Programs
Columbia Square became home to some of the best-known comedies of radio's golden age. Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Edgar Bergen, Red Skelton, Eve Arden "(Our Miss Brooks)," "Blondie," Jack Oakie and Steve Allen sparked to the airways from the Square.
Dramas included "Suspense," "Gunsmoke," "Dr. Christian," "The Whistler," "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar," "The CBS Radio Workshop" (author Aldous Huxley introduced a production of "Brave New World") and "Columbia Presents Corwin" (dramas produced by Norman Corwin.)
Musical acts performing at Columbia Square included Eddie Cantor, Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby and Gene Autry. Composer Bernard Hermann frequently scored and conducted Columbia Square broadcasts. Through the facilities of KNX, the Columbia network broadcast big band music from nearby ballrooms including the Hollywood Palladium and the Earl Caroll Theater.
In the late 1940's and early 1950's Columbia Square also served as a CBS television facility. In 1948 the first West Coast based variety program, The Ed Wynn Show, was produced on Stage A. Lucille Ball's first national TV appearance took place on The Ed Wynn Show in December of 1949 (aired on the East Coast just after New Year's). Within the year Stage A would be the location of the shooting of the pilot episode of I Love Lucy.
In the 2005 KNX broadcast, "A Salute to Columbia Square," announcer George Walsh recalled crowds jamming the Square's forecourt for tickets to live broadcasts. (Ushers would sometimes walk down Sunset Blvd. to NBC's studios at Vine Street to urge audience members to watch a Columbia Square broadcast instead.) After their on-air appearances, actors would dash to the Radio Actors Telephone Exchange in the Square's lobby to check with their agents about their next bookings.
Bob Crane was a top-rated KNX deejay at Columbia Square in the 1960s. James Dean was an usher. Some of the Square's once-luxurious radio theaters were converted to recording studios for Columbia Records where Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand, among many top stars, recorded albums.
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Famous quotes containing the word programs:
“Whether in the field of health, education or welfare, I have put my emphasis on preventive rather than curative programs and tried to influence our elaborate, costly and ill- co-ordinated welfare organizations in that direction. Unfortunately the momentum of social work is still directed toward compensating the victims of our society for its injustices rather than eliminating those injustices.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“There is a delicate balance of putting yourself last and not being a doormat and thinking of yourself first and not coming off as selfish, arrogant, or bossy. We spend the majority of our lives attempting to perfect this balance. When we are successful, we have many close, healthy relationships. When we are unsuccessful, we suffer the natural consequences of damaged and sometimes broken relationships. Children are just beginning their journey on this important life lesson.”
—Cindy L. Teachey. “Building Lifelong Relationships—School Age Programs at Work,” Child Care Exchange (January 1994)
“[The Republicans] offer ... a detailed agenda for national renewal.... [On] reducing illegitimacy ... the state will use ... funds for programs to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies, to promote adoption, to establish and operate children’s group homes, to establish and operate residential group homes for unwed mothers, or for any purpose the state deems appropriate. None of the taxpayer funds may be used for abortion services or abortion counseling.”
—Newt Gingrich (b. 1943)