January 28
BEAT THE BAND DAY
It was on this night in 1940 that Beat the Band made its debut on NBC radio. The band was that of Ted Weems and his 14-piece orchestra, who were joined by Elmo ‘The Whistling Troubadour’ Tanner, Harry Soskind and Country Washington; announcers Marvin Miller and Fort Pearson; emcee, Thomas Garrison Morfit (aka Garry Moore) and Hildegarde; and several noted singers, Marvel Maxwell and Marilyn Thorne. One other star of the show was a barber from Pittsburgh, PA (nearby Canonsburg, actually), who would record many hits for RCA Victor from 1943 right through the dawn of the 1970s. His name was Perry Como.
Beat the Band was a funky show where listeners’ questions were selected in the hopes of stumping the band. If a listener’s question was chosen, he or she received $10.
The questions were posed as riddles: What song title tells you what Cinderella might have said if she awoke one morning and found that her foot had grown too large for her glass slipper? If the band played the correct musical answer, Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?, the listener lost.
When Raleigh cigarettes sponsored Beat the Band, the listener who beat the band won $50 and two cartons of cigarettes ... Raleighs, of course. When the sponsor changed to General Mill’s Kix cereal, if the listener beat the band, he/she won twenty bucks and a case of Kix cereal. Crunch. Crunch.
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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