560/KSFO, San Francisco
The Jim Lange Show

Thursday, July 1, 1971

Jim Lange (Photo)

There have been several radio personalities who passed through the Bay Area on their way to greater fame in show business — Al Pearce, Merv Griffin and Art Linkletter many years ago, and Carson Daly more recently — but none of them remains “ours” the way Jim Lange does.

Born August 15, 1933, in St. Paul, Minn., “Gentleman Jim” began his broadcasting career as a teenager after winning an audition at a station in his hometown. “They wanted a boy and a girl,” he told the Bay Area Radio Digest in a 1992 interview. “They wanted the boy to do sports and the girl to do the dances and stuff that was going on in the Twin Cities — very sexist — and play music once a week. It was sponsored by a local department store.”

He remained on the program for two years before heading off to the University of Minnesota (graduating with honors in 1954) and a three-year hitch in the Marines, which included an assignment with the Armed Forces radio and television service in Hawaii. He left the military late in 1957 and arrived in San Francisco in search of a civilian job in radio.

His first opportunity came at KGO in January 1958 on the overnight shift. Despite the late hours and the relative anonymity inherent in the time slot, he built a substantial audience as “The All-Night Mayor” on KGO, which afforded him the chance to make a significant leap within two years, joining KSFO in January 1960 as afternoon disc jockey during that station’s rise as “The World’s Greatest Radio Station.”

Tennessee Ernie Ford (Photo)
Jim Lange with castmates on the Tennessee Ernie Ford Show

His first network television job came in 1962 as announcer and sidekick on “The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show.” In 1965, while still working his weekday job at KSFO — which included occasional early wake-up calls when a fill-in was needed for Don Sherwood — Lange began hosting “The Dating Game,” which brought him even wider national recognition. He continued to host the show in its original form until 1986. (In high demand as a game show host, in later years he also hosted “Oh My Word,” “Hollywood Connection,” “$100,000 Name That Tune,” “Bullseye,” “$1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime” and, for one season, “The New Newlywed Game.”)

After the sale of KSFO, former station owner Gene Autry invited Lange to move to KMPC in Los Angeles, where he settled in from 1984 to 1989. Growing tired of splitting time between home in the Bay Area (where his wife, the television host and former Miss America Nancy Fleming, remained) and his job in Southern California, he signed on with Magic 61 (KFRC, during its incarnation as an Adult Standards station) in 1990, hosting middays until an ownership change and personnel moves landed him on the morning shift.

Another ownership change and format switch at KFRC led Jim to San Jose’s KKSJ (1370 AM, reborn from the old KEEN) in 1994 before arriving at his most recent radio home, KABL (960 AM, now playing Adult Standards, well removed from its Beautiful Music epoch), in 1997.

Dino Donikian, Jim’s longtime sidekick on KABL, said, “I’ve had the great pleasure of working with Jim for almost 14 years. After all that time it never felt like ‘work.’ The person you hear on the air is the same person you get off the air — a true gentleman who has a warm personality.  … Jim has been blessed with one of the greatest voices in radio history; his voice is unmistakable.”

With the sale and subsequent demise of KABL in the Summer of 2005, Jim Lange announced his retirement from full-time broadcasting as of Thursday, July 28, 2005. He was elected to the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame in 2006 as a member of the first class to be inducted.

Jim Lange died on February 25, 2014, at his home in Mill Valley. He was 81 years old.

Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame Logo
On The Air Sign (Image)

Jim Lange on KSFO
July 1, 1971

 
Bonus Track: The Hello Song

A regular feature on the Jim Lange Show was The Hello Song, a bright, bouncy tune that sang out “hello, my friend,” in a variety of international languages while Gentleman Jim sent birthday, anniversary and welcome greetings along to his loyal listeners. This version, excerpted from the full KSFO broadcast on this page, is a perfect example, including a welcome to new San Francisco Giant Don Carrithers and a wave to the current Giants shortstop, Chris Speier from Alameda. Jim even manages to throw in his trademark “Yethir!” at the end.

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John Biechman
John Biechman
3 December 2022 9:22 PM

Does anyone know or have the opening song – “I’ve Got the Weekend Off” or “I’m So Glad It’s Friday” from the Jim Lange – Terry McGovern radio program Friday mornings KSFO in the 1970’s?

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