‘Remember Wenn’ Offers Endearing Re-Creation Of Radio’s Heyday

How to describe “Remember WENN”?

To say it is charming sounds so lame, but it is charming.

Sweet is so bland a term, but it is a sweet show.

More importantly, “WENN,” set at a Pittsburgh radio station in 1939, is a witty and funny series that will bloom each month from the fertile mind of Rupert Holmes.

American Movie Classics, the cable old-movie channel, will trot out the new series Saturday night at 6 with two half-hour episodes.

To maximize its exposure, the series will be introduced in the midst of a John Wayne film fest, Wayne movies being AMC’s biggest audience draw.

From AMC’s point of view, “Remember WENN” represents a chance to feature a series that will lure viewers to the channel on a regular basis and distinguish it from Turner Classic Movies and its huge vault of old films.

“That’s why HBO has succeeded despite competition from Cinemax and Showtime,” said Paula Connelly Skorka, director of development for AMC’s original programming and production departments, noting HBO’s comedy series, “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Dream On.”

“That’s what we’re trying to do while remaining faithful to our audience that is into old movies.”

The theory is that the same people who enjoy old movies also appreciate the golden age of radio, the period of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s when the airwaves were full of soap operas, dramas, mysteries and comedies.

And, Skorka noted, many of the stars who populate AMC movies came to film from radio.

The channel also hopes to capture viewers too young to remember radio’s heyday. If wit and sweetness and charm will capture them, consider them caught.

“Remember” takes us to station WENN, where an amiable collection of folks strives each day to fill air time with live programming. The programming itself evokes the golden age, and the drama and humor of the station itself has a style and grace all its own.

Look for guest stars such as Patti LuPone along the way.

To bring this off, producers Frank Doelger and Howard Meltzer assembled stage sets that include antiques, vintage radio gear and clothes left over from the period.

They also enlisted Rupert Holmes to write the playlets - it seems wrong to call this series a sitcom - compose the theme and incidental music and generally pull it all together.

Holmes was clearly the only man in America to do the job. Sure, they could have found other Tony Award winners (he won best book, music and lyrics awards for “The Mystery of Edwin Drood)”, and there are other winners of the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar award (his was for Broadway’s comic-thriller “Accomplice”).

And some theatergoers will remember his “Solitary Confinement” starring Stacy Keach at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Holmes has even written the phenomenal “Pina Colada Song.”

There are many successful composer-dramatist-songwriters around. But there’s only one who has a collection of 90 episodes of the classic “Jack Armstrong, All American Boy” radio series, in sequence.

Talk to Holmes about radio’s golden years, and his impressions and recollections of the era come in a rush.

At 48, he remembers only the last few years of the golden age firsthand, but does he ever remember them.

He recalled, for instance, CBS radio’s closing out the golden age with a Sunday-night lineup featuring “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar,” “Suspense,” “Gunsmoke” and “Have Gun, Will Travel.”

He remembers hearing comic strips being read and re-enacted on radio and later being disappointed when he saw the actual strips. As well drawn as they were, they didn’t measure up to the images that had danced in his mind.

“I wasn’t around for 1939,” Holmes said from his home overlooking the Hudson River Valley. “But it is one of my favorite years. I’ve been playing catch-up with the past.

“I was one who opted for that year. It was a window of calm between two storms.”

It was also a time when the World’s Fair was previewing a rose-colored world of tomorrow. Cult music, he recalled, merged with pop as big bands took jazz to its most popular level.

And, he believes, people were nicer then.

“People were pushing what you could say in movies and novels, but still there was civility,” he said. “In this series, not everyone is going to be in people’s faces.”

The “WENN” concept came quickly to mind, Holmes said.

“I knew one of the characters would be a diva; they’re such fun to write. I knew one would be an earnest and bright intern from Elkhart, Ind. And one would be a man of a thousand voices.

“There really were such actors. Ed Begley played Charlie Chan on the radio.”

The diva would be Melinda Mullins. The intern is played by Amanda Naughton. Chris Murney has the thousand voices. Familiar-faced John Bedford Lloyd runs the station.

After its Saturday debut, “WENN” will take up its monthly Wednesday time slot (5 and 10:30 p.m.) on Jan. 17, with a repeat of Episode 1. On Jan. 24, Episode 2 will re-run. AMC host Bob Dorian guest-stars in that one. Both shows repeat Jan. 31.

Installment 3 runs Feb. 7. Number 4, guest-starring Patti LuPone, is on Feb. 21.