George Putnam

(1:57) While it's true that voices and pictures through the air were old news by the time I was a kid in the 60's, announcers in suits and with glistening hair were still expected to appear and make sense of things: let us know what to expect at 9 pm, 8 Central Time.  Preserve us from Dead Air.


George Putnam was born to announce.




While he lacked the euphonious pipes of, say, a Fenneman or a Frees--

(Okay, 

"A Fenneman or a Frees.")

-- he embodied State-of-the-Art professionalism in an age of Magic-Brain record changers.

...of course, 20 years later, by the time I was growing up, it was our parent's world, and serious men were appearing over the CRT in the living room, saying, "You don't have all your marbles!"  (Buy some now!)  The announcer's edge had progressed to self parody--

--so when, it was said, Mary Tyler Moore's own Ted Baxter

was based on George, he attained something of an apotheosis.  And a well-deserved one.

Today's selection is the young scout himself, at a small, 5,000 watt station in Fresno WEAF on the night on Pearl Harbor, holding down the home fires...

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