Rock Radio Scrapbook

AIRCHECK OF THE WEEK
For week of October 12, 2008
Weekly issue #500

Talent: RICK MORANIS (ALAN)
Station: CHUM Toronto
Date: September 2, 1978
Time: 4:34

Rick Moranis was one of Canada's top comedic actors of the late 20th century, with roles in such movies as Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, Spaceballs, Strange Brew and the Flintstones. But did you know that early in his career he was a disc jockey? Moranis, who used the name Rick Alan (his middle name was Alan) on the air, did the all-night shift at CFTR Toronto in the early 1970s and later had a weekend gig at CKFH Toronto. By the end of the decade, Moranis was doing air shifts at CHUM and CHUM-FM. After working as a solo standup comedy act, he joined Second City in Toronto and joined the SCTV comedy troupe in 1980. The rest as they say is history.

Enjoy Rick Moranis (Rick Alan) on CHUM here.

(The CHUM Archives)

Talent: J.D. ROBERTS and BOB MAGEE
Station: CHUM Toronto
Date: April 26, 1979
Time: 4:39

"I believe the best television broadcasters are people who came up through radio." - John Roberts

John Roberts is best-known for his work in television, but his original career goal was radio. And that's just what he did as J.D. Roberts early on, working in markets like Owen Sound, Kitchener and London before moving to what he in a 2004 interview with playbackonline.ca called the "epitome of Canadian broadcasting", CHUM. The Toronto-born Roberts did the all-night show at CHUM, but tired of it and moved into television with Toronto's CITY-TV, where he co-hosted the ground-breaking pop music magazine "The New Music". He later became one of the primary "video jockeys" for MuchMusic, which launched in 1984.

Roberts began a highly successful TV news career in 1989 with a morning stint at a Miami CBS station. He co-hosted CTV's Canada AM in the early '90s, was CBS White House television correspondent from 1996 to 2003 and since 2007 has been co-anchor of CNN's American Morning (somewhere along the way he changed his air name to John Roberts).

Enjoy J.D. Roberts, with Bob Magee, at CHUM from 1979 here.

(The Bill Dulmage Collection)

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