Rock Radio Scrapbook

AIRCHECK OF THE WEEK
For week of October 16, 2011
Weekly issue #651

Talent: DEAN ANTHONY
Station: WMCA New York
Date: July 15, 1967
Time: 20:35

"I don't know anyone who didn't like him." - Frank Brinka, WHLI news director

He wasn't just a "Good Guy" - he was a good guy.

Brooklyn-born Dean Anthony started at WMCA in November, 1964. He soon became an institution on the all-night show, with a  personality-based show that included the "Actors and Actresses" game - "No prizes, just for fun" - and Group Therapy. Part of the legendary "Good Guys" lineup that included Joe O'Brien, Harry Harrison, Jack Spector, Gary Stevens and Dan Daniel, Anthony left WMCA as part of a major shake-up at the station in 1968. Anthony returned to WMCA six months later and did some fill-in work until 1970, the year the station switched from music to talk.

Anthony played country music at WJRZ (later WWDJ) in Hackensack, N.J., from 1970 until 1971 when he began a 10-year stint at WTFM New York. During a labour strike at WTFM in 1981, Anthony picked up part-time work at WHLI Hempstead, N.Y. He stayed there 22 years, twice being named program director of the year by Barnstable Broadcasting.

Anthony died of cancer in 2003 at the age of 68, and was buried in his Mets cap. He was so well-liked that WHLI held a 10-hour tribute to him on the fifth anniversary of his death. For years, Anthony played "I Think of You" by Perry Como every day at 12:40 p.m., and the station continued that practice in his memory.

Before coming to WMCA, Anthony was program director and afternoon personality at WPGC Washington, D.C., from 1960 to 1964. Prior to that, he was at WGH Norfolk, Va.

One interesting (and rather eerie) part of this aircheck is the commercial featuring Sharon Tate at the 6:05 mark. Tate and several others would be murdered by Charles Manson's followers just two years later.

Enjoy Dean Anthony on WMCA here.

(The Don Shuttleworth Collection)

More 1967 airchecks here!

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