Danny and Ronnie - ICONS...

Danny and Ronnie By Michael Dean If the constant blather from 24-hour media has made the incessant overuse of certain terms meaningless, there is indeed one word that, no matter how many times it’s spoken, still applies to two Oklahoma City television and radio personalities: ICONS In the truest sense of that word, both Danny Williams and Ronnie Kaye set and continue to set standards which all who come after them will have to meet. Both hosted top-rated programs on WKY-TV, now KFOR-TV, and both were enormously popular DJs on WKY radio for more than 20 years. And both have found that their talents and the music they originally played have not lost a step in the intervening years – Kaye is still on the air playing “Oldies” on KOMA-FM, while Williams retired just a year ago from the same station. Williams’ story begins with the end of World War II. After serving in the navy in 1944 and ‘45, he headed to Austin at attend the University of Texas. There, he graduated with honors in three years and worked at KTXN radio telling, of all things, children’s stories. His next stop was KTBC radio in the same city, where he was the play-by-play voice of the basketball and baseball teams. In 1949, Williams landed a job at KTSA Radio in San Antonio, again – believe it or not – telling children’s stories. One can imagine Williams being asked if it was his life’s calling to put Bobby and Sissy to bed every night to “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and he would have answered, “What, and quit show business?” However, that great storyteller in the sky and a certain media mogul in Oklahoma City had other plans for Danny Williams. In 1950, he was hired by WKY in Oklahoma City to do a children’s show on their new television station. Here, his radio versions of “Mother Goose” paid off… he used his immense talent and creativity to portray such characters as Spavinaw Spoofkin, "Chief Spoof Spinner" on the "Gismo Goodkin Show." E.K. Gaylord, owner of both the WKY radio and television stations, knew he had landed a major talent. Later that year, Danny was given the “Danny Williams Show,” a program in which he interviewed survivors of the Land Run of 1889 and other historical figures in the state capital. That same summer, he also began hosting “Championship Wrestling,” a show that continued until 1973. One Friday in 1953, the manager of WKY-TV told Williams that starting Monday, he would star in a space adventure show. “I had the weekend to dream up a name for the show as well as concepts and scripts for the show, and even costumes,” Williams explained. He called the program “The Adventures of 3-D Danny,” and it aired through 1959. Meanwhile, in 1956, a skinny kid from Cooter, Mo., landed a job as a disk jockey at KLCN Radio in Blytheville, Ark., and immediately felt he had found his calling. Just as importantly, the following year, Don Hodges, an airman from the nearby base, was hired at the same station. In the summer of 1958, ratings for WKY Radio had dropped and their NBC radio programming was moving to NBC-TV. Simultaneously, the lower powered KOCY radio began playing rock and roll music. DJ’s like Dale Wehba and Bill Miller were gaining big ratings. That summer, Todd Storz, inventor of “Top 40” radio, announced plans to buy KOMA radio. A meeting was held at WKY to determine what competitive response they should take. The decision was made to drop the network programming and begin playing Oklahoma City’s top 40 songs. Williams had begun hosting a morning “Time and Tune Parade” on WKY radio about the same time, and was gaining in both popularity and ratings. Shortly after WKY radio went “Top 40,” he was promoted to program director and, in 1959, left television. In October, 1958, the FCC approved the transfer of KOMA to Storz; however, the station’s new format wasn’t to hit the air until early December. That gave WKY a five-month head start to rock and roll. In all the years the two stations battled each other, KOMA never hit number one in the ratings. WKY was the rock and roll juggernaut of Oklahoma City. Enter Don Hodges, who had left Arkansas for the greener pastures of Lawton, Okla. There, he offered his former co-worker Ronnie Kaye a position at his station, KSWO. But the big city called, and Danny Williams hired Ronnie Kaye. Such was the carousel world of radio in the earlier days of the medium. ”Danny saw in me something I never saw in myself,” Kaye said, “and he taught me many things over the years. But, I think the single most important lesson I ever learned from him is this – radio isn’t about entertaining, it’s about making money. It’s a business.” Recently, Williams said of Kaye, “I think Ronnie is the most technically perfect DJ I’ve ever known.” Williams recalls what could be the golden age of radio. “I think the best lineup we may have ever had on WKY was me from 6 to 9 a.m., Wilson Hurst from 9 to noon, Don Wallace from noon to 3 p.m., Jimmy O’Neal from 3 to 7 p.m., Chuck Boyles from 7 to midnight, and Ronnie Kaye from midnight to 6 a.m.,” he said. In the mid-1960s, Jimmy O’Neal hosted the nationally broadcast “Shindig” on ABC-TV. He is just one of many DJ’s, newscasters and sportscasters who were hired by Williams in his 21 years as program director. “Danny hired the best talent in the country, let them know what he expected, and then allowed them to use their creativity,” Kaye said. “Look at the impact he had on their careers and the impact they in turn had on the Oklahoma City radio market.” Ronnie Kaye began his television career in 1966. “Dr Pepper wanted to sponsor a Bandstand-type show for 13 weeks, and I had been talking to the guys at WKY about a similar show. So, I got the deal. Several people had a number of ideas on what to call the show. I wanted to simply call it “The Scene,” Kaye said. “We didn’t have a budget to pay anyone to appear on the show, and really only once was there a potential problem. Ray Charles was in town, and I asked him if he’d be on my TV show that was taping the next morning. He said he’d be happy to. So, the next morning I picked him and his manager up at the Skirvin, and as we headed up the Broadway Extension, his manager asked me how much Charles was being paid for the appearance. I told him that I didn’t have any budget to pay anything, and started looking for a place to turn around to head back downtown. Charles turned to me and said, ‘Give me a dollar, and we’ll call it even.’ I was elated, and that made me an even bigger fan of Ray Charles than I had been before,” Kaye recalled. Williams left WKY radio in 1979. He did the morning show at KEBC from 1984 to 1986, and then took his morning show to KOMA in 1992, before retiring last year. In his radio career, he was rated the number one DJ in his time slot for seven decades. Ronnie Kaye left WKY radio in 1980. He worked at KOKH-TV from 1980 to 1991; he then joined the KOMA staff in 1992, and is still number one in his time slot. When Williams and Kaye joined KOMA in 1992, it brought the two icons of Oklahoma City broadcasting back together again, ironically at the station they had competed against for so many years. Who says there are no second acts in show business?