The Paul Dixon Show was an American television variety program originating in Cincinnati on WLWT Television beginning in 1955 and ending in December 1974, following Dixon's death. The show began as a 30-minute series expanding to 90 minutes in the 1960s, but the other stations along the Crosley/Avco regional television network in nearby Dayton, Columbus and Indianapolis only ran 60 minutes of the show. Pre-recorded episodes were sold to other markets throughout the Midwest.
The show was originally co-hosted by Bonnie Lou and Marian Spelman, who was later replaced by Colleen Sharp. The house band, originally called The Bel-Aires, was led by pianist Bruce Brownfield.
Early beginnings
Dixon originally hosted a show on rival station WCPO-TV with Dottie Mack and Wanda Lewis called Paul Dixon's Song Shop. The show consisted of Dixon, Mack, and Lewis pantomiming to popular songs of the day, and also featured in-studio commercials. Fresh from a career in radio news, Dixon quickly endeared himself to countless viewers for years to come. Song Shop was picked up for a season by ABC in 1951 and by the DuMont Television Network in 1954. For the DuMont show he moved to New York City, but as DuMont began to collapse in 1955, a homesick Dixon returned to Cincinnati a year later and, in a fateful move, hired on at WLWT.
While Dixon was at WCPO, Al Lewis (rapidly gaining fame in his own right as Uncle Al) was in charge of set design and artwork on Dixon's show. After Dixon moved to WLWT, The Paul Dixon Show and The Uncle Al Show would run against each other on weekday mornings.
”This Dumb Show” By 1955, Dixon started working at WLWT to host a daytime show originally geared to housewives, but that ultimately appealed to people from all walks of life. Over time, Dixon himself would refer to the program, in a self-deprecating fashion, as "this dumb show". Every morning the show would start with Paul using a pair of binoculars (one of what would become many of Dixon’s trademarks) to examine what came to be called “Kneesville”, which consisted of women sitting in the front row, all wearing either short skirts or “hot pants”. He would then award who he believed had the best-looking knees by either putting a garter on the woman's leg, or attaching a "knee tickler" to the hem of her skirt.
Some of his other trademarks included, but were not limited to: His nickname. Everyone who knew Dixon or watched his show took to calling him "Paul Baby". (Dixon acquired the nickname from a prop boy, Al Bischof, who replied to a request by Dixon saying, "Okay, Paul Baby!" The nickname stuck with Dixon for the rest of his life.) A spray bottle, used to spritz the audience upon asking how many of them took a bath that morning, which was usually a segue into a commercial for bath soap. Dixon would strike a "runway pose" during a shampoo or hair care commercial (or some instance that might require him to take off his jacket), and the band played the first few bars of A Pretty Girl is Like A Melody. By the 1970s, Dixon had started giving T-shirts to women in the audience, with Dixon physically putting them on the women himself, doing it in such a way that would work itself into an embrace between the two. On almost every show, Dixon would give an Osherwicz Kosher Salami to at least one member of the audience (usually a woman) after chatting with him or her or when he or she gave him a gift. (David Letterman would later incorporate a variation of this into his own show, instead giving canned hams to people in the audience for their participation in a skit.) At the mere mention of the word "letters" (referring to fan mail), Bruce Brownfield and the Band played a quick rendition of the song I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter.
Despite the fact that Dixon performed basically the same routine every day, viewers would continually watch his show, many of them admitting, often with varying degrees of embarrassment, that they were "hooked" on "Paul Baby."
Guest appearances by celebrities were a rarity at best. Among those who did make appearances were comedian Imogene Coca, actor David McCallum, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and even Bob Hope, who was a close friend of Dixon and who wrote the foreword for Dixon's first book Paul Baby.
Classic moments
Besides in-studio commercials, a musical number from the house band, a song each from Colleen and Bonnie, and occasionally a song from Dixon himself, who swore he couldn't sing to save his own life, the show primarily consisted of Paul talking with members of his audience, or reading letters from his viewers, both of which often resulted in hilarious situations: