Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1962)

Record Details:

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BOB & RAY (Continued from page 35) tening to Bob and Ray . . .") and sundry other things extolling the creators of such characters as Mary Backstay ge, Noble Wife and Matt Neffer, Boy Spot Welding King of the Free World. From Boston. Bob and Ray bounced into the national bigtime in 1951 when they signed on at NBC after a rousing beginning in Boston. Subsequently they were seen and heard on other networks in both radio and tv programs as well as on local Gotham early morning radio. Their efforts at comedy also won for them two Peabody Awards. Also they have been singled out on numerous occasions for their commercials, made through their one-time corporation, Goulding Elliott Graham. Greybar Theatrical Production Co. is their present corporation. They made commercials for such name brands as Millbrook Bread, Guardian Maintenance, Mutual of Omaha, Carling Black Label beer and others. They also scored heavily as the voice of the Piel Brothers for the five years of that campaign's duration. The new Bert and Harry commercials for Piel, via the Young & Rubicam agency, will be penned by Ed Caffrey. Pelican Productions will do the new animated Piel commercials, all of which is currently being preceded by a rompish, roguish newspaper-radio teaser campaign involving Bert and Harry and a crafty Madison Avenue gray-flannelled efficiency expert named E. Gordon Gibbs. A sponsor editor last week riffled through the fan mail that Bob and Ray were getting from their listeners. It constituted a new high level of appreciation. It was indeed the type of mail penned by a literate, sophisticated and infinite* ly better level of metropolitan audience. And since these two specialists in satire know the full value of intelligent fan mail, they are inclined to fondle their appreciative audience and to worry about their health. They constantly urge their audience to wear overshoes when it looks like rain; before long, they will be sending their fans a new edition of The Bob & Ray Citizen, Post, Gazette, Herald, Clarion $r Etoile, a spasmodically published house organ calling attention to their multitudinous activities. Like the late William Allen White, editor of the Emporia Gazette, who believed in printing all the delicious small town gossip, as well as significant items, both Bob and Ray pepper their sheets with such pieces of incidental intelligence as: "Greybar Theatrical Production Co., Sole Makers of Bob and Ray Stuff, have an annual telephone bill of over $380" or "Bob and Ray's baseball reporter, Steve Bosco, in Florida covering spring training, says, 'There'll again be eight teams in each of the two major leagues this season' " or "The light bulbs in New York's subway trains have reverse threads to thwart 'would be' bulb snatchers." Program service. On the ground that their satirical shafts should not be denied the rest of the land, Bob and Ray also have set up a "Bob and Ray Program Service" for radio stations. This service provides am outlets with a vast reservoir of three and four minute bits culled from their many previous appearances on the aerial circuits. Already signed up are WDAF, Kansas City; KFMB, San Diego; WGR, Buffalo; WTIC, Hartford; WKMH, Dearborn, Mich.; WKNX, Saginaw; WFAA, Dallas; WDSU, New Orleans; WZOK, Jacksonville; WVAM, Altoona; WBEC, Pittsfield; KITE, San Antonio; KALF, Mesa, Ariz, and WOMP, Wheeling. At the rate they are going, Bob and Ray figure they will have some 30 or more radio stations signed up by Christmas. Nor are the boys above lending a hand in promoting the service once a station has acquired it. A number of outlets have expressed pleasure at the ready willingness with which these two sharply comical individuals cooperate in the launching of their tailor-made programing routines. Subscribing stations are using the service to adrenalize morning shows, variety and news formats and various other sagging elements in the day's bill of fare. Somewhat corrugated in appearance, Bob and Ray work out of a small, unprepossessing studio. Adlibbers from way back, they scorn scripts, frequently choosing their themes following a hurried glance at the afternoon papers in promotion director Newman's office. Unlike many performers (a peripatetic lot, at best) Bob and Ray appear to have found a comfortable nook at the Storer outlet on Park Avenue, an ideal vantage point from which to shoot their wickedly sharp arrows into the air. Radio, they insist, is their foremost object of love. "A radio station should have a personality," they told a sponsor editor. "The stronger the personality, the greater the station's ability to play an important part in the affairs of the community that it serves. Television, on the other hand, by its very nature, seldom achieves the degree of 'intimacy' that good local radio enjoys, for radio is everywhere." Having evaluated the role of a radio station, the pair marched into the studio, faced a ribbon mike and one of their characters, Wally Ballon, intoned the daily "Pigeon Saturation Report." "Normal to heavy in the metropolitan area," listeners were dismayed to learn. ^ RADIO PITCHES (Continued from page 37) ness pitches pay off with such accounts as a large clothing store, a brokerage firm, a food chain, and drug firm. All had formerly used print. Among its pitches KMOX emphasizes to prospects that radio gives good coverage in the suburbs where newspaper circulation drops off. Similarly, the station defines its coverage beyond the metro area as "regional radio," suggesting that an advertiser in weekly county newspapers could drop that schedule if he were on radio. Another angle is to point out radio's flexibility for quick copy changes such as price-reductions on advertised items. "Vertical saturation" may be recommended to a store for a one-day event or onedepartment sale. The station also cooperates in building mailing lists for direct mail targets, sometimes using "test" items not advertised 50 SPONSOR/29 October 1962