Classic broadcast TV in new venue
By Ed Lowe
Senior Writer
One of Chicago’s museum treasures, the Museum of Broadcast Communication (MBC), is leaving its present location in the Chicago Cultural Center, 25 E. Washington St., for much larger space at State and Kinzie streets. The present 15,000 square foot space will more than double and will be more accessible to tourists who tend to congregate in the restaurants and entertainment spots in River North.
The museum will complete the purchase of the building at 9 W. Kinzie St. in February. Then, according to Museum founder, president and CEO Bruce DuMont, the present four story parking facility will be completely reconstructed to provide up-to-date space for the expanded facility. DuMont said the new plan will provide for continued parking for more than 100 cars, but that the majority of the space in the new building will be for exhibits.
DuMont began his museum project in 1982 with some dreams and $250 in cash. It has been located in the Cultural Center since 1992 and has delighted millions of city visitors with its displays of Fibber McGee’s closet, Jack Benny’s safe and other artifacts, both historic and novel. There’s a complete TV studio in the museum and visitors are able to go “on camera” to present a newscast. There’s also a play-by-play broadcast booth for sporting events.
Up-to-date broadcasting facilities are planned for the new museum. Visitors will be able to participate in broadcasts and will be able to arrange to get a tape of the broadcasts in which they participated. In this sense, the new Museum will offer hands-on experience for broadcast hopefuls. The Museum is a reminder of Chicago’s important place in the history of radio and TV broadcasting.
Chicago is a logical place for such an installation considering its history in the development of commercial radio broadcasting. During the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s, it was a Mecca for nationally broadcast programs ranging from the National Barn Dance which took place every Saturday night at the old 8th Street Theater, to broadcasts of Amos and Andy, and Fibber McGee and Molly. Most of the “breakfast serials” were also broadcast from studios in the Merchandise Mart (NBC) and the Wrigley Building (CBS) and included such broadcasts as Jack Armstrong (for Wheaties) and Little Orphan Annie (for Ovaltine).
Daytime “soap operas,” so named because so many of them were sponsored by laundry soap manufacturers, originated in Chicago. Chicago also provided much of the nation with big band dance music broadcast from remote locations like the Aragon and Trianon ballrooms, the Drake and Edgewater Beach Hotels and the Palmer House’s Empire Room.
The MBC also contains such icons of broadcasting as Charlie McCarthy, Garfield Goose and one of the cameras used in the first Nixon-Kennedy debate from Chicago’s CBS studios in Streeterville. Incidentally, the McCarthy dummy is only one of three remaining in existence. One is owned by the Smithsonian Museum in Washington and the other by Candice Bergen, daughter of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, who used the McCarthy figure and that of Mortimer Snerd and others to insult and confound celebrities during radio broadcasts of the 1930s and ‘40s.
Old timers might also remember broadcasts of the Quiz Kids who were questioned by a sometimes befuddled Joe Kelly, and the WGN radio broadcasts of semi-classical music conducted by Henry Weber and soprano Marion Clare. Those broadcasts were punctuated by intermission memoirs of the first World War orated by Col. Robert R. McCormick, who was the publisher of the Tribune, owner of WGN facilities, sponsor of the program and one-time aide to General Douglas McArthur.
In later years, with the advent of TV, Chicago continued as the center for broadcasting innovation, though the centers of programming had moved to the east and west coasts. Yet, programs such as “Dave Garroway at Large,” “Kukla, Fran and Ollie,” and “Super Circus” set the standards which are still a part of the media’s core. Chicagoan Steve Allen originated the concepts that are still being used by Jay Leno. Sesame Street owes a debt to the Kuklapolitan Players and variety shows are still in the mold of Super Circus, the latter having been broadcast from the Civic Opera House.
In addition to its displays of broadcast memorabilia, the MBC contains some 85,000 hours of tapes of old time radio and TV broadcasts, many of which survived as a result of transmissions to the armed forces during the second World War by the Armed Forces Radio Network.
MBC is also the site of the Broadcasting Hall of Fame, which since 1991 has been the place where tribute is paid to many of the most famous names in broadcasting, among them Jack Brickhouse, Don Imus, Eddie Cantor, Bob Hope, Paul Harvey, and Wally Phillips.
The unique material contained in the museum’s archives will be made more accessible and the new location of the Museum will make it more visitor-friendly when it moves to its new quarters. |
