Joel Crothers and WOR

[Uncle Roger]

I remember seeing an item in the news section of Daytime TV, one of the earliest soap magazines, that Joel Crothers had landed a job as a regular entertainment critic at WOR,  Channel 9 from NYC. I watched the station occasionally but never saw Joel. I always kind of wondered what had happened. Since Joel obviously isn't around to ask, Google came up with the answer. The station did indeed hire him and promoted his joining the station in newspapers and press releases. Then they abruptly fired him, a few hours before he was to make his first appearance.
The reason? Someone at WOR felt that having a working actor review entertainment projects would be a conflict of interest and would reflect poorly on the integrity of the news department. Well, up until that point, the station didn't have a news department. A lot of the on the air staff had been let go from other stations for various reasons. Nor was WOR well regarded in NYC. It was the least of the NYC independent stations. Their programming was largely made up of off network reruns and Filipino vampire movies.
Joel was smart enough to have kept his soap job. I don't think that he ever ventured towards broadcast journalism again.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Wow, I'd never heard about any of that before. You uncover/share some of the most interesting trivia. 

[Uncle Roger]

Thank you so much, MB! Joel's dad, George Crothers, was a producer of the Sunday morning religious programs, Look Up And Live and Lamp Unto My Feet. Young Joel auditioned for a part under a pseudonym. He got the part and quickly established himself as an upcoming actor. At the age of twelve (!), Joel made his Broadway debut in The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, opposite Burgess Meredith!

[Bob_the_Bartender]

If I might “defend” WOR TV, they broadcast the New York Mets baseball games for many years before the unfortunate introduction of cable tv coverage of major league games. WOR broadcast most of the Mets’s games for free, much like the great WGN TV station in Chicago did with the Chicago Cubs for many years.

I remember one snowy and particularly lousy winter day in NYC back during the early 1980s, when WOR aired “House of Dark Shadows.” What enjoyment to see Barnabas, Willie, Julia, Maggie, et al, after shoveling what seemed liked tons of snow! 

Of course, after WOR TV moved from Manhattan to beautiful Secaucus, NJ, not far from Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands, they also aired “The Howard Stern Show” from their new studio on the Meadowlands Parkway.
Residents of Secaucus were either thrilled or horrified to see Howard, Robin Quivers, Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling, Baba-Booey, Beetlejuice and the rest of the Stern gang in their fair city.

So, I, for one, have “fond” memories of the old WOR TV superstation.   

[dom]

And if I'm not mistaken, they aired King Kong every other week? (And all the big Ape movies for us on Sunday morning? Maybe Saturday?) As a young kid I lived on 'monster' movies. The Million Dollar Movie, was that WOR? They used Tara's Theme for the opening theme. As a kid I thought it was the million Dollar Movie theme, lol. Not sure if The Bowery Boys was WOR (channel 9!!) or PIX. Fond Mem's of WOR.

[Uncle Roger]

I thought the same thing about the Million Dollar Movie theme. It was years before I ever heard Gone With The Wind.

I know that they showed King Kong a lot. And, as a older kid, I remember them showing four Godzilla movies in a row on the day after Thanksgiving. Gotta love the Smog Monster!

But I also recall them playing the same movie every night for a week. And multiple times a day on the weekend. I drove my parents crazy watching night after night of Strangers On A Train.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Dom and Uncle Roger,

Oh, you’ve got me recalling those wonderful halcyon days of “The Million Dollar Movie” on WOR Channel 9 in NYC! I think they would show the same movie every day for a week at 4:00 PM or so; I remember when all of the boys in my grade school would rush home to watch repeated airings of “Rodan” on Channel 9 (long before DS was aired on WABC Channel 7 at 4:00 PM, of course!)

I think WOR Channel 9 also aired the classic “Joe Franklin Show” at 11:00 PM every week night. The late, great Joe Franklin had really big stars like Bob Hope and Lucille Ball on his show. Joe Franklin also had regular, everyday New Yorkers on his nightly show. In the great Woody Allen film, “Broadway Danny Rose,” you see Joe Franklin interviewing “legendary” 1950s crooner Lou “”Agita” Canova (actor

 Nick Apollo Forte) on his tv show. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Joe Franklin had Joan Bennett, Jonathan Frid and Lara Parker on his long-running show.

Do you remember the great John Zacherle on Channel 11 in NYC? Mr.  Zacherle dressed up just like Lon Chaney in the silent film version of “The Phantom of the Opera,” and hosted a tv show airing such horror “classics” as
“Plan 9 From Outer Space” and “Frankenstein’s Daughter.” Mr. Zacherle actually interjected himself into these stinkers as they were being shown. He was hilariously funny during these memorable Saturday night shows.

The late Raineypark was also a big fan of Mr. Zacherle’s wonderfully bizarre show. I guess John Zacherle was kind of the Big Apple’s version of the great Vampira in Los Angeles or the legendary Svengoolie in Chicago. It’s too bad that Mr. Zacherle never got to make a cameo appearance on DS. He could have portrayed the Eagle Hill
 Cemetery’s “slightly” odd  cousin from NYC! 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I drove my parents crazy watching night after night of Strangers On A Train.

But that's such a good movie. And it's not like you were repeatedly watching Plan 9 from Outer Space! 

[Uncle Roger]

I drove my parents crazy watching night after night of Strangers On A Train.

But that's such a good movie. And it's not like you were repeatedly watching Plan 9 from Outer Space! 

That came along later!

Interesting bit of trivia regarding Strangers On A  Train: the actress who played Farley Granger's bitchy wife is billed as Laura Elliott. That's a stage name. Under her real name, Kasey Rogers, she appeared on two classic ABC series. First, she was the mother of Barbara Parkins on Peyton Place. Then, she became much better known as the second Louise Tate on Bewitched.