Don McNeill's Breakfast Club

In Chicago during the early 1930s, McNeill was assigned to take over an unsponsored early morning variety show, The Pepper Pot, with an 8 a.m. timeslot on the NBC Blue Network. McNeill re-organized the hour as The Breakfast Club, dividing it into four segments which McNeill labeled "the Four Calls to Breakfast".

McNeill's revamped show premiered in 1933, combining music with informal talk and jokes often based on topical events, initially scripted by McNeill but later ad-libbed. The series eventually gained a sponsor in the Chicago-based meat packer Swift and Company, beginning February 8, 1941.[1] McNeill is credited as the first performer to make morning talk and variety a viable radio format.

The show's structure was tightly formatted to fit the needs of its audience, who could wake up and eat breakfast while it was on, and then leave for work or school. Every quarter-hour came the "Call to Breakfast" — including the popular "march around the breakfast table," a rousing band march. In addition to comedy performances, vocal groups and soloists, and instrumental dance music, regular segments included inspirational verse, conversations with members of the studio audience, and a moment of silent prayer. There was often a "trip down memory lane," as audience members recalled their decades-earlier encounters with the show, such as being born while it was on the air, or knitting socks for Don McNeill's baby when he announced the birth on-air. Riddles and jokes were submitted and performed by audience members, shout-outs were made to the home towns of those in attendance. and brief interviews were conducted with groups of high school students and members of clubs and trade organizations who were visiting Chicago.

The program showcased many musicians and comedians, including Fran Allison (later of Kukla, Fran and Ollie fame) as "Aunt Fanny", plus Captain Stubby and the Buccaneers, and comedy bits by Sam Cowling. Guests included Bob Hope, Emmett Kelly, Ilka Chase, Warren Hull, Jim and Marian Jordan of Fibber McGee and Molly, the Anita Kerr Singers, Jimmy Stewart, Lucille Ball, Jerry Lewis, and Charlie Applewhite, with Ted Mack as a guest host. Featured vocalists on the show included Dick Noel, Anita Bryant, Cathie Taylor, and, under her professional name of Annette King, Charlotte Thompson Reid, who later became an Illinois congresswoman for five terms (1962–71). Eileen Parker was a regular vocalist with the program in 1953.[2]

John Doolittle's book about this program, Don McNeill and His Breakfast Club (University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), was reviewed by Susan M. Colowick in Library Journal:

Before Garrison was even a twinkle in Mr. Keillor's eye, Don McNeill launched a radio show with a unique mix of humor, music and audience participation. From 1933 to 1968, the Chicago-based Breakfast Club aired every weekday on the ABC radio network (originally NBC's Blue Network). Millions of Americans tuned in to hear songs, jokes, interviews, the "March Around the Breakfast Table," the "Moment of Silent Prayer" and other regular features. (Except for his strong support of public prayer, McNeill eschewed politics, though he did run for president in 1948 on the Laugh Party ticket.) In this thoroughly researched and highly readable account, Doolittle reminds us just how popular Breakfast Club really was, especially with homemakers of modest means but also with the likes of J. Edgar Hoover and Justice William O. Douglas. Many show business celebrities were guests on the show, including Jimmy Stewart, Lucille Ball and Jerry Lewis. The book is accompanied by a CD that features clips from actual shows.

• 1950-51 United States network television schedule
• 1951-52 United States network television schedule

• John Doolittle, Don McNeill and His Breakfast Club University of Notre Dame Press, 2001),
• David Weinstein, The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004) ISBN 1-59213-245-6
• Alex McNeil, Total Television, Fourth edition (New York: Penguin Books, 1980) ISBN 0-14-024916-8
• Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, Third edition (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964) ISBN 0-345-31864-1
• Dunning, John. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-507678-8

• The Breakfast Club on December 8, 1941 (interrupted by war bulletins)
• Rich Samuels' tribute to The Breakfast Club (February 2004)

• Don McNeill's Breakfast Club at the National Radio Hall of Fame
• Marquette University: Donald T. McNeill Collection, 1928-69
• TV Club at IMDb
• 1948 kinescope of DuMont TV and ABC Radio simulcast (May 12, 1948) at the Internet Archive

• Breakfast Club timeline