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The Sunday Show, produced by Greg Palmer
"Although a week late in more ways than one, the Roachdale Principles gather for news and views of the outside world. Sylvia Lewis says "off-beat humor", Vic Stredicke says "local humor show" and Rolf Stromberg glows in the dark." ..........Program guide #165 listing for "Sunday", May 8, 1969
Vic Stredicke in the Seattle Times Jan 11, 1969
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Vic Stredicke thought the name "Sunday" was some kind of inside joke, which if it was, the joke was on yours truly. The earliest program descriptions in the guides say very little about whom was behind this program of satire, sketches, and the absurd. Perhaps, not knowing if it would succeed, they (Greg Palmer and Roger Downey) were keeping their options open. Anyway, in the middle of the night, typing the program guide on a multilith stencil, the latest program director found himself in a quandary: There was a program that had no name, and desperate to wrap it up, the solution jumped to attention: let's call it "Sunday", as in "the show on Sunday". After all it will be broadcast on Sunday, right? Well, uh, as it turned out, no. It was never broadcast on Sunday, but the name stuck, and the "joke" grew as, after a few months, the biweekly show moved from Saturday to Thursday.
This was KRAB's introduction to Greg Palmer who turned out to be a kind of dynamo, producing a variety of comic, dramatic, and theatrical programs. And then he did readings, commentaries, interviews (Lillian Gish and Jean Shepherd, amongst others), and documentaries including the Government Inspected series in 1976, which won an Ohio State Journalism award. And, for a time Greg was Station Manager, and later served on the Board of Directors. He went on to talk radio (KTW), television (KING and KCTS), and to be a producer of documentary and arts programs for public television. In his "free time" he wrote. He passed away in 2009.
Sunday: The Roachdale Radio Network presents biting satire, devastating social comment and rollicking rockem-sockem humor in 30 fun filled minutes of mirth, subject of course, to our listeners ability to stand for it. The Roachdale Principles handle the hysteria.
We now have digitized 55 programs (some duplicates): 24 production masters, 9 studio airchecks, and 22 recorded off-the-air. Most run about 30 minutes. There is a "best of" compilation that is about an hour. The audio quality of the production masters is as good as KRAB ever was. The othes are variable, but listenable. Some of the material is a little dated - it was over forty years ago after all. Listeners are likely to find something to be offended by in every episode, which in the era of Rowan and Martin and Monty Python is probably to be expected. But Greg seemed to look back at old radio for inspiration, and dedicated at least two of the shows to Fred Allen.
Produced by The Roachdale Radio Network Principles, made up of Greg Palmer, Denny Bass, Dan Bernhard, Eileen Cowell, Roger Downey, Ginny Etter, Mitch Green, Doug Hosner, Mike Moore, Steven Putnam, Dave 'Dulcet Toned' Rowland, Bill Seymour, and guests.
The first Sunday scheduled in a guide was Nov 16, 1968, and the last was in the Fall of 1971
Digitized Sunday Shows
Production masters
Cathy Palmer found these in her basement. Most have notes that list the jokes, gags, one-liners, and stories, as well as Greg's assessment of their comedic success. At some point he put the tapes in order of Volume and Episode (see below), and many of the tape labels have the broadcast dates. The tape labels also have warnings regarding the many, many, splices that frequently fell apart during digitization. It appears someone had purchased a recording tape editing gadget that used pre-cut splicing tabs. Over the years, these tabs lost their adhesive. Once we dealt with the faulty splices, though, these have much superior audio quality to most of the airchecks and off-the-air recordings previously posted.
There are 15 episodes in Volume 1 (1968-69), 4 in Volume 2 (1969-70), and 5 in Volume 3 (1970-71).
Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 01 - KRAB Nov 16, 1968 - Dedicated to the memory of Fred Allen
Comic Weekly Man; Monty West's Underground Tour; Miss Fisher taking ad; Could This Be You - Yosssarian
Listen now - Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 01 - KRAB Nov 16, 1968 (26:04) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0001
Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 02 - KRAB Dec 7, 1968 - The script for this program was typed on a Smith Corona 120
Hun Tun; News briefs; SeaFirst building jumper; Police Olympics; Hippie exhibit at the Zoo; Moscow barrage
Listen now - Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 02 - KRAB Dec 7, 1968 (31:52) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0002
Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 3 - KRAB Dec 14, 1968 - Cal Winslow, SDS: Combat at Columbia
Roger Downey as Cal Winslow; Virginia Etter as Barbara; Greg Palmer as Robbie Stern; Dan Bernhard as Professor Marcuse; The voices of Ginger Haig, Michael Moore, and Doug Hosner; Steve Putnam, Engineer
Listen now - Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 03 - KRAB Dec 14, 1968 (23:44) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0003
Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 4 - KRAB Dec 28, 1968 - The following program is devoid of redeeming social value
Joe Pyne; News briefs; Comic Weekly Man; IT Came Upon....; Minority Report; Christmas toys; Everett, WA
Listen now - Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 04 - KRAB Dec 28, 1968 (31:23) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0004
Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 5 - KRAB Jan 11, 1969 - The following program is dedicated to the memory of Steve Putnam
Hal with the best 24 seconds of Sunday; Comic Weekly Man; Tide rushes in; 1968 Police Olympics; Rod Mahaffey for freedom
Listen now - Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 05 - KRAB Jan 11, 1969 (26:21) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0006
Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 6 - KRAB Jan 25, 1969 - The following program will take eighteen hundred seconds of your life
Mannie/Bernie; News briefs; Barnacle Bill; Dan Grinstead is the winner!; Rainier erupts!; Great American humor on the radio
Listen now - Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 06 - KRAB Jan 25, 1969 (31:20) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0008
Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 7 - KRAB Feb 8, 1969 - 1969 Schuck (Scuck? Shuck?) Awards
Skewering Disney, McLuhan, Jackie, Betty Furness, Nixon and many others
Described in the Guide: SUNDAY: Part one - Lorenzo Milam reads "How Does Your Victory Garden Grow?" from a 1943 Liberty magazine (reading time 12 minutes, 33 seconds); Part two - Sylvia Lewis backs her Volkswagen into Emmett Watson's mouth; Part Three - Thom Gunn makes a brief appearance as a watermelon rind.
Listen now - Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 07 - KRAB Feb 08, 1969 (26:21) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0009
Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 8 - KRAB Feb 22, 1969 - Salute to Television - The following program was taken out of context
Described in the Guide: SUNDAY: In the words of Fred Allen, he who sics his transit SUNDAY, will live to gloria his mundi.
Johnny Carson, Ralph Williams, Amos and Andy, Divorce Court, Gomer Pyle, Flying Nun, and it goes on
Listen now - Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 08 - KRAB Feb 22, 1969 (26:21) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0010
Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 12 - KRAB Apr 17, 1969 - Call me Ernie
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of North-Central America, and to the Republic and/or Democracy for which it stands, hopefully one nation, under what for a better word we shall call God, highly divisible, with an as yet unrealized attempt at liberty and justice for all.
Described in the Guide: SUNDAY - The Roachdale Principles (actually a group of incognito Pacific Northwest Tree-Frog-Romantic Poets) gather for a parody of Time Marches On. Watch for the upcoming "I like/hate Sunday because. . . . ." contest with a unique twist.
Listen now - Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 12 - KRAB Apr 17, 1969 (28:44) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0011
Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 13 - KRAB May 8, 1969 - The following program takes the place of the Crusader Rabbit Comedy Hour normally heard at this time
Described in the Guide of May 1, 1969: (NOTE: Due to hostile action by Wallingford Realty, SUNDAY, nomally heard at this time, will be exactly 1 week late. See next Thursday.
Then on May 8, 1969: SUNDAY - Although a week late in more ways than one, the Roachdale Principles gather for news and views of the outside world. Sylvia Lewis says "off-beat humor", Vic Stredicke says "local humor show" and Rolf Stromberg glows in the dark.
Listen now - Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 13 - KRAB May 8, 1969 (34:23) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0012
Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 14 - KRAB May 22, 1969 - Our mothers have stopped listening to the following program.
Described in the guide: ''Why do they call ya Shane?" said little Billy, as the dust whipped off the plains in great clouds and covered the small farmhouse;"Get lost," said Shane, and with a flick of his wrist he threw a rattlesnake at the young lad's nostril. Far off to the west, Elisha Cook Jr. was just getting up, a piano wire attached to his shoulder blades.
Listen now - Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 14 - KRAB May 22, 1969 (30:23) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0013
Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 15 - KRAB Jun 5, 1969 - Live broadcast of season finale - The following program is dedicated to the memory of Fred Allen. It always has been. It always will be.
Described in the guide: While the Sky Valley Boys sing "So long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh," the Roachdale Principles bid farewell for the summer to their sporadic listeners, and trundle off into the setting sun, ending up 80 feet down off Alki Point. This program will be done live, which should be grand for all of us.
Although the tape label is insistent that this was recorded on Jun 9, 1969, the program guide tells a different story.
Listen now - Sunday Vol 1 Nbr 15, Jun 5, 1969 - Live broadcast of season finale (57:27) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0014
Vol 2 - The Second Season
Sunday Vol 2 Nbr 1 - First show of Second Season - KRAB Oct 30, 1969 - The following program has been rated "I" for Indiscriminate Audiences only.
Out of Sight - Out of Mind Motel; Science marches on; Murray the G with the World of Smut; Chipmunk Boy; Minority Report with Ron Brautigan; Brother Curtis Speaks
Listen now - Sunday Vol 2 Nbr 1, Oct 30, 1969 - (29:13) - Tape Label and Notes
CP0015
Sunday Vol 2 Nbr 2 - KRAB Nov 13, 1969 - The following program can best be described as forthcoming
.....from that network with the funny name, the laughem-gassem-rockem-sockem-gagfest-songorama that has given so much delight to millions of fans the world over.
Aircheck: But Dr Oberreich, no man can create life .....lets say a nerve gas shipment explodes in your home town. What can you do? The first thing to do is yell GAS! .....I don't see any reason to accept bees just because they make honey. .....The basic trouble is that your basic university has been taken over by an effete corps of impudent slobs that pass themselves off as intellectuals.
Listen now - Sunday Vol 2 Nbr 2, Nov 13, 1969 (26:55) - Script Vol 2 Nbr 2
CP0017
The next Sunday would normally have been scheduled for Thursday Nov 27th, but that was Thanksgiving, so there was no Sunday that week.
Another Sunday was scheduled for Dec 11: SUNDAY - Seattle's very own (Only) comedy radio show, with the ROACHDALE PRINCIPLES: Mike Moore, The Greg Palmers, Dave Rowland, Steven Putnam, Eileen Cowell, Mitch Green, Doug Hosner and soon-to-return Ginny Etter. Tonight's special guest is Lorenzo Milam. A ROACHDALE RADIO NETWORK production. Did it happen? We don't know.
Scheduling Sunday Shows at two week intervals put the next broadcast on Thursday Dec 25th, which was, you guessed it, Christmas this year. So no Sunday show that week. (Christmas 1969 was jazz all day.)
Maybe this explains why Vol 2 Nbr 3 was aired on Jan 8, 1970:
Sunday Vol 2 Nbr 3 - KRAB Jan 8, 1970 - Good evening ladies and gentlemen boys and girls and welcome to Sunday - The 1969 Review
SUNDAY - The Roachdale Principles, victimized by some rather ill-timed holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years), are back in strength. The RP's, as they are called in show business circles, promise their usual format of laughem-gassem-rockem-sockem-musical comedy despite the rust-collecting vacation. The writers weren't complaining though.
Listen now - Sunday Vol 2 Nbr 3, Jan 8, 1970 (28:31) - Tape label and Notes
CP0018
Sunday Vol 2 Nbr 4 - KRAB Feb 5, 1970 - Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the 3rd annual Ypsilanti professional bowling semi-finals
SUNDAY - The Roachdale Radio Network presents biting satire, devastating social comment and rollicking rockem-sockem humor in 30 fun filled minutes of mirth, subject of course, to our listeners ability to stand for it. The Roachdale Principles handle the hysteria.
A program was scheduled in the guide for January 22, 1970, but the tape label says "produced by the Roachdale Radio Network 1/31/70", so it couldn't have been this one. Maybe they repeated the Jan 8 episode?
Spiro T Agnew, "a highly placed public official" does Minority Report, and the Mod Squad busts the church.
Listen now - Sunday Vol 2 Nbr 4, Feb 5, 1970 (31:24) - Tape label and Notes
CP0019
Sunday Vol 3 Nbr 1 - KRAB Oct 22, 1970 - Whaaat? What about me? I'm the one that's gotta do the singing.
THE RETURN OF SUNDAY! - The immortal Roachdale Radio Network returns with a brand new series of light-hearted half-hours fraught with social significance , biting satire, and kafutza."The truth shall make you free ," as Spiro said in Des Moines.
Mrs Olson in Argentina.....How troubled these tiems are.....My years in the Whitehouse by Oscar Bonito, official Whitehouse plumber.....Betty Crocker's testimony regarding her biscuits.....and Sunday tackles race. Yikes!
Listen now - Sunday Vol 3 Nbr 1, Oct 22, 1970 (30:38) - Tape label
CP0020
Sunday Vol 3 Nbr 2 - KRAB Nov 5, 1970 - Are you sure you want to go through with this Mr Herndon? The Roachdale Salute to the Future!
Those of you with a future will not want to miss this program.....Its not how high you make - Its how you make it high.....All about overpopulation and health care: Excuse me nurse, there's a knife in my back. I suppose you want it removed. That's not a knife - its a scalpel.
The Nov 5, 1970 program guide is missing from our collection (do you have a copy?), so we substituted above (italics) some text from Greg Palmer's notes.
Listen now - Sunday Vol 3 Nbr 2, Nov 5, 1970 (28:36) - Tape label and notes
CP0022
Air checks and dubs from Jeffrey R Thomson and Cathy Palmer
The programs below come from copies or airchecks made in the studio, and were shared by Jeffrey R Thomson and Cathy Palmer. Cathy Palmer has also shared four of Greg's original scripts. Links to pdf's of the scripts are adjacent to the Listen now link.
Listen now - Sunday Vol 2 Nbr 5 (29:06) - [Script Vol 2 Nbr 5]
Listen now - Sunday Nbr 9 (37:10)
Listen now - Sunday Vol 3 Nbr 7 - (tape labeled vol 3 Nbr 6) - Broadcast 03-11-1971 (28:19) - [Script Vol 3 Nbr 7]
Listen now - Sunday - Mandinrat special (26:24)
Listen now - Sunday Nbr Unknown1 (27:00) - (Vol 1 Ep 1 - Dedicated to Fred Allen)
Above recordings courtesy Jeffrey R Thomson and Cathy Palmer.
More: The Sunday Over-The-Air Collection of Mark Apland and Will Estill
These were recorded off-the-air and compiled on to two 7" reels. There are 22 Sunday Shows and one comedy satirer from WBAI.
After much fussing with our quarter track tape deck, which has developed a nasty habit of adding hissing, snarling, clicking, and popping to the digitized programs, and taking repeated trips to the shop, we've managed to make these copies. They may not be the best of copies, but most are clear enough to get the jokes, so we are going to put them up, static, pops and all. (Hint: we need to find a quarter track tape deck in better condition.)
Some of these programs were identified with dates on the tape boxes. These seem to be rebroadcast dates.
Here is Mark's and Will's collection:
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 01 - Jan 23, 1970 - Ypsilanti bowling; Lumberjack Mutual; Scoops and Poops for the Troops
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 02 - Feb 15, 1970 - Chock full of cyclamates; Call it Gumba; Miss Eileen - [Script Vol 2 Nbr 5]
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 03 - Favorite songs
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 04 - Apr 1, 1970 - Mandinrat Special
Listen now - It's Your World and You Can Have It - political and social satire from WBAI
Note: Co-creator of "It's Your World and You Can Have It" Robert Schlitt (1933-2008) went on to write the premier episode of "The Monkees"
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 08 - I used to be paranoid; Billy the Kid - [Script Vol 3 Nbr 7]
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 09 - Walter Cronkite covers landing on Pluto; Land of milk and Honey - [Script Vol 3 Nbr 3]
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 10 - More-favorite-songs
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 14 - Interview with a dead Communist; Miss Margaret; He's dead!
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 17 - Early Feb 1971 - The Farce Of Master Pierre Patelin
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 18 - The Great American Creep
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 19 - Second show; .....best be described as forthcoming; Dr Oberreich - [Script Vol 2 Nbr 2]
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 22 - Best of Sunday Memorable Moments; Hal; all 24 seconds
Listen now - Sunday - Nbr 23 - Jun 5, 1969 - Last show of first season - Nbr 15
Recordings in the The Sunday Over-The-Air Collection courtesy of Mark Apland and Will Estill.
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Full page ad in Jan 9, 1969 Helix
And can anyone tell us what the acronym QPWMGS represents?
No Contest! If you like "Sunday", or hate it, or do the ironing to it, or even if you like oysters on the half shell (ugh!), you can win the NO CONTEST. Everybody wins! Just tell us that you like it, hate it, don't listen to it, and (if you have room) why.
For more about Greg Palmer see the following:
The last memoir from a master storyteller
"Funniest guy in the room" told whimsical TV stories
If you possess any souvenirs (program guides, tapes, or photos) or have a story about your experience with KRAB you are willing to share, please email archive@krabarchive.com