Colgate Sports Newsreel - January 9, 1948

If you've ever seen the Woody Allen comedy "Radio Days", you've seen a great parody Bill Stern and his shtick - it's so great, in fact, that it's not far from the style of the actual Bill Stern.  If you've never heard Bill Stern before, you're in for an old time radio treat.

Mixing pathos and ballyhoo in his nightly fifteen minute sports show, the "Colgate Sports Newsreel", Stern told dramatic sports-themed "Believe It or Not" stories dripping with irony and strange plot twists.  Stern was a unique personality with a long career that started with local radio in the 1920s and extended into the television era - probably half of the sports commentators out there today are trying to emulate Stern's sense of on-air drama. In this post we hear the January 9, 1948 edition of the "Colgate Sports Newsreel" originally broadcast on NBC and sponsored by Colgate shaving cream.  Stern tells the story of the writing of "On the Sunny Side of the Street" that has a connection to a famous sportsman.  Composer Jimmy McHugh and entertainer Eddie Cantor drop by and talk about a Hollywood sports charity and the famous stars who have been athletes themselves.  The show that week was broadcast from Hollywood. Our transcription is an original lacquer line check recorded by WHO in Des Moines, Iowa, and the master file was run through some click reduction software to improve the sound. Isn't that a neato custom label that WHO had for their transcriptions?