TEX AND JINX Radio & Television BROADCAST HISTORY:
April 22, 1946- February 27, 1959.
WEAF (WNBC, WRCA), New York weekdays at 8:30 A.M. until 1954; at 1:00pm,1954-1955; then at 6:30 and 10:35pm until July 31, 1958, moving briefly to WOR, broadcasting at 2:15pm.
In addition to the Kollmars (Dorothy Kilgallen and husband Richard Kollmar) and the Fitzgeralds (Pegeen and husband Ed Fitzgerald), another well-recognized New York couple, newlyweds Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg, added their own bread-and-bacon banter to the local airwaves between 1946 and 1959. Their gabfest, initially Hi Jinx but later revised to Tex and Jinx, was beamed over WEAF which was subsequently re-lettered WNBC and later WRCA. In limited doses, the flagship outlet of the National Broadcasting Company transmitted Meet Tex and Jinx to the whole country during 1947 and 1948.
Tex and Jinx devoted most of their airtime to lofty and noble concepts, visitors and sidebars. Tex and Jinx [on WEAF-WNBC-WRCA] were interviewing Bernard Baruch, Margaret Truman, or Ethel Waters…. McCrary built the show on the assumption that the early morning audience was not stupid, as programmers generally assumed; that people in general had fresher minds and were more open to serious topics at the beginning of the day.”
Their joint radio venture began in April 1946 just 10 months following their nuptials (June 10, 1945). Launched as a breakfast feature, the series later shifted to afternoons and finally into the evening hours before departing the ether a dozen years afterward. They were branded by one journalist “Mr. Brains and Mrs. Beauty.”
In early 1947 NBC put them on its television network as a portion of a Sunday evening quarter-hour dubbed Bristol-Myers Tele-Varieties. “The McCrarys were naturals for TV,” wrote a reviewer, “with their combination of friendly chatter, interviews, and features.” That summer the web awarded them an exclusive Sunday night half-hour format under the appellation At Home with Tex and Jinx. A decade later, in the 1957-58 season, the duo hosted a daytime NBC-TV showcase, The Tex and Jinx Show.
When hepatitis sidetracked Falkenburg in 1958 from their broadcast commitments, McCrary carried on solo on their radio show for another couple of years. In the 1980s, however, the couple separated, remaining on genial terms. McCrary died in New York on July 29, 2003 and Falkenburg expired just 29 days later in the same city, on August 27, 2003.
NOTE::
The scores of TEX AND JINX SHOWS archived by Archival Television Audio, Inc. were originally obtained as original 16" Electronic Discs from Barry Farber, producer of the show (1957-1959), in 1960 after he had begun his own career in front of the mike at WINS Radio. These discs were subsequently transferred to 1/4" reel to reel tape, and then disposed. These broadcasts are rare and represent the largest known collection of TEX AND JINX extant broadcasts in the world.
Topics: Man of year search, personalities of 1949, Forrestal on threat against peace, Amadeo Giannini, talks about America, Bill Robinson dances and sings, John G. Crommelin talks about interservice feud, discussion on atomic energy, Jackie Robinson discusses loyalty of the American Negro and comments on Paul Robeson, Mrs FDR comments on "old men" in Congress, FDR Jr. discusses Republicans, President Truman on his "new deal", Guy Gabrielson on Washington demonstration, Secretary Johnson talks about Drew Pearson comment on Westbrook Pegler in reference to suit, "South Pacific" starring Enzio Pinza, hit of 1949, VP Barkley gets married, John L. Lewis and William O'Dwyer on dead miners, Phillip Murrow of CIO attacks communists, twelve Red leaders convicted of conspiracy against US, John Gates attacks US Capitalists, Secretary Acheson's two-faced foreign policy, possibility of Red China recognition, UN building being erected,
Carlos Romulo of Phillipines speaks on rights of small nations, Chaim Weizmann predicts great Jewish state of Israel, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek
on US friendship, Tito challenges Stalin, Pope Pius talk, Time Magazine names Winston Churchill "Man Of Century", voice of Churchill, US Counsel Angus Ward failed by Red Chinese, Ward tells of his imprisonment, John J. McCloy named "Man Of Year", McCloy doesn't believe Nazism will revive, believes strong bid by Germans for freedom, denies future German aggression,
