Imus angers TV weather man

Cleveland Plain Dealer – December 9, 1970

Backtracking: Imus graduated from the Don Martin Radio School in 1968 and was hired by KUTY/Palmdale, California. He then moved over to K-JOY/Stockton (but was fired December 1969, after announcing on-air, an Eldridge Cleaver Look-Alike contest. First prize: A year in jail or a $10,000 fine), KXOA/Sacramento (early 1970), and then WGAR.

Imus had just joined WGAR in September 1970, when the station switched format: Music featuring the hits of yesterday with a healthy mixture of the hits of today and tomorrow. “The music will not be hard rock,” John C. Lund, program director, said. “WE’LL PLAY hits of the last two decades — by the original artists. We’ll also mix in the current hits and tunes we predict will be the hits of tomorrow.“
There also will be some popular country-and-western music by such artists as Johnny Cash and Glen Campbell.” Some of the music will be up-tempo. “But there will be no hard, acid, underground rock or protest songs,” Lund added. The deejays will not be screamers. We will play more music- and the deejays will talk less.”

In 1971, while also working at WGAR, Imus began hosting a Friday night movie show on WUAB 43 in Cleveland.
Bruno Bornino – Cleveland Press
WGAR’s Imus in the Morning — he of the tart tongue and acid comment — will take his corrosive wit tonight, and every Friday night at 11:30, to WUAB (Ch. 43) where he’ll star in a 90-minute TV special, “Imus in the Movies.” It marks a giant stride for Imus in the “swinging, swirling world” of show biz.

The weekly TV show will feature all of the Imus regulars — Judge Hanging, Brother Love, Lyndon B. Johnson, Reverend Billy Sol Hargis, Crazy Buckeye Bob, Tricky Dicky, the Giant Frog and Cleveland’s infamous “coach.” These Imus creations have earned him Billboard magazine’s praise as the “most revolutionary show in America.”

About his new show, Imus said: “Imus in the Movies will not be stupid, infantile, child-like humor as seen on other shows. It will be stupid, adult-like humor.”

Actually, Don Imus will portray and employ the characters from his radio show as comedy wrap-arounds to classic gangster and horror films on the television program. Tonight’s flick stars James “you dirty rat” Cagney as “The Public Enemy.”

Imus gained fame in the early part of his career with lines such as “Lake Erie Died For Your Sins.” This Imus thought was used on a poster and later was picked up and used on national TV shows.

Since then, he has become one of Cleveland’s top-rated adult radio personalities, and the area’s leading crusader against drug abuse and for blind children. He stayed on the air 60 straight hours in a radio marathon that raised $80,000 for the Narcotic and Drug Education Program last month. Earlier, he donated royalties from a pop record he wrote and recorded to the Cleveland Society for the Blind to finance music lessons and instruments for blind children.

“Imus in the Movies” will be produced by Herman Spero, who put Cleveland in the contemporary music spotlight with his weekly Upbeat television show. Spero also produces the Polka Variety show. John Lund, program director of WGAR, is creative coordinator of “Imus in the Movies.”

By December 1971, Imus had been hired by WNBC/New York.