Cordic's Goodbye; A Month Early

Vince Leonard [October 27, 1965]

Toastmaster Roger Rice started the roast - a rare one, gentle but juicy-with: “Never have so many gathered to send so few so far away.” And Rege Cordic himself, the subject- of the velvet skewers, ended it with: “I'm grateful to Pittsburgh for being everything it is, good or bad. The easiest thing would be to stay, but there's a challenge. Everything I did here you had a part in it.”

In between were many jibes, and as many accolades, by the able roasting committee - Bob McCully, Carl Hardman and Harold V. Cohen. It was so right that about 210 persons, the largest crowd in the history of the Radio-TV Club, gave Cordic a standing ovation, it was a top testimonial to a radio personality, a radio personality who is departing.

Rege Cordic, on Nov. 27, leaves the wake-up show a similar job at KNX, Los Angeles. Yesterday, though, in the overflowing quarters at the Hotel Sherwyn, marked the official goodbye. They all laughed heartily, especially Cordic.

Between the guffaws, however, his beard hid only half his blush. And behind his horn rims, the glint of a tear or two was visible.

Yet Cordic rose to the occasion: “I was prepared to make a Maudlin speech . . - but I sold it. I could change a few words and I make a KDKA editorial out of it."

Rege then traced his career from the time Davey Tyson gave him r his start at the Enright Theater kiddie shows to his work at WWSW through his comical morning program.

The comedy format began, he reminded, when he first slipped an East Overshoe U. score into the regular football results. He paid tribute, too, to the sponsors he helped “go bankrupt” - Dutch Club beer, Capital Air Lines, Fatima cigarettes.

McCully's lines were loaded: “He taught Pie Traynor how to read commercials" … "This looks like a sing-down between Buzz and Bill and Al Noble and Brian MacDonald or a cavalcade of Ed Feigenbaum commercials."

So were Hardman's: "Should I tell the truth? I'm really the voice of Rege Cordic" … "The emperor will abdicate," introducing a tape of the rival radio stations' response coupled with the voices of the many characters in the Cordic repertory company.

Quite An Association

Said Cohen: "Welcome to the first meeting of the WWSW dropout alumni association" … "KDKA is now out to New Kensington recruiting talent. It long since used up its draft choices at WWSW" … 'Cordic is the only person to retire from TV defeated" … "Rege is replacing Bob Crane who left radio for television. KNX has no fear, from reports out of Pittsburgh, of losing Cordic the same way."

There were signs and placards and, on tape, an old commercial of Rege reading a Saturn diamond commercial In 1946. And Geer Parkinson swiped the action a little when he fell out of his chair when the strains of an exaggerated WRYT harp wafted through the room.

The action ended happily on a spoof when McCully and Rice unrolled a long streamer, slowly, teasingly. It read: “Goodbye Rege, Write If You Get Work."