8-B Sunday, Nov. 21, ’71 DETROIT FREE PRESS

The cast of thousands—the eight or nine WABX DJs who happen to be around—ready themselves for another week's Sunday Funnies: Bill Pace (far left) as Doonesbury; Jim Dolzo and Larry Miller perform Judge Parker; Jerry Goodwin and Ann Christ read Momma and Dave Dixon (far right) gets Beetle Bailey together.

The Sunday Funnies Are a Happening on Radio

By John Weisman

Free Press Staff Writer

It was in July of 1945 that New York Mayor Fiorello Laguardia, upset over one of the city's habitual newspaper strikes, took to the airwaves one Sunday morning to read the comic strips to a city of cartoon-deprived kids.

Now, some 26 years later, the comics are being read on a weekly basis here in Detroit.

Not because there's a newspaper strike, but because some of the people at WABX-FM feel that the comics are a valid, easily-followed multimedia form that makes for good, interesting programming.

And maybe more important, they're great fun to produce.

THE TAPING sessions take place on Thursday evenings, with most of the DJ's and other station staff participating.

The recordings are made in the cramped, acoustic-titled dined production room at WABX, 33 floors above downtown Detroit. And while the traffic below goes its unsuspecting way, Larry Monroe, Comics producer, along with general manager John Detz and the assembled cast of thousands — in reality whichever eight or nine DJ's happen to be around — prepare for their mammoth weekly taping session.

Monroe gets the strips on Tuesdays, and for two days he pores over them, scrutinizing the dialog, studying the serious problems of “Mary Perkins on Stage” and divining the subtext of “Dick Tracy.”

Inside the production room, general manager Detz is busily setting up the mikes and tape recorders which will record the voice tracks. And, armed with the multi-colored pages of funnies, the cast of “Barney Google” assembles in the cramped quarters.

PRODUCER MONROE takes the part of Snuffy Smith, while the station's public service director, Gail Driver, plays Maw. A guest role, Brownin' Bessie, is played by Ann Christ. And Dave Dixon, the large, plastic-voiced DJ who normally handles the early morning shift ("I start at 11 a.m. That's early enough for me," he says) narrates. After a sound level check, John Detz, who runs the mikes whenever Larry Monroe performs, gives Dixon the "go" signal, and Dixon begins the narration.

“By the time he gets as far as 'Tater's on the floor and, to complete our frame, Jughead, as usual, is in the corner studying calculus,” he's got the rest of the cast in hysteria. Finally, on a second take, success is achieved and Detz signals a take.

The highlight of the evening is the recording of “Dick Tracy." The title character is not present while the recording is made. “That’s because,” Monroe explains, his identity is a closely kept secret. When Monroe and Detz talk about him, he’s referred to only as “Leonard,” or “the man with the badge.”

Other guest-stars, though, have acted on the comics, and John Detz is happy to talk about them.

“Ramblin' Jack Elliot was in to read last week. And we’ve had Kris Kristofferson reading “Snuffy Smith.” I think one of our highlights was when Pete Townshend and Keith Moon of The Who came in to do “Prince Valiant.” It was a classic, drunken, improvised brawl, and we loved every minute of it.”

Most of the time, however, the readings are pretty straight. “We don’t like to improvise around the lines,” said Larry Monroe, “because if people are reading along, it can mix them up.

“We once tried adding lines, and improvising, doing crazy, arty things, but it didn’t work. The way these things are

funnier if the people who do it, act as if it’s the most serious thing in the world.”

funniest, is when we do them straight. I guess that’s the case with most comedy — it’s