E_Hoot_Owls

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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. 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unpublished history of KGW: The Hoot Owl hilarity was the natural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.

To say the program was

spontaneous would be an

understatement. In May, 1931

Oregon Governor Julius Meyer

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.

A National Phenomenon

While only occasionally being carried on the NBC network, the Hoot

Owls were a national sensation and newspapers across the country,

(including these) regularly carried listings in their “best bet” program

listings.