Joy Boys (radio program)

"The Joy Boys" was a popular daily improvised comedy radio show in Washington, D. C., United States, between 1955–1974 that launched the broadcast careers of the program's co-hosts, Willard Scott and Ed Walker. The two did various skits and satirized prominent people of the day, such as Scott's character "Arthur Codfish" (mocking Arthur Godfrey). They both regularly parodied NBC-TV's "Huntley-Brinkley Report" with their own zany "Washer-Dryer Report".cite news|author=Marc Fisher|title=Washington Comes of Age|work=The Washington Post|date=1999-09-13|url=http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/44644300.html?dids=44644300:44644300&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT |accessdate=2008-01-29 ] Walker told an interviewer years later that the duo imitated some twenty voices, in all. [cite web |title=Interview with Ed Walker (video) |publisher=University of Maryland|url=http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=10795&fID=345 |accessdate=2008-01-29 ]

Scott and Walker teamed as co-hosts on WRC-AM, the NBC owned-and-operated station in Washington, beginning July 11, 1955. Initially, the program was titled "Two at One" and aired at 1 p.m. The term "Joy Boys" originated when they adopted a brief song of that title, set to the "Billboard March" as their theme music. [http://www.thejoyboys.com/theme.htm "Where did the theme music come from?"] -- The Joy Boys - History] Later, the "Joy Boys" became a nightly feature at 7 p.m. on WRC. In a 1999 article recalling the "Joy Boys" at the height of their popularity in the mid-1960s, the Washington "Post" said they "dominated Washington, providing entertainment, companionship, and community to a city on the verge of powerful change".

Walker, who has been blind since birth, said that growing up with radio "was my comic books, my books, my movies". On the "Joy Boys" program, Scott would sketch a list of characters and a few lead lines setting up the situation, which Walker would commit to memory or make notes on his braille typewriter. Scott and Walker formed a professional and personal bond which continues to this day. Scott said in his book, "The Joy of Living", that they are "closer than most brothers". [cite book |author=Willard Scott|title=The Joy of Living|publisher=Coward, McCann & Geoghegan| location=New York|date=1982|isbn=0-6981-1130-3 ]

The "Joy Boys" moved from WRC to another Washington radio station, WWDC-AM (now WWRC), in October, 1972, where it was heard until the show's final broadcast on October 26, 1974. [cite web |title=The Joy Boys website|url=http://thejoyboys.com/ |accessdate=2008-01-29 ] The show was sold in syndication that year.

American University has released some of the "Joy Boys" radio broadcasts of the 1960s on CDs.

References

External links

* [http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=10795&fID=345 Interview with Ed Walker (University of Maryland video)]
* [http://thejoyboys.com/ "The Joy Boys" tribute site]
* [http://thejoyboys.com/wamucd3.htm WAMU-FM "Joy Boys" CD project]