As I'm sure you know by now, a lot of classic and influential television shows were done in Cincinnati.

A lot of it was produced at Crosley Square, where WLWT had their studios.

So much of our local TV history happened in this place.

The Ruth Lyons Show, Bob Braun, Paul Dixon, and they were all done there, and they were done live.

And the man behind those shows, the director and often the producer, was one Mr. Richard Murgatroyd, or Murg to his friends.

“Murg's skills were in such demand not only did he work on these shows, but he also worked with Bob Hope, Sid Caesar, and Johnny Carson, just to name a few.” And he also worked with a young weatherman out of Indiana who went on to become a television legend in his own right, David Letterman.

Oh, get this, he helped start up a show that changed the face of television, the Phil Donahue Show.

I know.

In fact, his series, The Golden Age of Local Television, was sparked by a conversation between Murg and our producer, CM Brown.

Here's some background.

Murg started out in his hometown of Cambridge, Ohio, as a radio announcer doing news, sports, and so on.

When he got to Ohio State University, this thing called television was just getting big.

So, what did he do?

He switched to TV and again hosting or announcing for a number of shows in Columbus, Ohio, where OSU is located.

He slowly transitioned from on-air talent to being a director and producer.

You know, at one point he worked for all three major networks in the same month.

That's kind of hard to do these days.

And what was the result of all that hard work?

He was asked to come to Cincinnati to do the Ruth Lyons.

I'm talking a lot.

Blah, blah, blah.

You know what?

Let's hear from the man himself as Murg talked to to Rick Robinson.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Dick Murgatroyd, one of the key players in the Golden Age of Local Television.

[music playing] You know, it is not outside the realm of exaggeration to say that you are a legend.

[laughs] Well, I'm old enough to be one.

[laughs] Well, but you have been involved -- -- Dick Murgatroyd has been involved in so much I have.

-- in television.

Now, I think the interesting thing about your career, though, Dick, is that you didn't start off here in Northern Kentucky.

I mean, everybody knows you from The Braun Show and Ruth Lyons, but you actually got your start in Columbus.

I actually got my start in Cambridge, Ohio.

Cambridge, Ohio.

Because we lived in Cambridge, Ohio.

And I never really knew what I wanted to do.

But I got fascinated by broadcasting.

And in Cambridge, they opened up a radio station just up the street from us.

So, I used to wander up there, you know, and just hang around.

[laughs] And Donahue was the manager.

And he said, “You're going to hang around here.

Might as well go to work.” So, Phil Donahue managed that.

No, his name was Donahue.

Oh, okay.

We'll get to Phil Donahue.

Yeah.

He taught me a lot.

He put me on the air.

I was an announcer for a while and did news for a while.

And I have hosted a couple of shows on the air.

But he was really good to me.

And he showed me a lot about radio, which sold me on that.

That's kind of what I wanted to do with my career, my life.

And my father thought I should be a doctor.

So, he's very disappointed.

[laughs] Well, with what you ended up doing in broadcasting, I don't think he would be anywhere disappointed.

He never understood what I did.

Bless his heart.

He never figured out what I did in broadcasting.

What is broadcasting?

But anyway So, you started out, though.

I mean, everybody knows you as being a part of a production director.

Yeah.

Being part of the team, what all.

But you actually started out as on-air talent.

I did.

And so, I went to Ohio State and went to work at WOSU radio and was just an announcer on WOSU radio for a while, my first semester, my first quarter or two at Ohio State.

And then, they built the radio.

They built a television station.

And so, they said, you know, “We're going to move you to TV.” So, they moved us over to TV.

And you hosted a bunch of shows.

Yes.

In Columbus.

Yes, I did.

You were the gardening expert.

I was at WBWC.

[laughs]They all say, “Can you host our garden show?” And I said, “I can try.” And Tom Mongero was there as a gardener.

So, I do just feed him.

And he would, you know, and I did news at the OSU because we had a three-person newscast.

So, I did news at the OSU.

And so, I did a lot of talent for a while.

And we had a children's show at OSU that was bicycled to Steubenville and Parkersburg on Kinney because that was just kinescope recordings.

And so, I became an assistant director on that show.

And the guy, Bob Fusey, was the director.

And we had puppets on the show.

And so, one day he said, you know, “I want you just to take over.

I'm going to go do puppets.” [laughs] And so, he went and did puppets, and I started directing the show at that point.

Now, what was interesting in Columbus was that you actually worked for all three of I did.

the different network shows.

I mean, that's something unheard of today, that you would bounce around from station to station, but we worked at one point or another for the shows for all of them.

I did.

Well, because it was an early time in TV when they were starting a lot of programs.

And because of being at OSU, I mean, I learned to direct early in my life, and I decided that's what I really wanted to do anyway.

And so, they started calling me and said, because the WTVN, they'd started a three-man newscast, which was unheard of at the time, basically, except they were doing it in, I think, in Cincinnati.

But anyway, so they asked me if I would come and kind of put that together.

So, I went and did that for a while, 11:00.

And then, I ended up going out there.

They had two children's shows.

They had Janie Jingles at 8:00 and Cinderella at 9:00.

Cinderella used to be here on Uncle Al's show.

And one camera.

And so, I did Janie Jingles at 8:00 and I did Cinderella at 9:00.

We just opened up the garage door, pushed the camera through, and put the garage door down.

And that was another studio.

Well, there you go.

There's your production and director ability.

Yes, right.

Right.

And one camera.

one camera.

No, not a challenge.

But we did.

If I did it for years, and then they brought bowling, Taft bought bowling, onto all their stations, and they put in bowling alleys in all their stations.

You had a bowling alley in your station.

They built the bowling alley in the station.

And so, I would go in at noon or 1:00 every day I had spare time, which was the women's show.

And then, I would go back and do it on Saturdays.

Gene Fullen did the -- what they called it.

But it was a bowling show for teenagers.

And then, on Saturday, I was high-star bowling.

And that was the competitive show.

We had two allies, and they went for a whole season.

And then, at the end of the season, they won a nice Rambo on a mobile, which at the time, I guess, was an exciting moment in their lives.

So, I did bowling for a long, long time.

So, when you're doing all these shows, that's when you first run into Ruth Lyons from Cincinnati, correct?

finally went to work for, because I did a lot of stuff for BNS TV, which was the Wolfs.

And I did a lot of remote stuff.

They did that.

Billy Graham came in a couple of times, and I did that show.

And then, I did what WTVN had cast with a camel, which was Sky Lucy.

And I did that.

So, they would call me just off and on just to, you know, fill in.

Finally, when AVCO -- when they started to do a morning show in every market in AVCO.

So, they had Paul at 9:00.

And then, at 10:30, they wanted a show, a local show.

So, all the stations had local shows.

And then, at noon, Bruce would come on.

So, the whole morning was the same format, you know, host or music, you know, singers and/or live audience in it.

So, four called me and said, “Would you be interested in doing our show at 9:00 show in the morning?

I said, ”Yeah, if I can do that.” So, I left OSU and came over to five to four, and we had Jack Denton for a while.

And Jack went to New York, and I think he was in -- he played the camera was on Broadway.

So, he went on Broadway.

So, Dean Miller, who was in California and he kind of bopped around doing different television shows in California.

But his wife was Idy Wagner, who was the Wagner where people who were in Ohio.

I think it was -- I'm not sure what town it was.

So, she wanted to come home.

And so, he was available.

So, he came and he hosted our show for a number of years, a couple of years.

And then, they finally moved.

He moved to where her family was from.

But he went up there and did a news show up there.

So then, Spook Beckman, who was a radio guy and well, well known in Columbus, he became our host.

And so, I did Spook Show.

So, how did you end up in Cincinnati?

Well, I did Spook Show.

And then, we used to do the -- they used to send the nucleus of people from Midwestern Hayride to Columbus.

And we would do a live show called Jamboree at night.

And then, we would tape the rest of the week, so that we did every night at 7:00.

We did Jamboree.

And with Dean and Penny and that bunch from down in Cincinnati.

And then I did that.

And then, John Murphy met this lady, Lillias Folan.

And I think Lillias was her name, Lillias Folan.

And she was an exercise lady.

And so, he called, and he said, you know, “We want to start a show with her.” So, you know, we're going to do that in Columbus.

So, I did that.

And then, she left.

She eventually left and went to get to CET up down here doing that show.

So that's how I got -- The Hayride was kind of the connection that brought you Well, the Hayride.

Yeah, that's because I got to know them very well.

And then, when Clooney came -- Beckman retired, and Clooney came, and I started the Clooney show in Columbus.

And then, they called me from Cincinnati and said, “We're going to bring you down here.” So, they brought me down there.

And I just went in as a director.

You know, so I directed Dixon for a while and directed.

And at that point, Ruth was leaving, and Bob was taking over for her.

So, you came on right before Ruth did her surprise announcement.

And then, for those who may be listening, Ruth Lyons had the legendary noontime slot that went around the broadcasting network.

Yeah, she did.

And when she ended her career.

It was somewhat of a surprise to everybody.

It was.

She was starting radio in Cincinnati.

And she was music.

She played the organ.

And she was a music librarian, so to speak.

And she -- Wrote tons of songs.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, she wrote tons of songs.

And she's very talented, and she wrote Christmas songs for everybody on the show every year.

They get new Christmas songs.

And so, she came to Columbus.

She did all the remote.

She wrote a report in every city every year.

And so, that's where I met her, was in Columbus, because I was still in Columbus at the time at sea.

But I would help out with that show because it was down the best memorial.

And so.

But when I went down there, she was in her last year.

And so, I did -- I think I filled in a couple of times on her show.

And it's a Dixon show, and Bob took over the show when she announced she was -- and she didn't really announce she was leaving.

She just sent a letter to Walter Bartlett and said, “Read this on in January.” That's what he did.

That shocked everybody.

Nobody saw that coming.

I remember reading Bob Braun's book.

Here's Bob.

Bob didn't even know until the night before.

I mean, did you know that day that that was going to be real?

No.

Nobody knew.

Nobody knew.

She had made up her mind, but she had had a very difficult year.

Her sister passed away.

Candy passed away.

Yeah, her daughter.

Her daughter passed away, and then she had a stroke, and she came back from this.

Well, she had a stroke, I think, and then when she came back, that was when she wanted to do the Christmas fund because of Candy having passed away.

And so, the only show she ever taped was a color show.

She did a color show when she came back, and she had everybody on that show.

She had all the singers, Marianne and Ruby and Bonnie Lou, and Bob was on, and Peter Grant was on, and Nick was on, and everybody that was on there.

And the purpose was she wrote a song called Wasn't Summer Short.

And Ruby introduced that song, which Johnny Mathis later recorded.

[laughs] And so, She.

that was the only tape we ever had of her, basically.

We had some pieces of tape from when she used to do the show with Willie Thaw.

Well, Willie Thaw was with her for a long, long time.

But Black and White was a black-and-white show.

And it was the early part of her career, really.

But she was an amazing lady.

I mean, she was probably the first lady in television.

And groundbreaking in a lot of respects.

She did.

The time that she danced with an African-American singer on stage, or on television, I should say, she got a whole bunch of hate mail and basically told everybody to kiss off.

She did.

She did.

And she invited him back.

Later on.

I did it again.

[laughs] But she was very outspoken.

She was.

So then, you take over the Braun show.

Now, here's what I think is interesting.

Let's get into the Northern Kentucky side of it.

Everybody knows, of course, Bob Braun is from Ludlow, Kentucky, the pride of Ludlow, Kentucky.

But he wasn't the only Northern Kentuckian that was hanging around in broadcasting in greater Cincinnati at that time, was he?

Not really, because there were -- Nick was here.

And Nick stayed.

Let's see.

He was with the show early on.

He came to Columbus, and then he came back from Columbus.

And I think he was on 9.

His show was on 9 for a while, but he was on Bob's show early on and a regular on the Bob show.

And actually, those two got along extremely well.

And they played off of each other really well.

And then, of course, Nick finally left and went to -- I think he started his show at 9:00, and then eventually he went to 12:00 and became a news guy.

And, you know, there was no stopping him at that point.

And we changed the show.

I mean, Ruth.

Her show is her and her audience, basically.

And that's really what she had done.

Yes, we're not necessarily important to her, but she liked certain people.

She liked Bob, Bob Hope.

She loved Carol Channing.

Who did you love out of those crowds that came in?

Well, I think we had -- Who do you have fun with?

I love Bob Hope because I worked for him for a long time afterwards.

I mean, doing benefits for him because he took a liking to me for some reason, so.

[laughs] So, I traveled with him and did some stuff on weekends.

And Carol Channing was the light.

She was on Bob's show a lot.

She and her husband were producers, I think, of some sort.

But she was a sweetheart.

She was great.

Most of the people we had, basically speaking, were because we changed Bob's show so that we had usually two to three guests every day on the Braun show.

And they were all named.

Because at that time, there were venues in each market.

And they all had stars coming in.

The Playboy Club was here.

That's where Jay Leno really got his start.

But you had to play it.

We had, and you had Sutmiller in Dayton.

You had the Embers in Indianapolis and Miramar in Columbus.

And then, we had Beverly Hills here, who brought in some of the big names.

They also had all the dinner clubs where they would have plays.

Right.

Yeah.

That would bring a lot of people And then Kenley Players was here.

Kenley Players.

That's what I was trying to remember.

And they hit all of our city.

When they were here, they could get on the air, and they could promote their shows in all the markets.

So, that was a great thing.

So, we had all four markets and that.

So, we had always had it, and we had all of all the Reds players on.

And they were regulars on the show.

I love the stories that you tell about when you were producing both Dixon and Bob Braun about David Letterman.

Some unknown weatherman out of Indianapolis who used to sit in the booth with you.

Tell me a little bit about how the Letterman show ended up looking like what you had put together.

It did.

Well, he was the weather guy at our station in Indianapolis.

He loved Paul Dixon.

He really loved Paul Dixon.

And of course, we used to remote in all the markets.

And so, every time we were over there, he would always come sit in the control room.

And then, I did Dixon once every once in a while.

I directed Dixon for a while.

And Mondays was his day off.

He would come in and sit in that control room on Mondays and just watch Dixon The similarities.

I mean, you watch the interaction between Paul Schaefer and Letterman.

That was the interaction between Paul Dixon and his bandleader Bruce Brownfield.

Was that?

Bruce Brownfield was Paul's bandleader.

Yeah.

If you watched Letterman, once he went on national television.

If you watch Letterman -- I called him Dixonisms.

But there would be a lot of Dixon's little remarks in that.

Giving away a ham.

Yeah, that he would do.

And knowing Dixon, you right away knew that that was something.

Could Paul maybe get away today with what he did then of being the mayor of Newville and giving away a sausage every day?

Dixon was the amazing guy because, you know what?

He never rehearsed anything.

I think he did rehearse the chicken wedding.

But [laughs] Of all the things he rehearsed, he rehearsed the chicken wedding.

I think a little bit of the chicken wedding.

Yeah, which still plays every year, by the way, in the holidays.

They still play that, and it still gets the top ratings.

For those who are not familiar with it.

Paul Dixon is produced and directed by Dick Murgatroyd, married to rubber chickens on the air.

Bob Braun sang to the new couple.

He's saying that Marian was there and -- I forget who else.

And Roger.

What was Roger's last name?

He was a trans guy.

I think he was the best man, or he was something like that.

It was put together.

Somebody sent that first chicken to Paul.

And then, everybody said, “Well, she/he needed it.” Like, it was to see that she needed a partner.

And so, there's somebody who's had another chicken head, and then they dressing them, you know, they started dressed them.

Started dressing them on.

And then, the next thing you know, we decide we'd have a wedding.

[laughs] We had a chicken wedding with the chicken.

And the chicken wedding to this day still is one of the most popular shows.

They play it at holidays, and I think around Thanksgiving and December again.

And it still gets amazing, amazing audiences.

Let's do rapid fire with a couple of your guests.

And I know we're some of your favorites.

How about Red Skelton?

I love Red Skelton.

I dearly loved him, and I worked with him.

And Red was an interesting guest because you never knew where he was.

You know, we would say, “Well, send a car,” and he said, “No, don't wo.. Don't need to send a car.” But we didn't know where he was.

And he would be wandering around Cincinnati, you know, or to a fair.

He used to sit in the lobby of the hotel, and he was an amazing artist with the clowns.

And if those children kept those, they're worth a fortune because he gave them to kids after he did them.

And I remember.

So, we would be looking for him.

[laughs] And then, they would call me from the front desk, and they said, “There's a gentleman here who said he's on the show today."

[laughs] And I said, “What's his name?” She said, “Red Skelton.” I said, “He is on the show today.

We're waiting on him.” [laughs] Paul Lynde.

Paul Lynde.

I love Paul Lynde.

We became good friends.

Paul was an interesting guy because he was on Hollywood Squares, and he came in and did the show.

But he had to have a bottle of vodka every time he came into the show, and he would sit and drink a glass of vodka before he went on the air.

And he said, “This gives me my strength to do this,” because he said, “I hate doing these things.” And so, I always had a bottle of vodka for him.

And we got to be pretty good friends because I kept in touch with him for a long time.

And they would come in and be so funny.

I mean, beyond, you know, what you could imagine on the show.

And then, when he got off the show, [laughs] he was just drained, but he did it.

That's how he did it.

And he was an amazing guy.

I love Bob Hope.

I work with him.

He took a liking to me.

So, I work with him on weekends, sometimes, doing his benefits for him.

And he used to call me in the middle of the night here to run.

He always said I was a good audience.

He said, “If you laugh, they'll laugh.” [laughs] So, he would call in the middle of the night, which would be 3:00 in the morning.

He said, “What are you doing?"

I said, “I'm sleeping."

He said, "Well, you're awake now, aren't you?” And I said, “Yes, I am.” [laughs] He said, “Well, let me run these by.” And so, he would run off these goofy jokes and that.

I always was funny.

And he always said, you know, "Whenever I'm with you, if you sit where I see you, I can know that your people are laughing.

And when you quit laughing, I know it's time to change."

[laughs] Get off the script and do what?

And I worked.

I bless his heart.

I worked with him till he just couldn't work anymore.

We used cue cards, and it got to the point where we needed two guys to do the cue cards, and we could only get one line on each cue card because he couldn't see the world really well, and they couldn't pull them fast enough for timing.

So, I finally said, you know, “We have to quit doing this, and you just need to do what you remember.” And he did.

And toward the end, a couple of things I did with him.

People didn't know he was in a wheelchair.

And we always took him in the back way.

And I never let anybody see him in a wheelchair.

And I would take him in, and then he would -- there's amazing people.

And so, he'd say, “Where are we?” and I'd say, “Well, here's what we're doing.

This is what we're here for.

And this is why we're here.” And so, he'd say, “Fine.” And then, when it was his time to go on, the other Bob Hope went on and would do 40 minutes, and people would go nuts, and then he would come off, and he would just be totally exhausted.

And I said, “How did I do?

[laughs] I think you were okay.

I think you were okay But I loved Lynde.

I loved him a whole lot.

I just thought he was great.

And he was interesting because, you know, sometimes he would just be me and him, you know, at some event.

And he always wanted to walk at night, you know, so I'd say.

[laughs] And so, we would walk.

He said, “Nobody will know who we are because he said the only people out here, they don't care who we are."

And so he would always have a coat.

He would have a coat in wintertime and a hat down.

So, he said, “Nobody will know who I am.” And they normally didn't.

They would not recognize him.

Sometimes you'd hear him say, “Isn't that Bob Hope?” But we were past him by that time.

He said, “Just keep walking.” I said, “I hope that nobody attacks us because I don't want to be responsible.” And one quick story about him.

He wanted to stay at the Cincinnati, and when he came in town with nine.

And of course, they always were upstairs in the penthouse.

But he wanted to have the windows open, to be able to open.

And he said, “Do the windows open?” And I said, “I don't know.” So, I called Cincinnati, and they said, “No, those windows don't open.

We don't have them.” I said, “Well, we want to come here, but he will insist that those windows open.” [laughs] And so, the guy called me back, me back, and he said, “We fixed them.” [laughs] So that can have Bob upstairs.

Yeah, so they can stay in that.

So, I said to him, “Why is it you want that window?” And he said, “Well, they have a fire.” I said, “If they have a fire, we're not going to jump out of these windows.

[laughs] And there's no ladder that will get up this high.

So, I said, “We got ours.

We are in trouble.” I said, “At least I know I can open that window.'

[laughs] So, we laughed about that many, many times.

But I loved him.

He was just a neat person.

I worked with Carson a couple of times.

He was not easy to work with.

So, Carson was not easy to work with.

Did he come into the show, or how did you work with Carson?

I don't think we ever had Johnny on.

I worked with him.

I think he might have been on once.

I worked with him at the fair when we did the fair.

And he was this interesting guy because he was one person off the air, and then he was another person on the air.

So, when he went through that curtain, he was Johnny Carson.

When he came back to the curtain, he was a different guy.

I was at the fair, and Rhodes was the governor at the time, so he said, “I'm going to put you in charge of these people,” you know, the stars, because he said, “You know how to do it.” [laughs] For him, we put his trailer right behind the stage.

And so, he said, “No, I don't want you to leave my side until I get on stage.” So, when I get out of the trailer, you walk right up to the stage and then, you know, he would go up and do the show.

And then he said, “I want you at the bottom of the stage when I come off, and I don't want anybody, you know, around me.” And he never really mixed with the audience at all, to speak of.

And so, we'd get back to his trailer.

And I saw him one time I was in California in the grocery store.

[laughs] And he looked up and said, “What are you doing here?” I said, “Well, I'm just here to pick up some groceries.” We were in town for something for Bob because we used to do some vignettes on some of the shows.

And he said, “What are you doing here?” I said, “Well, I'm buying groceries.

What do you think I'm doing?” I said, "Well, I didn't know."

I said, "It's great."

But, you know, in California, it's not strange to see those people because they're just normal out there.

Well, California, let's talk about that for a minute.

How about Sid Caesar?

That was one of your favorites.

Sid Caesar was amazing.

He was an amazing guy.

And, you know, there's the thing people never knew about early TV.

They were live shows.

They didn't have tape.

Show shows.

Yeah.

Show shows.

And he was brilliant.

He was really brilliant.

But they were live.

And so, you know, they went on live, and everything was live.

And we didn't pre-tape.

And so, most of those shows were live.

Marvin, I thought, was one of the greatest.

I mean, he was nuttier than a fruitcake when he did the show.

If you ever see it, it's always a show.

I mean, because he ad lib most of that show from beginning to end, you know.

And he always had a good time doing that show.

Tony Bennett.

Bennett was great.

In fact, he came on The Braun Show first time he ever came on.

And yet the thing is that on The Bronze Show, a lot of those people who were stars, they would come after the show started, and we always asked them to sing, you know, on the show.

And so, they never had rehearsal.

And so, he came, the first time he was there, and he gave me his arrangements.

He said, “I'm really nervous about this because we never rehearsed the arrangements.” And I said, “These guys sitting in there have played more arrangements that they have never seen until we put them in front of them than you can think of, and I promise you, they will be perfect."

[laughs] He said, "I'm going to take your word for it.” So, we did.

I handed them out to Cliff.

He handed them out to the guys.

And then, Tony came out, and they played them.

I mean, nothing.

I mean, they were perfect.

And he came up and said, “Can I just hire them and have them go with me?” I said, “No, you can't.” [laughs] No, you can have our talent.

But that's how good they were.

I mean, the musicians on that show were amazing.

1968, the Governor's Convention was held here in Greater Cincinnati.

And I know you have talked about Ronald and Nancy Reagan coming on the show during the 1968 Governor's Convention.

Yeah.

You told me one time that of all the politicians that came on the Braun show, he was the one that stood out.

I think he did.

And I think part of it was because he was a, first of all, personality before he became governor.

And he was so used to that, the surroundings of those of television and radio and that very comfortable.

And so, he was he was totally at ease.

You know, we had, I think, six presidents on the Braun show.

The women hated it because they would not let them keep the goodies that they bought.

And they always brought goodies to the show.

And so, whenever we had a president come on, they collected all of them downstairs so they couldn't bring them up.

[laughs] And of course, they never knew who was going to be on the show because we sent those tickets three years in advance.

That's how popular the Braun show was at the time.

Let's talk about Bob for a minute.

I think one of the unique things about the Braun show was the live commercials.

Bob Braun, you told me one time, had a 60-second clock somewhere in his head that he knew exactly where to go with.

I never worried about time cues.

Well, we know when we did a commercial where we taped it, I mean, you know, ahead of time, I mean, for something, because on the show, they were all alive, but they never had any copy at all, neither did Ruth.

They never used any copy.

Ruth would not talk to the advertising people.

She talked to the people that made the product and the president of the company as much as she could, and then she just took it over from there.

So, we never had copy, and Ruth would do -- someday she'd come in and say, “I don't feel like doing commercials,” and they would do all 18 commercials in the first 15 minutes of the show.

And she would just get ladies up and give them a bottle of whatever it was.

But the sponsor didn't care because she moved product.

I read one time where she mentioned on air, or Bob mentioned on air, a perfume that she was wearing.

And it sold out at every Federated department store in the network.

He did.

The next day.

Yeah.

cranberry juice, because at that time, when Candy was sick, they said cranberry juice was good for people who had cancer or whatever the case was.

But we weren't on the air.

And a guy from Kroger called and said, “Did she say something about cranberry juice?” I said, “Yes, she did.” And he said, “We don't have any left.” [laughs] And that's how powerful those shows were.

Jay Leno said in a newspaper article that Bob Braun was also the king of segues.

He was.

I think Leno said, particularly, he would say something like, “Do you like your parents?” And Jay would say yes.

And he'd say, “Well, I bet they would like Khan's hot dogs.” Exactly.

And tell me a little bit about the commercials and how Bob would segue in and out of those.

Well, he did, because, well, was on the show a lot because, I mean, we liked him a lot.

And he was just a young comedian at the Playboy Club.

But he came on afterwards, too, and after he was made it on The Tonight Show.

And in fact, he talked about that when Bob died.

He said, “You know, it's the only show I've ever been on where I woul begin in the middle of a conversation.

And the next thing you know, I was holding a package of wieners, and he was talking about Khan's wieners.

And I would always wonder, how did we get into that?

And then he would be over.

And then we would go back to talking about why I was there.” So, I mean, he did a wonderful thing when Bob died.

But that's how we were.

I mean, we always got the commercials in.

And a lot of times when the guest was there, they became part of the commercial.

[laughs] There was no copy, and we didn't really time the commercials.

I mean, sometimes they would get 20 seconds, and the next time they might get two minutes, you know, depending on what the situation was at the time.

What happened, Dick?

As you look at that period, suddenly all of the local TV shows just kind of went by the wayside.

What happened in television and what happened in the market during all of that?

I think probably when Bob started the show, when Ruth left, at that time, you had three main stations, and you had CET.

I think 64 come along.

64 didn't come along until Bob was there.

So, all you had were those three stations.

And WBLW was a powerful, powerful station in the market.

And the fact that we were in four markets.

That was the difference.

Right.

You had the AVCO network.

We had the AVCO network, which was very unusual because that's -- I think Westinghouse eventually had it when George left the Ruth show and became a producer of Westinghouse when they started that magazine show.

But otherwise, we had four markets all the time.

And the stations all carried them.

In fact, at one time, Tide was on Ruth's show.

And that was P&G.

Their sponsored, I think, as the world turned or something like that, which was on at 1:00 each day.

We never carried it on our four stations.

We were all NBC stations.

But we never carried show because of Ruth.

And so, they wanted her to change her time.

And she said no, not to change the time.

So, when Tide's contract was up, they left the show.

And Fels Naphtha, they left Fels Naphtha on.

And Fels-Naphtha at that time was just a big bar of soap.

And so, you scrape it off for the washing, for the washing machine, and whatever.

And then, eventually, they made a liquid soup in that.

But she was fine with that, and she made Fels-Naphtha.

I mean, at the time she started to advertise.

Whatever she advertised, people bought anyway.

So then, they came.

[laughs] When Fels Naphtha was up, Tide came back on the air because they said it killed them.

[laughs] When they were no longer on her show.

One more person I know we didn't mention before, but I didn't want to talk about, is Phil Donahue.

Donahue.

Well, Donahue was interesting because they had a show just like Ruth's show and that in between Paul and Ruth.

And so, in Dayton, they had, I think, Johnny Gilbert -- was Gilbert up there or Dick Curtis?

Maybe it was in Dayton.

And so, Dick went to New York.

And to be with, I think, on the winner's show in New York, one of the television shows.

So anyway, so Don Dahlman, I think, he was a sales manager at the time at the Dayton station.

And so, Don is the one who came up with the Donahue format in the Donahue show, because that was a total departure from what we were doing, because it was just Donahue and an audience.

That was it.

And a guest.

And Donahue, I think, was doing a nighttime radio show or something like that.

And I remember when they started.

I mean, the station was not -- they said, you know, Dahlman believed it was going to work.

And so, they finally acquiesced and said, “Okay, we'll try it and see what happens.” And so, we got the Donahue.

In fact, one of my students, my buddies, who went to Ohio State with me was the guy who became the director of that show in Dayton, Dick Mincer.

And so, it was a trial.

I had no idea how it was going to go.

It ended up changing television.

It did.

It was the beginning of a new format in TV.

And he took off, and he was in the end.

And I think at one time they gave the Donahue show to the station.

If a station, one of the Reds.

They get ballgames.

They had to take Donahue, and they gave it to him, you know.

So, he would be on it in the middle of the night sometimes.

But he became so popular, and it was an inexpensive show to do because it was just him, a guest, and an audience.

And they finally moved into Chicago, and in Chicago, because they could get more of a variety of people coming to the audience in Chicago.

But Donahue took, I mean, Donahue just blew everybody away.

And most of the shows after that always gave him credit because they said that format was the one that they followed, because it was cheap.

Our shows were this expensive because you had all the musicians and you had and all the town, all the now, that we never paid the talent.

I mean, the guests to come on the show, they came on a stage for, you know, advertising.

But as far as the other.

But to syndicate those shows, it would have been very expensive.

I want to wrap up with one more thing just for my own personal sake.

With Jonathan Winters, as funny as he was on stage.

Yes, he was.

Jonathan Winters started at WBNS-TV in Columbus, Ohio, as a floor director.

And that's where I first met him.

For those that don't know, Jonathan Winters was Robin Williams before there was Robin Williams.

Yeah.

And he was very talented and crazy.

I mean, at times, he thought he was crazy.

And so, WBNS realized that this guy was talented, too talented to be a floor director of WBNS-TV in Columbus, Ohio.

[laughs] So, they sent him to come to New York, to CBS, and he was his audience.

He helped put audiences into the shows and in New York.

That's where he got his start.

And then, he went from there and just blew everybody away.

You know, he was a very talented guy.

He was off the wall.

I used to do impersonations of him when I was a kid.

That was my whole introduction to comedy and everything else.

[laughs] He was an amazing guy.

He really was.

And he was very successful for many, many years.

You know, that's how I got started.

You're a legend.

Thank you for being here with us today.

[laughs] We appreciate it very much.

I don't know about that, but I was glad to be there when I was.

Thank you for having me.

I enjoyed it.

You know, I was very fortunate.

I got to do what I did when I did it.

And, you know, because it was a new thing and we were part of it and we helped make it happen.

And it was amazing when you look back at how much we learned as we went along and made it, you know, that was the worst.

Thank you.

This has been wonderful.

[music playing] So, tell us a Murg story or two.

My best memory of Merck is standing next to a manure wagon, and I had his hand like this.

And my father was on stage singing, and I'm standing next to Murg.

Because, you know, for me, Murg was my second dad, because in order to see my father, I had to go on the road with him.

We had to go travel.

You know, he went to L.A. all the time to do things, to New York, to do things all the time, and he would bring the family so we could have family time.

And we were on the road.

And I think I've seen the backstage of every building from here to Chicago or maybe down to Charlotte.

And I'm holding on to Murg.

And the older I got, Murg became my confidant for my teenage troubled years.

And he's my second dad.

He taught me so much about life.

And usually, it was, “It'll be all right.” He was always smoothing it over.

You'll be fine.

Always a calming force.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

And, you know, his talents, I think -- When you went into the business, did you call him and say, “How am I doing?

Yeah.

[laughs] Sometimes he would say, “What are you doing?

[laughs] Yeah.

I know he had those conversation with your dad when he permed his hair out in California.

Oh, yeah.

So, did he have that type of conversation with you going to -- So, yeah, my father.

So, when you're a newsman, you think you don't have to wear makeup.

You don't need a tie.

You're just doing the good work.

And so, I would send my father tapes and ask him to critique them.

And it went on for like 60 days, and I'd never heard anything from Dad about these tapes I kept sending.

And I called him and I said, “Well, are you getting my tapes?” He goes, “I'm not really sure.” [laughs] And I said, “Did you look at my tapes?

He goes, ”I think I looked at them, but I didn't see anything on them.” I go, “What are you talking about?

You didn't see anything.” He goes, “Because you didn't wear any makeup and you didn't have a tie on.

That's disrespectful for the audience.” And I mean, on and on and on and on.

He goes, “Not wearing makeup on television is like a plumber showing up without any tools.

What are you thinking?” So, he's just screaming at me.

So, I call Murg to appeal to Murg, like, you know, “Come on, that's ridiculous.

He's being like this.” And Mug said, “Yeah, pretty much.

He's pretty much right.

[laughs] [laughs] “So, you probably ought to put your makeup on."

folks, is Murgatroyd sitting off camera, actually laughing and giving that advice.

And when the crew laughs, you know you hit a good one.

[laughs] [music playing] Dick Murgatroyd, a man of talent and vision, and his influence is still felt today.

We hope you enjoyed our conversation with Murg.

We have a lot more conversations to go, so please join us on The Golden Age of Local Television.

See you then.

[music playing]