1939–1956 · Weekday lunchtime, coast to coast

The Happy Gang

Knock knock — who’s there? — it’s the Happy Gang!

For twenty-two years, from 1937, the Canadian lunch hour belonged to the same company of musicians and the same knock at the door. It was not sophisticated and it was not trying to be: an organ, a fiddle, a piano, singers who also did the jokes, and a tone of relentless cheer that carried the country through the war and out the other side. No Canadian programme of any era reached a larger share of its audience. Seven broadcasts survive from a run of thousands.

7 recordings · Toronto

Seven surviving broadcasts dated 1939 to 1956. Recordings held by the Internet Archive.