Jim Hawthorne, the wacky and wildly inventive Los Angeles radio and television personality who turned traditional post-World War II broadcasting on its ear, has died. He was 88.
Hawthorne, who had congestive heart disease, died Nov. 6 at a skilled nursing and rehabilitation center in Santa Barbara, said his son Scott.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, November 21, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 51 words Type of Material: Correction
Hawthorne obituary: The obituary of radio personality Jim Hawthorne in Saturday's California section said radio station KXLA is now KRLA. KXLA became KRLA in 1959 and maintained those call letters until 2000. The station is now KDIS. In 2001, radio station KIEV changed its call letters to become the new KRLA.
The Colorado-born Hawthorne came to fame in 1947 on Pasadena radio station KXLA (now KRLA) when, as Time magazine reported a year later, he "suddenly turned his show into a carefree, wit-loose 'Hellzapoppin on the air.' "
Listeners to his nighttime show never knew what to expect from the comically outrageous and unpredictable Hawthorne.
He might suddenly interrupt a record with a voice that said, "I've got cole slaw in all my pockets. I'm cold."
And he once played 10 minutes of Bach, which he interlaced with assorted comments and the sound of a barking seal.
The off-beat Hawthorne voiced a slew of characters that populated his show, including Skippy (a mischievous old man who made fun of him), Eggbert (his "engineer") and Scrappy (an aptly named piece of paper he'd carry on conversations with by crinkling it against the microphone).
Hawthorne would introduce commercials by banging two cymbals together. Then he might play the commercials at extremely slow or extremely fast speeds.
He did the same with records and, if he was really bored with one, he'd drag the needle across it.
Hawthorne created his own world with his own lingo that was quickly picked up by his fans. His biggest catchword was "hogan." As in "Pasadena-hogan" and "hoganburger."
His listeners were dubbed Hoganites. And Hawthorne plunked a fan-created instrument called the Hogantwanger -- a series of hacksaw blades cut to different lengths and mounted on a wooden base. He even wrote and recorded a musical tribute to the "hogan" phenomenon, "The Hogan Song."
Musically, Hawthorne served up an eclectic playlist that included records by Spike Jones, Homer and Jethro, Buddy Baker, Red Ingle and Slim Coates -- as well as antique records from the 1910s by pioneering recording artists Arthur Pryor, Billy Murray and Prince's Band, whose "So Long Letty" became Hawthorne's theme song.
"He was one of a kind," Barry Hansen, the syndicated radio host known as Dr. Demento, told The Times this week. "There was no one else like him on the radio at that time -- totally free-form, off-the-wall, and making great use of humor."
