what are your thoughts as,
for those who are aware, like,
what do you think about this legendary signal?
So I understand just talking to my mom,
who was a chum bug,
and we should talk about the chum charts at some point,
but what an important station 10 50 chum was right.
You had 10, 10, 10, yeah. 10, 10 was a juggernaut.
I get maybe an older demo and then you had 10 50 for the kids.
And then to see that signal suddenly simulcasting CP 24,
like it's got to suck.
Well, it's AM, you know, and, and, and really when you come right down to it what else are you
going to do with an am signal no matter how good it is i mean uh are you going to play music on it
i don't think so you know um so they did what they did was they took chum am and put it on fm
and roger knows all about that because he was right there right you know they um they 10 50 chum should have gone all news before 680 news
i think that was a missed opportunity yeah yeah it was actually that that would have worked probably
um because here in here in this market we have wtop which is on it was on am for the longest
time and just had gargantuan ratings. And that's an all news station.
So it probably would have worked there.
At some point things do have to progress.
And I know that when it flipped the first time for 10 50,
the team that was sort of like,
it was almost like we were doing steps and, and, you know,
I think we all expected the team at some point to, to work. And I loved
meeting everybody. And I know that we loved having everybody that came in with that in the building,
but you know, then it was flipped back. And then I think the next point when it switched to CP24
radio, I think we all kind of knew it wasn't going to come back. And I was sad about that, but you obviously know it had to go.
It had to – something – you have to move forward.
Yeah.
But I don't know what – I don't know how forward you can move
with an AM radio station.
You know what I mean?
I mean, there's a point where it just doesn't work anymore.
And we tried everything
i mean you had am stereo it sounded great but people didn't listen to it right and so that's
that it's interesting that what roger said about going all news because i've got a newspaper
clippings from the early 90s where it talks about who's going to go all news first 680 or 640 so
there was like a race it sounds like a race who's going
to get there first and obviously 680 got there first and then but uh interesting for them i mean
i i think they do well don't they in the market yeah well listen i can talk a little bit about uh
680 because i was i was a manager there but um the truth of the matter is, what you say, Scotty, about AM radio,
and, you know, days were numbered, CFTR.
And the powers that be at CHUM, at Rogers, decided they had to do something.
And so the idea of all news came up up and they went through and did all the
research and so on and Tony Vlander had to go to the board uh Roger's board and say
I want your permission to take a station which was CFTR that is making four million dollars a year
in profit and I want permission to lose $5 million a year for five years.
Well, that's what they did.
They lost $5 million a year for five years.
And then I don't know what they're doing now,
but when I left there, they were doing about $60 million.
And they were the number one billing station in all of Canada.
So, yeah.
But it was, you know, there again, Ted Rogers, he took a chance.
Who knew if this would work?
But Tony said, give me the chance to lose $5 million a year
on a station that's already making $4 million a year.
Well, it certainly did work.
And as I mentioned before, WTOP in Washington, DC,
for many, many years, they're on FM basically now, but up until a few years back, they were on
AM. The only reason that they went to the FM signal was because they were at 1500 and they,
you know, they had a very directional signal. So, but it worked fabulously. I mean, they were
as an AM radio station, i believe the highest billing station in
the washington dc market news talk well okay news not news talk to to bring us back to 10 50 chum
here it was uh the top 40 era was 1957 to 1986 are there any stories you think the uh the fans
of that fine station would love to hear from you right now that haven't been told yet.
This is a great opportunity.
Just share those stories.
This is a catch-all.
Well, my little brief one was Wolfman Jack
because I believe,
and maybe Roger can confirm that.
I don't know.
Roger, Wolfman was pre-taped,
I think, for three weeks in a row.
And am I right?
He would come in live just to throw people off once a month to do the graffiti show on Sunday night?
Yeah, he came in.
He came in once a month.
He did a show live.
And then while he was there, my recollection is he recorded three weeks.
Yeah.
Because at that time, you couldn't do it from your home in California.
Right.
To my knowledge.
So he would come up to record three shows.
And while he was here, he would do a fourth show live.
And we'd have to call the Judy Wells Modeling Agency to get all the girls in the room because he needed people around him when he was in when he was on the air.
He loved that. Well, my recollection of the one Sunday night where I happened to come in, I was doing the all night show right after him at midnight.
And there were girls.
At that time, of course, no security cameras anywhere around the building.
And the place was loaded with girls, both upstairs and downstairs,
just about infiltrated.
And from what I heard, I guess he stopped at every red light on Yonge Street
and just opened the limo doors, and the chicks just jumped in, right?
And so at the station, no management people around basically and uh wild uh smell of
weed just permeated yeah always i mean it was just a whole different world in addition to anybody he
might have picked up we did actually hire people to come in and be in the room with them okay but
it was my job for a while to pick them up at
the airport. And he really was a wonderful guy. His name is Bob Smith. And he really was a nice
man. And he stayed at the Delta Chelsea Hotel downtown. So one time I had to meet him down
there. And I'm walking along the sidewalk to the hotel. And I look over and I see this limousine
and the windows down about two inches. And I hear Rogerger roger i'm over here i'm over here but i i spent quite a bit of time with him
and uh i really enjoyed his company he would uh he would bring a package of cigarettes
cool cigarettes uh across the border and now that i'm getting this. This is
from Terry Steele. He told me this, but I
pretty well believe it.
Wolf would open them up,
pull a stamp, open
up the package, and inside it was
filled with joints.
Then Parade Magazine
ran a cover story on
him a couple years later of him
in his pool and a big thing about say no
to drugs over top which i always thought that was some i want to do that right and and when we went
when i went into the booth with and he was just winding down he had a writer behind him who told
him what to say and i thought it was brilliant uh that they were playing hit the road jack i believe
that was the name of the hit right and he is screaming over that live while the record's playing.
It was just a great combo, not knowing what the hell's live and what's not live.
It was just a wild night, definitely.
And that wafting weed permeated all night after he left,
so it was great to do the show.
I got it.
Does anybody here listen to Flash Phelps?
Yeah, I do. Occasionally.
You like him?
Well, I like his energy, and I
like the fact that he's been all over the U.S.
and Canada and relates stories.
I do. I think he's very entertaining.
And you mentioned, Chuck, that the day I retired,
you were listening to him
driving from Arizona
to Oregon, and he
mentioned the fact that I retired.
Yeah, he had, he, I think he's brilliant in one thing.
He can take a national show and make it local.
That's a local, that's a local,
we have so much difficulty getting local announcers
to make their stations sound local,
and Flash Phelps makes his national show sound local.
He's on XM, right?
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
I'm familiar with him.
Yes, yes, yes.
Good morning.
Yeah.
Larry McGinnis, Larry McGinnis is a fan of his.
He, he thinks he fakes it.
Like all, all his phone calls and all those things he does,
but he's got a system and it's phone calls and all those things he does.
But he's got a system, and I think he's amazing.
Yeah.
One of the great eras during the 70s was when the Osmonds used to come to town.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The Osmond Room.
They would always sit there.
Well, yeah, the Osmond Room.
The police would come out for security, and, of course, it was always a gauntlet from the street to the front door
for them to get into the building
I remember one year they were here
and one of the jocks
I forget his name
he was just constantly buzzed
and he wore sunglasses all the time
and he grabbed
Smiling Jack
who was that?
Smiling Jack Jack London was that? Smiling Jack.
Jack London.
That's who it was. Jack London.
He grabbed a tie, a necktie from one of the sales guys and he went to the front
door and the kids were
just jammed against the door
and he opened it an inch and yelled
through the door, this is Donny Osmond's
tie and he threw it out
and it disappeared. It was just
obliterated. And we'd take the Osmonds up on
stage and they'd stand over there and wave down to the throngs
and it was absolute pandemonium whenever they would come to town.
They were such nice people. I used to babysit the Osmond family
when they would come to town for a couple of years or anyway,
and go out to dinner with them, with the whole family and everything.
And, oh, God, Marie was a toddler.
She was like 12 years old, wasn't she?
She wasn't even that old.
No, she was younger than that when the Osmonds first came in.
But they were true to their, their, their publicity.
Yeah.
They drank milk.
They didn't drink coffee.
They didn't drink Cokes and they were all family, family, family.
You betcha.
And they were extremely nice people.
Yeah.
I mean, they were the most gracious.
That was the most gracious group of people I ever dealt with.
Yeah.
40 years. The manager was a bit of
a sleaze and he didn't
fit there very well, but he managed them
for many years. I think you have to have
one of those to manage.
Yeah, I guess.
Peter Green, that kind of thing.
Anyway,
the Osmond family were exactly in real
life as you saw them on television.
I remember when the Bay City Rollers came to town,
we had a party and we had a contest and invited kids to come.
And the kids were so young that they served peanut butter and jam sandwiches
and glasses of milk at the reception.
And I remember the Bay City Rollers as actually,
people aren't going to believe this,
but they were actually very good musicians.
That little squirt that played lead guitar was great.
He was a good player.
And they were just kind of pigeonholed into this Bay City Rollers image.
Michael, I have to interrupt you.
I have to leave.
I have a landscaper here that wants to get paid.
Chuck, let me just thank you very, very, very much for your appearance in this conversation.
And I loved capturing your memories of 1050 Chum. Thank you so much.
Yeah, I mean, it's great seeing everybody. how it would go, Mike, because the hockey analogy to me is back in 1992
when Pittsburgh won the Stanley Cup with Mary Lemieux and Yarmir Jaeger
and one other big star.
Kevin Stevens.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
And they never played on the same line.
And somebody asked the coach, Badger Bob,
they said, why don't you
put all three of them on the same line?
He says, there's not enough pucks.
And I thought about this group
of DJs
from John, and you're
going to have them on a Zoom call.
And I said, I don't know if there'll be enough pucks,
but I'll join them.
Thanks for doing that, Chuck.
Awesome.
All right, Tucker.
See you later, buddy.
Anyone else in the Zoom remember working with J.D. Roberts?
Well, by the way, you couldn't see me, but I look great.
Chuck, I can actually see you.
You look so good that I can actually see you without your camera on.
And there he goes.
J.D. Roberts was at 1050 Chum for a short period in the 70s.
Anybody have any memories of J.D. and any thoughts that, hey,
this guy might become a White House reporter one day?
Well, I do remember when he was hired.
I think it was 77.
Yep.
And his name is John Robertson, I do remember when he was hired. I think it was 77. Yep. And his name is John Robertson, I believe.
And he was shortened to J.D. Roberts.
And then he's now John Roberts.
He was a very nice man.
And I kept in touch with him a little bit over the years.
And when 9-11 happened, we actually called him and had him on the air talking about it.
He hasn't forgotten his days at CHUM.
I don't think any of us predicted
that he would become what he has become, but he went on to do television in Toronto too after
radio. John and I hung out quite a bit. He worked in Kitchener at Chime, and I think he replaced me,
and I also believe I was in C of OS and Owen Sound Sound for a while and I think he worked up there as well
so it's kind of fun that uh we we worked together at these other stations and after I left
like Roger said 77 then he went into Toronto but uh I knew his first wife uh and we hung out quite
a bit we we had a lot of fun together back then amazing now before I give you each a personalized
goodbye because I know it's we're coming up here
at two hours here uh i was gonna ask you about the chum charts because i'm a big fan of charts
in general be a billboard hot 100 or whatever and i read somewhere i want to get the verbiage right
because i don't think you know ckoc is not sure this is true but there's a claim out there that
the chum chart was the most, what is it here?
The longest running continuously published radio station record survey in North America.
Can anyone speak to the chum charts and what that meant to Toronto's youth?
Well, I don't know if what you said is true.
I wouldn't be surprised, but I collected chum charts from the time I was 10 years old until they disappeared. And it was a big thrill to have my picture on it, too, you know, finally, when I started working at Chum.
60s, they were often skewed a little differently than other charts. And I don't know, I don't think there was payola. I would never go that far. But I think the people who made up the chart had their
favorites and they would make sure they got into the top five. That's fine. I'm sure that happened
everywhere. And then in the 70s, early to mid 70s, I was part of the committee that would make up the
chum chart each week. And we would literally call the record stores and we would write down what they told us were the best selling records. And from
that, we would make up the chum chart each week. Roger, after the chum chart went away, is that
when the chum star sign showed up and then the chum car sign after that? Well, the car sign and
the star sign were both in the mid to late 70s. So the chum chart was still being published because it was published until mid 80s.
Right.
The star sign was a great promotion and the car sign, too.
We had fantastic promotions.
And you did great promos.
We had to actually give cash away.
I was thinking today, imagine trying to stop somebody here.
If you stop somebody here to try and pull them over and throw a mic in their mouth and say,
hey, here's 25 bucks and expect them to get real animated. Good luck. You might not make it through
the day alive, you know. But back then we did it. And I guess they'd see the logo on the side of
the station wagon. They were more than happy to pull over. But you had the best promos. I remember
sometimes you do some of them. Right. But the jocks all had to do those. Yeah. One of the
promotions we had was called stones
secret phone and it was tickets to see the rolling stones and the secret phone would be a phone booth
they were plentiful then there would be a phone booth so we would announce where this hour's phone
booth is located and you have 15 minutes or whatever to get there can you imagine doing that now encouraging people to drive fast
yeah scary i'd like to mention one thing about the chum chart because it was much
more uh important than um the you know every radio station had a chart but the chum chart
was extremely important and the number one reason was because it was locally resourced and locally
researched. But the other thing was people collected them. And I remember when I came
for the first chum reunion that we did, this was in, I guess, 2000. I can't remember what year it
was, but we all went to Nathan Phillips Square and they had a table set up. Amber will remember
this because she was not the one with Gordon Light lightfoot no the one before that the one before that remember it was like
2000 i think yeah because i came up i hadn't been in toronto for you know 20 some years
and and uh we were at nathan phillips square and people were coming up, a line of people 30 deep had all these chump charts in their hands
that they had kept from the 1970s
that we had signed earlier,
and they were there having us sign them again.
I mean, they became collector's items.
I still come across people who have chum bug cards.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
From the 60s. From the 60s.
From the 60s.
When I used to go out on location with 1050 Chum,
which is sort of how I started,
people would come up to the booth all the time with their,
oh, I've got chum charts.
Do you know if they're worth anything?
And I remember saying to them, no, it's actually not.
Unfortunately, it's not really worth anything.
And I've been to a couple of stores,
the Singing Lady on the Queensway,
and I've seen the chum charts,
some of the chum charts that are in some of their displays,
and they're not very expensive.
But yeah, we used to have a lot of people come up a lot.
I'm $5 on eBay.
That's not so bad.
That's something.
One thing I'll say is, and again, just a minor, miniature rant,
which is that all the chump charts were available online.
And then there was an ownership change.
And then at some point, I think when TSN Radio came on board,
Bell Media had TSN flip the 1050 signal,
they just took down the whole
website. Like, then all the Chum charts
disappeared from this online archive.
Well, they are online now
on the 1050 Chum
tribute site. Okay, thank you for shouting that out.
Dougie has that. That's Doug.
They're there, every single one
of them, from 1957
to the end. So they're all archived
there. Good to hear good good to hear
i often go online and look at them when i'm putting my show together my old show and you
mentioned the star sign just so i understand because uh just a titch before my time but like
what if you see somebody with this star sign button they get a prize is that how it worked
yeah yeah basically okay so you'd have like millions of those things that
went out it was the reason we did it was because cftr did a button i can't remember the name of
their button 68 000 button i think is what it's all right so they had this crappy looking button
and we i guess bob wood thought i'll show them and so he came up with these deluxe these things
look great i don't know if you have a picture of one of them but they were really well designed and there were 12 separate ones we had
booths set up manned by the gals from the walter thornton agency of the models all over the place
every shopping center in the in the building itself in the lobby handing these things out
by the thousands it was huge and while we're in the 70s here, who can speak to the
I Listen to Chum
promotion? Don't say hello.
Don't say hello, say I Listen to Chum.
I got a call one day from a lady
and she said, I didn't,
I called her. We used to call
out and say, if you answer the phone
and say I Listen to Chum, you win a thousand
dollars or whatever it was. And
this woman said, answers the her, she says, hello.
And I said, oh, hi, it's Jim Van Horn from Chum Calling.
If you had answered with, I listen to Chum,
I could have given you $1,000.
She says, I don't need $1,000.
And she, I don't know.
Didn't they sort of re-read on BT,
Breakfast Television recently?
Didn't they have something like that on a,
I don't know if they still do it or not,
but I think just before I moved here,
which is only about six months ago,
they had a contest on,
you don't say hello,
you,
you answer the phone.
I listen to BT.
Good luck with that because it's so fragmented now.
Like,
I mean,
back in the seventies,
the,
you know,
only so many,
you know,
what percentage of the Toronto listening audience would be tuned into 1050?
I think it'd be a pretty high percentage.
But today with the internet and podcasts and you guys kept talking about SiriusXM and so many different options, it's just so fragmented.
Don't forget too that in the 70s, the I Listen to Chum was the second reincarnation, it was the second reincarnation of the same contest.
They ran it back in the 60s, and it was
bigger then than it was
in the 70s. Oh, is that right? I didn't know that.
Oh, yeah. Well, if you go back
in the day, they had the walking man
contest. Well, the walking man, I guess.
I remember that, yeah.
Didn't he have a, wasn't he all dressed
in black with a black hat?
I guess if you spotted him or whatever, you had the recluse on the air,
and then you had to kind of spot the walking man,
and then I guess you won some money, I suppose.
Back then, you were only allowed to give away $5,000 a month, according to the CRTC.
One summer, I think the first summer that I was at Chum,
we were giving away a Corvette Stingray
and it was worth more than $5,000
so they had to drive the car
Dave Charles drove the car around
until it depreciated so that it wasn't
that's amazing
and then
two or three weeks
into the contest
I gave out the clue on the air
Nancy Krantz who was in the music library at the time, was in the studio.
I didn't know what the answer was, but she did.
And about two weeks into the contest, I gave out this clue.
Caller phones in, and she guesses it correctly.
Wow.
I had no idea.
And Nancy looks through the window.
I was in a separate room, but it was connected by a window.
And she starts waving, saying, yes, yes, she's right, she's right.
And then I had to go crazy.
Yeah, you're absolutely correct.
You bought yourself a brand new, sparkling new Jeep.
And she won this car, and it just screwed up the whole contest for the race.
Yeah, I guess so.
Weeks.
Dave Charles drove that car on a monitoring trip because we didn't have the internet then.
So he would drive from market to market in the States
looking for on-air talent.
And that's how he put the miles on the car.
That's amazing.
That is amazing.
That is amazing.
This has been amazing.
Amber, any chance you ever move back?
We miss you in this market.
Good question.
I would say no.
Is this your first marriage, Amber?
This is my first marriage. I just got married in July.
You'll be back.
Right now,
if we split up,
if my husband and I split up,
I'm definitely coming home because I'm here on a
spousal visa.
We'll cross our fingers.
But your husband, is
he an American citizen or is he Canadian?
No, no.
We got caught up in
COVID.
He trains
pilots. So when
COVID hit,
the borders obviously were closed and they weren't being, none of the
pilots to get trained were coming in to Canada. So slowly and slowly, they were all getting LECO,
LECO, LECO, LECO. When it was his turn, they finally said, look, we know this, that you've
had some interest in Phoenix. Do you want to go? There's a job opening. And he said, sure,
I'll check it out and here we are.
Well thanks so much for giving up a couple
of hours on your Wednesday night.
Loved having you here. It was great to finally get you
on the program. It's my pleasure.
My pleasure. It's actually
only afternoon for me.
That's right. Two hours difference.
That's right. Three.
Three? That's right. Daylight saving.
They don't have daylight savings time in Arizona.
No, we don't.
We stay exactly where we are.
Okay, okay.
And we do miss you here.
And speaking of making their Toronto Mike debut, Dave Williams,
thanks so much for being a part of this program, 1050.
My pleasure.
I do stay in touch with Chuck quite a bit. So that was kind of cool, even though we didn't see him,
but very enjoyable to bring back a lot of these great memories.
And I spent a lot of the day thinking about some of the highlights.
So that's why I try to jump in with some of those stories.
Well, listen, is there anything you thought about today that you're,
you're going to just kick yourself for not telling?
Cause you could spit it out right now.
The only thing I'm going to do going forward is start listening to your podcast because i hear a lot of great things about it didn't know it existed until i got the invite
to be on today okay there's a couple of well i think there's three jim but i think about in-person
visits you got a couple of jim van horns here you got a roger ashby and you have a remote episode that was done very, very recently.
In fact, Pat, I got to thank you so much,
or Scott Carpenter for those listening in.
Hello, it's me.
Same guy.
Thank you very much for helping to coordinate this.
No problem.
You're the reason, you know, Dave Williams is on this Zoom
and I appreciate that, buddy.
Thanks, Scott, for thinking of me. You're know, Dave Williams is on this Zoom, and I appreciate that, buddy. Thanks, Scott, for thinking of me.
You're welcome, Dave.
We'll have to get together again in Florida one of these days.
I was going to say, are you coming in the near future?
Will you be here?
Well, I guess with the weather turning warmer now, right, it'll be next winter?
Well, maybe in the spring.
I was thinking of going down to Jamaica, but it's rainy season in May,
so I guess I'm going to pass on that.
I might get down there in the next month or so.
We'll get a hold of Tucker, too.
Yeah, well, he's back home.
He's back home, right.
Yeah, yeah.
So Murray, we can hook up with Murray.
Does anybody, by the way, stay in touch with Bob Wood still?
I'd love to know.
Any updates on Bob?
Not real recently, but it wasn't too long ago I was talking with him.
He sends me emails once in a while asking questions about certain things,
so I keep in touch with him that way.
But I think he's living in St. Catharines.
Really?
Yeah.
I tried to get him on this.
Yeah, he's a little bit reclusive as well.
Not good.
Jim Van Horn, I just did the math,
this is your fourth appearance on Toronto
Mic'd. Really? Yeah, because
you did the initial visit,
which was amazing, A to Z, and then you did
the kick out the jams, and during
COVID, we did a Zoom
early in COVID, you might recall, a couple
years back.
Okay.
I'm old.
You'll have to take my word for it.
But once again, fantastic.
Love having you on the show.
And thanks so much for being a part of this.
My pleasure, Mike.
Thanks for asking me on.
And Scott, Pat, thank you for organizing this.
And it was great to see everybody. Amber, congratulations on your marriage.
I wish you nothing but happiness going forward. Thank you.
And last but not least, Roger
Ashby, good to see you again, my friend.
Thanks for being a part of episode 1050.
This was good and good to see everybody.
Good to see everybody. It's really nice
to see you guys. Thank you, Mike.
We really need to have another reunion.
By the way, before we go,
we have always had reunions
every year uh up until you know the plague and that pretty much put an end to that but hopefully
we'll be able to do that again i mentioned earlier and i'll mention it again chum was a family
there are certain people that came through the radio station that didn't fit and they didn't last very long you had to be a family member that's true yeah and uh and we are to this day uh and i do
not know of any other radio station or business of any kind for that matter that can that can boast
of that because uh it's been 50 years guys and if you think about it too you think about all the different generations that are here
just even in
this podcast right now
well actually there are like 5 geezers and 1 little
young
not anymore
just because I'm younger than you I still appear young
but I'm not anymore
well thanks again everybody
this has been a great episode
1050 paying tribute
to 1050 chum
1050 chum
wow I loved that
as promised
there are two distinct
parts to this episode 1050
of Toronto Mic'd
on October 18th
2019 Doug Thompson dropped by to chat about the history of
1050 Chum as a top 40 radio station in the city. Let's revisit this very deep dive into a very
special radio station. But first, I want to thank the sponsors that helped fuel the real talk on this program and make episodes like this possible.
FOTMs know that if they're looking for fiercely independent fresh craft beer, they buy Great Lakes Beer.
GLB is the beer of choice for FOTMs. They're fiercely independent, and it's delicious and fresh and free delivery in the GTA.
If you're looking for authentic Italian food, you're looking for Palma Pasta.
Go to palmapasta.com.
There are stores in Mississauga and Oakville.
Stickeru.com.
Go online, upload an image, get your decals, your stickers, your temporary tattoos.
So much you can get. Great quality, great people.
Much love to stickeru.com.
Much love to Ridley Funeral Home,
pillars of this community since 1921. Funeral director Brad Jones has a great new podcast you should listen to. It's called Life's Undertaking, and it's available wherever you listen to podcasts.
and it's available wherever you listen to podcasts.
Canna Cabana will not be undersold
on cannabis or cannabis accessories.
They have over 100 locations across this country.
Go to cannacabana.com right now and become a member of the Cabana Club.
You'll be first in the know when there's a sale going on.
And if you've noticed lately that I've, you know, kicked my style up a notch or two, that's because of Dewar. D-U-E-R.
I've been wearing Dewar pants and shorts and even shirts and damn are they comfy. But they're not
only comfortable,
they're rugged as heck.
I can wear Dewar in the bike lane and then wear it into the boardroom.
The compliments I've been getting lately
are just unbelievable.
I mean, I set the standard nice and low,
but apparently I'm looking sharp these days.
You can save 15% right now
by using the promo code TMDS. And you can use it online,
doer.ca, or you can use it in the retail store. Again, the promo code is TMDS. You can thank me
later. Number one on your hip parade, here on Chump 1050 in Toronto.
When I was talking to Mark Hebbshire this morning,
because he recorded his Hebbsy on Sports, I mentioned this episode.
He's a big fan of Chump 1050 Chum,
and we were going like a nostalgic trip down memory lane,
and I was playing some clips, and he said,
who's going to join you for this?
And I said, Doug Thompson.
He said that there's no better person on the planet for this episode. So I want listeners who aren't familiar with you to know
that they're in good hands for this journey. Well, thank you, Mark, for that one. Yeah. I was
actually hoping that I'd be episode 525 because that's half of 1050. All right.
Dabnett Doyle beat me for that. Dabnett got that one. And congrats for saying her name properly.
Well, I've interviewed her a couple of times. Dabnett. Now one. And congrats for saying her name properly. Well, I've interviewed her a couple of times, so.
Dabnett.
Now, you worked at Chum.
You just alluded to it.
So when did, well, I guess I first want to know, when did you start listening to 1050
Chum?
1959.
I grew up partially in Oakville.
My father was in the army and we moved there in 56, I think it was.
And I discovered Chum in 1959.
there in 56, I think it was. And I discovered Chum in 1959. And we went to the CNE every year.
My parents would go off and do their thing. And I would go to the Chum trailer at the Prince's Gate and just kind of stand there and watch all day. They also were at the Sportsman Show too in the
spring. And the jocks were all there, which radio doesn't do today. I mean, there's maybe street
teams or people that just sit there and hand out stuff, but there's no jocks were all there, which radio doesn't do today. I mean, there's maybe street teams or people that just sit there and hand out stuff,
but there's no jocks there anymore.
And that was the beauty of it all.
So 59 was when I first started listening.
And when did you start working?
65.
Okay.
Yeah.
What did you do there?
Like, just give me some detail on what exactly, what would you say you do at 1050, Chum?
I did a bunch of things over the years.
I mean, I was there for 13 years in total.
That was three different times.
The first time I was actually, I started as a board operator,
which meant I played the records and the commercials and all that for the DJs.
And then I moved, but I was always interested in production.
That was kind of, I was kind of producing commercials in my bedroom,
kind of like this, except it was my bedroom when I was 13. So I had a little setup. My parents had
bought me a little tiny tape recorder and I recorded commercials and things. So I was always
interested in that. And in two years of being a board op, I moved into the production department
because somebody left. And then a little while later, another guy left and I became production manager.
According to my research,
I don't know if this could be true,
you're going to tell us right now,
but you've won 154 awards from around the world
for creative excellence.
Yeah.
That's a lot of awards.
Where do you keep these awards?
They're in a box in the basement, a lot of them.
Yeah, a lot of them are framed certificates and things like that. And some of them are actual statues and things, but they're
basically in, actually right now they're in storage because I sold my house a year ago.
Can you give us an idea of what you would be recognized for? Any specifics?
Well, I had several different careers in terms of, you know, once I left Chum the first time, I moved to L.A. for a year and kind of got really into the commercial production side.
Came back here, started a production company, and that's where the first set of awards really happened.
I think the first three or four years we were together, my partner and I, we won about 80 awards that first few years.
And then I started to do, I went back to Chum for a bit, and then I started to do radio programs.
So I guess the most famous, the two most famous things that you maybe or maybe not know me for,
but I did work with Ringo Starr on on i wrote a 24 hour abc radio special called
ringo's yellow submarine it was back in 1983 you weren't born yet mike i was definitely born but i
don't recall it but it sounds cool that you got to worry about it ran all over the world but it
ran in canada here too ckfm ran it in toronto uh and then the other ones were, the other biggest ones, I did hundreds of radio specials
over the years for Telemedia Network, but the biggest ones, I guess, were with John Candy.
We did a series first in Canada in 85 called Rock 30, which was the 30th anniversary of rock. And
I'd known John for a couple of years because I'd worked with him on commercials when he was still on Second City Stage.
And then he really liked radio.
He loved radio.
So he said, well, let's do more.
So we did a 90-minute show that ran on Q107 and about 70 stations across Canada called That Radio Show with John Candy.
Then he moved to L.A. and he said, Doug, let's keep going.
Then he moved to LA and he said, Doug, let's keep going.
So I moved to LA with him a year later in 89. And we did Radio Candy with the C crossed out and a K
because radio stations west of the Mississippi in the US start with K.
Right.
I miss John Candy.
And I can only imagine, yeah, as you know him personally,
I only knew him from his great work, his body of work.
But he just seemed like a down-to-earth guy, right?
Yeah.
Of all the people that I've ever worked with, he's the guy that would give you the shirt
off his back, even if he didn't have another shirt to wear.
Oh, man.
We lost him way, way too early.
That's terrible.
Again, I want to reiterate the listeners, we're going to play a lot of clips, and Doug's
going to add context to the clips, and we're going to enjoy these clips of clips and doug's going to add context to the
clips and we're going to enjoy these clips together and i can't wait to to do that but again bookmark
do people bookmark anywhere i used to bookmark things i guess you don't bookmark things anymore
but if you do remember to go to chum tribute.com that's the official chum tribute site and uh
doug's got a lot of great stuff there now before we jump into these clips, I got gifts for you.
I want to get the gifts out of the way. This is because you made the trek and you're doing this
and I'm pleased you're here. Great Lakes Brewery.
Aha! I see that in front of me. Six pack for you. Yes, I remember hearing
you did a show in 2016 that I heard part of
briefly.
Maybe it wasn't this one, but it was one with Mark Weisblatt where he drank several of these while you were doing the show.
Oh, yeah. Well, he comes in once a month, Weisblatt.
He's coming in, by the way, for listeners on Halloween.
So October 31st, he'll be back.
And apparently he does his monthly consumption of beer during his visits.
And then he takes the rest of his six pack and he goes,
he likes to go to the lake and finish it off.
So,
uh,
he's a good little ritual.
He's got,
well,
thank you for that.
Yeah.
And again,
they're,
uh,
a local,
uh,
craft brewery and they're,
uh,
it's,
it's fresh,
always fresh.
And you can find them in LCBOs or you can go to the retail store,
which is pretty close.
Like it's down the street from the Costco,
pretty close to Royal York and Queensway.
I think it's called Queen Elizabeth.
Actually, I'm reading it.
30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard.
You can see it from the Gardner actually.
So thank you, Great Lakes.
Thank you, Great Lakes.
Thank you, Great Lakes.
There is a, that's a box,
but this is, I'm pointing to the Palm Pasta box.
We have a frozen lasagna for you in the freezer upstairs.
So before you leave, Doug, make sure I get you that lasagna.
Absolutely.
I love lasagna.
Yeah.
So thank you, Palm Pasta.
Stickers here for you, Doug.
I know you've been aching for a Toronto Mike sticker.
Yes, I've heard all about these.
Yes, yes.
Thank you, sticker you.
Turnabout is fair play.
I don't recall ever hearing any episodes where people gave you anything.
So I'm going to do that.
So here's a Chum star sign for your sign, which is cancer.
That's from 1970.
Now I know why you wanted to know my birthday.
I was like, why does Doug want to know my birthday?
So amazing.
Thanks so much, man.
And two Chum car signs, which was also from the 70s promotion.
Oh, my God.
How rare are these?
Like, do you have a, well, that's amazing.
I have a bunch of those, yes.
But, yeah, that was the mid-70s. Oh, it's even got the, would I win the cash and prizes today?
Not now, no.
I don't think Bell would give you anything.
And from our actual collection of real chum charts,
these are real mint original chum charts,
some from going back to 62 through the 70s.
So there's 10 of them for you.
Oh my gosh, yeah.
I've seen pictures of these on your site.
And I remember looking at the Ashby one
when he was retiring there.
And these are awesome.
Yes.
Okay, there's Ashby right there.
Yeah, there's Roger, yeah.
Look at that nice stash on Roger Ashby. This is tremendous. Thank you so much.
They're going now. On eBay, they've always been a bunch of chump chars. I think
the 60s ones would probably go between $9 and $12 and the 70s ones go around $6,
something like that. So you got $30.
Oh my goodness. When I was talking to Hebbshire, he worked at Global for many years at Sportsline.
And he was talking about,
he worked with Bob McAdory at Global.
And we were talking about his work at 1050 Chum.
And I see here, I've got the back of Bob McAdory.
The interesting thing about that cover,
they misspelled his name.
Yeah, there's an E there.
It's E-Y.
Copy editors missed that one here.
So, oh, I see.
Sponsored by Clairol.
I do need some Clairol, actually.
But this is awesome.
Oh, there he is again. Oh yeah, there he is with the E there.
I gotcha. Bob McAdory.
Watch out, Shaq. Here comes Mac.
Oh, very good.
The song was Looked Out, Here Comes Shaq.
Eddie Shaq, right? Is that the deal?
Chum's Palomine Valentine
Contest. Okay, I'm going to thoroughly enjoy these Chum 1050 chart. right eddie shack right is that the uh deal or chum's palomine valentine contest okay i'm gonna
thoroughly enjoy these uh chum 1050 uh chart those are originals and quite rare hey mike cooper well
we'll hear a lot of these voices on this episode which is awesome okay so help me so what we're
gonna do here is uh doug you're gonna provide the context and set me up and all i'm gonna have to do
is click play and then we're all gonna listen together okay well the first one you got to go back to 1957 when alan waters who had bought chum
in december of 54 uh really didn't know what to do with it was losing i don't know how much he was
losing but he was losing a lot of money every month and he was on vacation uh Christmas time in 56, I think it was. And he heard a radio station in Miami called
WQAM, which had just gone top 40. And it was owned by Storrs Broadcasting, who really started top,
it was really top 50 radio. Top 40 became a slogan that they called it later, but everything was top.
In fact, Chum was top 50 until 1968 when they switched to top 30
anyway he heard that station and thought well maybe i could do that on chum he came back and
decided to do that so on may 27th 57 he turned chum into what became a top 50 station or rock
and roll radio station 24 hours a day but he kept the guys that had been on there before
uh to his detriment some of them anyway there were a couple that shouldn't have been doing
rock and roll or even top 50 but they eventually retired and went into sales and public service
and all kinds of things like that and uh the station started to really start to take off once
a program director named alan slate got there from edmonton
and alan slate is i don't use this word lightly but alan slate is a genius uh and he really took
that radio station to to heights that i don't even think alan waters had figured it would do
because it eventually sold for 1.7 billion dollars the whole company so So they did quite well. But a couple of the promotions that they'd had,
one of the ones was The Walking Man. And this is a contest, kind of interesting. They had a contest
that the prize originally was $1,000. If you could find Chum's Walking Man. Now, there's no way to
distinguish who The Walking Man was going to be. He was just a normal guy. So imagine today walking
up to somebody and saying,
are you the chum walking man?
You'd either get arrested or punched or stabbed or shot or whatever,
depending on what city you're in.
But what they did was they couldn't find anybody that found him.
So they dropped the prize to $500.
And they still couldn't find anybody.
So then they dropped the prize to $250.
And that's where they said, okay, we've got to do something.
So they decided to get a guy.
They said the chum walking man will be wearing Bermuda shorts.
This was in the summer.
And he'll be a young queen at 12 noon.
And then Slate, the genius that he was,
sent all of the chum on-air jocks to wear Bermuda shorts down there at Queen.
And so it was pandemonium.
Literally, there was a traffic jam.
Toronto cops went nuts.
There were 10,000 people there looking for this walking man
that was going to give him $250.
And Chum had to do an editorial,
which you're going to hear at the end of this little clip piece,
where they had to say, sorry,
we're bad. So these
are the promos for that, and then the editorial.
The Chum Walking Man!
This Tuesday, a man will walk the
streets of Toronto, find this man, and win
$1,000 in cash.
The Chum Walking Man could be anywhere.
If you approach him and say,
CHUM is my favorite station,
you will win $1,000.
Say to everyone,
CHUM is my favorite station.
Listen for Clues on Chum and Tuesday,
find the Chum Walking Man.
The Chum Walking Man.
The way I walk is just the way I walk. The Chum Walking Man. The way I walk is just the way I walk.
The Chum Walking Man might give you $500.
Tell everyone you see, CHUM is my favorite station.
If you tell it to the Chum Walking Man, he'll give you $500.
Listen to Chum for important clues.
The Chum Walking Man.
A man walks the streets of Toronto.
Find this man and win $250 in cash.
The Chum Walking Man could be anywhere.
If you approach him and say,
CHUM is my favorite station,
you will win $250.
He could be a neighbor, a man you work with.
Say to everyone, CHUM is my favorite station.
Listen for clues on Chum
and find the Chum Walking Man.
Chum Speaks Up Chum walking man. Chum speaks up. An editorial feature.
From time to time, CHUM in editorial form has criticized various civic endeavors or individuals.
This time, Chum's editorial attack is directed at our own operation. This station sincerely regrets any inconvenience or hardship which was caused pedestrians and motorists during the finale of our walking man promotion at the intersection of Queen and Yonge streets.
CHUM at no time visualized the effects of this promotion. In particular, our apologies to the
Toronto Police Department and a sincere thank you for the superb performance of the traffic officers
in quickly clearing what has been reported as one of the largest traffic jams in the history of Toronto. Needless to say, if CHUM had foreseen the consequences of our
Walking Man finale, it would not have been staged at Yonge and Queen.
Absolutely. Now, the voice of that editorial, by the way, was chum newsman Harv Kirk, who
eventually went on to do Harvey Kirk at CTV News.
Awesome. That was great. That was great. So, yeah, it's fun to go back and listen CTV News. Awesome. That was great.
That was great.
So, yeah, it's fun to go back and listen to some of those things.
Now, you got to remember, though, the thing about Chum in the late 50s to the mid 60s,
it was quite corny.
There was a lot of corny stuff on there, elephant jokes and bucks for yucks, where they give
you a buck, that kind of stuff.
And I put a little montage together just to show you how corny some of them were
of just some of the promos from the 50s and 60s.
And then we'll play later some from the 70s.
You'll see the difference.
All right, here we go with some promos.
Bucks for Bix!
A rap at the door, a cheery hello,
and you'll know it's time to play Bucks for Bix.
If you have any one of Bix Pickles, 33 wonderful products, when a chum announcer calls at your home,
he'll give you $1 plus a tangy product sample.
Watch for our mobile cruiser when chum comes to your home to play Bucks for Bix.
Chum's Clean Bean Contest.
Chum's Clean Bean Contest.
Do you have an extra wide part to your hair?
A neat head of skin?
Then send a picture of your bald head to Chum's Clean Bean Contest.
To the person judged the best bald-headed beauty,
we'll send $25 and guarantee one free head shine.
Both men and women are eligible for this contest.
Send a picture of your own
or a friend's polished pate
to Clean Bean Chum Toronto.
Crazy.
Fake it and make it.
When a new Cadillac limousine
with Big Daddy
is your personal chauffeur,
simply sit in front
of a chum microphone
with another contestant
and perspire.
The person who perspires the loudest wins.
Naturally, you'll be supplied with a bucket of water that you can slosh around
and perhaps a water gun that you can squirt against the mic.
To enter, simply send your name, address, and criminal record
to Fake It and Make It,
Care of Fix Television Contest Department, CHUM Toronto.
What's the good word?
Tell us in one word why you listen to CHUM.
We'll award $25 to the person sending us what we consider the best answer.
Simply send us a letter or card containing the one word that best describes why you listen to CHUM.
Send your entries to OneWordChumToronto.
When you're driving along in your car.
Yes, when you're driving along in your car.
Keep tuned to 1050 to play Chum's exciting game, Lucky License.
When you hear your license number read on the air,
phone CHUM within 30 minutes and Chum will make one month's car payment for you.
That's right.
Chum will make one car payment for you
if you hear your license number
and call us within 30 minutes.
Keep listening.
You may have the next lucky license.
CHUM presents the typewriter contest.
Silly stuff, huh?
Just listen to this typewritten message.
to this typewritten message.
Simply guess what was just written by our typewriter.
Mail your answer to CHUM.
Our jackpot is increasing 10.50 every day.
Now, write to type CHUM Toronto.
Whispering.
Whiskers. CHUM announcers have sworn we shall not shave until the United Appeal reaches its objective.
Here now are three chum DJs rubbing their beards against the microphone.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
You guess who they are, write down their names in the order you heard them.
The listener sending us the first correct answer that we select will receive $50 from CHUM,
and a $50 donation will go to the United Appeal from CHUM in their name.
Send your answers to Whispering Whiskers.
CHUM Toronto. Who is that lady I saw you out with last night? What do you mean, bud? Just what are you inferring? No, no, it's a joke. A joke, you call
my girlfriend a joke? No, just the end is a joke. What? Now, just a minute, smart guy. Please, let me explain.
Chum will pay $25 for the funniest or most novel answer to the old question,
Who was that lady I saw you out with last night?
Send your answers to Who was that lady?
Chum Toronto.
Now you understand.
Yeah, 23 skadoo boop boop ba-doop.
That is silly.
There you go.
Very corny and silly.
I was going to say cheesy but fun.
Yeah, they were a lot of fun.
But they gave away a buck.
They gave away two bucks.
They gave away $10.50 as you heard a lot.
Right.
So that was really what was going on at Chum back then.
A lot of that stuff, one of the last voices,
the last two voices there were John Sprague,
who was the Housewives DJ,
and Alan Farrell, who was the promotion manager.
He also came from edmonton
after alan slate as did chum dj mike darrow and uh so i mean he alan farrell the late alan farrell
was really a corny kind of guy he liked those kind of puns and things like that so that's why
there's a lot of those puns on chum at the time. He left in 67, I think it was.
So, yeah, the thing about Chum that was why it was successful,
it was actually successful twice, really.
The first time was in the late 50s into the mid-60s.
Alan Slate left at that point.
It kind of lost its way a bit,
and then a new program director named J. Robert Wood came in in about 68
and took it through to the end of the 70s, and that was the second era of Chum's successful situation.
But the beauty of both eras was that the talented guys on the air were matched by the talented people behind the scenes,
like Alan Farrell and other people like that, that were writers, producers, and all kinds of things that were going on.
One of the things that Chum did, certainly from 59 until at least 64,
there had been a guy that used to use little song snippet break-ins called Dickie Goodman.
There had been a guy that used to use little song snippet break-ins called Dickie Goodman.
This was back in the 50s.
He had a partner at the early days called Buchanan and Goodman.
And they had a number three hit on Billboard called The Flying Saucer, something like that.
Anyway, then he went right through to the 70s.
He had Mr. Jaws as a hit in the 1970s. And again, he was using little song snippets to answer certain things.
So Chum did that every year for the Maple Leafs,
and they called it the Maple Leafs Forever.
And they kind of did a spoof on Foster Hewitt.
So if you pass three, you're not going to play three.
You're going to play four.
All right.
We kind of did a spoof on Foster Hewitt,
who apparently was not real thrilled about it.
So they did Faster Foster and Faster Foster's Father,
and they used the same little song snippets that Dickie Goodman did
to talk about the Leafs and things.
So this is one of those.
Hello, sports fans from coast to coast.
This is Faster Foster.
And this is Faster Foster's Father with another,
what's the name of the game they're playing, son?
A multiplication. That's the name of the game they're playing, son? A multiplication.
That's the name of the game.
Thanks, son.
That's okay, Dad. I'd better handle the interviews tonight.
Whipper snapper.
We'll get along.
Won't we, Dad?
There's the opening face-off, and Dick Duff just leaped into the audience and is twisting with a young lady.
I love to give the girls a whirl to the music of an old shoebox.
Dad, there's a change in the New York lineup.
Instead of Langlois in defense, you'll see...
Her royal majesty.
Liz sure gets around.
Pulpher now has Spencer's arm behind his back.
Listen to that lady in the front row.
Break it!
Now it's Wilson.
He comes right in on goal
and knocks Johnny Bauer flying into the air.
Johnny.
Johnny.
Johnny.
The puck goes to Prentice who takes a slap shot that goes wide.
Oh, how it hurts to miss you so.
Police have taken control and listened to the fans shout, yell, and scream.
Shout, shout, yell, yell, scream, scream.
Must be an echo in here.
Here's a note, Dad.
Despite rumors,
Bathgate will definitely play tonight.
Uh-oh, trouble's back in town.
Hey, there's Mahavillich with Keon and Nevin.
They certainly remind me of the famous kid line of...
Dad, right. Me shank a line of... There's a whistle.
Litzenberger's going off for high stockings,
but he can't get into the penalty box.
Let me in, will you?
He always calls the ref, will you?
Dad, the fans don't like that last call.
Look at the stuff they're throwing out on the ice.
Now the referee shaking his fist at someone in the crowd and saying,
While we're waiting, if you folks turn to page six in your lucky program, you could win.
A car and a boat.
The play still stopped, and Punch Him Black
seems a little anxious to hear the rest's decision.
Tell me, tell me, tell me.
The Leafs take over, and Harvey and Horton
are tangled up on the boards.
Harvey's saying something.
Get no kisses till you marry me.
Dad, young Conacher's dressed to play tonight.
I wonder if he can fill his father's shoes.
These nights in Charlie's shoes are killing me.
Shaq just slid into the gold mouth and dumped Gump, who gave him a lump.
Dad, Shaq fell on his bad knee and is asking for time out.
Give me time, oh give me a little time to ease the pain.
King Clancy won't like that.
Remember what happened last time they lost the game?
King cast to children in the fiery furnace.
Here comes the final bell.
And here's our three-star selection.
Tonight's three stars are the three Flukyoki Doki brothers. This is Faster Foster reminding all
the youngsters listening that if you can't win, you cheat a little bit. And this is Faster Foster's
father saying, oh my Scotland, I am coming home to you. Every year they would do that for the leaf season.
Man, oh man, I can't even imagine a station today giving that much time to a bit.
Some of their bits got a little longer than that.
But one of the other things that Alan Waters was very, very strong about was public service.
He really, really wanted to give back to the community.
very, very strong about was public service.
He really, really wanted to give back to the community.
And, I mean, in 60, I think it was 67, he started,
no, he had this before.
He had the Chum Kids Crusade,
which eventually became Christmas Wish.
But it didn't happen until like 70, 71,
it became Christmas Wish.
But he was always giving back and things like that. and uh we'll hear this a little bit later on
but chum was very big on jingles uh that uh you know talked about the station and all that kind
of stuff and i got a montage of that later but one of the things that they had done was a about
a minute and a half song about toronto uh that they paid for it was done in in dallas texas by
these jingle companies that were there and it doesn't even mention Chum once.
Literally, not once.
And what they did, they pressed this up as a 45
and gave it out to listeners, sponsors,
and they were all over the place.
This was around 1962 that they did this one.
It's a great life when you're in Toronto
So many things here to see and do in Toronto, the city that's wide awake.
It's a nice town with nice people in it, all of them proud of the city too, that's Toronto, the queen city by the lake. There's business, banking and industry
Building our city today
Casa Loma, beautiful parks
It's a great spot to work or play
Thanks Toronto, a wonderful place to be
There's O'Keeffe Center for Music and Drama
In August we go to the CNE
And right at the heart there's a smart new city hall
In the fall it's football, we root for the Argos
Bay Street handles our deals
We're making history at the University of Toronto
See the Leafs play hockey down at the gardens.
Drive along Yonkoya 401.
Everybody's going places.
Falling movies, golf or races.
Toronto's full of happy places.
The expressway to the subway.
Every day's a happy day in Toronto
Our hometown
Wild.
It's amazing they couldn't stick chum in there once.
No, they didn't.
They decided not to on that,
but they had plenty of other jingles that we'll play later.
The interesting thing for me was when I got here in 65,
my father had been posted to Edmonton, so I was there.
And I got here on a Saturday.
And how did I get here?
I took the train.
And I went from Union Station all the way up to Chum
at 1331 Yonge Street by St. Clair there.
And there was actually a Saturday switchboard.
They actually had a live switchboard they actually had a live
switchboard person on saturday and i was 18 at the time and i said i'm starting work here monday can
i go into the control room and kind of see uh the woman didn't believe me she didn't believe that i
was actually and she was actually in the traffic department as well and on monday when i did come
in she's i'm sorry I didn't believe you.
But the thing that I wanted to say was that,
because they mentioned the subway and that jingle.
Literally, I had nothing to do until Monday morning now.
So what do I do?
So I rode the subway,
which at the time only went from Union Station to Eglinton,
back to Union Station.
That's all there was.
So then I'd get a chocolate bar and I'd eat that.
And then I'd had to wait till Monday.
Crazy.
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
What do we got next, Doug?
This is fantastic.
Early on, see, I used to listen to these.
Most of the guys that I listened to as a kid when I was growing up in Oakville were still there when I got there.
The only one that wasn't was Albalisca, but we'll get into him in a minute.
But Mike Darrow had come in 1959 from Edmonton,
and Mike was this huge, tall, 6'3", good-looking guy.
He was a singer, and in fact, he left in 65
to go and host an ABC television network show
called Dream House or something like that.
He came back and did some global work as well
but uh this is just an excerpt of of mike's show from 1961 i want to show you that it kind of shows
you the the silliness of the contest because they have to have listeners call in and sing the
little section of the song blue moon by the marcells but what you will hear on here is
chum was was a little more than just a rock and roll radio
station. They had serious news people. They had at one point, there was something like around 18 or
20 people in the newsroom. Can you think about that now? Can you imagine? It's crazy. It's crazy.
Even now, CFRB and Newstalk 1010 and Chum together, which are owned by Bell, don't even have
that many at all. And they had reporters everywhere.
But they would hire people to do commentaries.
And one of the people they hired was Pierre Burton,
the very famous author and commentator.
And he literally did 12 commentaries a day.
One of the morning ops would pick up the tape.
They'd bring it into the station in the morning.
They'd put them all together.
And he had his own little jingle and everything.
And there is an episode of Pierre Burton on here.
Mike Darrell.
Mike Darrell.
Mike Darrell. Blue Moon We ask you to sing a certain line, and if you do it, and you phone us and you do it,
we'll tell you exactly when to call.
We'll give you a dollar plus a copy of the record Blue Moon, and all you have to sing is this.
Bom-ba-ba-bom-ba-bom-ba-bom-ba-ba-bom-ba-ba-bom-ba-dang-a-dang-dang-pa-ding-a-dong-ding.
Blue Moon.
Oh, I'm so great. I don't know.
I don't understand it, really.
Those Marcells, they get $5,000 a week.
And I only get $50.
And we both sing the same words.
He's back again.
Here's Pierre.
Chum's Mr. Burton is on the air.
The disease that really baffles medical science is the one that we all get, the common cold.
And from Washington yesterday came news
that a government scientist believes
the cold has a chance of being conquered
in less than 10 years as polio was conquered.
It can be done by a crash program of intensive research, he says.
But the program would cost a billion dollars,
and the money is not available.
You wouldn't think it would be that hard to get, would you? More money is not available. You would think it would be that, you wouldn't
think it would be that hard to get, would you? More money is spent on defense than it would be
spent in the common cold, far more. And yet incalculable human misery, not to mention man
hours of labor by the millions, would be saved by some defense against this disease. In fact,
the crash program would probably pay for itself.
I don't imagine that the billion bucks will be forthcoming because we're spending all our money on missiles, rockets,
atomic submarines, and space shots to the moon.
Pierre Burton will emphatically come back again
in one hour from now with another comment.
This time he talks about the battle going on
between the lobbyists of butter and margarine.
17 after four
and that just fades away so i mean the corny contests again silly things like that but
but pierre burton uh literally would record those at home and uh after they did that for an entire
year so can you imagine six to five days a? It would be like 11 or 12 comments,
and he'd have to come up with these ideas for a minute.
I think that makes him the original blogger, I think.
Yeah, could have been.
Could have easily been.
Now, the thing about Chum was that they always had great morning men.
They always had guys that really, really made a mark in the market.
Jane Elson, of course, was on the air for 17 years on Chum,
and then later Tom Rivers and John Major,
all kinds of different guys.
Brian Henderson was on for a long time at the end there.
But he wasn't the original morning man in 57.
That was the original program director named Phil Ladd,
who Alan Waters had found in Lubbock, Texas.
Anybody who knows Lubbock, Texas. Anybody knows Lubbock,
Texas knows that's where Buddy Holly's from. And he had been a program director of a stores radio station there in Lubbock. They brought him up. Didn't quite work out. He did the morning show
and programming. He realized he wasn't going to really work as the morning guy. So they found
this guy in London, Ontario, Al Baliska, who'd been in Kingston and a couple other places.
They found this guy in London, Ontario, Al Beliska, who'd been in Kingston and a couple other places.
And he was like the happy Hungarian.
Beliska was one of these guys that was just funny as it all got out. And one of the things that he did every day was these corny jokes again called the world's worst jokes.
And he did that a couple of times in the morning.
And they repeated them again later on in the Teen Guys show,
Dave Johnson, at night.
And they really were corny jokes.
But he ended up writing something like five or six joke books
that sold in Canada all over the world.
And he syndicated his jokes for a while.
And Ark Records in 64, I think it was,
put out an album of the world's worst
jokes, but they weren't the chum ones, because he'd already
left by that point. But this is an example
of Al Beliska's world's worst jokes.
These are the
world's worst jokes.
Look at the old shoe I found. It's size
14. That's a really big shoe.
George, I have a cousin who was born in Poland.
What part of Poland?
Oh, he's a North Pole.
Say, did you hear about the rooming house tenant who jumped out the window?
Is that an actual fact?
Well, no, it's just a rumor.
An old uncle of mine died, George, and threatened to haunt me.
But I'm not worried.
How come?
He hasn't got a haunting license.
Oh, they are pretty bad, aren't they?
There you go.
Silly kind of things like that.
But Beliska was, by the time I got there, he'd already left.
Two years.
He'd left in the fall of
63. But I
saw him and talked to him a few times
at the C&E and all of it. And he was really
a funny guy. They call him the morning
mayor or the happy Hungarian
because he was Hungarian.
And he really was
kind of a messy guy.
And he would always spill
things and all kinds of stuff.
So he was always upset that people would laugh at him at inside Chum.
You know, I'm not a messy guy, but he was a messy guy.
And he just got tired of being, I guess, kind of made fun of.
And when CKEY, which was Chum's early rival,
offered him the job at the morning show in 63, he took it.
Assuming that most of his listeners would go with him,
unfortunately for Al, they didn't.
And Alan Slate and Alan Waters found Jay Nelson in Buffalo,
WKBW Radio and Television, brought him in in late,
well, he started December 2nd of 63.
And he was on the air till 2000.
And he literally was the morning man that most people remember now.
You know, people like Barenaked Ladies,
they all grew up to Jay Nelson, that kind of stuff.
But the thing about what, as I was talking about,
the behind-the-scenes people at Chum that were as important as the on-air people.
A lot of these, a lot of radio stations have one guy that's either the morning guy or night guy
that's a singer, right?
Everybody wants to be a singer.
But Chum actually had, over the decades, they had a bunch of really good ones.
And they all, for the most part, made the Chum chart.
Really, the first one was the original all-night guy.
It's not on this montage.
But it was a guy named Hank Noble
who recorded his under the name of Billy Guitar. I don't have that one on here. I have the record,
but I just didn't put it on there. But Al Belisca had a contest to write a song and that ended up
becoming, what the heck was the name of that song? Anyway, I'll think of it in a second. Sorry. But
Mike Darrow, the singer, he was a real singer.
He was actually a professional singer.
Now, in 1959, Johnny Horton had a hit called The Battle of New Orleans.
Yes.
And so Gary Ferrier, the great writer at CHUM,
who later became the CHUM FM program director
and then left to go write for Johnny Cash,
he wrote a parody of that called The Battle of Queenston Heights that Mike sang,
and it made the jump chart for four or five weeks.
Al Beliska's song was The Battle of the Dying Cowboy.
That made the jump charts for four or five weeks.
And then we had The Chummingbirds, which was Mike Darrow, John Sprague,
Bob McAdory, and Gary Farrier.
And they had a bunch of hits.
They used to perform at the CNE, and they used to do all kinds of concerts.
And they had a hit called The Brotherhood of Man.
That's on here.
And then we had Gary Farrier himself.
Most of these things involved Gary Farrier because he was one heck of a talented guy.
Still is.
And he plays a mean jazz piano. But he
wrote a song in about
I think it was 64
when the Beatles had hit called Ringo Deer
which was a Christmas song about a deer
called Ringo. And then
in 65 he did a
Bob Dylan parody
called Like a Dribbling Fram
where he just kind of made up nonsense
words and like that.
Now, in the 70s, there was Mike Holland,
who was a more serious singer.
And Mike had a couple of hits.
He had one hit on here as Homer Bunt, a Blue Jays song,
and then he had one of his own.
So these are just short snippets of the songs
from the various chum jocks.
You've heard about the battle that was fought in New Orleans when the British had some trouble with their ranks. from the various chum jocks. History's most heroic fight What a sight so fine When that long red line
Grew the Yankees off of Pleasant Heights
This is Al Belisca.
That's not him singing.
His life is drawing to a close
Deep in the west
the sun drops down
and rests like a fiery
glowing crown
on the hills we used to roam
Soon I will see them
no more
Those hills have always been my home
Since first I learned to ride
And there many times have I passed the day
While close by my side was the laughter gay
Of my love, soon to be my bride.
The Canadian Presidential Radio and Press Conference is about to begin.
Yes, well, I believe we can begin the questions. You, sir?
What do you think about politics in Canada?
Let me answer it this way.
For my part, I think it would be an excellent idea.
The sooner they start, the better.
Yes.
Mr. President, everyone knows of your interest in football.
Do you plan to play a game of touch with the Toronto Argos?
Well, as a matter of fact, no.
From what I've heard, the Argos didn't touch anyone all season.
Mr. President. Yes.
Sir, how did your little sweetheart enjoy our
animal farm on Center Island?
Jackie loved it.
Yes. With your New
England background, have you seen Boston
play hockey lately? No, I
haven't, and neither has anyone else.
A man who lives in
Africa is just like you and I.
He wants to love. He wants to live. He doesn't want to die. He loves to see his children
and to hold his baby's hand. This man is you. This man is me. Another leaf of God's great tree, a tree of life that's known as the Brotherhood of Man
They call him Ringo, Ringo, Ringo, dear
Ring-a-long, Ringo, Ringo, dear
Ringo, Ringo, Ringo, dear
He's with Santa Claus this year
I used to have these argyle socks, I kept a box to bloom in my room
Till my girl named Cheryl said, you're a squarehead. Argyle socks are out, boy.
Well, she only said it once, because I'm no dunce.
And a pop's a karate chop right on top of her swan-like neck.
And she said, heck, you wrecked my swan-like neck with a karate chop.
Pop that up, boy.
She began to cry.
She wanted to die.
So said I.
There's nothing worse than moldy pie.
You're a lunch pail.
You're in jail.
You're stealing ginger ale off Jerry Vale.
You've gotten the mail from a frail jailer who failed
when she dropped a grail on the third rail
on the Santa Fe Trail.
Hail and an old nail in the sail by a snail
who was old and cold and bold
cause he'd roll
up her nose. How is your
bird?
I said, how is
your bird?
Are you cleaving your scram? I said, how is your birth?
Are you cleaving your scram?
Is your glam in a jam?
Like the dribbling of the pram
Do she want love?
Do she want love?
Do she want love from me? I said, how is your birth? Yeah, the last two are my call-in.
That very last one has been played on this program before.
I've dusted that off and played it a few times.
I think it's fantastic.
And I once wrote about it at torontomike.com
and Mike Holland, that's not his real name, but Mike...
Mike Bouye.
Right.
He wrote me a note from somewhere in the States
where he was living.
Right, to basically say hi
and to let me know the story behind the song.
Very cool.
Yeah, he was a real singer.
Most of those other ones were just novelty records.
And, you know, that's the thing about my generation
growing up with radio as it was then.
I got, because there was nothing else,
there was no YouTube, there was no Spotify,
there was no nothing other than radio and television.
And television didn't play much music except for Dick Clark's American Bandstand.
We had jukeboxes.
Well, we did have jukeboxes in restaurants, yeah.
But I got an incredible musical education from listening to the radio.
And a lot of people did that across the country and across North America
because radio stations played a lot of different songs. If you look at the chum charts from the 60s there uh you'll see not only uh you know pop rock
there's country in there jim reeves had a number one hit in toronto there were a lot of novelty
records even into the 70s there were novelty records you don't hear a novelty record on the
radio today ever anywhere uh and then there were instrumentals
there was even some jazz stuff dave brubeck did a had a hit called take five so there was
a wide spectrum of music that's why i love all kinds of music today so you're right the top 40
as we used to call it uh or we still call it i suppose it was was you right far more diverse i
mean it wasn't that in the late 80s when i was listening i'd be hearing a deaf leopard song next
to like i don't know a janna jackson song I was listening, I'd be hearing a Def Leppard song next to like, I don't know, a Janet Jackson song.
It was just, it was all over the place.
Well, now everything's niche casting, right?
So you listen to Sirius XM, they go by decades,
but you can't hear the various things that you could on one radio station.
Right.
Which is why Chum was so greatly successful.
And the other thing is, one of the things we,
one of the songs in that little Pastor Foster thing,
a montage there, was My Boomerang Won't Come Back by Charlie Drake.
Now, that was a number one song on Chum, a novelty record, a number one song,
as was a song by a Scottish singer named Andy Stewart,
a Scottish soldier, was also number one.
But to go back to Charlie Drake for a second,
he was a British comedian that was produced by a guy
that would have tons of number one records.
Just a couple of years later than that, George Martin.
Oh, yes.
And that was George's first real hit in North America.
Interesting.
It was Charlie Drake, My Boomerang Won't Come Back.
But, okay, things happened in 63 with Chum.
Things were getting a little complacent, and I said Al Belisca left in the fall.
But prior to that, CKEY found this guy that I know you've had on Toronto, Mike, David Marsden now.
But back then in 63, he created this character called Dave Mickey, which was kind of, I think he mentioned it on the show.
It's kind of a cast between Dick Biondi,
who was on WLS in Chicago,
a little bit of Jerry Lewis in there as well.
And I listened to that whole episode
and he didn't play any of his Dave Mickeys.
And I know he can't do that anymore
because he's David Marsden now.
He talks like that.
But I asked him actually to do it once,
and he really couldn't do it anymore.
That was a crazy kind of character that he had.
So, and I wanted people to hear what Dave Mickey,
Dave Mickey scared the crap out of Chum,
because he was so good.
And he was,
he just grabbed the teen audience like instantly.
And this is what Dave Mickey sounded like.
It's all a gold on us,
the gold last two of the night time, on the Dave Mickey sounded like. Anyway, if it's tonight, they're out there on the beach having a party, and they said that I was going to supply the music there because they're going to use radios and things there.
So hi to the great 10A.
It says around 9 o'clock if possible.
Okay, there we are.
All right, to 10A up at Port Hope High School having a swinging ball.
John, look good.
Guys, yeah.
S-C-K-E-Y for your swinging.
Some of the time.
Hi to Phil and Mendel tonight from Steve and Bobby and Bird there,
and I'm all supposed to say hello to Porky Buck out there.
Yes, Porky Buck as in Porky.
Think of a jig there.
And I have a dog named Porky.
It's about that time at 24.9.
Time for a golden record.
You'll remember the Marble Lens' solid gold sound on 580 here.
C-K-E-Y in Toronto.
Hey, I like this sound, man.
This is solid gold on the David Mickey Show at the night time.
Until 11, live and in color.
Here's the big sound of the Marvalettes.
And out of the past, it's Beach 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9.
And there he goes that's he scared uh alan slade and alan waters and everybody at chum they thought oh god there
go our teens if they did go they went to dave and uh chum said what the heck are we gonna do so this
was in the spring of early spring of 63 so they had to go much bigger than dave mickey and the only
thing they could do was go to dick clark dick clark besides having his tv show american band
stand had a syndicated show in the u.s called the dick clark radio show so they brought that
into toronto he came in and did it live a bunch of times but most of the time he was just on tape
little they had cartridges tape cartridges and he would ask dave Dave, hey Dave, Dave Johnson was his co-host,
what time is it right now?
Or they recorded every second of every hour.
And there was a two-hour show from 7 to 9, and they did that for a year.
And then Dave Mickey actually left after six months to go to television.
So that kind of helped things along.
But this is the opening of the Dick Clark radio show,
which was Dick Live here in Toronto on May 27, 1963.
Winds East at 10.
Chum News was presented by Rothman's King Size Cigarettes.
The Chum Time, 7 o'clock.
Live from the terrace in downtown Toronto.
Now, in person for his very first show on CHUM, here is Dick Carr!
Let's get this show on the road!
God bless you! Thank you very, very much! Woo-hoo! Why, bless you. Thank you very, very much.
Woo-wee!
Why, thank you.
David, how are you, my good man?
Fine, thank you, Dick.
Thank you.
You know, Dave, you told me when we got here at CHUM,
I was going to work with a partner, and thank you,
I didn't realize she was going to be that gorgeous, the weather girl here.
I'm the partner, Dick.
You're my partner here. You can't realize she was going to be that gorgeous, the weather girl here. I'm the partner, Dick. You're my partner here?
You can't win them all, you know.
Oh, we hope you'll have fun tonight.
We have a few things planned for you.
This is the first of a series here on CHUM.
And if you want to dance, if you want to hoot and holler, join in and we'll swing along.
David, we got the music all set to go.
All ready, Dick.
This is the thing by Leslie Gore called It's My Party.
See, that was that was live
from the Mutual Street Arena
at the time
and they had a huge audience
and actually he brought in
he brought in Freddie Cannon
some of these names
I might not be familiar to
because you're so young.
I'm soaking him in.
I'm soaking him in.
Freddie Cannon
who had a ton of hits
in the 60s they brought Bobby Crutola in Ronnie Hawkins was there. I know those him in. Freddie Cannon, who had a ton of hits in the 60s.
They brought Bobby Crutola in.
Ronnie Hawkins was there.
I know those two names.
And Little Caesar.
No, it wasn't Little Caesar.
Sorry, it was Richie Knight and the Midnights were also there.
And it was a live show for two hours,
and then the rest of the year,
except for three or four times when Dick came into town,
were all on tape.
Let me just say, I listened to the CKEY clip there from Dave Mickey.
Firstly, I think guys my age would be blown away.
If they didn't know about Dave Mickey and the legend of Dave Mickey,
if you told them that was David Marsden, I think their brains would melt.
But also, he slips in there that, of course, the CKEY was at 580,
and we also, guys my age, know it as 590.
So when did that switch happen? I'm just curious.
CKEY was owned by Jack Kent Cook
for a long time. And then he decided to move to the States
when he didn't get the television channel that CFTO became.
And so he sold it to RKO, which was
sorry, he didn't sell it to RKO. That was CKLW in Windsor. He sold it to
Westinghouse, Group W Radio.
And Mickey was in during that era.
And he was just one of those guys that was so unbelievably good.
I love Dave Marsden.
He's one of my favorite people of all time.
And that Dave Mickey show was literally scared Chum so much
that they had to go and do the declaration.
Hired the big gun.
And then later on, CKEY hired, which was a couple of times,
a couple of stations took shots at Chum,
and later on, CFTR, which is now 680 News,
but at the time it was music,
they actually did kind of take over a little bit with the ratings.
Not too much, but a little bit.
But CKEY tried in the 60s, never really made it. actually did kind of take over a little bit with the ratings not too much but a little bit but cky
tried in the 60s never really made it but one of the things is they got al baliska they took al
baliska in the fall of 63 and that's when jay nelson came in and when baliska had the world's
worst jokes jay had hello toronto which was just like a candid phone call where he'd phone up
unsuspecting people and
be these characters. And that was a lot of the premises were written by Alan Farrell,
the promotions guy I mentioned before. And Jay, my production studio was right beside the AM
control room. And the studio that Jay used to record the phone calls, he had a little tape
recorder in there and he'd just make phone calls for a couple hours, was literally a glass from me. So he would use, Jay would use the names of people on the
station. So on this particular one, and I didn't know about this and I had no idea at the time,
but this was around 67, that he actually used my name. Until like a couple of years ago when
somebody had taped all of these and sent them in, I had no idea that he'd
use my name. But this is what Jay did. He phoned people as a silly
character and put them in kind of strange situations. This is
Hello Toronto.
Hello Toronto! 13 before 8 o'clock. You say you just got
married. You say you're going on your honeymoon.
And you say you got a practical joker for a friend.
Then you're listening to some monkey business, right?
Pet shop.
Oh, hi.
You the pet shop people?
Yes, sir.
Yeah, look, Doug Thompson's the name.
I just saw your ad here.
I'm kind of a practical joker.
And a friend of mine is getting married on Saturday.
Uh-huh.
And you got monkeys, huh? Uh-huh. Now, look of a practical joker. And a friend of mine is getting married on Saturday. And you got monkeys, huh?
Now look, here's the plan.
What would it cost me
to see what we want to do?
We know the hotel. Hello?
Yes, sir? I can't talk too loud. I'm here at the office.
We know the hotel they're going to stay at,
you know? And I would like
to have, when they go
to the room, you know what I mean? Yeah. When they open the door, we're going to have uh when they go to the room you know what i mean yeah when they
open the door we're gonna have six monkeys oh boy jumping all around you know and making noise and
stuff just really messing the place up yeah uh what would it cost to rent uh rent the monkeys
just for you know just for the weekend but i don't think you're gonna be able to rent one of those
not for not for something like that okay look at i'll tell you what. If I did buy the monkeys and we put them in there,
would you be willing to take them up to the room?
Sure, why not?
Yeah, no, here's another idea.
Would you, could you kind of stand around in there
and say, while these go with the room,
we could get you a little trainer's outfit.
Yeah.
You know, like one of those little caps they wear, the organ grinders?
Yeah.
And you just tell him it goes with the room.
He might punch you in the mouth.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, but who's going to get the punch, me or the monkey?
No, you, pal.
Yeah, I don't think it's worth it.
Well, Eddie's a nice guy, but I think if we goof him up on his honeymoon, he'll really get bugged.
Yeah, that is true.
And you know, when they get mad at the...
Well, I'll be in London.
I got a flight to London that particular weekend, you see.
Yeah, yeah.
So, look, would you give him a little card?
I'll give a card and say, how's this for a practical joke, your friend Dougie?
Yeah, sure.
You will?
Sure.
How big are you, pal?
I'm small.
Oh.
I'm five feet six.
You're going to get clobbered. Yeah.
Do you have your own teeth?
Yes, I do, and I don't want to lose it either.
Now, when could you
be at the hotel?
I don't know. It depends on what it is.
Look, that's a joke, or
that's for real. It's a practical
joke I'm playing on him. Yeah, you're putting
that on him, but that's not a joke you're putting
on me now. No, no, no. You'd have to take the monkeys there and the monkeys there and I know I have to go and take the monkey at the hotel the night
They're gonna go for a honeymoon. Yeah, and you want me to wait for him and give him the monkey
Yeah, and you and a card. Yeah, and if you get mad I get the punch. Yeah, you got it. Perfect
Yeah, yeah, you forget about the whole thing. Why I keep my monkey and you keep your punch. Wait a minute.
Do you ever listen to the radio?
Yes.
Do you ever listen to Jungle J?
Yes.
That's who I am.
Ah, that's what you are, eh?
Yes.
You sure?
Pardon me for laughing, folks.
It's ten minutes before seven o'clock and 37 chum degrees,
and the high today will get up to 35.
The wind is right now from the northwest at 7 miles an hour.
Would you like to ride in my beautiful car?
Crazy, Jay.
He did that for, God, three, four, five years.
Crazy.
Every day.
Now, they would take those tapes, and then they dated them down, of course,
to be like three minutes long.
And those temps were, of course, Fahrenheit, because you hear it
at 37, you're like, oh,
sounds hot. Yeah, yeah. Well, the interesting
thing about Jay was that,
and Chum, too. Chum was
very good. Alan Slate was, like I said,
a genius at being able to
figure out promotions. And when the Beatles came
through, the Beatles actually
only played in Canada in three cities.
Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. And they only played Vancouver Canada in three cities Vancouver Toronto and Montreal
and they only played Vancouver in 64 because it was a riot and Brian Epstein was afraid the Beatles
were going to get killed so he never went back to Vancouver ever because it was like they were all
just charging the stage and they didn't go back to Montreal either after 64 so the only place that they were actually 64, 65, 66 was Toronto.
And Jay Nelson in 64 did the afternoon show.
Harold Ballard, who owned the Gardens,
brought the Beatles in twice.
He didn't tell Brian Epstein in that story.
Right.
But then he had to pay for the Beatles for the second show.
Now, Al Belisca did the night show.
He did the emcee for the night show. But after Al Beliska did the night show. He did the MC for the night show, but after
64, it was all Jay. So Jay did all the shows, 64, 65, 66, except for the night show in 64.
And this, Chum really took over the Beatles. They became the Beatles station. CKUI tried,
but Chum had a show called Ponch and Trudy which was Dave Johnson
who was a little pudgy
so they called him Ponch
and he had this girl from England originally
who was at a high school here in Toronto
named Trudy Medcalf
and she was the president
of the Ontario Beatles Fan Club
officially sanctioned by the Beatles
in Liverpool and London
and she would come in every week
and she'd record a bunch of shows with Dave
and he'd play them on his show at night,
seven to 10,
and talk about the Beatles,
what was going on with that.
Chum paid for her and her father
and her friend to fly to New York in 64
and meet the Beatles
and see them on Ed Sullivan and all that.
And literally Chum kind of owned the Beatles.
So this is just kind of
a quick montage
of some of the Chum
Beatle promos
that they were running
back in the mid-60s.
Do you like the Beatles?
Then listen to the
Ponch and Trudy Show.
Each night,
8 to 8.30,
Ponchy Dave Johnson
talks to Trudy Metcalf about the Beatles.
Trudy is Canada's expert on the Beatles, and she is president of the Ontario Beatle Fan Club,
affiliated with and recognized by the Beatles International Headquarters in England.
Trudy will tell you all about the Beatles, their public and personal lives,
all the information about the Beatles and what they're really like.
Dave Johnson will feature the big hits of the Beatles
plus their hot new records.
Listen Monday through Friday, 8 to 8.30
for the Punch and Trudy Show
where all the Beatle
people meet.
Hey, Beatle people, you can flip
your wig.
It's another
hairy contest on CHUM.
Simply draw a Beatle haircut on a picture or drawing of anyone or anything.
It could be a photo of yourself, your family, a famous person, or something cut from a magazine.
The funnier the better.
Then send it to CHUM.
We'll award $10.50 to the five we like best, plus the Beatles' newest album, Twist and Shout.
The next 50 runners-up will also win this fabulous album.
Pay to draw a Beatles haircut on a picture right away
and send it to the Beatles Flip Your Wig
Contest, CHUM Toronto
7. This is a
pompous CHUM announcement.
What started as low,
angry buzzing in the night behind drawn
blinds has swelled into a symphony
of protest. Guileless
CHUM, in our innocence, began a contest
asking our listeners who would beat the Beatles. Which artist would next take their place as number
one on the chum chart? Oh, sorry day. Outraged Beatle fans threatened to storm the station.
The militia is on 24-hour call, so we cry, stop! We were wrong. Please, go to your homes, and in the warmth of
your hearth fire, comfort your family. Somehow, somewhere, someplace, we shall make amends.
Le contest est mort. Vive les Beatles. The contest is dead. Long live the Beatles.
Monday, get ready to call
on the Beatle Line. Starting Monday and five times
daily every day, we'll ask you to call us on the Beatle Line if you have Canada Dry
low-calorie orange or ginger ale or Hostess potato chips. Each
time, the first 20 people to call will win a pair of tickets to see the Beatles'
first movie, A Hard Day's Night,
at a private showing Wednesday, August 12th at four theaters,
the Odeon Parkdale, Glendale, Kingsway, and Scarborough,
plus a chance to see the Beatles in person at their Toronto concert
and at their New York concert.
Listen Monday and be ready to call on the Beatle Line.
Chum proudly introduces the president of the
Beatles Canadian Fan Club,
Trudy Metcalf.
I'm delighted to report
that CHUM is once again
accepting members for
our Beatles Fan Club.
Because of the tremendous
interest created by the
Beatles' trip to Toronto,
and because CHUM is now
broadcasting on increased power of 50,000 watts,
we are again welcoming members to the Canadian Beatles Fan Club.
Just send your name and address and 25 cents
to Beatles Fan Club CHUM Toronto 7.
You'll receive an official membership card in the Beatles Fan Club,
a wallet-sized photograph of the Beatles,
and the latest edition of the Beatles, and the latest edition of
the Beatles newsletter, including actual photographs of their Toronto appearance.
So, send your name and address and 25 cents to Beatles fan club, CHUM Toronto 7.
Get your letters in right away.
Thank you, Trudy.
25 cents.
Now, here's the thing.
Literally, she sent out a newsletter like every couple of weeks.
Everything was there.
I haven't talked to Trudy in a long time.
She's now a doctor.
Oh, wow.
So she's done very well for herself.
With a PhD, I think, too.
Anyway, Chum paid for everything.
They paid for the mimeographing.
They paid for the postage.
They paid for everything.
And Trudy was just a teenage girl.
We didn't have money for that.
So Chum took care of the whole Beatles fan club for her.
And some of the early Chum charts from that era,
64, 65, 66, that have the Beatles on them
are really, really rare and go for big bucks.
So that's why I didn't give you any of those.
I was looking at my collection there.
No, no, no. really rare and go for big bucks so that's why i didn't give you i was looking at my collection there oh no no now they go for like 25 30 45 any number of uh priced ridiculous prices right now
as i said jay was the uh was the mc for every concert in toronto except for the one on
uh nighttime in 64 and this thanks to my friend pier Piers Hemmingsen, who got this audio,
is Jay emceeing the Beatles in 1965.
He introduces the Beatles
at Maple Leaf Gardens.
Why did I tell you this?
He was coming off the stage,
and you know what he said?
He said, I almost heard my drum.
Which is kind of cute.
Okay, I was going to do 45 minutes, but I know you wanted to see the Beatles, right?
Okay.
What?
What?
What if I told you there was going to be another intermission?
Wait.
I'm only kidding.
It's a gag. Just a joke.
Oh, dear.
We could stand here for a while.
I think they saw them in the corner there on the stage. All right, hold it down.
The telegrams after four section.
CHUM.
Our proud to bring back in Toronto,
the Beatles!
Can you imagine trying to play with little amps with that screaming?
Unbelievable.
No wonder they couldn't hear themselves.
Wow.
I'm not even sure it matters, right?
They're just happy to see them.
They were just happy to be there, yeah.
The interesting thing, though,
as I said, Alan Slate left Chum in
66. I think I said that.
I have to go back and play that tape again.
Yes you did for sure.
Chum kind of
dropped it a little bit
and they brought in
Alan Waters brought in an American program director
who nobody liked.
And all the DJs
actually got up en masse
and went up to his office and said,
no, this is either we go or he goes.
And to his credit, Mr. Waters said, okay, he goes.
And he created a committee.
And we know what a committee is, right?
It makes a camel out of a horse.
And Larry Solway, who is this talk show host
and a creative guy, a very funny guy, actually.
He became program director for Chum AM.
Gary Farrier became program director for Chum FM when it switched in 68 to underground radio.
Bob McAdory was music director already.
John Sprague, who was a midday Housewives DJ, became the public service director.
And that's kind of how they ran it.
So Larry Solway found this guy. wives dj became the public service director and that's kind of how they ran it so larry solway
found this guy dave mickey was still in the back of their minds because larry solway had been there
from 57 so he was been there a long time he remembered dave mickey and there was a guy in
the states in boston massachusetts named jack armstrong and jack armstrong was as fast a talker as Dave Mickey was. So we brought him into Chum in 68,
and he lasted about a year.
And again, he was as fast-talking as Dave Mickey.
And this is a little bit of Jackson Armstrong from 1968.
69, sorry.
I want the world now.
This is Cal Dracula.
I'm about to bite you on the neck
for a little liquid refreshment.
I'm not really putting the bite on you, you know.
Ah, Jackson Armstrong, you're a leader.
Good afternoon.
It's 7.09.
Show mystery star time.
It's hungry.
Power of your narrators.
Mark Lindsay.
No million dollar weekend.
Every other one from yesterday.
28 degrees in the outside.
You know what?
It's a Sunday night.
And we get good things for you.
And every other one comes from yesterday until midnight tonight.
If you'd like to hear a specific oldie, maybe, or something off the server, you can phone
929-1411 right now and make a headline request.
Just give us the area you're calling from,
the song you'd like to hear,
and your name, if you would, pretty please.
And the area that gets the most calls,
that'll be the one we'll mention.
We're getting a lot of calls from Dallas for you so far tonight.
Ben 50, Chum Jack Armstrong.
Oh, honey.
Stop, stop it now.
I'm living in shame.
Ain't it wonderful?
Oh, ain't it grand, man?
Don't knock it if you've never tried it.
It's absolutely true, develop.
Diana Ross and Supreme Sound Number 5, where you heard it first on Chum.
Mama's cooking bread.
Yeah, he had that character called the gorilla that he did.
The interesting thing is that all of the jocks at Chum, except for the all-night guy Bob Lane at the time,
had operators, board operators who did it for him.
Jack couldn't work with an operator because they weren't as fast as he was.
So there was no operator.
He did it all on himself, standing.
He liked to stand and just play the cards
and do the voices and hit the vocals and talk like that.
Unfortunately, they brought in kind of a modified,
what they called a Drake format,
which was being big in KHJ and LA and CKLW
and all over the country.
And Jack didn't like that format.
He said, we beat that format already.
I don't want to do that.
And he kind of did a show in 69 that was about the third the speed of that.
Hey, it's chum star time, and here we go.
And unfortunately, Bob Wood came in and fired him that night.
And he went off to do other things.
I think he went back to Boston,
but he was on WKBW in Buffalo for a long time.
He was in L.A. for a while.
He was in San Francisco.
Jack was a great guy.
Unfortunately, he passed away in 2007 in North Carolina,
where he's from.
But he made an impact.
Just like Dave Mickey had at CKEY at CHUM,
Jack Armstrong made an impact in 68 and 69 at CHUM too.
Listeners love him.
It's almost dizzying to keep up with him.
Just listening to him, it's like it's...
And he got faster than that too.
I just pulled a little snip of that.
But one of the things about CHUM was that
the call letters were CHUM.
Now, when you think about call
letters a lot of them sometimes mean something like uh cfrb stands for canada's first rogers
batteryless uh cfcf in montreal which i don't even think is on the air anymore used to be canada's
first uh canada's finest um and sometimes they're named after the the owner and things like that
chum just meant chum.
It was a British guy, I think, that came up with it back in 1945
when chum was first on the air, and it just kind of meant nothing.
There are a couple of stations like Seafund in Vancouver,
just as a happy station.
So chum was just chum.
But they never really said chum that much.
All the jingles were C-H-U-M.
I noticed that, yeah.
C-H-U-M, C-H-U-um chum it didn't happen until 68 69 when they actually said well this is stupid why are we saying chum it's chum
so that's what they did but all of the jingles and things like that they had they did use chum
in certain words like chumometer chumbrella, things that would lend themselves that way. But everything else was CHUM.
So I did a jingle montage of jingles from the 57 era up to the oldies era,
which is in the 2000s.
And this kind of shows you the difference in the jingles,
how they went from CHUM into the 1050 Chum in the late 60s.
Number one on your hip parade, here on CHUM 10-50 in Toronto.
This is C-H-C-H-U-C-H-U-M-C-H-U-M 10 1050 on your dial.
Toronto.
It's a Wednesday-type morning.
Keep your date with the station that's great.
105-0, CHUM radio.
On this Wednesday-type morning.
on this Wednesday type morning. CHUM 1050 Toronto.
He's a go-go, Doug Roman.
CHUM 1050 Toronto
Drum for fun!
Drum for fun!
C-H-U-M
1050 Toronto
Do-do-do!
Music, music, music, music
C-H-U-M
C-H-U-M C-H-U-M
Power playin'
Jay Nelson
On C-H-U-M
10-50 Chum
Jack Armstrong
10-50 Chum
C-H-U-M Toronto
10-50 Chum
Toronto Hit radio C-H-U-M Toronto 10-50 Chum Toronto
Hit Radio
10-50 Chum
Yeah, that last one was from the 80s.
Sounded like it, yeah.
Yeah, definitely an 80s jingle.
So, I mean, that was kind of the evolution.
Sometimes they did say Chum in the early jingles,
but like, for example, at Wednesday morning,
they had three different jingles for every day of the week. So they had 21 early jingles. But like, for example, at Wednesday morning, they had three different jingles
for every day of the week. So they had 21 different
jingles. You know, Monday morning,
Monday afternoon, Monday night, that kind of thing.
And they had weather jingles.
There was all kinds of jingles for everybody.
And it was, the jingles
made it exciting. And most top 50,
top 40 radio stations had jingles.
There's a lot of nostalgia, I think,
when you hear a jingle you heard when you were young
and a teenager, it's like it brings you right back.
Yep.
Let me just see what I got here.
Oh, yeah.
Okay, so we move into the 70s now.
We move into the 70s.
J. Robert Wood had come in from CHLO in St. Thomas,
just outside London, in 68.
And there was a consultant out of Los Angeleseles named ted randall who also was a
very important influence on chum in the late 60s and he um changed he and jay rubber would change
chum a lot in that a lot of the corny disc jockeys most of them had left mike darrow and
dave johnson had left in 65 bob mcadori john Sprague left in 68. Bob Lane came off the air
and became the program director at Chum FM
after Gary Farrier left to write for Johnny Cash.
And so they brought in a lot of Americans, let's say.
There were a lot of Americans,
other than Roger Ashby and Mike Cooper
and a couple of the, Jim Van Horn,
who I know you've had on your show.
Yes.
They were pretty much Americans. And I'm going to get to some of those guys in a little bit.
But they were different. And Chum was a very tight radio station. He got rid of all the corny stuff.
And I think you'll hear the difference between the corny promos of the 50s and 60s that we
played earlier. These are some of the promos from the 70s produced by some amazing people like Warren Cosford,
who is a great production guy there,
Bob McMillan, a guy named Zeke Zdebeak,
and dare I say me.
But you'll see how it's changed,
how it became more production-oriented.
Forget the corny, it's all gone. So these are
promos from the 70s. phone and said, I listen to Chum. I listen to Chum. I listen to Chum. I listen to Chum. I listen to Chum.
Stand by. You could be next on the line for the phrase that pays $1,000 cash. T-H-U-M. Hi, this is
Donny Osmond. The Osmond Brothers are throwing the most incredible party of the year. Beginning this
afternoon at three, the Chum Jocks will be passing out exclusive invitations.
Keep listening for your chance
to win yours. If you do,
you'll get to meet the Osmonds and spend some time
with them. Plus see them at their Super
C80 concert August 23rd. We're really
looking forward to that show.
The Osmonds!
All the arrangements have been
made and now all we need is a good
guest list. Be sure you get in on the action and get your name on the list for the most exclusive party of the year
when the Chum Jocks get you together with the Osmonds.
Take off.
David Marsden.
America's number one production sports car.
Within days, we'll be offering clues leading to the whereabouts of this flaming red convertible.
To you from Chum, a chance to win a 1973 Chevrolet Corvette.
10-50 Chum!
You are a winner on Chum, man. You understand what I mean? What's your name?
Ed Jennings. Ed Jennings.
Okay, you're a star sign winner.
And we've got a little envelope here that says compliments to 1050 Chum.
Might be a lot of money in there, man.
Why don't you open it up right now?
Go ahead.
Check right in here.
He's sticking his little fingers in the envelope.
Holy mackerel.
Holy mackerel, a $50 bill.
$50.
Who has more winners than any other Southern Ontario radio station, man?
Chum, of course.
Chum.
The station that presented the Rolling Stones in two historic performances at the El Macombo
now gives you a chance to hear the results of those super sessions.
You and a guest will fly American Airlines to New York
where you'll join a limited gathering of friends for the world premiere of the new Stones album.
Plus, your autographed souvenir copy will be presented to you by Mick Jagger in person.
It's the event of the year from the station of the year.
Your chum star sign and your chum car sign are the only ways to win.
I have a chance of winning that one.
There you go.
Yeah, well, that was Terry Steele there who did that.
The early promos were a guy named Ron Morey who was,
he'd been actually on a bunch of CKOC radio stations,
and he was literally doing his first kind of promos and commercials.
He eventually went off to New York and made millions of dollars doing voiceover. Great pipes on that guy. Oh, God, yeah. He's phenomenal. He's one of the best
announcers on the planet. Do we still have number 14? Yes, of course. I followed your lead. Sorry,
yeah, I switched that. One of the other things that Chum was very famous for, particularly in
the late 60s and early 70s,
was doing radio specials.
And the first one that I ever did at Chum
was with Duff Roman in 67.
The RCA had sent him to New York to interview the Monkees,
and he interviewed a couple of the Monkees
and a bunch of the fans and brought that back.
And we put that together into a one-hour special
that ran in 67.
In 69, our program director, Jay Robert Wood, wanted to beat CKFH, who was now trying to beat
our ass. And they were playing rock and roll. CKUI was long gone. It had played beautiful music now.
But CKFH was coming on. And it was still owned by Foster Hewitt at the time. And they had some good DJs that Chum eventually stole.
People like Chuck McCoy and John Rohde and Duke Roberts, people like that.
But we did a documentary.
They were going to bring in the Drake History of Rock.
So Bob decided like maybe a month before it was going to air
that we were going to do a 28 hour documentary on the
history of rock larry solway who is the creative director wrote it uh i produced it uh we brought
in an announcer from indianapolis named chuck riley to voice it he did a lot of these documentaries
over the years for chum and um and that ran in uh in 69 in 70 uh the beatles were breaking up and bob said we got to do a
beetle special so we did a 12-hour beetle special now the other shows had only run on chum the
beetle special was the first one that went outside chum and literally uh we gave the chum gave this
the program away for the cost of the tape that it cost to dub those 12 hours. So stations got it for free.
All across the world, actually, they took this special.
So this Cut 14 here is just kind of a montage of one of the segments
from the Beatles special in 1970.
It was January 1964, and the biggest upheavals in the annals
of recorded music was about to happen.
The time was right. The rock had gone out of rock, and even Elvis, one of the greatest rockers of all
time, began to issue ballads upon his release from the army. In any study of the Beatles, it is
important to note the significance of the mounting social attack on rock.
Presley's abdication from the throne, the depression that prevailed in America with the assassination of its president,
the payola scandal and the increasing popularity of folk music.
The quality of music was rapidly deteriorating and by 1963 a pop scene so stagnant and disorderly, only the Beatles could save it.
Well, then we came back to Liverpool and Beatles, then we went to Hamburg and Beatles, then we came back to Liverpool and Beatles, and then we made a record.
Brian Epstein, the man who called the shots for the Beatles, hadn't been lax.
As early as November 1963, he had been in New York pre-promoting his famous foursome. He had them booked for two
Sullivan shows, February 9th and 14th, plus a pair of concerts at Carnegie Hall on Lincoln's birthday.
That was either a touch of patriotism or brilliant promotion on the part of promoter Sid Bernstein.
So far, it was a secret. Capitol Records spent $50,000 to let it out of the bag.
The Beatles are coming. It was a poster proclaiming the event,
one of thousands,
followed up immediately by Beatle brochures
and records being sent to every disc jockey in the country.
The Beatles were coming.
If you lived in New York,
you would be an eyewitness
to the single most important event in music history.
If you didn't,
then all you could do was wish you did.
I'm five and one quarter miles from touchdown, passing the outer marker.
5-2 the heading.
5-2 as you're on course on a glide path, 5 miles from touchdown.
Past the outer marker, cleared to land, 2-5 left.
Radio stations throughout the city broadcast the easiest route to Kennedy International Airport.
There were traffic jams from Brooklyn to the Bronx, and local cops were tearing their hair out.
If anyone was lucky enough to finally make it, they would have found thousands of screaming teenagers already there,
waiting to welcome their conquering heroes.
It was May. The incredible throngs of fans were on the verge of panic.
heroes. It was May. The incredible throngs of fans were on the verge of panic. You could feel it,
stemming from the observation deck of the runway to downtown New York. There was enough human mass on that one night to bring a cool February temperature up by at least 10 degrees. Inside,
you couldn't move. It was like a Christmas sale at Macy's or Gimble's with 10 times the pandemonium.
It was as though someone had dropped 10,000 hysterical kids into one room,
locked the door, and yelled fire.
It was like chopping your way through a living jungle
of cigarette smoke and sweat.
It was staggering.
Nobody expected this kind of reaction.
Pan American Airlines got more than a million dollars
worth of free publicity just because it was one of their birds the Beatles had boarded in London.
Next time a flight would be followed so intently by the world
would be years later, when Apollo took off for the moon.
20 feet low glide path, a mile and a half from touchdown.
On course, 25 to the heading.
Coming up to the glide path, nicely now.
15 feet low.
Going east.
Pro slice now. Coming up nicely now, 15 feet low. Go to the approach lights now.
Coming up nicely now at a 15 feet low glide path.
Over the end of the runway, take over and pitch your approach radio.
February 7, 1964, the day the Beatles invaded America.
Ringo Starr listened on his transistor radio and shut it off in disbelief.
Paul and George glanced out the window and rubbed
their eyes just to be sure. John and his wife shuddered. Below them, a few thousand feet beneath
the silver belly of Pan Am Flight 101, was a scene of utter pandemonium.
So this was America.
Even when we came over to America the first time,
we were only coming over to buy LPs.
So you see, there was a lot of production to win.
I was going to say, good job, Doug.
That was amazing.
Actually, that particular part was produced by Warren Cosworth.
Okay, good job, Warren.
But yeah, Warren did a great job.
We split the production on that, the 12 hours.
And I do have to say that it was not written by Larry Solway. It was written by one of the, probably the greatest radio writer
that I've ever worked with or known in the entire world,
a guy named Bill McDonald.
Bill wrote that, and he wrote the Elvis Presley special
later in the 70s for Chum, The Evolution of Rock,
a couple of the top 100s of the year, that kind of stuff.
And eventually Bill moved to L.A. and became world famous.
And that voiceover guy just gives it that weight of,
I mean, this sounds big time, you know.
Chuck Reilly. Chuck Reilly.
Chuck Reilly was an interesting guy.
We used him on the Radio Candy Show in L.A. too because he was in L.A. at the time by then.
And he had certain peculiarities that Chuck was unique, let's put it that way.
He would say things like, instead of saying the Bee Gees,
he would say the Bee Gees because it's like Bee Jesus, right? So Bee Gees.
And you couldn't get him out of this. You'd really have to coax him to say it the way you wanted him
to say it. But he was a curmudgeon, but a great, great, great boy. He's also passed away now,
unfortunately. But one of the things, as I mentioned, the 70s jocks. And I've got a big
montage here. And what I'm i'm gonna do if mike will
allow me while this plays uh i'm gonna do what i did as a board op when we had a song that was
over four minutes long because this is five minutes and something i'm gonna go to the washroom
so here here's the montage of the chum jocks from the 1970s and 80s this is dick smith chum
contemporary news and now from
Toronto, more music with Jane
Elson.
10-50 Chum!
Morning, welcome into the Jane Elson Show. It's 8 minutes
after 7 o'clock. My wife got a brand new pair
of Italian shoes Saturday.
We know they're Italian because they pinch her.
Ladies and gentlemen,
you're listening to John
Rohde. 10-50 Chum, Toronto.
Been a big arrest in Nashville, Tennessee at the premium meatpacking company.
It seems though the police discovered nine or ten of the employees there smoking ham.
Didn't seem natural or something.
Here's Norman Greenbaum on Chum.
Johnny Mitchell, 10-50 Chum.
Here's a young lady called Nino Tempo.
Tempo and her brother April Stevens, the other way around, I think.
Anyway, she used to sing with the big bands back in the 40s, as you might remember.
Her and her brother got together and made some rock and roll music in 1963 called Deep Purple.
Nice song.
J. Michael Wilson, 10-50 chum.
Squeak, I just had a call, Michael, from an authentic Canadian cowboy.
Who was that, Rodney?
Well, I didn't catch his name, but he is the foreman on a big cattle ranch down near orangeville oh which ranch it's a place called the abc lazy q double diamond circle bar x
triangle p double hot ranch how many cattle he got they only they only got three michael
how come only three well he says not many of them survive the branding more More music, 1050 Chum. 9-17.
Tom Rivers is on Chum's Million Dollar Weekend.
I'm challenging anybody to play more music than I do.
Can they do it?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
1050 Chum, CHUM Toronto.
Hello, lover.
It's 9 o'clock from Chum in the checker.
Turned up on a Thursday night Exclusively to turn you on
Don't leave me now, I can't do without you
I dig you, I'm taking the shade
1228 from Canada's Music Leader
This is Roger Ashby
Sunday afternoon, Shredney Van Steyer's jump
Is coming up in a matter of minutes
Evel Knievel makes his jump at 530
Ceremonies are whatever you want to call it
You can end away at 4 at Maple Leaf Gardens.
Steppenwolf and a straight shooting lady.
Anybody see the debates last night?
Boring!
Has the same effect on people as a Valium.
1206, Mike Cooper with the Andrea True Connection.
Chum.
It's kind of appropriate, huh?
Get the theme going, you know, make it flow.
Just picture yourself surfing with the music, man.
You're riding the crest of the wave right now.
Oh, yeah.
Right?
We made that one.
Let's go for another one now at 624.
The most music time Duke Roberts show.
These are the spinners.
Could it be?
I'm falling in love.
With love.
You're a tough man.
I got my shoulders back.
I got my chest out.
Got my shoes off.
I'm ready to do some partying right now on the Rock of Toronto Chum.
John Major here with 53 minutes of music.
This off.
10-50 Chum.
Hi, hi, hi. 12-15 at your music station Chum. This is Terry Steele.
After this weekend, I think the weatherman got confused when he was back in university
with cold fronts, warm fronts, and tavern fronts.
Second weekend in a row, he really missed completely.
It's been nice.
I play this because I love you, baby.
It's the best way I can say it.
Silly little love songs from Wings and the Speed of Sound. Paul
McCurtney.
The best music
10-50 Chums.
Right on. Look at that. 902 in the magical
kingdom of boogie. You guys got covered inside
your radio. Not only that, but you also got
chances for yourself to win a
pair of tickets to see the Stones.
A Calhoun Rolling Stones t-shirt
and a copy of the latest Rolling Stones LP.
In moments, here's BTO.
Oh, that's okay. Everything's running a little slow today.
802 at Chum in Toronto.
This is Bob McGee. I know.
I know it's tough out there.
Has been all day.
And the buses are still not running.
But look on the bright side.
At least you won't get stuck behind one of those smelly things tonight.
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Good morning, Toronto.
It's 1210.
I'm your chum.
This is Jim Van Horn
with your rock and roll.
Elton John is here
with Crocodile Rock.
Oh, yes.
704, this is Daryl May
and chum with up to 50 minutes
of music this hour.
I tell you, even if you're
horizontal, there is hope
for you. Cause I got the good
stuff, baby. I mean, good
spinners from a band band.
C-H-U-M
1050 Toronto.
Request line number 8709
111. Call me right now.
We're going to be doing Requests and dedications
For the rest of the evening
Until 12 midnight
Gene McDaniels
On Chum
Song about him
Yes indeed
He just took a hundred pounds of clay
And he got a hernia
You understand I mean
But look what he created
My grace
He took a hundred pounds
Wolfman Jack.
Yeah, Jay Robert Wood brought him in a bunch of times in the 70s to do live shows.
And eventually that was taken over by Scott Carpenter, who did the graffiti show.
And yes, by the way, I did wash my hands.
I heard Bob McGee in there, and I was thinking, man's still on the air.
Yeah, on Element FM.
Yeah, in Toronto.
He's been on the air for, oh God, a long while.
He was in Vancouver before.
He actually, I'm not sure I should tell the story.
Anyway, but Bob was actually not Bob McGee.
He was on Chum twice.
He was on Chum as a different name.
I'm trying to think of what that name was.
Then he went to Vancouver where he became Bob McGee
and then he came back to Chum. I'll think of it. I've been trying to get of what that name was. Then he went to Vancouver where he became Bob McGee and then he came back to Chum.
I'll think of it.
I've been trying to get Bob on this show.
Really?
Because I reached out to somebody at Element FM
and I haven't been successful, obviously,
but if you can put in a word.
I see Bob most mornings because I'm in there.
So I'll put in a word.
We'll see what he does. Awesome. You heard in there, I mean, there were a couple of Canadian jo'm in there. So I'll put in a word. We'll see what he does.
Awesome.
You heard in there, I mean, there were a couple of Canadian jocks in there,
Roger Ashby, Chuck McCoy, and Mike Cooper, of course.
Mike Cooper went on to great fame at Easy Rock and then CHFI
where he only retired in the last, what, a couple of years?
Yeah, he was on with Aaron Davis for years.
Yeah, for a long, long, long time.
Well, Mike was not the smartest.
He's a smart guy, but don't get me wrong.
But he wasn't the smartest disc jockey at Chum
because when Bob Wood said to him,
I need a volunteer for somebody to sit on the Ferris wheel for 22 days,
Mike said, I'll do it.
He won a car, actually, to do that.
And he did break the Guinness Book of World Records,
and this is basically the final one.
He finally broke the record, and he comes off.
This was the actual newscast on Chum with Mark Daly,
who unfortunately is no longer with us either.
This is Chum News at One.
I'm Mark Daly.
Actually, it's a minute before one, and the hour is upon us.
A world record is being set right now
at the Canadian National Exhibition
and Chums Mike Cooper will very
shortly, by 60 seconds,
have the record for time spent on a
Ferris wheel. A new world's record to be
listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.
I understand there are thousands of people down there.
Mike has had his five minute break earlier
in the hour. We hope he's going to be able to come off
very shortly and at least say something to us.
We understand Mike is planning to stay on the wheel after the usual break to secure a solid new world record.
People at the Canadian National Exhibition gathered around the centre Ferris wheel on the midway, cheering on Mike Cooper.
Let's hear a real big round of applause for Mike, the new world record holder.
Oh, it's incredible.
There are thousands and thousands of people here,
and everybody's asking me how I feel.
I feel like Canada's answer to the space program,
to tell you the truth,
but the only Canadian astronaut we got
that made it 22 days.
It's absolutely incredible.
There are thousands and thousands of people here today,
oceans of them.
I love you all.
Thanks for showing up.
Chum is number one, right?
All right. I don't believe I did this stunt i really don't thanks very much listen i gotta thank a bunch of folks one i gotta thank
chum for all the help on the ground they've given me well i've done my share in the air
i gotta thank the thousands and thousands and thousands of people with the cards the gifts
and the letters i've received all the moral support that I've been given in the last 22 days,
and I'm speechless at this point, and I tell you, I'm so glad it's over.
I tell you.
But I'm going on.
I'm going on for another, I guess I'll go on for about another seven hours or so,
give the next sucker something to go for that tries to do it next year.
Thanks again.
Thanks a million.
Congratulations, Mike.
The best music, 1050 Chum.
I think somebody did beat it in a year or so after that.
But again, that was what Chum was famous for,
doing those kind of things.
Can you imagine anybody doing that today?
No.
Those kind of promotions just don't exist.
Yeah, it's a different time for radio, that's for sure.
And I personally don't remember listening to 1050 Chum back in the top 40 era,
but even now, this trip down memory lane, I'm so thoroughly enjoying this.
Are we at hour three yet?
I should tell the people listening in their cars at home, wherever you are,
three more clips to go.
Yeah, we're almost done.
Don't worry, don't worry.
You can go to the bathroom after I'm done too. But as we mentioned, the specials, the radio specials,
Chum was very, very famous for that. And they would do, at the year end, they'd do the top 100
of the year, which they would send out across the country to all the Chum stations that were owned
by Chum at the time. And they gave it to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and stations ran it for free. The Evolution of Rock was a
monumental, that was 64 hours, and that was
again written by my ex-creative partner Bill McDonald
and produced by, unfortunately I wasn't there at the time, I would have loved
to have worked on that show, but I didn't, but it was produced by the late
Zeke Zdebyak,
Bob McMillan, and again, Warren Cosford, who was the executive producer on that.
And literally, that thing ran all over the world. Again, it was voiced by Chuck Riley,
who did the Beatles special. And it ran on several hundred radio stations around the world. And in 77, it won the Billboard Magazine Award for Best Syndicated, International
Syndicated Special of the Year.
This is just a sample from The Evolution of Rock.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, The Evolution of Rock, the music that made the world turn
round.
1976. Once again, the craze that had the world turning on its heels is the disco phenomenon.
With thousands of clubs geared to the disco groove, dancing regained the prestigious position it had lost for almost a decade.
A flat-footed rock and roll was back on its feet in somebody else's shoes.
What was left of the pop pie was left to whatever music was macho enough to dig in.
The musical menagerie even included television,
with more than a couple of tube tunes snaring a share of the 76 charts.
1976 also finds the unprecedented rise to the top of American politics for a humble peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia.
Not since the Kennedy climb in 1960
had a presidential candidate so inspired all ranks of the social register.
If I can tap the greatness that's in you and in the American people,
we can make our nation's government great and a source of pride once again.
1976, the year a sex scandal rocked Washington as Elizabeth Ray makes hay.
The year all the president's men proved to be the picture to see.
And the year the mystery medical menace of the decade came to be known as the Legionnaire's Disease.
I hadn't had any side effects, real feelings, since I got back.
1976, the disco duck was anything but a quack.
Barbara Walters made off with a quick million-dollar contract with ABC.
Mars got a Viking visitor.
It does have a reddish hue to it, and look at that sky.
Seabees are hot.
And the Fonz is Mr. Cool.
1976.
From the deaths of Mao and Howard Hughes
to the birth of the Bicentennial.
I declare open the Olympic Games of 1976.
The year Montreal hosted the Summer Olympics.
Cincinnati's Big Red Machine manhandled the New York Yankees.
The Montreal Canadiens copped the Stanley Cup.
And Pittsburgh stole the show at the Super Bowl.
1976 also found mid-60s music vets
like the Beach Boys and the Beatles
back in the top ten.
Rock stardom is bestowed on Peter Frampton,
reinstated on John Sebastian,
formerly of the Lovin' Spoonful,
and Eric Carman, formerly of the Raspberries.
1976, welcome back, Cotter,
and happy days were instant hits on TV,
and the Bay City Rollers battled their way into the pop charts.
1976, a year of outstanding achievement and optimistic attitudes for the future.
A season with a reason to dance begins now, as it happened then.
Again, that was the brainchild of J. Robert Wood
who said we've got to do a special like this.
And he was another genius
that took Chum to the heights in the late 60s
and through the 70s.
64 hours, you said?
64 hours.
It got expanded.
It ended in 76
because that's when they produced it. It got expanded 77 It ended in 76, because that's when they produced it.
But it got expanded 77, 78 eventually over the years.
But it was a phenomenal, it's still talked about today.
I want to listen to it now.
Like, where is, is this hiding anywhere?
Well, actually, I've been thinking about putting an hour a week up on Chum's site,
the chumtribute.com.
So I think we're probably going to bring that one back for sure.
I'd listen. That sounds cool.
Yeah, it was a great,
probably one of the greatest documentaries ever produced
for a music special for a radio station.
And it was done in a radio station.
It was done in small little studios for the most part.
It was crazy.
And I mean, these guys were working hours.
I got to go back to the Beatles one for just a brief second.
Because we did the 12 hours and because J. Robert Wood had said,
we got to get this done in like two weeks.
So Bill McDonald went off to a hotel for a week just to write it.
And then he brought the script back and we actually started producing it.
So I was producing my segment in a tiny studio, half the size of this place.
And I had literally less than a week to do eight hours of the 12. And so I'd done something to my
foot. I scraped my foot and I wasn't able to go home because the deadline was coming up. I didn't
go home for five days, six days straight, actually. I did go home. I apologize for that. I lied.
five days, six days straight, actually.
I did go home.
I apologize for that.
I lied.
I worked all night and all day, and then at 7 o'clock in the morning,
I went home, had a quick shower, and came right back to Chum and kept going.
At the end of the final edit of the last hour,
my foot had swollen up to twice the size.
Warren Cosford, who co-produced the show with me
and The Evolution of Rock,
said he could hear me coming down the hall because I was clumping.
I don't clump, clump, because I couldn't take my shoes off.
So when I made the final edit on Saturday morning in the last hour,
Geetz Romo, my good friend and his wife Barb,
took me to the hospital, Western Hospital, where I was for a week while they just kind of let the the foot be swell as they say so
radio is hazardous to health i was gonna say some gave all there you go doug's amazing one okay we're
almost done here uh one of the things about uh toronto mics is that i can't listen for an hour
and a half i can't listen for two hours it takes me three days to listen to some of these things
but we're only got two more to go uh but one of the great things that Shum always did,
and you have to give credit to people like J. Robert Wood,
Alan Slate, and especially Alan Waters,
who let all these guys just go and do their thing.
Because he knew sales, and he was a great broadcaster
through all those years,
but he let the broadcasters do their thing.
And one of the things that they let the guys do,
except for Jack Armstrong, he didn't get to say goodbye.
He got fired.
And a few other ones didn't get to say goodbye.
But most of the guys got to say goodbye.
Mike Cooper got to say goodbye.
Tom Rivers got to say goodbye a couple of times.
We'll get to Tom in a second.
And Jay Nelson, after 17 years and 23 days.
He says in this little air check, 17 years and 23 days. He says in this little
air check, 17 years and
24 days, but he was wrong. Because
he started on December 2nd, 63
which is a Monday. And this was December
24th of 1980.
So he really only worked 23 days.
But they allowed, they
had a whole, like Bell,
to all Bell's credit,
they gave Roger Ashby a huge sendoff for chum
fm when he retired in december of last year and all credit to them for that for doing that they
could have just let him goodbye but they didn't they did had a whole thing and they had a whole
thing down at the sheridan center and everything and the same with jay jay's last show was literally
a celebration they brought in catering i think think Jay got a little drunk by the end
of the show because they brought in booze and everything.
Alcohol and champagne. But this
was Jay's final, final minute
on 1050 Chum in 1980.
December 24th.
They've given me some space here to say goodbye.
It's not goodbye, actually.
It's thank you. That's what
it is. Thank you for 17
years and 24 days of...
I think somebody said it before me,
busting my buns or something like that.
It hasn't really. It's been fun.
And I enjoyed it.
And I'll see you all on
television.
And I'll be still working for the Chum Group.
And you've been just a great audience.
I don't know about you,
but this Christmas Eve
is going to be very special for me
because I'm receiving a gift,
and the gift is getting up at a reasonable time,
but the other thing is
not being able to get you up
at a reasonable time.
I just want to say thank you
and goodbye.
Goodbye.
It's been 17 years
and 24 days
23
absolute fun
you don't get to do that in radio anymore.
You're just gone now.
That's the sad part about most of them.
You know, it really is sad.
And as we wrap up here, the final, final, final thing.
I mean, Chum had so many incredible disc jockeys.
I worked with a lot of them.
Probably Bob McAdory was one of the wittiest that I ever worked with.
And I learned more swear words from Bob McAdory than I even knew existed.
Jim Taddy, have you had Jim Taddy on the show?
No guy.
Okay.
Jim Taddy married Bob McAdory's daughter,
and I gave them some pictures.
They didn't have much of Bob,
so I gave them some photos from the archive,
copies of the photos from the archives and things.
Bob was a tremendous tremendous talent as he went on to global for many many years doing that
entertainment desk show Dave Johnson was great Brian Skinner was great Duff Roman is is one of
the best Bob Lane became one of my uh great mentors uh he mentored me a lot and I worked
with him on the archives from 2003 until he passed away.
But for me, the all-time, I mean, and Scott Carpenter was one of the most incredible disc jockeys. His energy was like unbelievable. But for me, my favorite all-time chum disc jockey,
1050 chum disc jockey, was probably Tom Rivers. Now, Tom had a storied career at CHUM in that he was there four times,
and he was fired three times and came back four.
He literally was there in the late 60s, early 70s.
He got fired again.
He got fired on his birthday at one point,
the final time,
and he wasn't doing what they wanted him to do.
He was doing all kinds of comedy bits, and he was a very funny guy.
But he wasn't really doing, they didn't want that.
So he kept doing it.
And, of course, what's going to happen when they do that?
They fire him.
They fired him on his birthday.
Now, revenge is sweet.
Tom crossed the street to CFTR and beat Chum in the ratings at some point.
But he did come back when Chum was oldies in the 2000s and was there not quite to the end until he passed away.
But Tom, pound for pound, and he was like 6'5", 6'4", really tall, and a big guy.
He had the most talent of anyone I ever heard.
So this is my tribute to Tom, just a nice little montage of Tom Rivers.
This is Peter Dickens, Chum Contemporary News,
and now, from Toronto, more music with Tom Rivers.
Get loud requested from beautiful downtown Markham,
but guess who is back in action?
This is Albert Blasher.
I know his brother Corwin.
I'm Tom Rivers.
Animal House was on television on the weekend a couple of times,
so was Jaws 2, as a matter of fact, but I've seen them both before.
I wanted to see something new for a change, so I watched the Leafs beat the Rangers.
Come on, I'm talking to Mr. Rivers now, thank you.
I have one envelope left here, Mr. Rivers.
One envelope.
Yes, the answer is MP.
MP.
MP.
MP.
What did James Bond's boss do after ten beers? MP. MP. MP.
What did James Bond's boss do after ten beers?
Ladies, come with me.
Thank you, Mr. Ellermann.
We'll see you guys one day.
Okay.
Okay, sorry.
Don't go in the deep end, ladies.
Thank you very much for stopping by at 837.
Here's the slow sheep pointer sisters from Chum.
Wow, El Rivo.
Hey, man, you don't look very good.
Yeah, I just mentioned I got the flu coming back. You got a touch of the flu, eh?
Yeah, I really do, Roach.
A little bit of the virus hitting you?
Yeah, I think so.
Here, man, try some of this.
What is it, Roach?
It's my special nasal spray, man.
Oh.
Every time I take some, I feel real good.
I'll try anything once.
Okay, man, here.
Okay.
How do you feel now?
I feel much better, thank you, man.
Don't mention it, man.
That's okay, bro.
You sound better already.
Now, Sewell Joseph of Atomic Coke, tell me the sum of the combination that cracks the lock.
This hour is between 75 and 85. Sewell, what's your answer?
47.
What? 47. What?
47. Sorry, turkey,
you lose.
Between 75 and 85,
he says 47.
As your attorney,
I advise you to think.
Next hour, a combination...
We'll give you another crack at that thing next hour.
From the album, who's next?
Whoa!
Get fooled again?
Peter Thompson and the award-winning who?
Rocking with Shotgun Tom Rivers.
It's 525.
Well, it's times like this that you just want to kind of curl up and say,
I thought you'd dig that.
Here comes Roy Head.
All right.
He's one of the ones from 1965.
Out there in the sunshine making a lot of...
Hey!
Well, that's it.
About two and a half years, I met a lot of people in this city that I can truly say they're my friends.
Tom Rivers is moving on.
It's not a time to be sad.
It's a time to rejoice.
And look out, West Coast, because here I come, as I say to you for the last time.
Rock on, mother!
And he went to K100 in Los Angeles that day, that time.
Thank you for the Tom Rivers montage.
I woke up to Tom Rivers on 680 CFTR,
and when Evelyn Mackle came on the program,
she brought me the CFTR 680 logo that I remembered as a young'un.
And I got to say, this whole thing was absolutely incredible,
and I truly appreciate you taking the time and curating these clips.
Hope it didn't bore anybody.
Hope people weren't bored here.
Do you really want to know anyone who was bored by that?
You don't want to know somebody like that.
Well, maybe somebody who's two years old.
Two years old.
Thanks again, Doug.
And again, everybody should be checking out chumtribute.com
you've done some great work there
thank you Mike
and that
brings us to the end of our
1050th show
1050
your tribute
to 1050 chum
you can follow me on
twitter I'm at Toronto Mike.
Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery
are at Great Lakes Beer.
Palma Pasta
is at Palma Pasta.
Sticker U is at Sticker U.
Dewar
are at Dewar Performance.
Dewar again is D-U-E-R.
Ridley Funeral
Home are at Ridley F-H.
And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore.
See you all next week. Cause my UI check has just come in
Ah, where you been?
Because everything is kind of rosy and green
Yeah, the wind is cold but the snow wants me to dance
And your smile is fine and it's just like mine
And it won't go away.
Cause everything is rosy and green.
Well, you've been under my skin for more than eight years.
It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears.
And I don't know what the future
can hold or will do
for me and you
But I'm a much better man
for having known you
Oh, you know that's true
because everything
is coming up
rosy and green
Yeah, the wind is cold
but the smell of snow
Wants me today
And your smile is fine
And it's just like mine
And it won't go away
Cause everything is
Rosie and Gray
Well, I've been told
That there's a sucker born every day
But I wonder who, yeah, I wonder who
Maybe the one who doesn't realize there's a thousand shades of gray
Cause I know that's true, yes I do
I know it's true, yeah
I know it's true, yes I do I know it's true, yeah
I know it's true
How about you?
I'm picking up trash and then putting down roads
They're broker in stocks, the class struggle explodes
And I play this guitar just the best that I can
Maybe I'm not and maybe I am
But who gives a damn because
Everything is coming up rosy and gray
Yeah, the wind is cold but the smell of snow
Warms me today
And your smile is fine and it's just like mine The wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms me today.
And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine. And it won't go away, because everything is rosy and gray.
Well, I've kissed you in France, and I've kissed you in Spain.
And I've kissed you in places I better
not name
And I've seen the sun go down on
Chaclacour
But I like it much better going
down on you, yeah
you know that's true because
everything is
coming up rosy and gray.
Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms us today.
And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away.
Because everything is rosy now.
Everything is rosy, yeah. Everything is rosy now Everything is rosy and
Everything is rosy and gray Thank you.