Known far and wide as “Captain Dobbsie”, Hugh Barrett Dobbs was an immensely popular on-air talent in the early days of Bay Area radio.
The Kentucky-born Dobbs, whose father would become a Congressman, grew up on a plantation. An appointment to the US Naval Academy ended with his discharge, apparently the result of rules infractions. His next stop was the Johns Hopkins Medical School, where he developed his expertise in physical training.
In 1925, Dobbs walked into the San Francisco offices of KPO and asked for an audition. Something must have clicked immediately. Dobbs was hired and given a daily hour of airtime guiding listeners in what were called “health exercises”. But Dobbs was much more than a gym teacher on the radio, integrating humor, music, and a keen ability to bridge the gap between his San Francisco studio and the homes of his listeners.
The program became astoundingly successful, evolving into The Sperry Flour Happy Hour, which then became the Ship of Joy program. The Ship of Joy was a mythical cruise from “Good Cheer Dock” to the “Isle of Happiness.” Part of each program was the wishing well ceremony, where the audience would be asked to place hand over heart, and “send out a wish to somebody – somewhere – who may be in sickness or trouble. Everybody – WISH!” KPO reported Dobbs received over a million letters from listeners.
Shell Oil signed on as a title sponsor for what was re-branded the Shell Ship of Joy, heard over the entire NBC Pacific Coast Network, also known as the NBC Orange Network.
On March 15, 1930, Dobbs’ new three-year contract with Shell kicked in. Worth $250,000, it made Dobbs the highest-paid radio talent in the world, earning more than the President of the United States. For reference, the Federal Reserve’s inflation calculator estimates the 2024 value of that contract at more than $4.7 million.
When NBC cancelled the program in 1935, Dobbs moved it to the Columbia West Coast network, and then to KOMO in Seattle
Hugh Barrett Dobbs died in 1944 at the age of 50.