by James H. Burns

The last time I saw Clay Cole was in the early, or mid, 1970s, as a co-host, on one of WABC-TV's local New York, morning show editions. This would have been within a couple of years following that "John Bartholomew Tucker" era...

I also have fond memories of  WPIX's "rock and roll" CLAY COLE SHOW (kind of a New York take on AMERICAN BANDSTAND), from around 1966 or 1968 - when I was, literally, a toddler.

Now, even though I wound up being - somewhere during roughly that same period - one of those precocious tykes who would some times sit outside with a little transistor radio pressed to his ear, (or, at least,within earshot!):

What had originally drawn me to the Channel 11 music show, was something far different.

I had grown fond of the Buster Crabbe FLASH GORDON serials, shown, back then, on WPIX's afternoon kids show, BEACHCOMBER BILL, hosted by Bill Biery. (Biery's story was interesting. WPIX imported him, and his show, from Los Angeles. Once BEACHCOMBER BILL went off the air, Biery STAYED at WPIX, for years, as a staff announcer. Biery would often do that old late-night WPIX 15-minute news-roundup, which, as late as 1981, would often be done like a radio read, with nothing on the TV screen but a WPIX logo.)

Adventure serial chapters had also been featured on another WPIX kids series, THE CHUCK MCCANN SHOW.

By the time I caught up with THE CLAY COLE SHOW, the program had a wild opening montage of various film clips, stock news footage, and the like. One of the quick-cuts, was a moment on Ming the Merciless' Planet Mongo, from FLASH GORDON...

This nursery-aged kid wound up seeing some of the greatest rock groups of the mid-60s, all because I probably thought I was going to see a segment of the old science fiction/adventure, cliffhangers...!

Best,
Jim Burns (James H. Burns)
(James H. (Jim) Burns, a writer/actor living in Long Island, New York, has written for such magazines as GENTLEMAN'S QUARTERLY, ESQUIRE and TWILIGHT ZONE. He can be heard frequently on radio talk shows, throughout the United States.)

The Clay Cole Show
by James H. Burns

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