Bob Booker (August 1, 1931 – July 12, 2024) was an American writer and producer of television shows and record albums.
[2] Booker discovered it was not easy to start a career in the Big Apple, as an MCA agent got him exactly one TV pilot hosting job in one year.
He made friends with local writers, including Pat McCormick (who later wrote for Johnny Carson) and Earle Doud.
He and Doud began some writing projects, which included a series of gag record greeting cards, an article for Playboy magazine and their ultimate brainchild: a comedy album spoofing the President of the United States.
Booker and Doud cast Vaughn Meader, who they saw via the Talent Scouts TV show, as JFK and Naomi Brossart, a model and actress, as Jackie.
Booker did not like the stock photos being offered for the album cover, so he borrowed a Speed Graphic camera and flew to Washington, D.C. to photograph the White House.
Frustrated, he went back to the front fence where the lighting had improved, held the camera between the slats and without looking through the lens, pulled the trigger.
On October 22, 1962, The First Family was recorded at Fine Studios in New York City, ironically at the same moment that President Kennedy announced the naval blockade of Soviet Union ships traveling to Cuba, prompting the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Unfortunately, Cadence Records owner Archie Bleyer felt "Kennedy's going to war" and almost tossed the tapes in the trash.
The WINS switchboard lit up with callers — listeners, news outlets and competing radio stations — everyone wanted the new record.
Booker and Doud, who came armed with a handful of records, took cabs around the city, dropping off albums to numerous radio stations.
I know as a Catholic I could never vote for him, but other than that...[5] In December, Booker got a call from White House UPI correspondent, Merriman Smith.
Astonished, Bob remembers Smith added, "I know there's been some negativism from Pierre Salinger and Schlesinger and some of those guys but Jack doesn't listen to them.
The duo entered a suite of offices and asked for a certain record executive, offering to give him an eleven-foot pole since he would not touch their album idea with a ten-footer a few months before.
He returned to television and produced numerous TV shows from the 1970s to the 1990s, including The NBC Follies and Fifty Years of Country Music.
In 1977, Paramount hired him to create television specials to promote their feature film releases: American Hot Wax, Foul Play and Grease.
In 1987, Booker created the syndicated teen fantasy sitcom Out of This World starring Maureen Flannigan and Donna Pescow.