Ray Rayner
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Ray Rayner (b. Raymond M. Rahner on July 23, 1919, Queens, New York –d. January 21, 2004) was a staple of Chicago children's television in the 1960s and 1970s on WGN-TV.
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[edit] Early life
Rayner (the name was initially spelled "Rahner" but pronounced "Rayner") grew up in Queens, New York. His first media job was working for WGBB radio in Freeport on Long Island while he was attending night school at Fordham University. When World War II broke out he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, serving as the navigator of a B-17 during World War II, when he was shot down over France. During 2-1/2 years as a POW in Stalag Luft III, he helped prepare the escape depicted in the film The Great Escape (1963) - though he was transferred to another camp before the escape took place. It was during his time as a POW that he would discover his talent for entertaining, entertaining his fellow prisoners and his German captors.
[edit] Chicago
After briefly working in New York radio following the war, he joined what was then WBKB but later became WBBM-TV, working on a weather program called "Rayner Shine". He would get a noontime program called "The Ray Rayner Show" in 1953, he and his co-host Mina Kolb would host a somewhat free form show that would feature music, comedy skits, dance and pantomime. The show, geared towards teens, ran for five years.
WBBM asked Rayner to switch to a children's program in 1958, though reluctant at first, he did so with "The Little People", which ran two years, and "Popeye's Firehouse" for another two. He would move on to WGN-TV in 1961.
[edit] WGN
His first role on WGN was as Sergeant Pettibone, the host of the Dick Tracy show. He joined the cast of Bozo's Circus as country bumpkin clown Oliver O. Oliver and also hosted his own long-running Ray Rayner and His Friends, which featured old cartoons, arts-and-crafts, and animals such as Chelveston the Duck who was named after RAF Chelveston where Rayner was stationed during World War II. Chelveston would occasionally bite, and Rayner was notably wary. Ray also had a talking dog puppet Cuddly Dudley. He always wore a jumpsuit, covered with small pieces of paper that held reminders of what to do next on the program (a cartoon, a commercial, a visit from Chelveston, etc.). He would also simulcast traffic reports from sister-station WGN Radio over stock footage of traffic moving along the Chicago-area Interstates. During baseball season, he would show & narrate highlights of the Cubs and White Sox games from the previous day, wearing a custom-sewn ball cap that had the front half of each team's cap, resulting in a two-billed cap which he would spin around, depending on which team's highlights were being shown.
Following the cancellation of Dick Tracy, a new afternoon program called "Rocket to Adventure" ran until 1968; this featured early appearances by Gigantor and Tobor the Eighth Man.
In 1968, Rayner also appeared as Ronald McDonald in nationally televised commercials for McDonald's, filmed in San Bernadino, California.
During his years in Chicago, he also frequently appeared in live theater, including plays at the Forum Dinner Theater on Harlem Ave.
[edit] Later years
He moved to KGGM-TV in the 1980s, the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque, New Mexico, before retiring from television. He cited the harsh Chicago winters as the motivating factor.
He died on 21 January 2004, of complications from pneumonia in Fort Myers, Florida at the age of 84.
[edit] External links
- Ray Rayner at the Internet Movie Database
- http://www.tvparty.com/lostrayner.html
- http://www.chicagotelevision.com/rayner.htm
- http://wgntv.trb.com/wgntv-news-rayner-obit,0,7937796.story?coll=wgntv-home-1
- http://www.chicagokidstv.com
- http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-040121rayner-story,1,2070857.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
