Radio: Whiz Bang

Just for the asking, Cedric Malcolm Adams can get almost anything in Minnesota. As the Northwest’s favorite radio and press gossip, he has found homes for 50,000 minnows, 76,000 other animal, vegetable and mineral objects including baby alligators, pianos, crutches, white mice, a skunk, an artificial leg and four corsets. Once he asked his fans to help a widow who had lost her $37 income-tax payment. More than 57,000 responded, each mailing a penny to Cedric. Last week, the Pied Piper casually asked his public for a solution to the nylon shortage. He got 3,000 replies in three days. Sample suggestion: limit stockings to women who contribute $5 to any church.

By talking and writing in a back-porch patter, Cedric has convinced nearly everyone in Minnesota that he is his personal friend. On radio station WCCO, he is more popular than Bob Hope and Kate Smith; 65% of the men and 73% of the women who read the Minneapolis Star-Journal never miss his column, “In This Corner.” They send him gifts, words of comfort when he is ill and many a hot news tip. One gossipy tidbit was almost too informative. In 1937 Cedric said: “A prominent labor leader . . . will be ‘taken for a ride’ within two weeks.” Ten days later, a union official was murdered.

Now 43, and paunchy (212 Ibs.),

Adams is as much of an institution in Minnesota as smorgasbord. He was once (in the 19205) associate editor of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang. Now he is so influential that he has to mind what he says. Once he mentioned that his shoe laces were frayed. The next mail’ brought 46 new pairs. A theater offered free admission to patrons bringing four-leaf clovers. The day after Cedric printed the item, the theater turned away a 9,000 overflow, had only one cash customer. When he said a Minnesota serviceman in Alaska wanted a piano, Cedric got 19. Naturally he is in constant demand for charity drives, civic promotions, master of ceremonies’ chores. And his commercial neighborliness earns him $54,000 a year.