Saturday Night Oldies was a Saturday-night music and talk show on WABC Radio in New York City.
WABC Radio (770 AM, New York City) played rock and roll from 1960 until May 10, 1982, before changing to a talk radio format. With talk shows not quite as popular on the weekend, Tim McCarthy, WABC President and General Manager, and Phil Boyce, Operations Manager and Program Director, decided to bring back the oldies music on Saturday nights. Saturday Night Oldies premiered on December 3, 2005, exactly six months after WCBS-FM (also in New York) dropped the oldies format on June 3, 2005.
Mark Simone hosts the show, which features popular music from the late 1950s through the 1970s with an emphasis on songs that became popular, but have largely been forgotten. Original WABC jingles from the station's Top 40 era are played and the DJ takes phone calls and reads posts from the Message Board discussing a wide variety of events in popular culture from that time period.
The program's production crew includes Mike Gunzelman, the producer, who answers the phones, and Mike Savilli on the controls.
In July 2009 the show was renamed Saturday Night and shortened to 3 hours, airing from 6 PM to 9 PM. Newer music is now played, as well as oldies, and a wider range of guests from the entertainment world are interviewed along with more discussion of entertainment issues.
In September 2010 the show was further shortened to two hours, from 7 to 9 PM. It was also announced at that time that the Saturday Night show would soon be going national, and would be syndicated to stations in other cities.
The show was heard for the last time in December 2012 as Mark Simone resigned from WABC and joined WOR where he is heard Monday - Friday from 10 AM - 12 noon.
B-sides of 45s played
Beatlespectacular - in-depth look at the Beatles
Fake breaks – old radio and TV commercials
Mystery DJ - guess the voice of a radio deejay
Stump the Host - callers try to stump the show’s host
Triple plays - 3 songs from one recording artist played
Herb Oscar Anderson
Paul Anka
Little Anthony
Peter Asher and Gordon Waller of Peter & Gordon
Frankie Avalon
Burt Bacharach
Frank Bank
Shirley Bassey
Pete Best
Jay Black of Jay and the Americans
Pat Boone
Tom Bosley
Dewey Bunnell of America
Eric Burdon
Glen Campbell
The Captain & Tennille
David Cassidy
Dick Cavett
Chubby Checker
Lou Christie
Petula Clark
Tim Conway
Stu Cook of Creedence Clearwater Revival
Alice Cooper
Pat Cooper
Paul Cowsill of the Cowsills
Tony Danza
Bo Diddley
Phyllis Diller
Dion DiMucci
Micky Dolenz
Donovan
Tony Dow
Barbara Eden
Fabian Forte
Peter Frampton
Art Garfunkel
Bobby Goldsboro
Lesley Gore
Al Green
Harry Harrison
Deborah Harry
Isaac Hayes
Dwayne Hickman
Janis Ian
Dan Ingram
Tommy James
Frank Jeckell of the 1910 Fruitgum Company
Davy Jones
Shirley Jones
Larry Kane
Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship
Ben E. King and Charlie Thomas of the Drifters
Frank Kingston Smith
Robert Klein
Bernie Kopell
Billy J. Kramer
Steve Lawrence
David Letterman
Eddie Levert and Walter Williams of The O'Jays
Gary Lewis of the Playboys
Little Richard
Barry Livingston
Airrion Love of The Stylistics
Mike Love of the Beach Boys
Ron Lundy
Barry Manilow
Jerry Mathers
Johnny Mathis
Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. of the 5th Dimension
Maureen McGovern
Don McLean
Ed McMahon
George Michael
Eddie Money
Mary Tyler Moore
Bruce Morrow
David Nelson
Julie Newmar
Wayne Newton
Peter Noone of the Herman's Hermits
Tony Orlando
Donny Osmond
Gary Owens
Lisa Marie Presley
Gary Puckett
Kenny Rogers
Freddie Roman
Linda Ronstadt
Rose Marie
Todd Rundgren
Bobby Rydell
Mort Sahl
John Sebastian
Neil Sedaka
Bob Shannon
Scott Shannon
Patrick Simmons of the Doobie Brothers
Nancy Sinatra
Jaclyn Smith
Frankie Valli
Bobby Vinton
Jimmy Webb
Adam West
Barry Williams
Jo Anne Worley
Alan Young
John Zacherley
Kool & the Gang
Dick Van Dyke
Joe Namath
Gloria Gaynor
"Saturday Night Oldies. What an awesome idea!"
"Who else could pull this off?"
"Around here we STILL play the hits!"
"This is the station you grew up with. Who said you had to grow up?"
