It was broadcast initially (beginning January 24, 1927)[1][2] on KFRC in San Francisco, California, then was distributed on the West Coast by the Don Lee Network[3] and was later carried nationwide on CBS.
Bill Oates wrote, in his biography of Meredith Willson, that the program was "one of the most popular West Coast originated radio shows in the early 1930s.
Chief among these in point of seniority and general quality is the KFRC Blue Monday Jamboree which is attended by most of the entertainers appearing on the station throughout the week.
These artists gather in an informal sort of meeting bandying jests and songs from 8 to 10 p.m.[6]The initial version of Blue Monday Jamboree in 1927 featured Juliette Dunne,[7] Harvey Austin and the Hawaiians and Harry McClintock[2] - Mac's Haywire Orchestra.
[11] I Love Lucy creator Jess Oppenheimer earned his first-ever professional paycheck in 1934 for a comedy routine he wrote and performed on Blue Monday Jamboree.
[12] Oppenheimer writes extensively about the program in his memoir, Laughs, Luck...and Lucy,[13] including this unforgettable story of KFRC General Manager Harrison Holliway's on-air interview with a railroad engineer: He eventually starred in a spinoff program, Happy Go Lucky Hour,[14] that began on KFRC, later moving to NBC and being renamed Al Pearce and His Gang.
[15] Other members of the troupe included Jane Green,[16] Midge Williams, l Archived 2022-05-20 at the Wayback Machine , Elvia Allman, Harry McClintock, Edna Fisher, Tommy Harris, Tommy's Joynt, SF,[17] On the day of the program, at the afternoon rehearsal, Holliway was running through the interview with the engineer, who had just mentioned that the pattern of the train whistles was actually a code with which engineers communicated between themselves.
She knows exactly how long it takes me to get home after I blow the whistle, and when I walk in the door a piping hot meal has just been set on the table.” “Hold it.
They promised they’d get it there as fast as they could, and for the rest of the afternoon Holliway paced nervously up and down, tensely watching the street for the delivery truck.
No one bothered to ask the obvious question: If this fellow’s wife could hear the whistle when he blew it from four miles away, then when it was blown in a closed, window-walled room with several hundred folks sitting within 30 feet of it, wasn’t it going to be rather loud?
Like Lilliputians trying to maneuver a trussed Gulliver, they managed to inch the whistle off the truck, snake it into the building, and worm it slowly up the stairs and into the studio.
The audience was already filling all those folding chairs, and in the background, through the windows that formed the entire wall, the heavy evening traffic on Van Ness Avenue was crawling by, unaware of this impending wedding of realism and technology.