Classic Radio 08-01-26 - WC and Charlie, Father's Birthday, and The Story of Mayerling

**SPEAKER_1** (0:10)
Now, the greatest radio shows of all time. Suspense, The Shadow Node, Washington Calling, David Harding, Counter-Spy, Classic Radio Theater, The Great Gildersleeve, Fibber McGee and Molly, Dragnet, Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger.
Now, step back into our time machine with your host, Wyatt Cox.

**Don Ameche** (0:34)
Good evening, friends of the NSXN.

**Wyatt Cox** (0:38)
Well, we've got variety this Saturday. We'll have The Chase and Sanborn Hour, Don Ameche and W. C. Fields, Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, Dorothy Lamour, and Contralto opera singer Bruna Castagna.
Also, we'll have Louise Erickson in A Date With Judy. We'll have an episode of Romance, and we will also have Lum and Abner. That's all straight ahead on this Saturday. This is the first day of August, 213th day of the year, 152 days left. The first census completed on this date in 1790, showing a population of 3.9 million people.
Colorado became the 38th state of the union on this date in 1876, and in 1936, Adolf Hitler presided over the opening of the Berlin Olympics. The first jeep produced on this date in 1941, and Frank made the last entry in her diary on this date in 1944 President Truman signed the Congressional Act that established the Atomic Energy Commission and the Fulbright Scholarship Program. It was on this date in 1960 that the cover version of a 1959 record shot to the top of the charts and created a nationwide dance craze. That song, The Twist, and the artist Chubby Checker.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:56)
It was the Hank Ballard song by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters out of Atlanta, Georgia. And these guys had their record out in 1957, I think, or 58, and nothing really happened to it. What we did to it, we gave it instructions. It says, you stand up, you put out a cigarette with both feet, you put a towel behind your bottom, as if you're coming out of the shower, wiping off your bottom to the beat of the music. And it was just so simple.
And everyone picked that up. And in those early days of the Twist, many people were locked up for dancing the Twist. It was sacrilegious. It still is.
Nothing's changed, you know.

**Wyatt Cox** (2:41)
That was Chubby Checker, the Twist, the first song to make it to the top of the charts by Chubby, in two different runs in the modern era. By the way, in case you don't know, Chubby Checker's name was, I believe it was, the wife of Dick Clark. They gave him his name.
Because he was coming on to do a Fats Domino song, that Fats couldn't come to do. And they renamed him Chubby.
And instead of Domino's, it was Checker's. Fats Domino, Chubby Checker's. I'm serious. That's how it happened. In 1966, Charles Whitman killed 15 people from the main building at the University of Texas in Austin before police shot him.

**SPEAKER_5** (3:29)
He had a 6.1mm sport rifle with a scope. He had a 0.35 Remington. He had a 0.3 caliber Harvey.
He had a 12 gauge Stuller-Dolfe shotgun. And a 0.357 Magnum. He was loaded for Bayer.

**Wyatt Cox** (3:48)
But he wasn't killing Bayer.
Austin Police Chief RA. Miles on Charles Whitman's shooting on this date in 1966 Two concerts for Bangladesh organized by George Harrison and Nora Jones' father, Rabbi Shankar on this date in 1971 The two concerts held at Madison Square Garden in New York City to raise money and awareness for East Pakistan refugees.

**SPEAKER_6** (4:15)
I'd just like to say before we start off with the concert, that thank you all for coming here.
As you all know, it's a special benefit concert. We've got a good show lined up. I hope so anyway.

**Wyatt Cox** (4:32)
Lots of folk anyway. Performers included Harrison and Shankar, Ringo Starr, Klaus Vorman, also Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, Bad Finger, a bunch of others. Quotes to half a quarter million dollars raised for Bangladesh Relief, administered by UNICEF. Money raised through the live album and film, 12 million sent to relief in Bangladesh by 1985
President Ford spoke before Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and other European leaders on this date in 1975 at the controversial Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

**W. C. Fields** (5:12)
Peace is not a piece of paper.
But lasting peace is at least possible today. Because we have learned from the experiences of the last 30 years, that peace is a process requiring mutual restraint and practical arrangement. This conference is a part of that process. A challenge, not a conclusion.

**Wyatt Cox** (5:39)
The president spoke forcefully of the deep devotion of the American people and their government to human rights and fundamental freedoms.