TV-Radio Highlights: October 11, 1949

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• I remember listening to the radio version of "Life With Luigi" as a very young boy. It was a comedy about a little Italian immigrant named Luigi Bosco finding his way in America and starred J. Carrol Naish as Luigi. Each episode began with the Luigi narrating a letter he was writing to his mother in Italy. Luigi spent a lot of time going to night school and taking a citizenship class. The thing that I thought was really funny, as a kid, was a character named Pasquale, another Italian immigrant, who was always trying to trap Luigi into marrying his plus-sized daughter, Rosa. When Luigi showed up at Pasquale's ... Pasquale would call his daughter aggressively and loudly: "Rosa, Rosa, Rosa!" The next thing you would hear was Rosa's giggle as she entered the room and exclaiming in a thick Italian accent, "You callin' me, Papa?!" Followed by a cascade of additional giggles. - As a 3rd and 4th grader, I thought it was hilarious.
  The radio show ran on CBS Radio from Sept. '48 to March '53. The CBS Television version (in the KIRO ad above) began in Sept. '52, but was short-lived.

• The best part was the singing Men of Texaco.

  https://youtu.be/ZrMIZgYr4Kk

• As the host of NBC's Texaco Star Theatre (1948–1955), he was the first major American television star and was known to millions of viewers as "Uncle Miltie" and "Mr. Television" during the first Golden Age of Television.
  The Texaco show was broadcast on NBC television. KING 5 was the only tv station in town, and so carried programming from ABC, NBC, DuMont.