For those of us growing up in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1960's, Jim Lange was one of the Challengers to the local DJ title held by Don Sherwood, the World's Greatest DJ. Both were on KSFO and it was on their shows that I first listened to Phyllis Diller and Ronnie Schell and the Smothers Brothers.
Their rivalry resulted in the "Great Race of 1961" From Stinson Beach to the Ferry Building; for those who don't remember the monumental event there is a web video at
http://bayarearadio.org/ksfo/video/index.shtml

Jim Lange passed away Tuesday in Mill Valley. Although he was best known for TV game shows, he loved radio the best. During the middle of "The Dating Game's" success; I met him, in the new Cal pressbox at Memorial Stadium. He had been one of Cal's Football radio announcers back then. His Hollywood personna of carefully sculpted hair, tan, etc.. contrasted with the shaggy unkempt Berkeley culture of the time.

It saddens me to realize that other than Joe Starkey and Lee Grosscup, all the other Cal football announcers from the 50's to the present are lost memories in my mind. Since Starkey arrived in 1975 it's hard to remember that there were other Cal football announcers.

I had forgotten about his radio work. How long was he the host of the Dating Game? RIP, Jim Lange, age 81.

GO BEARS!

He was (in?)famous locally for his annual slurping after an invitation to the Crosby Clambake and finally made it after years of on-air lobbying. Never in Sherwood's class as an entertainer though.

sp4149;842287297 said:

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For those of us growing up in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1960's, Jim Lange waas one of the Challengers to the local DJ title held by Don Sherwood, the World's Greatest DJ. Both were on KSFO and it was on their shows that I first listened to Phyllis Diller and Ronnie Schell and the Smothers Brothers.
Their rivalry resulted in the "Great Race of 1961" From Stinson Beach to the Ferry Building; for those who don't remember the monumental event there is a web video at
http://bayarearadio.org/ksfo/video/index.shtml

Jim Lange passed away Tuesday in Mill Valley. Although he was best known for TV game shows, he loved radio the best. During the middle of "The Dating Game's" success; I met him, in the new Cal pressbox at Memorial Stadium. He had been one of Cal's Football radio announcers back then. His Hollywood personna of carefully sculpted hair, tan, etc.. contrasted with the shaggy unkempt Berkeley culture of the time.

It saddens me to realize that other than Joe Starkey and Lee Grosscup, all the other Cal football announcers from the 50's to the present are lost memories in my mind. Since Starkey arrived in 1975 it's hard to remember that there were other Cal football announcers.

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Thanks for informing us of his Cal connection. Had no idea.

okaydo;842287312 said:

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Thanks for informing us of his Cal connection. Had no idea.

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Me neither. My wife asked me this morning if I knew of him and I said "Dating Game"?

Don't forget Al "Jazzbo" Collins as well over at KSFO. Sherwood was the best DJ I ever heard. Jim Lang was best known for hosting "The Dating Game" on TV back in the 60's. RIP Jim.

Sherwood sued the owner of Don Sherwood Golf stores for use of his name; he didn't win because as Sherwood's lawyer commented; 'the store owner's name is Don Sherwood, your name isn't."

On the other hand I don't think Sherwood ever attended a Cal game; start times were too early on Saturday

Back in the sixties the Bay Area had a local TV show go national,
Jim Lange got his TV start as the announcer on "The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show". And on KGO TV Gypsie Rose Lee had an interesting morning show, although I can't remember the announcer When Gypsy interviewed Carol Doda she quipped "I couldn't get this much attention if I had three of them..."

How many Cal Students turned 21 in North Beach....

59bear;842287311 said:

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He was (in?)famous locally for his annual slurping after an invitation to the Crosby Clambake and finally made it after years of on-air lobbying. Never in Sherwood's class as an entertainer though.

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bar20;842287340 said:

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Don't forget Al "Jazzbo" Collins as well over at KSFO. Sherwood was the best DJ I ever heard. Jim Lang was best known for hosting "The Dating Game" on TV back in the 60's. RIP Jim.

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Jazzbo was the MC when Louis Armstrong played the Berkeley Community Theater in 1964. My dad took me. I was 10. Hello Dolly was a big hit song at the time.

I lost on the Dating Game to a friend of mine in l966 (he graduated from Stanford in l972). Fortunately, the girl was boring and bland (they hit it off great) and they won a chaperoned flight to the San Diego Zoo, and he a wristwatch that broke..He also got nothing else from the girl, nor from the chaperone (who he said was hot). RIP JL..fun day for us.

I think Lange ended up marrying a former Miss America or something like that.

Other Cal announcers: Bud Foster?

Thanks for posting your memories of radio days gone by! Oh how our generation was engaged in listening (and watching) naughty Don Sherwood, and of course debonair Jim Lange. I remember that Don organized an army to invade Stockton? Did that really happen.

Bud Foster was also mentioned. Back in the late 40's, the neighborhood kids would congregate on the steps of a house that had a radio near the front door. It would be turned up so we could listen to the Oakland Oaks broadcasts, announced by Bud Foster. The term "three ducks on the pond" always takes me back to those easy days without transistor radios. There was a Sunbeam baseball contest one year--guessing how many home runs, base hits, etc. etc. One of the girls on the steps won--a trip to the World Series in New York much to the chagrin of the boys.

Good memories.

I remember Sherwood singing a litlle ditty on the air.
"The last time I was in Lodi,
The grapes were on the ground,
And I danced round and round.
Round and round and round..."

For a kid from the Sunset District he did have a fixation on the Stockton/Lodi area.

As for the Raid on Stockton in 1958 the whole story beginning with the "aerial assault" can be relived at -

http://bayarearadio.org/pages/sherwood_stockton-raid.shtml

Mama Bear;842287471 said:

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Thanks for posting your memories of radio days gone by! Oh how our generation was engaged in listening (and watching) naughty Don Sherwood, and of course debonair Jim Lange. I remember that Don organized an army to invade Stockton? Did that really happen.

....

Good memories.

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One might suspect that Sherwood was a regular user of mind altering substances (other than alcohol, with which he was definitely familiar) well before the rest of us tried them.

Jim was one of the KSFO crew (along with Scott Beach and Dan Sorkin) that influenced me to go into radio. KSFO was truly "The World's Greatest Radio Station" with guys like Jim, Jack Carney, Carter B. Smith, Al "Jazzbeau Collins" (in the "blue grotto"), Dan Sorkin, Scott Beach, Ric Cimino, Terry McGovern, Gene Nelson.....geez it was great listening. The legendary "Sound of The City" jingles are still to this day the best that have ever been done (complete with Mel Torme doing a few of the jingles vocally). We lost Scott Beach several years ago, and Carter passed on a couple of years ago too. This news is very sad to me.

Good memory Oskihasahearton and Mama Bear.....Bud Foster was the first name I recall doing Cal football games. Didn't Dan Fouts father also do Cal games for a time?

TomBear;842287615 said:

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Jim was one of the KSFO crew (along with Scott Beach and Dan Sorkin) that influenced me to go into radio. KSFO was truly "The World's Greatest Radio Station" with guys like Jim, Jack Carney, Carter B. Smith, Al "Jazzbeau Collins" (in the "blue grotto"), Dan Sorkin, Scott Beach, Ric Cimino, Terry McGovern, Gene Nelson.....geez it was great listening. The legendary "Sound of The City" jingles are still to this day the best that have ever been done (complete with Mel Torme doing a few of the jingles vocally). We lost Scott Beach several years ago, and Carter passed on a couple of years ago too. This news is very sad to me.

Good memory Oskihasahearton and Mama Bear.....Bud Foster was the first name I recall doing Cal football games. Didn't Dan Fouts father also do Cal games for a time?

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I remember Bob Fouts doing 49er games, not sure about Cal. I thought it was the purple grotto not blue. I also remember Collins driving around in a 356 Porsche that was painted with black flocking.

TomBear;842287615 said:

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Jim was one of the KSFO crew (along with Scott Beach and Dan Sorkin) that influenced me to go into radio. KSFO was truly "The World's Greatest Radio Station" with guys like Jim, Jack Carney, Carter B. Smith, Al "Jazzbeau Collins" (in the "blue grotto"), Dan Sorkin, Scott Beach, Ric Cimino, Terry McGovern, Gene Nelson.....geez it was great listening. The legendary "Sound of The City" jingles are still to this day the best that have ever been done (complete with Mel Torme doing a few of the jingles vocally). We lost Scott Beach several years ago, and Carter passed on a couple of years ago too. This news is very sad to me.

Good memory Oskihasahearton and Mama Bear.....Bud Foster was the first name I recall doing Cal football games. Didn't Dan Fouts father also do Cal games for a time?

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I still occasionally hum the KSFO theme from those days: "The sounds of the City"

How did KSFO die so utterly?

TomBear;842287615 said:

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Jim was one of the KSFO crew (along with Scott Beach and Dan Sorkin) that influenced me to go into radio. KSFO was truly "The World's Greatest Radio Station" with guys like Jim, Jack Carney, Carter B. Smith, Al "Jazzbeau Collins" (in the "blue grotto"), Dan Sorkin, Scott Beach, Ric Cimino, Terry McGovern, Gene Nelson.....geez it was great listening. The legendary "Sound of The City" jingles are still to this day the best that have ever been done (complete with Mel Torme doing a few of the jingles vocally). We lost Scott Beach several years ago, and Carter passed on a couple of years ago too. This news is very sad to me.

Good memory Oskihasahearton and Mama Bear.....Bud Foster was the first name I recall doing Cal football games. Didn't Dan Fouts father also do Cal games for a time?

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Bud Foster was the first radio voice of the early SF 49ers--before Bob Fouts--and later the early Oakland Raiders games with color analyst Mel Venter.

He also called Cal FB games up until 1962, and I am very certain Cal basketball in the 1950's.

What I remember most is Foster calling the Oakland Oaks PCL baseball in Emeryville, and later worked as the voice of the Oakland A's. He seemed like a busy man up until 1962 (ret).

Bar, you are right. It was the purple grotto. I stand corrected. (Well done!)

Ghost, the reason KSFO died as it did was because the original Golden West Broadcasting owner, Gene Autry, sold his radio properties to King Broadcasting, based I think in Seattle. The King folks tried to go to a more generic format, not understanding the character that married KSFO to The City. The playlists got tighter, there was an effort to control the very things that made KSFO so different (the personality of the announcers), and they took away the DJ/Engineer combinations in a cost cutting move. Lots of the humor that we heard was a result of joking between the announcers and the engineers, and that all went away when King Broadcasting took over.

Once King fully installed their more generic (consultant based) format, the station became just like every other "adult contemporary" station in the U.S. With it's uniqueness gone, KSFO lost it's edge and the very things that differentiated it from every other radio station. As the station's ratings continued to erode, King sold the station and it never recovered.

That's a brief answer to your question. I would love to go into more detail because KSFO was a huge factor in my early career, but it would take hours to write.

I still listen to old recordings of the station. KSFO was like listening to friends coming over to your house to play records, and share jokes. There's never been another station like it.

oskihasahearton;842287863 said:

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Bud Foster was the first radio voice of the early SF 49ers--before Bob Fouts--and later the early Oakland Raiders games with color analyst Mel Venter.

He also called Cal FB games up until 1962, and I am very certain Cal basketball in the 1950's.

What I remember most is Foster calling the Oakland Oaks PCL baseball in Emeryville, and later worked as the voice of the Oakland A's. He seemed like a busy man up until 1962 (ret).

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I think you might mean 1972 as the A's first season in Oakland was 1968. I remember some of those early A's radio stations were such low wattage that I have food processers that put out more power.

Threads like these make it very cool to be a Cal fan. Great stuff.

TomBear;842287905 said:

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Bar, you are right. It was the purple grotto. I stand corrected. (Well done!)

Ghost, the reason KSFO died as it did was because the original Golden West Broadcasting owner, Gene Autry, sold his radio properties to King Broadcasting, based I think in Seattle. The King folks tried to go to a more generic format, not understanding the character that married KSFO to The City. The playlists got tighter, there was an effort to control the very things that made KSFO so different (the personality of the announcers), and they took away the DJ/Engineer combinations in a cost cutting move. Lots of the humor that we heard was a result of joking between the announcers and the engineers, and that all went away when King Broadcasting took over.

Once King fully installed their more generic (consultant based) format, the station became just like every other "adult contemporary" station in the U.S. With it's uniqueness gone, KSFO lost it's edge and the very things that differentiated it from every other radio station. As the station's ratings continued to erode, King sold the station and it never recovered.

That's a brief answer to your question. I would love to go into more detail because KSFO was a huge factor in my early career, but it would take hours to write.

I still listen to old recordings of the station. KSFO was like listening to friends coming over to your house to play records, and share jokes. There's never been another station like it.

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I recall in the summer of 1966 some DJ at KSFO assembled a fascinating collection of radio vignettes from over 50 years of broadcasting and presented them in a three hour program one afternoon. It was an amazing listen, including moments like Teddy Rosevelt addressing the Harvard football team, Ruth Etting singing "Ten Cents a Dance", the abdication of King Edward VIII, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and on and on. The program became an instant hit with so many people calling in to ask if the show would be repeated
that the station broke into the program to ask people to stop calling, and they would repeat the show in two days. I think they played it at least three more times. I was working in a San Francisco office as a summer intern at the time. When that program came on the air, people stopped whatever they were doing to listen. Not very much got done during those three hours. Wonder which DJ that was?

72CalBear;842287391 said:

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I lost on the Dating Game to a friend of mine in l966 (he graduated from Stanford in l972). Fortunately, the girl was boring and bland (they hit it off great) and they won a chaperoned flight to the San Diego Zoo, and he a wristwatch that broke..He also got nothing else from the girl, nor from the chaperone (who he said was hot). RIP JL..fun day for us.

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Flew down on PSA for a screen test/tryout (I think Burbank). Wearing Angle Flight pants, rayon shirt, zip up boots,and sporting long blond locks. I made it through two mock games then got kicked to the curb. It was fun while it lasted.

At least I gave it a shot.
I'm guessing it was sometime around 1977,78,79.

The DJ's are what made Bay Area radio so unique and fun back in the 60's. Don Sherwood of course, Jim Lange, Frank Dill, even the goofy Dr. Don Rose are what made me wear out many a battery on my first transistor radio. As an aside, I can't remember if it was KSFO or KNBR in the late 60's who played, for a while, some radio dramas. That was interesting, and enjoyable using your imagination to try to envision what was going on.

bar20;842287340 said:

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Don't forget Al "Jazzbo" Collins as well over at KSFO. Sherwood was the best DJ I ever heard. Jim Lang was best known for hosting "The Dating Game" on TV back in the 60's. RIP Jim.

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Don't forget "emperor" Gene Nelson. I loved that guy both as a rock n roll DJ and later as a radio host.

TomBear;842287905 said:

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Bar, you are right. It was the purple grotto. I stand corrected. (Well done!)

Ghost, the reason KSFO died as it did was because the original Golden West Broadcasting owner, Gene Autry, sold his radio properties to King Broadcasting, based I think in Seattle. The King folks tried to go to a more generic format, not understanding the character that married KSFO to The City. The playlists got tighter, there was an effort to control the very things that made KSFO so different (the personality of the announcers), and they took away the DJ/Engineer combinations in a cost cutting move. Lots of the humor that we heard was a result of joking between the announcers and the engineers, and that all went away when King Broadcasting took over.

Once King fully installed their more generic (consultant based) format, the station became just like every other "adult contemporary" station in the U.S. With it's uniqueness gone, KSFO lost it's edge and the very things that differentiated it from every other radio station. As the station's ratings continued to erode, King sold the station and it never recovered.

That's a brief answer to your question. I would love to go into more detail because KSFO was a huge factor in my early career, but it would take hours to write.

I still listen to old recordings of the station. KSFO was like listening to friends coming over to your house to play records, and share jokes. There's never been another station like it.

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Thanks, TB.

The fate you describe reminds me of the story told by my friend of Sizzler in its halcyon days of the late eighties. Awash in profit, they bought a very old and popular upscale Italian restaurant in Santa Monica. He was shocked when, the next day, he came into the board meeting to find all the suits fiddling with the restaurant's menu.

One can easily guess the fate of that establishment, and, according to him, it didn't take long.

GivemTheAxe;842287974 said:

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Don't forget "emperor" Gene Nelson. I loved that guy both as a rock n roll DJ and later as a radio host.

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Doug Sciutto, a junior at Cal who was Gene Nelson's stepson, lost his life while attempting to rescue victims trapped by a fraternity house fire at the university in September 1990.

Of course there was Ira Blue on KGO talk radio in the 1950-60's.

Who played tracks from Coyle and Sharp interviewing folks on the SF streets in the early 1960's? "Bob and Ray" type stuff.

oskihasahearton;842288050 said:

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Of course there was Ira Blue on KGO talk radio in the 1950-60's.

Who played tracks from Coyle and Sharp interviewing folks on the SF streets in the early 1960's? "Bob and Ray" type stuff.

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I listened to Ira Blue on my transistor radio to fall asleep at night in grammar school. His theme song was Rhapsody in Blue---years before United Airlines used it. His accent was identical to Howard Cosell's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Blue

hoop97;842287925 said:

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Threads like these make it very cool to be a Cal fan. Great stuff.

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Yes, this thread is great.