Saturday, December 27, 2008

Ralphie, Annie and Pierre


My post about favorite old time kid radio shows failed to mention that I was a pretty big fan of Little Orphan Annie. How many of the hundreds of thousands who have watched A Christmas Story since it appeared in the '80s know why young Ralphie was thrilled to see Pierre Andre's signature on the letter welcoming him to the Orphan Annie Secret Society, qualifying him to decode the secret message at the end of the program. I am among that elite half dozen or so, either old enough or sufficiently into things that stopped being important long, long ago. (If they ever were.) Any decent, died-in-the-wool old time radio nut knows that network radio announcers were stars in those days. One of the great ones in Chicago was Pierre Andre. He worked at WGN for 30 years. With a name like that, as he read those secret code numbers, how could he help but have a voice and delivery well calculated to make you send your parents out for a can of Ovaltine. A letter with his signature would probably bring a good figure on eBay these days.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:56 PM

    You're a star alright - all pretty and shiny and full of gas!

    Loved this line by the way:

    "Modest, humble, and proud of it!"

    Nearly made me cry. You DO have a way with.....words. (Geesh I wish I could italicize things in here!)

    I gotta go - you're keeping me up past my bedtime.

    ~ Janet ~
    (You do remember me don't you?)

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  2. Anonymous8:57 PM

    Oh, and hot air. You're definitely full of that!

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  3. That's not hot air, Janet. It is pure, high grade methane. But it is hot. Potentially quite indendiary.

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  4. I mean incendiary. I was having a powerful methane emission while typing.

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