February 25, 1945…Johnny Olson’s First Television Job?

To the question of Johnny’s name being misspelled, he told me that it happened throughout his career, as people bastardized his family’s spelling to match the popular Olsen and Johnson comedy team that was better known at the time. He stopped correcting it after he left Milwaukee, and says it made no difference to him, “Either way, the checks cleared!”

Thanks Randy,

Glad to have that confirmed.

I was a TV director there from 1975 to 1977. The WTMJ studio building (which the old timers at The Milwaukee Journal, the owner, still called “Radio City”) actually had a small TV studio in it when television was still experimental. At that time they nick named it “Johnny Olson’s Rumpus Room.”

When I was there that studio was where we originated the TV newscasts.

The building itself was pretty interesting when I was there. It is an Art Deco building with “The History of Communication” (I think) around the lobby above the doors. At that time, there was also a 300 seat auditorium/studio where I’ll bet Olson did his shows.

It also had the only round tv studio I’ve ever seen which was added later. It was a great facility.

Supposedly, again according to the engineers, it was the first building outside of New York ever built specifically to be a broadcast facility. It was an old line NBC affiliate — both radio and TV.

I believe that I recall some of the old engineers at WTMJ-TV, in Milwaukee told me when I worked there that Johnny Olson worked there very early on.

GE still owned WRGB whe I started at KOA-TV in Denver in 1982. WRGB and all of other GE properties were sold, but they kept KOA and then bought NBC. At that time KOA-TV became KCNC-TV.

This is the Randy West addition to the story! Amazing read! Great to see the salute to Johnny, from Bobby Ellerbee!
Johnny O. had a few network radio shows for Blue/ABC before fronting “Ladies Be Seated” starting in 1944, but it was indeed his first big hit. For the record, among his earlier gigs, Johnny replaced Garry Moore on a weekday morning series called “Everything Goes.”

John’s first on-camera gig was when GE invited his entire entourage to Schenectady’s WRGB. After the incredibly early sign-on in 1926 as W2XB, the station was ultimately named to honor GE’s Dr. Walter R. G. Baker. From his personal papers, here’ how Johnny himself remembered the experience:

“In 1944, I rode into the dawning world of television on a train. It was New York Central’s old Empire State Express, once the world’s fastest . . . [it] transported us swiftly along the lordly Hudson River to Albany and then a few miles west to Schenectady . . . At Schenectady, we walked under a cloudy sky from the New York Central station along State Street to the Van Curler Hotel, and then just across the street to the WRGB building.” Johnny explained that the station overlooked the Mohawk River, and before it was reconstructed into a television facility, it had been a clubhouse containing a dance floor, a bowling alley, and similar recreational facilities.

Johnny wrote that he was welcomed by G. Emerson Markham, a veteran of GE broadcasting, who toured the Ladies Be Seated entourage through the building. He had the staff help unpack their props and set their Quaker Oats and Chef Boy-Ar-Dee commercial art cards on easels. Johnny remembered being excited about the opportunity that was just hours away, and he was wide-eyed about the budding technology. He recalled being particularly interested in the large array of overhead and floor-level lighting equipment. He was also impressed by the futuristic-appearing control room where engineers had the choice of images from three live cameras and three film projectors.

Johnny recalled that he did what little rehearsing he could without the audience participants, before the Ladies Be Seated cast and crew returned to the hotel for a couple of hours of rest and dinner. His energy was high, and his supporting players were upbeat about working on-camera. They included Bess Myerson, Jay Jostyn, who played the title role on Mr. District Attorney, wife Penny Olson, and as Johnny recalled, “With us was Amanda Randolph, the great Negro actress. She was a very fine woman, and her commercial for the Quaker Oats Company’s Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix was perhaps the first delivered by a Negro actress on television.”

Johnny’s very first television appearance started with an introduction from announcer Tom Reddy. He then hopped out of a heart-shaped cardboard entrance wearing a glittering minstrel costume, and the cast sang the show’s usual opening:
“Ladies be seated, the party has only begun.
Ladies be seated, so let’s all join in the fun.
Ladies be seated, a laugh doesn’t cost you a dime.
Ladies be seated, and let’s have a wonderful time!”

Johnny reflected that the audience was lively and responsive. It was wartime, and many men and women were in uniform. Penny was decked-out in a striped dress with puffed-out sleeves. The audience members she selected enthusiastically competed in the planned stunts for prizes that included nylons, which were scarce at the time. He recalled that Bess Myerson and the participants in a beauty contest they staged were presented very sedately in full-length dresses. Besides delivering her Aunt Jemima commercial, Amanda Randolph sang a spiritual that drew tremendous applause.

Johnny reported, “There was only one incident. Lights became so hot they melted mascara on women’s faces in early television. GE tried to lick the problem with a type cooled by water.” In the course of the broadcast, one of those light assemblies exploded and sprinkled part of the studio audience with warm water. “‘My God, my time has come,’ shouted a pregnant woman caught in the downpour. When she found it hadn’t, she laughed. Penny and some others wiped up the water. We finished the program with everybody convinced that television had great possibilities.”

The debut of A. C. Nielsen ratings was eleven years in the future, so the infant medium used a crude ratings methodology for the Ladies Be Seated experimental television broadcast. A few days after the test, the GE staff sent a letter to the Olsons with an estimate of WRGB’s audience. There was then only one station and only 300 television sets in the entire Albany-Schenectady-Troy area, but on that Sunday evening, 297 of them had been turned on. With 99 percent of the possible audience watching, John laughed that it must have been as high a rating as any program had ever earned.

Of the facility, Chicago television pioneer Captain Bill Eddy toured WRGB several months after Johnny’s inaugural broadcast and wrote that the studio was an immense 42 by 70 feet, topped by a 25-foot-high ceiling. That height enabled lighting to be placed far enough from the performers to keep the heat manageable. Combined with a water cooling system for the motor-controlled lights and the building’s oversized air conditioning capacity, WRGB was comparatively comfortable among early television studios.

Within a year, ABC brought “Ladies Be Seated” to TV, and the script from the show’s ABC-TV debut episode is in the book.
“Johnny Olson: A Voice in Time” can be previewed at http://www.tvrandywest.comand is like everything else in the universe, is available at amazon.

Keep up the great work, Bobby!

Great to see the salute to Johnny, Bobby!
John had a few network radio shows for Blue/ABC before fronting “Ladies Be Seated” starting in 1944, but it was indeed his first big hit. For the record, among his earlier gigs, Johnny replaced Garry Moore on a weekday morning series called “Everything Goes.”

John’s first on-camera gig was when GE invited his entire entourage to Schenectady’s WRGB. After the incredibly early sign-on in 1926 as W2XB, the station was ultimately named to honor GE’s Dr. Walter R. G. Baker. From his personal papers, here’ how Johnny himself remembered the experience:

“In 1944, I rode into the dawning world of television on a train. It was New York Central’s old Empire State Express, once the world’s fastest . . . [it] transported us swiftly along the lordly Hudson River to Albany and then a few miles west to Schenectady . . . At Schenectady, we walked under a cloudy sky from the New York Central station along State Street to the Van Curler Hotel, and then just across the street to the WRGB building.” Johnny explained that the station overlooked the Mohawk River, and before it was reconstructed into a television facility, it had been a clubhouse containing a dance floor, a bowling alley, and similar recreational facilities.

Johnny wrote that he was welcomed by G. Emerson Markham, a veteran of GE broadcasting, who toured the Ladies Be Seated entourage through the building. He had the staff help unpack their props and set their Quaker Oats and Chef Boy-Ar-Dee commercial art cards on easels. Johnny remembered being excited about the opportunity that was just hours away, and he was wide-eyed about the budding technology. He recalled being particularly interested in the large array of overhead and floor-level lighting equipment. He was also impressed by the futuristic-appearing control room where engineers had the choice of images from three live cameras and three film projectors.

Johnny recalled that he did what little rehearsing he could without the audience participants, before the Ladies Be Seated cast and crew returned to the hotel for a couple of hours of rest and dinner. His energy was high, and his supporting players were upbeat about working on-camera. They included Bess Myerson, Jay Jostyn, who played the title role on Mr. District Attorney, wife Penny Olson, and as Johnny recalled, “With us was Amanda Randolph, the great Negro actress. She was a very fine woman, and her commercial for the Quaker Oats Company’s Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix was perhaps the first delivered by a Negro actress on television.”

Johnny’s very first television appearance started with an introduction from announcer Tom Reddy. He then hopped out of a heart-shaped cardboard entrance wearing a glittering minstrel costume, and the cast sang the show’s usual opening:
“Ladies be seated, the party has only begun.
Ladies be seated, so let’s all join in the fun.
Ladies be seated, a laugh doesn’t cost you a dime.
Ladies be seated, and let’s have a wonderful time!”

Johnny reflected that the audience was lively and responsive. It was wartime, and many men and women were in uniform. Penny was decked-out in a striped dress with puffed-out sleeves. The audience members she selected enthusiastically competed in the planned stunts for prizes that included nylons, which were scarce at the time. He recalled that Bess Myerson and the participants in a beauty contest they staged were presented very sedately in full-length dresses. Besides delivering her Aunt Jemima commercial, Amanda Randolph sang a spiritual that drew tremendous applause.

Johnny reported, “There was only one incident. Lights became so hot they melted mascara on women’s faces in early television. GE tried to lick the problem with a type cooled by water.” In the course of the broadcast, one of those light assemblies exploded and sprinkled part of the studio audience with warm water. “‘My God, my time has come,’ shouted a pregnant woman caught in the downpour. When she found it hadn’t, she laughed. Penny and some others wiped up the water. We finished the program with everybody convinced that television had great possibilities.”

The debut of A. C. Nielsen ratings was eleven years in the future, so the infant medium used a crude ratings methodology for the Ladies Be Seated experimental television broadcast. A few days after the test, the GE staff sent a letter to the Olsons with an estimate of WRGB’s audience. There was then only one station and only 300 television sets in the entire Albany-Schenectady-Troy area, but on that Sunday evening, 297 of them had been turned on. With 99 percent of the possible audience watching, John laughed that it must have been as high a rating as any program had ever earned.

Of the facility, Chicago television pioneer Captain Bill Eddy toured WRGB several months after Johnny’s inaugural broadcast and wrote that the studio was an immense 42 by 70 feet, topped by a 25-foot-high ceiling. That height enabled lighting to be placed far enough from the performers to keep the heat manageable. Combined with a water cooling system for the motor-controlled lights and the building’s oversized air conditioning capacity, WRGB was comparatively comfortable among early television studios.

Within a year, ABC brought “Ladies Be Seated” to TV, and the script from the show’s ABC-TV debut episode is in the book. “Johnny Olson: A Voice in Time” can be previewed at http://www.tvrandywest.com and is available at amazon

Keep up the great work, Bobby!