… Do you like whipped cream?
No, I detest violence …
Although the morning hosts get all the attention (and all the money), anyone who was a teenager back in the late 50s or 60s knows who the real stars were–the early evening jocks. Those were the guys you listened to doing homework after school, hanging out with friends-or in the car on a hot date. And in Toronto that guy was Brian Skinner.
This compressed and choppy check starts before Christmas and ends on New Year’s Eve in 1965. In between, you’ll hear the man they called “The Prez” having an obviously great time playing hits on the radio. He was truly an original, with lots of corny lines, weird voices–not to mention his ever-present drum and tambourine. You’ll also hear such basic CHUM format classics as “Hit Picker’s Hotline”, “Split Second Sports”, the CHUMbug Club, and “The Battle of the New Sounds”.
Skinner was involved in some of the more unusual station promotions–including a months-long on-air debate about whether the boss would make him cut his long hair. (That was important back in the late 60s, and was played out both on the show–and on the station’s long-running CHUM Chart.) In the end, of course, Skinner won. But as you’ll hear from this check, the real winners were those of us on the other side of the transistor radio speaker who got to listen to this guy every night.