Welcome to the Nostalgic Ramber





Hans Jeff Borger is heard on WRGE 97.9 FM in Ocala, FL featuring Christian programming.

"The Nostalgic Rambler" radio show can be heard on Youtube. Just search for Hans Jeff Borger Nostalgic Rambler.





Why a blog? I wrote a book "The Little Grownup: a nostalgic Michigan boyhood" which should appeal to most baby boomers. A mass market book? Well, not yet...but the potential is there! (Be sure to buy it at "finer on line bookstores" everywhere!)

The comments presented in "The Nostalgic Rambler" probably won't be of interest to the masses...anymore. If grandma and grandpa and their friends were still alive, then it would be a different story.

I live in the past. My time warp is a comfortable cocoon even if it sometimes drives my wife crazy. The music of the 1940s and 50s, the stars of those days were big stuff in their day, but are now almost forgotten. Oddly enough, I was born in '64 so those iconic years were for the most part over by that time.

Through "The Nostalgic Rambler" I maybe can help share my love and knowledge for those times and things...all at one time important pieces of Americana but now a bit faded in memory.

The woman who did the blog about cooking all of Julia Childs' French Cuisine Cookbook in a year got a sweet movie deal out of her blog experience. I wouldn't mind that but would be happy to know that you are reading this....and maybe enjoying my time warp, too.



Hans Jeff Borger



Wednesday, June 19, 2013

1949 TV Comedy The Life Of Riley


 Hard to believe that in 1949 there were already television sitcoms. "I Love Lucy" came on the scene at the end of 1951. Two years before that audiences were watching "The Life Of Riley" starring Jackie Gleason.

Remember Lucy wanting to tell Ricky she was going to have a baby? Remember them going to the hospital and Ricky being a nervous wreck. He needed more attention that Lucy? It was all in a "Life of Riley" episode.




Remember Ricky bringing home a fur coat and Lucy thinking it was a gift for her? He didn't know how to tell her it wasn't a gift for her? It was all in a "Life of Riley" episode.

Funny how we think that "I Love Lucy" was so inventive. It was, but they were already "borrowing" plots from other shows even in television's infancy. 

 


Pretty cool that we can watch these old shows on Roku or Youtube. Gleason was only on for one season as Chester Riley. William Bendix took over as he played the role on the radio version and in the movies. Gleason went on to bigger and better things. He never forgot his role of Riley apparently as on that show he used the line "You are a mental case," which of course Ralph Kramden on "The Honeymooners" was also heard to have uttered!
 
Jackie Gleason went on to major stardom in "The Honeymooners" and put Miami on the map with his shows from there. I read somewhere that his theater in Miami is in trouble. Apparently he isn't remembered as "The Great One" anymore. Wow. To those who don't remember him, YOU are a mental case!