E_Hoot_Owls

The program’s style evolved over time. Initially, the program was

much more improvisational and advance “scripting” was more along

the lines of a scenario, or outline, rather than the fully-scripted

program structure that eventually developed. By 1926, the program’s

conventions included the premise that the Hoot Owls would take

listeners on a “flight” to differing places to explore or celebrate

special occasions. During this period, the Degree Team members’

regular titles were expanded to include appropriate military or

aviation terms such as Commander or Squadron Leader.

The program’s evolution took a considerable step when Harry S.

Grannatt was invited to join the Degree Team in 1926. Grannatt, an

insurance man who got his start in radio in San Francisco as an

avocation, was an incredibly prolific writer of both words and music

as well as fine performer with a keen wit. Gradually, Grannatt began

providing increasing amounts of fully-scripted material for the

program in addition to performing. By 1929, when Grannatt had

become the program’s principal scriptwriter, the Hoot Owls moved

to a fully-scripted format (although script for individual “bits” were

still contributed by other members of the Degree Team for which

Grannatt simply left “holes” in his full program script).

An important addition was made to the

Degree Team on September 20, 1929 when

Grand Screetch Charles F. Berg’s 29-year

old son, Forrest (pictured left with the

Village Blacksmith, George Smith) was

inducted as Grand Squeak -- to the

accompaniment of the Hoot Owl Band

playing “Sonny Boy.” Following the death

of Berg’s wife, when Forrest was just 18

months old, the boy had been raised by his mother’s family in San

Francisco where he successfully entered the retail clothing business as

a young man. While father and son apparently had only moderate

contact for many years, Forrest was invited to come to Portland in

1922 as the second-in-command of his father’s store. There, he took

over “modernizing” the business and by late in the decade, when his

father’s appearances on the Hoot Owls became somewhat erratic due

to both travel and health issues, Forrest increasingly substituted for

his father as the presiding Hoot Owls officer. By late 1931 and early

1932, Forrest presided over the Hoot Owls as frequently as his

father.

To say the program was spontaneous would be an understatement. In

May 1931, Oregon governor Julius Meier appointed Harry Grannatt and

Ted Baum to the State Fair Committee with the assignment of

assisting in the Fair’s publicity planning. During their May 8 broadcast,

Portland chief of police Jenkins interrupted the Hoot Owls’ live

broadcast to arrest Grannatt and Baum on air “for stealing police

badges in the state capitol”. The pair had apparently purloined them

as a prank, while attending a meeting of the State Fair Committee, in

a pre-arranged stunt to promote the Fair. Dean Collins was

additionally arrested on air “for making a nuisance of himself” when

he interfered with Jenkins' efforts to arrest the other two. Following

the arrests, the remaining cast members were left to finish the

program on their own. The badges “weren’t worth 39 cents”

according to Governor Meier, who nevertheless stated that he

believed the badges were an emblem deserving respect. Meier

appointed a special prosecutor, Multnomah County Judge William A.

Ekwall (himself an occasional performer on programs like the Hoot

Owls) while the arrested trio retained defense counsel. On the

premise that they were arrested in the hearing of thousands of radio

listeners, it was decided that the preliminary hearing should also be

broadcast live during the following week’s Hoot Owls program. In

succeeding weeks, various on-air “trials” carried on the prank

although history doesn’t record the outcome of this good-natured

stunt.

The original Hoot Owl programs were so boisterous that listeners

began to inquire whether any intoxicants were being used to

stimulate the entertainment. Perhaps that had been the case because

Ronald Callvert was then formally given the assignment of assuring

that suitable alcoholic restraint was observed -- which explains the

derivation of his Degree Team title, Grand Skidoo. Actress and

amateur historian Helen Pratt, who served as KGW’s public affairs

director in the 1950s, wrote in an unpublished history of KGW: “The

Hoot Owl hilarity was the natural result of a congenial group of

exceptionally clever and talented men, born entertainers, who loved

to clown, putting on a show for the fun of it and having a wonderful

time. That was the secret of the program’s amazing popularity. It

wasn’t the show itself, good as it was, it was the gusto of the

performers, the exuberant, carefree spontaneity that the audience

loved.” The Hoot Owls were simply unlike anything else on the

radio. According to Platt’s account the program lays claim to being

the first variety show on radio, the first radio variety broadcast from

a script, the first radio quiz show and the first live audience

program broadcast from a remote location.

The Hoot Owls were an immediate sensation. Within hours of their

first broadcast, membership applications poured in by telephone and

wire -- but were all rejected because the Hoot Owls insisted that all

applications be submitted by written letter. Hoot Owl members also

had to be male (there’s more to be said about that later in this

chapter) and had to agree to abide by the Hoot Owls’ simple pledge

to “scatter sunshine, help Brother Hoot Owls in distress” and to

attend the meetings”. Bishop Frederick W. Keater of Tacoma was

inducted “and he had no more brushed the goat hair off the seat of

his trousers and plucked the owl feathers out of his hair when some

of his Tacoma friends were on the long-distance telephone

congratulating him for entering such a lively organization”.

Within two days of the first broadcast “the mail for [the Hoot Owl]

department broke all records”, the Oregonian reported. On the third

program membership applications were announced from King

Tutankhamen (who noted that he enjoyed the program while

excavators were fussing around outside his bedroom) and the entire

Elks Club of Redding, California (who were listening on a Magnavox

amplifier and horn speaker), among others.