Don’t look now, but there’s a Red Moon rising. Friday night we’ll go back to October 1957 with four episodes from when the Soviets started the space race and launched Sputnik, the first human-made thing to orbit the Earth. It shook us up pretty good here in the good old U.S. of A. We didn’t know what to make of it, except that this was the Cold War, we had people building backyard bomb shelters and kids having “duck and cover” drills in school, so it had to be bad news. You can bet Engineer Joe…played by Donn Hanson and Colonel Raffaelle (Tom Martinson) weigh in on this with dire consequences to do anything but sooth the public anxiety. We’ll also have Bill Kirby sports, who pinch-hits when Cal Sabatini forgets to come in. In fact, Wild Bill Kirby has been doing sports fill-ins for us since the ‘30’s. Maybe some of you old-timers remember him. He was indeed a TV sportscaster in the Twin Ports during the ‘50’s. He’s played by either Donn Hanson or Pat Kelly, depending whoever is around. When Rapid Ray Paulsen passed away, Cal took over in the ‘50’s and Wild Bill in the ‘30’s. But of course, no one could ever replace Ray. We’re just happy he’ll be with us as long as we’re airing “Radio Superior”. And tonight’s third episode, October 10, 1957, is especially cool. Helmi Harrington with Superior’s Harrington Arts Center and the legendary Polka Hall of Famer himself, Florian Chmielewski, join us to celebrate the World Series champs, the Milwaukee Braves. Senator Chmielewski remarked during the recording of that episode something to the effect of “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I’m having a great time”. Such are our recording sessions. Enjoy. --Mike Simonson
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 00:34:52 +0000