Transcription
[music] Hallelujah.
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[music] Heat. Heat.
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[music] Heat. Heat.
>>
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>> Heat. Heat.
[music] Heat.
[music] Heat.
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>> Jingle jingle jing jingle bells jingle bells.
[music] Oh, this is a sad day here at W. Those of you who know the the W family, you know why Le McCann is no longer with us. And uh for those of you, you know, it's funny. Uh most people listen to people on the air and they don't know them very well. They just know the air side of them. But Al was a was really a gentleman. He really was. This uh the description everyone around here uh you know, all kicking around today.
Another thing about Al too that didn't show too often on the air, although he did it purposely sometimes tongue and cheek. He had a great sense of humor. I don't think anybody's mentioned that recently, but uh and most of all, he laughed at himself. Uh which is a real hallmark of humor. And Al loved it when at night I would do my takeoffs on him saying strike bass. And uh the next day I don't he'd laugh. Great guy. And uh as Jack O'Brien said today, everybody's going to miss him around here. And oh, by the way, for those of you who gee, it's it's fantastic to think that he was on the air here 41 years. It's a long time. And Dora has asked that no flowers be sent. And if people wish to make a contribution to the memory of Al, uh, send it to the New York Foundling Home, which would be typical of Al, and it may be sent to New York Foundling Home, 11753rd Avenue, New York City. And he's a great was a great man.
You know, a funny thing about Al U. of Al. Of course, this is not going to be a show tonight about Al McCann because he he would much prefer humor. Uh, you know, he was a listener. Did you know that, Lee? Always listened to the show every night. And uh really dug it. Uh that was the other side of Macan. And uh he uh he used to he used to of course his father was a great Shakespearean actor and uh he used to once in a while sit in his office and quote great oron uh Shakespearean uh ods and he would apply them to food. I remember one time Al sitting there with a with a squash in his hand and uh in his office and he looked at it and he says, "Ah, alas, poor squash. I knew him well. El Mcken, farewell, sweet prince. And life must go on."
You know, speaking of life, uh you know, the the spooky little things happen today. I'm standing in the 23rd Street uh subway, you know, which is deep underground in the bowels of New York. And I'm telling you, it's uh it's getting spooky. Uh our graffiti is taking a very interesting turn. Would you give me a little graffiti music in there, Ed, for a moment, please?
[music] Incidentally, Al was a great collector of it himself.
[music] Here, right in front of me, next to an old frozen juice machine, which had long been
[music] been abandoned to the fates of the vandals and the graffiti artists, somebody had scrolled. Believe it or not,
[music] Flick thinks, therefore, he is
[music] damned intellectuals. Hey, you know, you know, speaking of Thank you. Thank you. You know, speaking of of intellectuals, if I may, the uh you know, may may deal with it on this, the the next story here is somewhat in bad taste. Now, you got to expect uh a little of that occasionally because life itself is essentially in bad taste. And I can't help but think that. Uh Lee, would you dig in that pile in there? Have you got the jet singing uh jingle bells? or or the Giants. It's right there. It's it's on the pilot. You can't miss it. They sing it real loud, Ed. You can't miss it. It's led by Fran Tackington and uh Yeah. Okay. And Alex Webster. It's the giant singing uh Jingle Bells, which is a great great collector's item and my collector's item of slob music and stuff. Yeah, I have the Jet singing jingle bells, too. It's it's interesting. They sing it one key higher. Uh you know, about a half tone higher. I don't know what the difference is there. Maybe there's something there's a lesson in there. But u I I this is the Christmas story of the year. I think so far. Are you ready, Lee? You listen to this one now. The Christmas story of the year. This is Oh, it's a sickening story. I shouldn't tell you the rest of it. Terrible story. It's been awful things happening in the world. Very, please give me this. The lady in London, this a note from London here. And you know, just you got to picture this scene. How many of you are horror fans?
>> I mean there there has to be a million horror movie.
[clears throat] Have you noticed a fantastic profusion of horror movies lately? I mean everywhere you see hands with talons reaching out of the screen at you ah constantly. But listen to this. This is one of the most horrible stories I've ever heard. A lady decided to get her teeth fixed in London for Christmas. She decided she was going to get her teeth fixed up for Christmas. She was going to be have a great Christmas. And uh so one of her teeth had to come out. So uh Ruth Abrams sitting in a chair there and the tooth came out. The dentist, a doctor Barnett Copkin, reached him with his uh his little pinches there and whoop out came the tooth and it was reported by the British Dental Journal, quote,
>> a centipede crawled out of it.
[laughter] She probably crawled in while she was asleep with her mouth open some time ago.
>> Reported the elegant Dr. Copkin.
>> I mean, what a fantastic moment. I mean, can you imagine that? There's been terrible things happening in the dentist world. Another time in London, a man who went to the dentist, this just came in UPI, had a few teeth out, wound up with a broken neck. According to a dentist writing in the current issue of the British Dental Journal, the headrest on the dentist chair collapsed, the man's head jerked back, and pow. Oh, it's all right. He's okay. It's okay. He's got one of these things around him. Clamps all up and down. And by the way, the tooth didn't come out. So, what a day at the dentist.
You know, I shouldn't I shouldn't lay this kind of stuff on you. You know, I'll tell you, I I I've I've seen some wild scenes in dentist office. I I did I curse. I think I told you about the time I saw the guy run right out. Yeah. That we'll need that. Yeah. He He came running right through the door when I was sitting in the waiting room and there was a lady sitting next to me with her little boy. See, and the kid was kind of scared and she kept saying, "Don't worry, Donnie. It won't hurt. Dr. Brooks is a nice man. It's okay. It's It won't hurt. He'll give you a He'll give you a little thing afterwards. He'll have a little a little some chewing gum or something." And you know, Dr. Brooks is and we kept hearing in the next room. Woo. And she says, "See, a nice man." And she'd look around very nervously. Dr. Brooks went and all of a sudden the door flew open. This guy rushed out and he was wearing a white uh one of these white things, you know, that the dentist put on you and he was trailing pipes and the little pieces of cotton kept flying out of him. and he ran all the way out and stood by the elevator and the the doctor came out, hit him on the back of the head with a rubber mallet and proceeded. So, everything, you know, you you just got to keep working the best you can.
And speaking of work, I got a couple of little uh commercial dingies I got to do here. Let's see. Uh, what what what would you like to do first? How about this? You got Shoe Town set up in there, Ed? All right, lay it on the sufferers. Good.
>> And now, the continuing adventures of Shoe Town's own Super Shoe. We return to the
[music] exciting case of the gang that stole Santa.
>> There he is. Super Shoe right down there.
>> I told you Super Shoe would find me. Hey, come back here, you coward.
>> Come on, BOSS. RUN. HEY, WHAT'S SUPER SHOE DOING?
>> Good shot, Super Shoe. What was in those boxes?
>> Over 25,000 pair of first quality famous brand shoes from the best known manufacturers in America.
>> What a priced way below the prices you're used to paying. I thought it would be a collection of stuffed snails or something really gruely, you know.
>> You tell them, Santa.
>> Hey, what would you would you set that up again, Ed? That that voice, that guy that came in there, what who who does that sound like? What character what cartoon character does that sound like? All right. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Play that again. I want to just figure out who that sounded like. Just a hidden.
>> And now the continuing of Shoe Town, Super Shoe. We return to the exciting case of the gang that stole Santa.
>> There he is. Super shoe right down there.
>> I told you Super Shoe would find you.
>> Who's that? That's the one you
>> Who's that one sound like? That sounds like some cartoon character. Which one is it? You know, you know the cartoon character. Well, that's a trouble. There's no culture around here, man. Listen to this. Right now, the shoe towns in New Jersey and Rockland County, New York, have the dress boot buy of the season for you. Imported leather dress boots. Fantastic boots, you know, with the things sticking out the back and the little ding-dongs on top and all kinds of stuff that rattles and stuff that goes on are now at Shoe Town. Special sale price of 1488. First quality boots of fine kids or genuine suede or as they say down the dial on those other stations, genuine suede. Hurry fellas, this sale ends Saturday. Shoe Town Super Shoe. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty good. You're you're a student of slob are dead. That's very good. I think that is Bullwinkle. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you. Wait. Uh oh. I can't. Please, Lee, pick up the phone. One minute now. Give us your famous uh imitation. Wait. Hold it there. Hold it there now. Okay. Give us your famous imitation.
>> I am smarter than the average ranger.
[laughter]
>> Very good. Very good. Very good. I I know at least 35 guys that can imitate Donald Duck. And I know one guy that can imitate Donald Duck. I shouldn't say this with the kids up. I I No, I won't say it, but I know one guy that could that that does Donald Duck and he tells dirty stories in the Donald Duck accent and laugh. You know,
[laughter] my only See, I can't do any of that stuff. My only my only claim to fame is that I can imitate a singing chicken. Uh this is W New York. Speaking of singing chickens and uh have you got that General Tire spot, please Edward, please.
>> General Tire, the safe
[music] driver.
>> Yes. Here is a safe driving tip tonight from General Tire. Try if you can to stay on the road.
[music] That is tonight's safe driving tip. And here's another tip from General Tire. For dependable, surefoot atted traction this winter, you need General Winter Cleat snow tires. And they're beautiful tires. Rich
[music] and round and deep and they smell good. Have a wide four rib tread. They're the kind of tires you can actually fall in love with. You know, forget all
[music] the rest of those people. Just groove with their general winter cleat tires. You go in snow or General pays the toe.
[music] Yes, you can find your General Tire dealer or your General Tire store listed in the yellow pages under
[music] Big Red General G.
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[singing]
[music] Very nice. That was pretty. Gee, it's a catchy tune there. Very pretty. Uh, you know, speaking of of important uh of important announcements, you already in there, Ed, set it up now. No, no, no. This is important announcement time. Really is. Now, attention, please. Flick thinks, therefore, he exists. That's a very profound concept. I don't know though whether that holds water and some guy I won't tell you what somebody scrolled under it with a with one of these felttip pens. He changed the flick a little bit but uh he you know how people are there just nobody no there's just no respect these days. I have to have to admit that that uh comic is right. Hey, who's that? Isn't that comic Phil Espazito? Yeah, big Phil. Yeah, no respect. All right, here it's time now for important announcement all together. Yeah. Okay, gang. Attention. Attention. Tomorrow, Saturday, December 9th, at exactly 12:00 noon, guess who will appear? Me live. 12:00 noon in Waker in Philadelphia. And by the way, did you get a chance to see uh the did any of you see the ad in today's New York Times on the literary page section there for Ferrari in the bedroom? Great big ad for my book, Todd Me. Beautiful ad. And uh it's officially published January 5th. That's when all the, you know, public reviews come out, but it's already on the stands. It's all over the country. And we've gotten great reviews, I'm delighted to say, from uh well, from Publishers Weekly, from the Library Journal, from the Virginia Kirkus service. These are all official type reviews. And and it's all over town. But tomorrow at exactly 12:00 noon, I will be live in Philadelphia at Wom Maker, so you can get your signed copy. And I write the stuff that they made me cut out in Ferrari of the bedroom. And in the bedroom of the bedroom, by the way, makes a better Christmas gift than an art bar. Saturday noon. Wana makers. By the way, some of some of those stuffed art bars are cute though. All right. May I play my thing here now? D.
[music] Hooray. Hooray. Hooray. Yes, sir. Moving up, downward. Hooray for Macy's and Kim. Where would we be without old ANS? Hooray for magnificent Alexanders. Yes, sir. It's Christmas time and everything's moving. Them escalators are going up and down. Yeah, them ladies are walking around with a shopping bags. Oh, Santa Claus is ringing them bells. People walking around yelling and hollering. It's Christmas Christmas. The madness is settling down on all of us in about two weeks. Oh, well,
[laughter] the rest of that I shouldn't even sing the rest of it. It's terrible. I'm looking forward to that, though. you can get out your great big leather lungs there and fell prepare your you know you can prepare for some good time boos booing you know uh he's speaking of u of you know I I just get sick thinking of that lady getting her tooth pulled out and that that uh that terrible looking centipede came out how can you imagine having a centipede living in you I got to tell you about this friend of mine this buddy of mine uh one day he he was walking around and feeling kind of bad. You know, I shouldn't tell you this. I don't know why I'm telling you these bad stories on on, you know, a Friday night like this, but but this buddy of mine was walking around. This was a lesson to all of you people who always are looking for those wonderful, delightful, out of the way little native restaurants, you know, in the countries you visit. Yeah, there's all kinds of cuckoo birds who do that. you know, they go to some real wild place, you know, like uh you know, like uh lower Slovia, and they they search out the little native restaurant where everybody squats on his honches and eats eel's eyeballs and sits there and drinks fraud blood, you know, and then they they come back and they talk about how wonderful now Charlie can fix it. Oh, have you ever had friends that go to some foreign place and get to totally hung on this foreign place and then they buy cookbooks from that place and then then forced off on you bad versions of what they think is great food from lower Ghanaia, you know, with the with the crisp ants and all the rest of it. And you got to be Oh, it's very interesting. Very interesting. And you mean you fix it like the Swiss? Very. You dip them into What is that? You say goats? Well, goats. Well, I'll be jammed. Where do you get that? It's very interesting. You put a little chili powder in it. Why? It's very ye
[laughter] I'm sorry, lady. But but this friend of mine, you know, speaking of that, I I was immediately hit when I thought of that lady walking around with this centipede in her tooth. Now, remember, it was a live one, and she didn't know it. They pull her tooth out, comes a centipede. And that's, "Yeah, that's a fantastic story." Well, this buddy of mine had a story just about like that. He's walking around and then, you know, everything's gone along. He's just doing like what everybody else does, but he's one of these elegant people, you know, wherever he goes, he wants to search out the little quaint native restaurant, you know, the one that's waved back in the alley there. There's two guys with sheets on their head, you know, with with little eye holes cut in there and they're they're walking around and they're leading their camel and he he's always going in places like that. So he learned his lesson and he's walking around town feeling kind of crummy for about 3 weeks. He figured he's getting a cold, you know, he just figured, you know, he's off his feet a little bit, just feel kind of queasy and he just doesn't feel very good. He kept getting kind of weak and he know and he kept going to this doctor and doctor says, "I can't find out anything wrong with you." He said, "You look just absolutely great. You know that every all your vital signs are perfect except you feel rotten." I just can't find anything wrong with you. Take blood tests and all that. Well, this goes on for about five or 6 months and he's getting worse and worse and he's feeling sicker and sicker every day. Not not anything you can put your finger on. Just not good. You know, every morning he'd he'd feel kind of crummy and and uh just and uh and he also found out too another curious thing. He kept getting hungry and he'd eat and and it just didn't fill him up and he just eat more again. and he's losing weight and getting pale. And finally one day his doctor says, "Well, we're going to have to send you to a specialist." So he goes to the specialist and and the specialist looks at him, says, "You know, there's nothing wrong with you. You just look like hell, but there's nothing wrong with you. It's funny." And it just so happened that the specialist's assistant, another doctor, was sitting on the corner. He says, "Hey, excuse me, uh, fell. I want to ask you a question." My friend says, "Yes." says, "Uh, were you in the uh a question I'd like to ask you? Were you in Northern India recently?" My buddy says, "Yes." By George, how did you know? Said, "Okay, Charlie, get the big pump. We got to go to work now. Get the gas bag. We're going to go to work on him." He knew what he had. The assistant had spent three years in India as an Air Force doctor and he saw that he had seen this thing several times and he he he found out that afternoon that he had living inside of him a 38T tapeworm. I just thought I'd lay this out. That's going to get you go off to a good good, you know.
Oh, wait a minute. No, wait. As I said, life must be approached as life. And you know how life is. It's like the other day, you know, a kid writes me a letter and he says, "Shepherd," he says, "for crying out loud." He says, "Uh, you know, shepherd," he says, "what is this?" He says, "I I" But, he said, "I always hear you say, uh, I I don't make the news. I just report it. I don't, you know, I don't report the news. I just make it." He says, "Let me tell you what I did." He says, "I really made the news." Have you ever had a moment in your life when you did something and fantastic consequences resulted and it was done just as a kind of a you know a momentary thing. You know, you're just walking down the street, you did a thing and all of a sudden everything collapsed. You know, it just just was a nightmare. Well, this kid sent me a clipping and he says, "I am the kid mentioned in this news item." He says, "It happened to me." And he says, "If you think you've had wild things happen to you," he says, "Come up. Can you imagine what happened to me?" Listen to this one. In Danville, New Jersey, did you hear this story? A former Army helicopter pilot shot down five times in Vietnam was brought down the other day by a baseball. He and his companions were safe at second cuz the helicopter pilot was flying along scene. They work for the power company and they were over, you know, flying along checking power lines. Everything's going cool. And uh just whipped over the Dville municipal building. He's flying along when a 16-year-old kid who was flaming around a ball diamond just see him, he sees him flying past. He just whips a baseball up at him and pow, the ball hit a vital spot on the helicopter. It shuddered for a second. It hit the controls which operate the tail rudder causing the cable to jump off a pulley. It shuttered and the pilot said he just brought it down. He couldn't control it and it just sat down on second base. And there's the kid standing there with his fielders mitt.
[laughter] Well, now that could have been really spectacularly sad, you know. That could have been a real disaster. But what an awful thing. The kid just throws, you know, you never expect to hit a helicopter. You see him fly, he just throws it up there. Wham! down it came and he writes me this notes and he says he says and everything went wrong for me. He says I threw the ball. He says it never I never thought I'd hit it. He said I threw it and down it came and he says and it is only 50 yards from the police station. He came running out. Well anyway this this this reminded me I thought to myself, you know I I suspect that a lot of people go through their whole lives and nothing even remotely like that happens to them. That's because they really don't do these things, these things of the the momentary impulse. But I can realist I that kid's a listener, by the way. And I can feel for you, kid, man. I know exactly what you feel like because I had a thing happen to me that I still sometimes wake up at 3:00 in the morning and I see it on the ceiling of my room. I look up. Oh god, I see it happening all over again. I had a BB cut. I mean, just a little BB gun. I'm not talking about one of these big uh CO2 guns, you know, with the with the pellets and I'm I'm talking about a BB gun, you know, a daisy BB gun. The kind that if you you know, if you shoot it more than 20 ft, you're lucky if you hit the wall. You know that you know that kind? Well, it's it's a it's a little silver chromium 250 shot daisy air rifle. Now, it it either was an unbelievable air rifle or it was one of those fantastic moments that only happened once out of the 18 billion uh possible uh uh statistical tries. I got this BB gun. See, now I'm sitting on the front steps of the house. I was roughly about 10 maybe. Yeah, about 10. See this BB gun. Now, I was very careful with this BB gun because, you know, everybody's always saying, "Don't shoot any the BB gun. Don't ever aim it at anybody with the BB gun, and you can only take out the BB gun once in a while. You can shoot at targets out by the garage, all that stuff." And I did this. See, I never shot the BB gun at anything. And I used to go out and once in the great while we would go out in the woods, me and my old man, you know, and we'd set up uh beer cans and shoot my BB gun at the beer cans. Couldn't come within 40 feet of the beer can, you know. You go and you hear it rustling the weeds up above over your head and under the ground and the can would just sit there. Well, all right. You got the BB gun scene. See? So, I take my BB gun and I'm sitting now. It's twilight, a beautiful twilight night. Sun is going down and I'm sitting out on the steps, the front porch, and I've got my BB gun. Now, why have I got my BB gun? Well, my scout troop we every every year we used to have these projects. See? And so my scout project that year, I decided to make myself out of string. Now you can weave together rope and make a plated uh uh kind of a a strap. And I was weaving together string that was going to be a strap so I could carry my BB gun. You know, it was going to I I had a I had a little ring bolt stuck in the that I had screwed into the stock and it was going, "Oh, you know, I'm sitting out there weaving away with my thing there." Now, what could be more innocent than to be working on a scout project? Okay, now remember, it's on my BB gun. It's got about three little BB's in it. Keep rolling back and forth up the barrel. You know, every time you tip it, it goes one end. I tip it up, they go the other way. See, there about three or four little daisy compro BB's, you know, those little ones with the copper colored coating on them. Now, these things are are about, you know, they're flatsided. They're not even round, you know, So, the idea of being able to hit something, you couldn't even hit the if you shot it down on the ground, you couldn't hit the floor with my BB gun. So, I'm sitting out there on the porch. I'm looking around. I'm working away and it's quiet. There's nobody out on the street. It's one of those quiet days and nobody's on the on the porch or not. Just me. There no cars even around for some crazy range. If just like I was the only one out there just all time had stood still just like this kid. what he was doing out on the ball down all by himself with a baseball at the minute that that helicopter went over. He today, you know, he probably can't even uh explain it to himself. So, I'm sitting on the porch on the steps and I'm working away on my my plated string and I'm working. I take the BB gun up and I I'm trying to see if it's long enough. See, I was supposed to go over my shoulder, the string, and I put it up like that. See, it's getting long. Well, as I do it, I I aim the BB gun. Just aim it. Now, the BB gun had had a little heart-like sight in the back. The rear sight was a little heart sight, you know, like a little truncated heart. The front sight was a leaf sight. You It's a little leaf sticking out there. See? So, I a little knife edge sight. So, I'm weaving away there. I don't know what made me do it. People who do these things have no explanation why they do them. In the end, by the way, if you're caught, you always wind up with some kind of a cockamame lame excuse. Like this kid sends me this lame excuse. Well, the helicopter had no right to be that low. Does that give the kid a right to throw apples at it?
[laughter] So anyway, I'm sitting there, see, with this with this uh with this rifle, and halfway down the next block, get this, halfway down the next block, I'm talking about like say maybe a good 100 ft away is a street light. And it was one of these high ones, you know, the kind with the big aluminum pole, goes way up, and it's got a yard arm that sticks out over the street. And then hanging from the yard arm is this frosted globe that's got a little kind of aluminum shield, a kind of a hip looking shield on the top of it. This thing was way up in the air and about 100 ft down. I don't know what made me do it. I just took the BB gun and aimed it just, you know, casually and I squeezed one off. Well, any of you who have ever fired a BB gun, a real BB gun, I'm not talking about a CO2, an air rifle, you know that the BB usually goes very slow. You could actually see it. You can see the BB curving out. And I go chunk. And it was a long pregnant pause. I saw the little flash of the gold baby going upwards into the darkness. Just I just sat there and then all of a sudden with no warning,
[music] boom. M. It shuddered for a second. The street light just sat there for a second and and I saw something happen. There was a little flash of what looked like blue green light. Just a little up at the top of it. And then a a trail of smoke came out of it from the top. And there was a lick of flame and it just hung there for a second and then slowly started to come down. It was like there was a wire or something inside of the thing. It was uncoiling
[music] and it was exploding as it came down. The street light crashed to the street.
[music] A great splash of flame. You could hear glass tinkling pieces of aluminum. And what's worse, it's burning.
[music] And people started to pour out of the houses.
>>
[music]
>> And off in the distance, I hear
[music] Well, everybody was so hung on the street light, they didn't even bother to look down the down the middle of the block and see a little kid sitting there, you know, with his BB gun. I jumped up. I ran like hell up the front steps, into the living room, into the back bedroom, and under the dayb bed.
[music] And out in the darkness, I can hear.
[music] There must have been 35 sirens. I hear people yelling on the streets. My mother is out in the kitchen. She says, "What's the matter? There's a fire outside. There's a fire." She ran through the house and she's gone out there in the crowd.
[music]
>>
[music]
>> While I stayed under the daybed till 15 minutes before supper,
[music] I left my BB gun, dark, deeply hidden among the dust.
[music] I carefully crawled out. I was shaking. And I came out of the
[music] front bedroom and everybody's talking about this thing.
[music] My kid brother says, "Hey, Genie boy, where were you? You sure missed it." Wow, the street light came down. It blew up. Almost hit Anderson's car. Holy smokes, there were 85 fire engines. Where were you?
[music] Well, I was down at the library. He spoil. Did you miss it? Oh, wow. It's fantastic. I said, "Oh, yeah. I heard about it." Gee,
[music] what happened? So, I don't know. Nobody knows. The street I just came down and exploded, blew up, almost hit the car. People that night, I sat at the dinner
[music] table. My guts were turned to lemon jello.
[music] Remember the old man looking at me said, "Well, what did you do today?" Oh, nothing, Dad. Went to the library. Randy says, "Hey, Dad. Boy, you should have seen what happened today. The street light came down over there. Yeah. Over there by Watts's house. It came down and all of a sudden it just blew down. Almost hit the Anderson. Yeah. Mrs. Anderson practically passed down. It was fantastic. The fire engines came from all over. My mother says, "Yes, it was really something." You know, I It's too bad Jeanie missed it. He would have enjoyed that. I was at the library.
[music] Old man says, "Wow, boy." He says, "Stuff really happens around here when I'm not home. wish something like that had happened when I'm here. He loved fires and explosions. So, I wish something would happen like that when I'm around. I said, "Yeah." We just continue to eat our meatballs. And to this day, no one knows out there just who caused the great streetlight explosion. I never told them it.
[music] Did I ever tell this on the air? You mean this is the first time I've ever admitted this? I never brought I'll tell you I never mentioned it at home because you know this made the papers there's a great big story in the paper. It says street light explodes mysteriously bystanders narrowly missed which was a crocy you know what there were no that was
[laughter] no bystanders. That's what the paper reported says says a $500 damage yesterday streetlight explodes mysteriously. Investigation underway. That was a chilling line. So I can understand kid out there in Danville, New Jersey, just exactly what you thought. And you can't tell anybody else about it. There's no way to describe it. That feeling.
What did I ever tell you about the time me and Schwarz are walking home from we we we were patrol boys. You know, safety patrol boys. Now a safety patrol boy is supposed to be Yes, I know. He is supposed to be a bastion of righteousness among kids, right? I mean, he's the fuzz among kids. Wouldn't you agree? Well, me and Schwarz are working on we're patrol boys and he was a block away from me. See, and we're we're way out on this street about boy, it was about four or five blocks away from the school and Schwarz is a block down from me and there's no other kids. One of the great things about being a safety patrol boy, you know, you're always out early. So Schwarz and I are are we're walking to our our our post and I stand on my corner, he stands on his and finally about five minutes before we were to quit. Schwarz comes walking down towards me and we start walking back with no other kids around and Schwarz had one of those hair raising moments. He picks up a rock. We were always throwing rocks just, you know, just chucking rocks at things in general. And you never really hit them. You throw it a bottle, you throw at a post, you throw it a, you know, you you throw it up at an insulator and once in a while, you know, you never were serious. You just throw this stuff around. Schwarz picks up a rock and we used to always try to to see who could throw the fire. You know, Schwarz leans back and he goes, he's throwing at that pole way over there. See? And it's tremendous arching toss, you know, this great big throws and it just arches up higher and higher and higher and down, down, down, down, down, down, down. The rocks coming. And we both stood for one second like we were caught in a codchrome slide. The rock was going right at the fire alarm box. And I want to tell you, we you know it you know when you do something like that, the minute it leaves your hand, you know it. There's something inside you says, "Uh-oh, the jackpot." It hit the fire alarm by just with a solid just went clunk. Just a solid clunk. And the thing just slipped down off the pole. It just went bonk and came down. Just slid down about a foot. And Schwarz says, "I hit it." I says, "Yeah, Schwarz." And there we are with our white belts and our badges. He says, "Yeah." And it seemed like instantaneously from the entire horizon all around us, you could hear, "Woo! They are coming closer and closer. My god, the fire engines. It's a 27 alarm fire. We knocked the box right off the off the post. Well, the two of us took off down the street and we dove under somebody's porch. It was just a porch there with a lot of bushes. We dove under the porch and we laid under the under this porch little slats looking out and there were 35 firemen that were walking around looking mad and one guy Yeah. One guy's making a phone call. You know the two-way radio you can hear. Call the police. Call the police. We hear him say call the put in a call. And 5 minutes later, 18 squad cars show up. We never mentioned it again. We just never mentioned it again.
[music] We got some commercials here. We got Grammarly Park. How about you got Lashene? Yeah. Hit the Lasheen button, please.
>> Alexa.
>> Yeah. Sing it out, Carlos.
[music] If you'd like to enjoy fine French wine with your meals, Alexis Lashine, it'll make your uh your elegant dinners out there in Queens have certain style. The reds, the whites, the roses. Alexis Lucine, you just remember the name. They pick the wine for you. You just buy it. The beautiful French wine in the beautiful bottle at a beautiful price. You will enjoy quality without confusion. Elegance without expense. Alexis Lasheen is imported by Bass Cherington Venters of New York. Would you play that again, please? Edward, just hit the There.
[music] Sing it, ladies.
>> Is that one girl or what?
>> My George, it is
[music] she's blowing on a candle there. Hold it there, baby. There. That's okay. Hold it there. Thank you. Now, let's see. We have Grammar Park. Yeah, we've got the We'll go off with a quick Grammar here. Let's see. Where's my Grammarcy Park spot? Yeah. Grammarly park clothes of 64 West 23rd Street in New York says, "If you have never worn a polyester double knit suit, friend, you're missing one of the great exciting moments of your life. They tickle your knees. It's really great and exciting. They can be very sexy. So, I would like to suggest you drop by Grammy Park close on 64 West 23rd Street. They're open 7 days a week. And get yourself a suit for Christmas. I mean, after all, it'll be the first one since 1948. And that other one's beginning to grow little twigs under the arms. It's about time you did something about it. That's Grammarly Park closed. 64 West 23rd Street, third floor behind the big iron gate. And uh I think that's kind of nice. The bugle blows. What? There was a music. There was a a movie about the bugle blows.
[music] No, it was a horn. That's right. The horn blows
[music] at noon. No, the horn blows at noon. That's what it was called, is it? Yeah. And Bob Hope was in it.
[music] That was the one, wasn't it? No, it was the bugle blows at noon. It was the No, it was a bugle blows at noon. No, the bugle blows at dawn and it had Dennis Day in it.
[music] No, no, I think I think it was the Bugle Blows at Dawn and I believe it had Phil Cook in it and Beetle and Bottle.
[laughter] Bring it up live.
[music] I bought Lester out of the control room in this.
[music] By the way, that is a is a one of the sneakiest funny movies ever made. The Horn Blows at Midnight. Every time I It comes out. I I never miss it. You ever see it, Ed? You got to see it. Bring
[music] it up. Hey, listen. Don't forget Wakers 12 noon tomorrow, Saturday.
[music] You'll be there. Philadelphia, be ready.
[music] A big man is coming to town.
[music]
[music] Sing to the tulips.
[music] I'm just warming up here for my, you know, for the weekend. This is W New York. You stay tuned for Lecher Smith, our resident cinema expert. And the news,
>> the news in detail on the hour from the W newsroom. still in critical condition as the report from Kansas City's research hospital on former President Harry Truman. An early evening report from the hospital said that he had showed improvement in his cardiac irregularity. And Mr. Truman's personal physician, Dr. Wallace Graham, went so far as to say that his heart had weakened to an extremely precarious level earlier today. The 88-year-old former president's daughter, Mrs. Clipton Daniel, remained on the optimistic side of that professional opinion.