Sunday, June 24, 2012

Jim Hawthorne's Comedy Theatre


Jim Hawthorne was a genius.  He was doing freeform radio in the 1940s.  "The Hawthorne Thing" was the final NBC radio show to originate on the west coast.  He did short films, records, television. 

He did many shows for AFRTS.  I can't date this one, but it looks to be from the late 60s or early 70s.  The Comedy Theatre sounds a bit like the comedy show that Jack Carney and Dick Cavett did in the 1980s..


More about Jim Hawthorne

The Hawthorne Thing was a series of 5 minute fillers
Posted by Thomas Whetston at 10:19 AM
Labels: ,

4 comments:

  1. We were fortunate to be able to interview Hawthorne just before his passing on KBBF Santa Rosa. When KFWB-LA had an AFTRA strike, he excelled as a DJ.

    ----Duke & Banner
    KBBF

    ReplyDelete

  2. By the way, the instrumental he seems to like to end with is "Red River Rock" by Johnny & The Hurricanes, which peaked in the summer of '59, and probably zeros in on the date these recordings.

    ----Duke & Banner
    KBBF

    ReplyDelete

  3. The programs mention zipcodes, making it 1963 plus. A jock that remembers running these remembers the 1970 label on the disk. That label was only on for a very short time. Fun radio though. Thanks for stopping by.

    ReplyDelete

  4. Jim also has a Hawaii TV connection -- in the early 60s he did weather for Honolulu's CBS affiliate KGMB, and was the first "Mr. Checkers" on the station's afternoon kids show, "Checkers and Pogo." C&P ran from 1966 to 1982. KGMB DJ Pogo Pogue, aka Morga White, played the childish sidekick to Mr. Checkers...

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
Locations of visitors to this page