Don McNeill's "Breakfast Club"
1937
[From "Twenty
Years of Corn"]
| The year "The
Big Apple" took the younger generation by storm, Breakfast Club listeners
met Fran Allison and Sam Cowling for the first time. Both started as singers. Fran gave up vocalizing to become Aunt Fanny, the loveable chatterbox, while Sam developed into McNeill's heckler. In August, a hopelessly ill Marine wrote Don that seeing a Breakfast Club broadcast was "the thing he wanted to do before dying." He became the first invited studio visitor. Clark Dennis left to join Fibber McGee's show and Helen Jane Behlke also departed. Jack Baker, Johnny Johnston and Annette King carried on. Don introduced Inspiration Time, and Breakfast Club was rated sixth in the musical division of network shows by a national radio poll. |
| Right: Aunt Fanny [Fran Allison] left a teaching career in Iowa to join Don McNeill's Breakfast Club |  |
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Left: Samuel Taggert Cowling II comes naturally by his curly toes as this 1915 picture shows. |
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Left: When a fan sent them gift pajamas, Bill Krenz, Don McNeill, Walter Blaufuss and Johnny Johnston promptly dressed for this picture. |
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