Paul Dixon Show

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The Paul Dixon Show
"Paul Dixon Show" logo from early-mid 70s
Genre	Variety/Comedy/Talk
Creator(s)	John Murphy Paul Dixon
Starring	Paul Dixon Bonnie Lou (co-host) Colleen Sharp (co-host)
Theme music composer	Bruce Brownfield
Country of origin	USA
Language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	Gordon Waltz Bill McCluskey
Executive producer(s)	John Murphy
Location	WLWT Studios, Crosley Square, Cincinnati, Ohio
Running time	30 minutes (later expanded to 90)
Broadcast
Original run	1955 – January 1975

The Paul Dixon Show was a television variety program originating in Cincinnati on WLWT Television beginning in 1955 up until Dixon’s death in December 1974, and in reruns through the following January. The show was also broadcast live in Dayton and Columbus, Ohio, and in Indianapolis, Indiana, with pre-recorded episodes of the show being sold to other markets throughout the Midwest. The show began as a 30-minute program, but had expanded to 90 minutes by the mid-1960s.

The show was co-hosted by Colleen Sharp and Bonnie Lou, and on lesser occasions by Marian Spelman. The house band, originally called The Bel-Aires, was led by pianist Bruce Brownfield.

Contents 1 Early Beginnings 2 ”This Dumb Show” 3 The Chicken Wedding 4 Sponsors & Commercials 5 Did You Know... 6 Cited Sources/References

[edit] Early Beginnings

Dixon originally hosted a show on rival station WCPO with Dottie Mack and Wanda Lewis. The show consisted of Dixon, Mack and Lewis pantomiming to popular songs of the day, and also featured in-house commercials. Fresh from a career in radio news, it was only a matter of time before Dixon would begin to endear himself to countless viewers for years to come. Dixon’s pantomime show was picked up for a season by ABC in 1951 and later by DuMont Television, again briefly.

[edit] ”This Dumb Show”

By 1955, Dixon was hired on at WLWT to host a daytime show originally geared to housewives, but ultimately appealed to people in all walks of life. Each show would begin with Paul, using a pair of binoculars (one of what would become many of Dixon’s trademarks), to examine what came to be called “Kneesville”, which consisted of ladies sitting in the front row, all wearing either short skirts or “hot pants”. He would then award the best looking legs by either putting a garter on the lady's leg, or attaching a "knee tickler" to the hem of her skirt.

Some of his other trademarks included:

• A spray bottle, used to spritz the audience upon asking how many of them took a bath that morning. (observe photo on the right)
• Dixon would strike a "runway pose" during a shampoo or hair care commercial (or some instance that might require him to take off his jacket), and the band would play the first few bars of A Pretty Girl is Like A Melody.
• By the 70s, Dixon had taken to giving T-Shirts to ladies in the audience, with Dixon putting them on the ladies himself, doing it in such a way that would work itself into an embrace between the two.
• On almost every show, Dixon would give Osherwicz Kosher Salamis to at least one member of the audience (usually a lady) after chatting with them or when they gave him something. (David Letterman would later incorporate a variation of this into his own show, instead giving canned hams to people in the audience for their participation in a skit.)

Despite the fact that Dixon did basically the same thing every day, viewers would continually watch his show, many of them embarrassingly admitting they were “hooked” on Paul Baby.

Outside of commercials and a song each from Colleen and Bonnie, the show was primarily Paul talking with members of his audience, or reading letters from his viewers, both of which often resulted in hilarious situations:

• On the day of the Chicken Wedding, a lady in the audience told Dixon of her female neighbor’s TV set having broken the night before. Her husband, who worked nights, got home in time to watch Dixon’s show, so she wanted to tell him ‘’on the air’’ to go over to invite her neighbor over so the two could watch the show together. She finished by telling them to “be good and be careful.”
• Dixon once read a letter on the air from a farmer in Arkansas who had gotten “hooked” on the show while sick in bed. His wife had also gotten hooked shortly afterward. Dixon called the man and talked to him on the air. The man asked Dixon to send him one of the T-shirts he gave to the ladies on his show (so he could put it on his wife). The farmer later made an in-person appearance on the show.
• On upper management suggestion, Dixon held a "Mystery Voice Contest", in which he would call a number selected at random from the phone book. If there was an answer on the other end, Dixon would play a pre-recorded voice for them to identify, winning a large prize if correct. The first voice was Ralph Lazarus, then-CEO of Federated Department Stores. The very first contestant Dixon called and played the voice for (remember, he chose the numbers at random from the phone book) immediately guessed Ralph Lazarus. In disbelief, Dixon asked how the player, a lady, could possibly have known Lazarus' voice. She laughingly replied she used to be his private secretary!

While the antics performed by on the show by Dixon might be construed as over-the-top sexist or chauvinistic by today’s standards, there was an unspoken understanding between Dixon and his audience (both in-studio and at home) that dictated that he was only going for the laughs and cheers that the antics generated. (FYI, Dixon was happily married with two children.)

[edit] The Chicken Wedding

At one point a fan had sent Dixon a rubber chicken as a souvenir. He took to calling the chicken Pauline, using it/her as a prop when he did commercials for Kroger, saying "Kroger has a special on chicken", and then invariably tossing it/her over his shoulder. Another fan sent him an additional rubber chicken which Dixon took to calling Harry, who became a "companion" for Pauline. Over time people began to ask if Dixon was going to marry the feathered couple. Dixon was initially against the idea, but as more and more people, including WLWT boss John Murphy, continued to ask, he finally capitulated, and in so doing made television history.

On Tuesday, March 11, 1969, Dixon staged the first ever wedding for two rubber chickens complete with all the trimmings. The wedding itself was broadcast live on the show, and featured then-WLWT news anchor Tom Atkins narrating and Bob Braun as Best Man, with co-hosts Lou and Sharp as matrons of honor.

People actually stayed home from work and school to watch the chicken wedding live. It went on to become the highest-ever rated episode of the series, and to this day WLWT gets more requests and questions about this show than any other in the station's near 60-year history.

[edit] Sponsors & Commercials

Most of Dixon’s show consisted of live commercials, performed mainly by Dixon himself, but also by Colleen and Bonnie on occasion. Dixon shunned the use of scripts when doing commercials, to the perpetual delight of his audience. Any product plugged by Dixon became the product to use.

• When Dixon did commercials for Bounty paper towels, he would always mention they were made in Green Bay, Wisconsin, at which point the band would launch into a chorus of the Wisconsin Fight Song
• Dixon was also one of the first to jump on the bandwagon plugging what was then called Pringle’s Newfangled Potato Chips. For levity, Bonnie and Colleen often made duck bills out of them.
• In the early 70s, Dixon was among the first to sell Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popcorn. During the commercial, the director would superimpose Redenbacher’s face (as it looked on the jar) over Dixon’s while he would talk about the product.

[edit] Did You Know...

• While Dixon hosted his pantomime show at WCPO, Al Lewis, (who would later gain fame as Uncle Al), was in charge of the set designs and artwork on his show. After Dixon moved to WLWT, The Paul Dixon Show and The Uncle Al Show would run opposite of each other on weekday mornings.
• By the end of the 1960s, nearly 600,000 people had been a part of The Paul Dixon Show audience, and Dixon had given away upwards of 3,000 Osherwicz Kosher Salamis.
• The show made annual visits to the Ohio State Fair, broadcasting their shows live on location.
• At one point that there was a two-year waiting list to get tickets to be in the studio audience.
• Dixon rarely featured guest stars on the show. Among the ones who did make appearances were actor David McCallum and the late Senator Robert Kennedy

[edit] Cited Sources/References

• “Paul Baby: Confessions of the Mayor of Kneesville”, by Paul Dixon, (Copyright 1968, World Publishing Company, LCCN #68-29836)
• “Letters to Paul Baby”, compiled and written by Paul Dixon, (copyright 1971, World Publishing Company, LCCN #76112434)
• "The Trouble Is Not In Your Set", by Mary Ann Kelly (copyright 1990 Mary Ann Kelly, LCCN #90-93268)