Play Maestro!

To celebrate its 20th year on the air, Don McNeill's Breakfast Club (weekdays 9 a.m., ABC, E.D.T.) this week broke a hard & fast rule by giving its studio audience something to eat. The reason: the anniversary radio show was being televised for the first time, and literal-minded TVmen felt that Breakfast Club guests should be shown eating breakfast.

35,000 Hoosiers. Gangling (6 ft. 2 in.) Don McNeill made no protest, though he has long flourished on the theory that he need give his fans nothing: no door prizes, no cash awards, no washing machines. The one time he violated the rule with a 1944 free offer of Breakfast Club membership cards taught him a lesson. More than 850,000 requests poured in, and people still turn up at the broadcasts proudly clutching tattered, nine-year-old cardboards. McNeill's hour-long show originates from the Terrace Casino of Chicago's Morrison Hotel, but 75% of his studio audience comes from outside the city. One Indianapolis bus driver estimates that he has brought 35,000 Hoosier housewives to the show in more than a thousand chartered busloads.

Just what housewives all over the Midwest love about the Breakfast Club is hard to define. Don McNeill explains the show as "just a guy talking, then another guy talking, then a couple of people singing, and an orchestra. It ain't anything." But in 20 years his salary has risen from $50 to nearly $4,000 a week, paid by four sponsors (Swift & Co., Philco, O-Cedar and Toni). For this stipend, McNeill gives his listeners four "calls to breakfast," written to "snappy" tunes. Between songs, Don keeps things lively with what he calls "witty, quaint sayings." Samples: "Contrary to common belief, most women can keep a secret--it's the women they tell it to who can't," and "The man of today is the man who wears last year's suit and drives this year's car on next year's salary."

Ten Rules for an Introvert. Don is helped by a funnyman named Sam Cowling, whose greatest laugh-getter is his habit of falling over his own feet, and by Fran Allison (of Kukla, Fran & Ollie) who plays the part of a gabby female. The three show-stopping features are 1) "Memory Time" (mostly sentimental poems), 2) "Prayer Time" (strictly nonsectarian), and 3) "The March Around the Table," in which the kids in the audience play follow-the-leader, led by Sam Cowling. McNeill also interviews selected guests, ranging from such visiting stars as Bob Hope to such personalities as Elmer Feagin, who walked from Texarkana to Chicago to pay off a bet. Don, who classes himself as an introvert, sees his job as simply being friendly and letting the guests do the talking. He still follows the ten rules he devised 20 years ago on the subject of "How to Become a Master of Ceremonies."

Some of them:

P: Wear clothes that are a little different, such as a green suit.

P: Get yourself a flock of listeners who accept you as one of the family and, therefore, cheer you when you are good and, in turn, pass over your faults because they expect them.

P: Be yourself, even if it hurts.

P: When in doubt, say, "Play, maestro!"

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