Al Lohman (b. January 15, 1933, Sergeant Bluff, Iowa; d. October 13, 2002, Rancho Mirage, California) was a Los Angeles, California radio personality who, along with Roger Barkley, had the top-rated morning drive "Lohman and Barkley Show" on KFI Los Angeles through most of the 1970s and early 1980s. Their fame extended beyond the Los Angeles area as the duo were frequent guests on the "Ed Sullivan Show" and were hosts of two short-lived television shows. The first was a 1969 game show, "Lohman & Barkley's Name Droppers" while the second was a comedy/variety show from 1979 called "Bedtime Stories." January 15 is the 15th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Sergeant Bluff is a city located in Woodbury County, Iowa. ... October 13 is the 286th day of the year (287th in leap years). ... 2002 (MMII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Rancho Mirage is a city located in Riverside County, California. ... The City of Los Angeles (from Spanish; Los Ángeles) is the second-largest city in the United States in terms of population, as well as one of the worlds most important economic, cultural, and entertainment centers. ... KFI is an AM radio station that began operating on March 15, 1922 as one of the United States first high-powered, clear channel stations. ... The Ed Sullivan Show was an American television variety show that ran from June 20, 1948, to June 6, 1971, and was hosted by Ed Sullivan. ...

The "cast of characters"

Audiences tuned in by the thousands to hear Lohman's quick wit and vast array of character voices play against Barkley's straight man routine. Among Lohman's characters were dim-witted hayseed "Maynard Farmer" who supposedly drove to the Wilshire Boulevard studio each morning on his tractor all the way from Brawley, an real town in Imperial County nearly two hundred miles (320 km) away. "Otis Elevator" was a good-natured handyman. Con man "Ted J. Bologna" was a regular as was his wife, socialite "W. Eva Schneider-Bologna." These characters and others were also regular occurrences in a segment called "Light Of My Life," a spoof of daytime soap operas. A straight man is a role in a comedy double act where a performer works with a comedian by setting up the situations or feeding the lines that allow their partner to make a joke. ... Brawley is a city located in Imperial County, California. ... Imperial County is a county located in the far southeast of California, on the border with Arizona and Mexico, in the Imperial Valley. ... The first TIME cover devoted to soap operas: Dated January 12, 1976, Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes of Days of Our Lives are featured with the headline Soap Operas: Sex and suffering in the afternoon. A soap opera is an ongoing, episodic work of fiction, usually broadcast on television...

One character had a more lasting impact than the others. "Dominic Longo" was the real name of one of the show's sponsors, the owner of a fledgling Toyota dealership in nearby El Monte. The commercials for the dealership were live, mostly ad-libbed and might run as long as two minutes. Roger Barkley "interviewed" Lohman's Mafioso-sounding Longo in the commercials. Dominic Longo didn't simply "wheel and deal." Instead, he "whelt and dealt like no one ever whelt and dealt before." Longo also didn't habla español. He "hobbled spaniels," and so on. The commercials were an incredible success and played a huge part in helping make Longo Toyota the nation's largest Toyota dealer. Toyota redirects here. ... El Monte is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. ... See AdLib for the computer sound card manufacturer. ...

The unexpected split and post-radio contributions

In 1985, Roger Barkley suddenly and unexpectedly quit the duo after twenty-two years, much to Lohman's shock and surprise. Barkley left KFI for a solo stint at KBIG-FM and later teamed with Ken Minyard on talk radio KABC as co-host of the morning drive show "The Ken and Barkley Company," a play on the station's call letters. Lohman stayed at KFI and teamed for a while with Gary Owens, a legendary Los Angeles personality best known as the wisecracking announcer on the Laugh-In television show. KABC is the callsign of the American Broadcasting Companys three flagship broadcast stations in Los Angeles: KABC AM, 790 kHz KABC-TV, channel 7 (DTV 53) KABC-FM 95. ... Gary Owens (born Gary Altman on May 10, 1936) is a disc jockey and voice actor born in Mitchell, South Dakota. ... Rowan & Martins Laugh-In was a United States comedy television show broadcast from January 22, 1968 through 1973 over the NBC Network. ...

In the early 1990s, Lohman semi-retired to Palm Springs where he hosted a morning show on easy listening KPLM-FM. Upon the station's move to a contemporary country music format, Lohman moved his morning show to KCMJ-AM, Palm Springs' oldest radio station. Released when this station changed formats as well, Lohman retired from radio for good and dabbled in local theater, earning rave reviews as the host of the Palm Springs Follies, a vaudeville show in which all of the performers are age 55 and up. View of Canyon Country Club, Palm Springs, from the air Palm Springs is a city located in Riverside County, California, USA. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 42,807. ... KPLM is one of only two 50kW Class B FM radio stations serving the Palm Springs, California area. ... Country music, also called country and western music or country-western, is an amalgam of popular musical forms developed in the Southern United States, with roots in traditional folk music, Celtic Music, Blues, Gospel music, and Old-time music. ...

Lohman also appeared in film and was credited as simply "Lohman" for his parts as a film critic in the 1987 comedy Amazon Women on the Moon and the narrator of the 1988 comedy, Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs. Amazon Women on the Moon is a 1987 movie written by comedy duo Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland. ...

Al Lohman died at age 69 of complications from bladder cancer. Bandleader Ray Conniff passed away at about the same time, and while Conniff's obituary in the Los Angeles Times rated an entire column, Lohman's took up nearly three pages. Ray Conniff Ray Conniff (born Joseph Raymond Conniff on November 6, 1916 in Attleboro, Massachusetts, USA, and died October 12, 2002, Escondido, California, USA) was an American musician. ...

His partnership with Roger Barkley earned Lohman a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the only Palm Springs radio personality so honored. An example of a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, for the film actress Carole Lombard. ...

External links

• Al Lohman at the Internet Movie Database