PITTSBURGH WAKES UP WITH CORDIC
By Joe Bradis
(This article was in the first edition of The Pittsburgh Spectator, published on July 9, 1952. The issue was Life magazine-sized and included 52 pages. Volume 1, Number 1 also included features on the Pirates' Ralph Kiner and future TV personality Eleanor Schano, who was then one of Pittsburgh's top fashion models at age 21. This article offers some insight into the early WWSW days of "Cordic & Company," even before Karl Hardman and Bob Trow joined the cast. - John Mehno)
     Before dawn arrives in Pittsburgh, a guy named Regis Cordic tries between yawns and a pot of java to be the funniest man in town.
     Cordic is head man on Radio Station WWSW's "Cordic & Company" special from 6 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., a program held together by recorded music, noise and amazing tidbits of transcribed nonsense.
     The nonsense varies from steamboat whistles, whinings and crashing of chinaware to fragments of dramatic dialogue picked up anywhere from Kalamazoo to the wilds of Africa.
Cordic's day begins a little after 5 a.m. He bolts out of bed, shaves, dresses and then hustles his Olds 88 to the studio.
     "If I get a good tailwind," chortles Rege, "I am at the station in nothing flat."
     Smiling, good-natured Rege got his first broadcasting job while still a junior in high school. He joined the Enright Kiddies' Show as an assistant announcer to Dave Tyson.
That was in 1943. His first big break came a few months later. A regular announcer for WWSW was drafted into the Armed Forces. Then next thing Rege was working regularly.
But his gleam was short-lived. In 1944 he also left for the Armed Services and spent two years in the Navy.
     Back in civilian life after the Navy hitch, Cordic worked as a staff announcer and on some occasions did regular sportscasting. In 1948 he was on the morning show.
     "To be truthful with you," confides Cordic, "I didn't like it and immediately auditioned for another job. I got it, too -- but WWSW and I got together and here I am."
At that time the station operated on a frequency of only 250 watts. But Cordic and WWSW grew up in 1949 with the station moving to 5,000 watts and Rege to a two-hour program.
With the morning program all his own and more listeners than ever, the 26-year-old disc jockey decided he'd better get something into it besides the normal routine of record playing.
     That is how some of his characters -- Omicron, Mitildacron, Frenchie, Dad, Oob, Little Oob, The Question Man, Champfor Clutterphumton -- originated.
     It's no secret how Cordic picked up some of his inter-planetary characters. He lifted lines of dialogue from Ronald Coleman's "Lost Horizon" and Agnes Moorhead's "Sorry Wrong Number," among others.
     Cordic's voices are recorded. By a flip of the control switch in the studio he can make the record stop or go in order to inject his own comments.
     Omicron's voice is that of Cordic. The others belong to two of his assistants, Sterling Yates and Charlie Sords.
     Cordic's ability to kid himself and plug other stations and networks gives his program a tone (not Franchot) of par excellence.
     What makes Cordic's program so popular? Is it his deep, mellow voice, his interplanetary characters, music?
     Actually it is a combination of a lot of things. But most important is Cordic's ability to take an ordinary on or off-the-street guy and give him importance.
     Take for example, "Quick and Easy O'Brien," a guy on just this side of the underworld who always got himself into trouble with the law, then hurried to Cordic for protection.
Once O'Brien plotted to steal the Cathedral of Learning and sell it to Carnegie Tech. But Cordic refused to go along with the ruse and shield O'Brien.
     Cordic finally ran out of material for O'Brien and dropped him like a hot potato. But a lot of listeners protested the move, -- notably some of Cordic's most avid fans, inmates of one local prison. Fifty inmates sent Cordic a letter pleading to reinstate O'Brien.
     Cordic's listeners are from all walks of life. They include the housewife trying to get her irate husband up for breakfast; the teen-age high school girl catching one last record and usually ending up late for school; the taxi driver, the lawyer, the doctor and breadwinner enroute to and from work.
     It's no simple task to grind out three and one half hours' of humor six days a week at an hour when most persons feel like the world's caving in. But Cordic does it with relative simpleness and finesse.
     "Nobody was more surprised than me when the show was a success," confided Cordic.
Essentially, Cordic's funny, not only to his listeners, but to his sponsors as well. He's got a string a mile long, just waiting for an opportunity to make "Cordic & Company." Right now he's content with 13 full-time sponsors and 12 who share spots on the program.
     There's no doubt that Cordic is the top radio talent in town. One leading survey made in a small section of this steel city listed 10,000 people listening to him between 6 and 6:15 a.m.
     Perhaps the most unique program turned out by Cordic was his 15-minute Christmas greeting which included every member of the cast.
     What an aspirin does for a splitting headache, Cordic does for the guy with the long, grim face. He makes a radiant smile replace a sour disposition.
     Once Cordic kidded: "Send two bags of bull-derm and get my autographed picture in my first long pants." Two days later he received a truckload. He still has a drawer full as a grim reminder people take him seriously despite his shenanigans.
     Another time he told his listeners: "Don't forget to tune in Cordic & Company tomorrow on color television over Channel 19 in East Overshoe." He didn't think anybody would be that gullible. But the next day a woman called and asked: "How do you get Channel 19 if your television knob only turns to 13?"
     With an eye for an advertiser and a few extra bucks for a new suit, Cordic replied:
"Buy a new television set." 
     But then he hastily explained to her that it was only a joke. She hung up with this remark: "I'll never listen to you again."
     But Cordic's been on the receiving end of quite a few gags. One he especially didn't relish occurred during Pittsburgh's heavy snowstorm two years ago.
     Someone called him and reported classes at the University of Pittsburgh would not convene. Without checking, Cordic took the guy's word and and broadcast the message.
Results: Two thirds of Pitt's students failed to report for classes that day.
     Cordic received his education at St. Philomena's grade school and Central Catholic High School. He also picked up various smatterings of knowledge at Carnegie Tech and the University of Pittsburgh.
     Besides his radio work, the funny man delves in acting and other forms of entertainment.
What are his plans for the future?
     He hopes to put Omicron into a comic strip and also into an animated cartoon on the order of Walt Disney's famous characters.
     Ten years ago another record player was getting up before six each morning and playing records for soldiers. His name? Arthur Godfrey.
     Godfrey still has the ukulele but he doesn't have Cordic's transcribed noises. With a few breaks, who knows but that you'll be hearing that guy Cordic coast to coast.
     (Joe Bradis spent many hectic moments rubbing shoulders with Frankenstein, Omicron and a host of other unusual personalities in order to get the feature on Rege Cordic. Joe is a newsman with the local Associated Press bureau, coming to Pittsburgh after a stint with the Uniontown Herald.)