French in the Morning 03:Cajun Comedians

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This episode focuses on comedy, which has had a serious influence on Cajun radio. In fact, the first big examples I could find of any kind of explicit “Cajun” characters on the airwaves were from comedians.

Here’s an article from Radio Digest Illustrated (August 1930 issue). These characters were supposed to be Black Creoles from New Orleans but were really two white dudes in blackface make-up. I did think about putting this image in the book, then thought it was better off here on the website.

See also this article from 1931. Some guys from Crowley had a comic radio show in Texas. This article uses the phrase “an’ anudder ting my fren” – which was a catchprase of the comedian Walter Coquille. He did many routines that were recorded on disc; his big character was The Mayor of Bayou Pon Pon, and it seems that these Crowley-comedians were doing a remarkably similar kind of comedy.

Article from Acadian-Signal

(Crowley), Jan 29 1931

The comedian Pinky Vidacovich was a popular part of the Dawnbusters radio show, on WWL New Orleans. Some examples of his comedy can be found here:

New Orleans Radio Shrine – page with Dawnbusters clips

Dave Petitjean was a legendary Cajun comedian. Many of his routines were played on the radio. Here’s a six minute video of some of his jokes.

And finally, here’s a clip of my visit to KAPB. It includes some of comic-station IDs (aka liners) that are used in this podcast episode.

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