Don McNeill (performer)

: This article is about radio host Don McNeill. For the tennis player, see Don McNeill.

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Don McNeill (December 23, 1907 – May 7, 1996) was an American radio personality, best known as the creator and host of The Breakfast Club, which ran for over thirty years.

Related Topics:
December 23 - 1907 - May 7 - 1996 - American - The Breakfast Club

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McNeill was born in Galena, Illinois, but the family soon moved to Wisconsin, where McNeill graduated from Marquette University. He began his radio career in Milwaukee in 1928, first as a script editor and announcer at station WISN, and later working for the station owned by The Milwaukee Journal. McNeill moved on to Kentucky, working for the Louisville Couriers station, then a stint in San Francisco as a comedy act with singer Van Fleming, called "The Two Professors," and finally, following a failed career move to New York City, McNeill wound up back in Illinois in 1933.

Related Topics:
Galena, Illinois - Wisconsin - Marquette University - Milwaukee - WISN - Kentucky - San Francisco - New York City - 1933

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McNeill had applied for a job at NBC, and sent to Chicago to audition. He was assigned to take over an unsponsored early morning variety show called The Pepper Pot, with an 8 AM time slot on the NBC Blue Network (later to become ABC radio). McNeill quickly re-organized the hour show as The Breakfast Club, dividing it into four segments, or as McNeill called them, "the four calls to breakfast." The show premiered on June 23, 1933, with informal talk and jokes often based on topical events, initially scripted by McNeill, but later performed off the cuff, often with audience interviews. In its final form, this was surrounded by piano music, various vocal groups and soloists, sentimental verse, and recurring comedy performers. The series would eventually gain a sponsor, Swift and Company. McNeill was also credited as the first performer to make morning talk and variety a viable format in radio. (Countless local shows, to this day, often refer to themselves as The Breakfast Club).

Related Topics:
NBC - ABC - June 23

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In 1950, McNeill briefly attempted to transfer the series to television, as Don McNeill's TV Club, which ran for two months, and again in 1954 as The Breakfast Club, for a year-long run. McNeill also appeared occasionally on game shows and the like, and in 1963, he hosted the short-lived game show Take Two, built around photo comparisons.

Related Topics:
1950 - Game shows - 1963

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McNeill's radio series continued through this time, finally ending in 1966, at which point McNeill retired from entertainment, and from public life. McNeill's Breakfast Club was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1989, and he died seven years later, age of 88.

Related Topics:
1966 - 1989

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