Mrs. Chickenman passes away

[jon]

Bunny Orkin, wife of Chickenman (Dick Orkin), died July 27, 2007 in Valley Glen, California. They had been married 53 years, and she was 72 years of age.

Dick was the voice of Chickenman and the author of every Chickenman script, a series created in the late 1960s at WCFL Chicago, and widely syndicated, both at the time, and has remained in circulation ever since. It was aired on CHQT (Cool 8-80) in Edmonton as recently as 2002.

It was generally aired in Morning Drive, sometimes repeated in Afternoon Drive, as a serial that lampooned superheros of the day. If hearing it, you don't immediately think of the Adam West Batman series from the mid-1960s, you probably never saw Batman.

The Tooth Fairy was the next series that Dick Orkin and crew created. Much of the original crew is still together, producing what are arguably the finest commercials heard on Radio today. Their commercials were heard regularly on 66-CFR in Calgary when they were still Oldies, before going All News a few years back. Dick's company, of which Bunny was co-owner, also teaches the art of writing wonderful commercials for Radio.

For more information, including details on how to (legally) purchase every episode of the Chicken series see http://www.radio-ranch.com/chickenman.html

[Mike Cleaver]

Chickenman ran on CJOC in Lethbridge when I was a jock there in '67 and '68.
It was sponsored by A&W, which was actively promoting it's Chubby Chicken products.
It was one of the most popular features on the station.
The local A&W owner at the time was a huge fan of CJOC, doing constant ongoing promotions with the station.
One was the A&W Rockathon, with me in a rocking chair on the canopy for I can't remember how many hours, fueled by A&W burgers and chicken and frosty mugs of Rootbeer and Rye!

[jon]

The local A&W owner at the time...

Was that Leroy Earl Fuller? The current owner of Earl's and Joey's used to own Fuller's, his Denny's knock-off. And I heard that he made his money originally by owning all of the A&W's in Alberta. But you know how stories go: maybe he only owned some of them.

[Promotions Guy]

I think Fuller was involved with Controlled Foods which owned many of the Alberta A&W, but not all of them. He eventually moved to Vancouver and developed Fullers, then Earl's. I understand that a couple of family members actually run the Joey's Tomato group.

[Mike Cleaver]

Pretty sure the Lethbridge outlet was independently owned.
For the life of me, I can't remember the guy's name but he and the late Bob Lang were buddies.
Another big player in Lethbridge radio promotions on CJOC was Steve Kotch, owner of Kotch bus lines.
We had many adventures with him and his company, usually fuelled by a lot of booze.