Friends of Old-Time Radio, an organization that preserves and perpetuates one of America's great communications media, holds its annual weekend convention this month even as the ranks of authentic old-timers continue to thin.
Among the dozens of guests featured at the convention this year will be longtime radio and TV reporter, anchor and voiceover man Bob Gibson.
Gibson, who over many years at WCBS-AM got a reputation as a man with a memory for almost everything, says he remembers the point at which radio started having to share his entertainment time with the newfangled invader called television.
"When I was in sixth or seventh grade, I'd get into bed at night and listen to 'Fibber McGee and Molly,' and then 'The Great Gildersleeve,'" Gibson says. "Before 1954, radio was how I got most of my entertainment.
"Then in 1954, we got a television, and my radio attention was divided."
But, he quickly adds, television didn't kill radio or ruin what still makes good radio unique and indelible.
"Radio is different. It's theater of the mind," says Gibson, who hosted the syndicated "When Radio Was" series for years and now is mostly retired in Florida. "That will never change."
Like many guests at the Friends of Old-Time Radio affairs, Gibson will participate in a re-created radio drama production - in his case, Friday night's "Dress Rehearsal," directed by Edgar Russell III.
That's one of his favorite parts of the convention, he says, though he adds jokingly that "hearing 'The Shadow' at 11 a.m. is a little odd."
The convention runs Thursday through Sunday at the Ramada Plaza, near Newark Airport, with panels and presentations from breakfast to late at night. There are dinners Thursday through Saturday nights, and memorabilia dealers will be present throughout.
Almost all of the guests will stay around to mingle with fans, discuss the panels and radio history or just sit and join people for lunch.
The guests this year are expected to also include Arthur Anderson, Joe Franklin, Joyce Randolph, Will Hutchins of "Sugarfoot," Chuck McCann, Frank Buxton, Shirley Mitchell, Stan Appelbaum, Russell Horton, Lynne Rogers, Bill Owen, Jerry Robinson and a couple of famous deejays from a little past the Golden Age: Dick Heatherton and Johnny Holliday, who spun the last rock 'n' roll record on WINS (1010 AM) before it went all-news in 1965.
Panels range from "Announcing Styles of the 1920s" to radio's coverage of the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the annual Big Bands retrospective. Sam Spade, Superman and the Great Gildersleeve will be present in spirit, and the Shadow's 80th anniversary will be celebrated.
For full information and schedule, go to www.fotr.org or contact Sean Dougherty, 201-739-2541, seandd@optonline.net.
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