Kansas City Public Library: Funny Hats And A TV Star To Be: What Do You Know About This Kansas City Plaza Radio Show?

Press release from the Kansas City Public Library:

September 21, 2021

Here at “What’s Your KCQ?” we often hear from people who remember something intriguing or remarkable. But only bits and pieces of it. They need us to help fill in the blanks.

Like Robert Griffle. He says that shortly after WWII he’d accompany his mother and sisters to the Country Club Plaza to watch and participate in a radio show called “Luncheon On the Plaza.”

He recalled that the show’s theme song mentioned “having lots of fun,” and that audience members were invited “to wear funny hats.”

Robert wanted to know more. And frankly, so did we!

Our first stop was Bill Ryan, a former journalism professor at Rockhurst University who’s done considerable research on Kansas City broadcast pioneers.

Ryan pointed out that in the days before television, people listened to radio quite differently than they do now, tuning all over the dial to find specific shows they most wanted to hear.

So every station offered dozens of them throughout the day and night. Many were nationally produced, but others like the perennially popular “Brush Creek Follies,” were locally grown.

And though he wasn’t familiar with the program in question, Ryan noted that commercial sponsors — the industry’s driving force — were always searching for shows that “appealed to women and children.”

Sure enough, “Swing,” a promotional publication of WHB Radio, confirmed that the station aired its own “Luncheon On the Plaza” program mid-mornings daily from 1949 until 1951.

But here’s where it gets a little confusing. A small ad in the Kansas City Star on March 7, 1951, states that the “audience participation show is broadcast live from 10:00 to 10:30 daily at the Plaza Sears store.”

Which didn’t sound right to Robert.

Apparently he and his corn cob-hat-wearing mother (“corny as Kansas in August” she told him) must have attended “Luncheon” considerably earlier.

The July/August 1949 issue of “Swing” does, in fact, say that WHB’s “new show” emanated from the “attractive Plaza Cafeteria.” A 1949 City Directory lists the restaurant’s address as 414 Alameda (now Nichols Road).

That same article, titled “The Crazier the Better,” gushes that “there’s something popping every minute.” And that “after a fast half hour of continuous hilarity, the audience is weak with laughter.”

The show’s two emcees were the engines that kept everything moving. One was Lou Kemper, a veteran newsman who steered the show with his rapid-fire patter. The other was a thirty-something bundle of energy named Frank Wiziarde.

If that name sounds slightly familiar, there’s a good reason. Just a few years later, that same manic co-host would hit Kansas City TV screens as Whizzo the Clown!

This press release was produced by the Kansas City Public Library. The views expressed here are the author’s own.