As a teen in the 80's I used to watch The Uncle Floyd Show and the Joe Franklin Show on WGN out of New York. Joe was like no other talk show host. If his guests were a ballerina and a dentist, he would ask the dentist about ballet. If he had a rock band on, rather than have them.perform or lip sync, he would play one of their records and flip through photographs either before or after asking their opinion of 40's singer Russ Colombo. He talked about Russ Colombo every night. Joe was an aficionado of early 20th century culture and he would subject his guests to a trivia quiz every night. The questions were invariably about songs and movies of the 30's and 40's and Joe would answer all the questions. You never knew who you'd see on there because he'd been on the air so long many celebrities had grown up with him. An utterly unique television pioneer.
Review of The Joe Franklin Show
