Good People Last Forever...

HE WAS "MR. TELEVISION" IN FRESNO...

Yoiu come across certain folks in yoiur lifetime who stand out...Really make a differnce to you AND the community...

This fellow WAS one of those...

 http://www.lostfresno.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10

IT IS THAT BEAT....








Having grown up in LA
I have encountered a celeb or two here and there in my lifespan...

There has been an occasional "Brush of Greatness"

 now and again that I still recall to this day...

This one particular "Brush of Greatness"

happened in the late 60's one hot Summer afternoon...

I was spending those fun filled carefree Summer months working my ass off for nearly no dough being the PD at a local radio station and holding down a weekday DJ gig in the mid afternoon hours...

Now this station was very unique...

NO ONE LISTENED to it...

Seriously, we were smack dab in the middle of the San Fernando Valley and had just about NO listeners...

Hell, even my parents couldn't get the signal over in Northridge 

at the family house...

Seems they put the tower on the top of the thirteen story

 Panorama Towers in Panorama City...

Good idea, right?  

Panorama City is in the middle of the Valley and sits at just about the lowest elevation in the area...Hence our "line of sight" FM signal blasted against the side of the Valley and made for pretty rotten FM listening in cars and homes...


Well, what did I care...I was on the radio and doing my DJ thing...

Also, this station had literally NO staff...

The sales guy, Mr. Brinkmeyer, send his copy over and put it under the door after hours...I typed the program log...

Things were so bad they even took out all the phones in the office...

Oh, they did have one of those NO dial phones for a while but someone learned how to unscrew it and make it work and they rang up some long distance calls (remember those?) and that phone departed from the scene...
With the transmitter in a closet off the studio it made for a cozy atmosphere...Weekends the building shut off the AC and many times we did our shows in bathing suits...I recall doing one in my skives once...

This was the three thousand watt FM powerhouse where I was spinnin' those three in a row MOR tunes that fine Summer day...

This was KVFM...

There was no secretary...There was NO ONE in the place expect the DJ and we kept the door unlocked and every once in a while someone would wander on in...Most times they just wanted to see what at radio station looked like (recall when folks did that)...





Most times they split in just a few minutes as we did not have an impressive looking control room set up...

Back to spinning those Andy Williams and Lawrence Welk tunes...

I am cueing up a song and I look up and see this fellow who has a record album tucked under his arm...He had slicked back pomade hair and was a tad on the chubby side...

He came around the board and leaned over to me and said,
"Hi, I'm appearing at a club over in Granada Hills tonight
and can I get on the radio and chat with you about it?"

I must have looked like the DJ in the headlights

 because he asked once again if he could get on air...

I finally retorted,."Who are you?"

"Bo Diddley my man.", he chimed back...

Now, I vaguely remember hearing that name once or twice 

but we did not even begin to play that type of music on good old KVFM...

But what the hell...
He came in the door...

Took the elevator to the 11th floor and had made all that effort...

The very least I could do was chat him up for a bit...

"Sure", I snapped back..."Have a seat"...

I grabbed the other mic that was on the short stand under the counter...

I placed it in front of him and he leaned in and took the record

 out of the album cover and handed it to me...

"Can we play a cut or two from my album", he asked...

Well, NO ONE was listening...

"Sure, not a problem"...

I cued up the tune but first I wanted to let our NON listening audience know who was with me in the studio...

Bo proceeded to really pitch his PA at that club and talked a bit about what folks could expect if they caught his show that evening...

Then I started TT #2 and the Bo Diddley BEAT 

blasted out of the monitors in the KVFM studio...

Breaking the format,
I settled back a bit and relished that I had a REAL rocker and roller with me on air...

Years later I saw Bo "LIVE" several times

 and I was totally blown away with his act...

He was the DIDDLEY beat!

And I will always treasure the memory of spinning the great Bo Diddley

 on KVFM that warm Summer afternoon...

An American Comedic Genius

SAW HIM NOT ONCE BUT THREE TIMES...

Yes, I can count the times I saw him "In Person" on one hand...

First time was when my Dad took for a a graduation lunch at the Brown Derby in Hollywood...He was at a table that HAD a phone...

The would have been early June in 1966...

Second time he was actually before me was when he spoke to a USC marketing class I took during my undergraduate days...

That would have been a year later in 1967...

The final time he was eating a nice huge (and very tasty looking sandwich) at Nate n' Al Deli in Beverly Hills...

The would have been when I was living on the West side of LA and running Century Cable TV Ad Sales in the late 80's...

He was alone, but I didn't want to disturb him...

He looked like he was savoring that sandwich 

so damn much...

The man was a comedy idol to me back when 

and he still is today...

He is STAN FREBERG...

Born in Pasadena, Stan continues to be active today...

He is now 88 and has had a more than fulfilling venture into multiple worlds of media and advertising and performing...

Let's take a gander at some of his work over the decades...

He has had a long and fruitful career in 

radio, TV, movies, and advertising...

Plus he has done voice work for Warner Bros and Disney animation films...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Freberg

Early on Stan made his voice work  as he scored 

a gig putting his fist in a puppet..

BUT what a puppet it was...

It was on "Time For Beany" on KTLA, Channel 5 in LA...

Later the show moved over to channel 11...

 Local "LIVE" TV from the very early days ...

Just a week or two back my friend in LA, Marc Graue (who is a VO king with his own famous studio) told me the story of him wandering the Channel 5 lot...

His Dad was a famous TV personality in that era...He was watching them do the "Beany and Cecil  " show "LIVE" when he was a tyke and they had to use heaps of lights on the set...It was early TV and the puppets needed all that illumination...

Well, it was so hot that the Cecil puppet actually melted on Stan's hand one day...

Ah, the perils of "LIVE" TV back then...




He really started to hit his stride when he produced a whole series of satirical records for the Capitol label beginning in 1951...

So many top hits...
Here is a parody of a Harry Belafonte song...

This whimsical record also was a chart topper for Stan...

And the CLASSIC "Green Christmas" hit the top of the charts in 1959...

I love this take off of the Lawrence Welk Show...

Stan also had some of the most clever network radio shows ever produced...

Here Stan teamed up once again with Daws Butler for some radio fun...

He was a Summer fill in on CBS for Jack Benny...

He had a huge sable of comedy VO folks like Jessie White, June Foray and Peter Leeds.,...

Next in his career came the onslaught of creative and FUNNY TV commercials...

Some TV work...a funny lawnmower commercial...

Stan in a promo pix with the owner of Jeno's...Watch his classic spot...

Famous Freberg spot for Chun King...

He even made selling prunes a hoot...

In later years Stan appeared less and less on TV...

This interview with Dick Cavett might shed some answers 

on why he stayed off the tube so much...

And this shows the serious side of Mr. Freberg...

I so recall us getting these spots to air at K-RAM Radio in Las Vegas...

Back then they were so far out...Blew all of us away at the radio station...

Here is Stan doing an interview for a TV show from down under...Stan appears with some super video and stories about his career...

Plus Stan voiced many PSA's and commercials...Here is one:

https://videos.files.wordpress.com/R6Sxcjem/cdhs_smartkids_dvd.mp4

All is said and done... 

for me this sums up the 

COMEDY GENIUS 

of Stan Freberg...

A promo spot for the Radio Advertising Bureau in 1964...

What a line...

"Cue the..."

What a talent

STAN FREBERG...

p.s.  I would like to meet up with him ONE more time...

I hope that happens...

p.p.s.  Just hours after I posted this blog Stan Freberg passed...

Now I will NEVER see him a fourth time...

SOB!

I Would See This And Wonder

THIS SIGN TOOK ME OTHER PLACES...

The first time I recall seeing this sign it was the early 60's and I was heading up Reseda Blvd. in Reseda in the back seat of our '51 Chevy Belair...

Dad was driving and Mom was shotgun...

I peered out the window as we drove by a saloon that had a rustic look..

It was a bar and restaurant...

Today I have no recollection what the name of the place was...

I NEVER went there, but I could imagine what it was like inside... 

I pictured lots of wood, like in a mountain cabin with a long dark bar 

and a dinning room on the side with plenty of American fare on the menu...

But the most important thing was what they offered
outside on that sign...COLOR TV

Yes, this was when there were few COLOR sets anywhere..

It would be a few years later when I got to see 

and learn more about COLOR TV 

at the RCA exhibit at the New York World's Fair in 1964...

Back in that year  (1962) 

I went across the street from my home in Northridge 

and watched "Bonanza" for the first time 

in COLOR on the neighbor's set...

Also saw a show I will always recall with a slate of stars...

It was called "Empire" and it was an early type version of "Dallas"...

Here is a clip of the opening in B&W 

but it WAS broadcast in living COLOR back then...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFybiaBMgIU

Big ranch, lots of strife...that sort of thing...

Richard Egan was the lead along with the family patriarch, 

Anne Seymour...

Here's another clip of the show in COLOR......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIW6xIDSdS0 

Also in the cast was a baby faced Ryan O'Neal, Terry Moore, and a young Charles Bronson...

It featured lots of outdoor settings from their New Mexico location that looked dynamite on the image orthicon tube...

Since those days I have seen that sign in front of motels, bars, restaurants 

and other places where folks gather...

Even today you can still spy one or two here and there...

Little did I know that I would enter the world of COLOR TV later in my career by working at TV stations and Cable TV operations selling advertising on the good old COLOR TV...

Funny how one little moment can mean 

so much more in your life in later years...

I'd like to find one of those signs and hang it on the wall...

It has meant so much to me...So much...