On Jun 24, 10:14 am, PGage <[email protected]> wrote:
> The one that caught me eye was from our Governor
>
> " California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: "From Dick Clark's Bandstand to Star
> Search and the 30 years he spent in our living rooms as an integral part of
> the Tonight Show, Ed brought joy and laughter to millions of Americans.
> Maria and I were deeply saddened to learn of his death...Today we join the
> rest of the country in mourning the loss of this icon who was truly woven
> into the fabric of America.""
>
> I was never a big Bandstand viewer, but as a kid I would check it out once
> in a while. I have no memory of Ed McMahon ever being part of that program,
> and no memory of this ever being noted before. I was assuming a mistake by
> Arnold, and maybe he meant the "bloopers" show Ed did with Clark, but a
> quick peek at Ed's IMDB page does reveal (way at the bottom) that Ed has a
> credit as "Announcer (unknown episodes, 1952-1958)". That was before my time
> of course. Is it possible that Arnold was watching Bandstand in the 50s and
> somehow remembered Ed from those days, or is it more likely that an
> assistant when to imdb and chose the earliest credit they could find to
> start that quote?
As far as I know, Ed was never a staff announcer at WFIL, which
would've given him a steady announcer gig on that show. He probably
did appear as a spokesman for some sponsors, but nothing steady. The
regular announcer in the Dick Clark years in Philly was Charlie
O'Donnell, who now is the voice of "Wheel of Fortune" and moved with
Clark from Philly to LA in 1963. By the end of the 60s and the
introduction of the fancier set and the temporary dumping of
"Bandstand Boogie" as the theme music, the main reason for using
O'Donnell (doing live spots for products that competed with Clark's
live spots) was gone and he left, although Clark has used him on his
shows as an announcer since then (including "Bloopers").
Clark says in one of his bios that he recommended Ed to ABC for "Who
Do You Trust?"--Johnny's original announcer on the show, a man named
Bill Nimmo, had to take another gig and they needed a new announcer in
a hurry. The funny thing was that Clark's relationship with
"Trust?" (or, as it was known back then, "Do You Trust Your Wife?",
until someone pointed out that the title wasn't too appropriate for a
daytime show) was strained--When "Bandstand" started on the network,
they did 15 local minutes starting at 2:45 p.m. to honor sponsors'
contracts and then went to the network at 3 p.m. However, they had to
go off the net at 3:30 for "Trust?" (and then return at 4 for another
hour). Clark never liked the interruption and more than once would be
a little prickly on the air when telling the viewers why there was a
daily interruption in "Bandstand"--he would say, "We don't stop at
this time, we keep going--it is the ABC Television Network's decision
to give you another program and we hope you will join us when we
return a half-hour from now." (And he was right, since they went back
to local for a half-hour--I don't think WFIL ever cleared "Trust?"
until Carson left, Woody Woodbury took over and "Bandstand" went once-
a-week.) Eventually, "Bandstand" got an uninterrupted 90 minutes with
"Trust?" as a lead-in, but Clark once pointed out that the only times
he ever got booked on the Carson "Tonight Show" was when a guest host
was on.
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