The Peacock Man

You heard his voice about as often as you saw the NBC peacock unfold its feathers. That’s because his voice was the one in the background through the 1960s that said “The following program is brought to you in Living Color on NBC.”

Mel Brandt was one of many staff announcers on television in the 1960s introing shows or reading promos. You knew his voice, and Vic Roby’s and Bill Hanrahan’s and Fred Collins’ but they never said their names. They might have identified themselves in the network radio days a decade earlier (Collins hosted some music shows, Brandt and Don Pardo read the news).

Despite his on-air anonymity, Brandt got ink in his local paper in Montclair, New Jersey on a number of occasions. We’ll just pass along two of them. The first is in the February 27, 1958 issue of the Montclair Times. It gives you a bit of background behind “the Living Color” man. Working six days a week was normal in radio then.

You’ve Undoubtedly Seen or Heard Him Often
Mel Brandt, TV, Radio Announcer, on NBC 6 Days a Week.
By DELLA J. BRYCE
"I wouldn't have it any other way," remarked Mel Brandt of 42 Windermere Rd., Upper Montclair, NBC radio and television announcer, master of ceremonies, commentator and actor, in discussing his personal reaction to such a career.
Presently host for the television show, "Modern Romances," presented Monday to Friday at 4:45 on Channel 4, and narrator on the radio show, "True Confessions," from 2:05 to 2:30 on WRCA, plus other radio and TV appearances, Mr. Brandt keeps a busy, time-bound schedule six days a week. His Sunday timetable starts with "Comic Weekly Man" at 11:35 A.M., includes news casts, and finishes at midnight after a two-hour stint as communicator on "Monitor." He is under exclusive contract to NBC and besides staff duties does shows for commercial clients. Ha has been with NBC a little over ten years.
Originally an actor, the tall, dark-haired and serious young man now prefers the networks to the stage, and an announcer's career to tin actor's because of the security regular employment provides. "Announcing is steadier than acting," he commented. "As narrator on "True Confessions' I've seen six casts come and go."
Interesting People
The opportunity to meet interesting people is high on the list of advantages for a radio and television career, Mr. Brandt feels. "You meet prominent people in all fields, who are interesting, of course, not because of their prominence but in their own right. Panel shows bring in noted figures in public life, so that in addition to all the well known theatrical people, you have a chance to meet a great many outstanding and famous people."
Mr. Brandt welcomes constructive fan mail. "If anybody watching has any idea how a show might be improved, or if there's any particular objection or something he likes especially well, I'd be very glad to hear it. Fan mail is the only way I have of gauging what I'm presenting. It governs my behavior on the air."
As for the difference in radio and television broadcasting, Mr. Brandt stated, "When you're a television announcer and get out there alone in front of the cameras and the red lights go on, there's an odd sensation the like of which there is no other! You may have memorized the script just a few minutes before, but you often find yourself suddenly having to ad lib."

Mr. Brandt was the announcer for "Producer's Showcase" from its inception; he announced the show, "When A Girl Marries;" he played the lead in "Light of the World" and Kraft Theatre and Philco Theatre productions; he has had feature roles in soap operas and morning strips; he took over the newscast on radio five or six years ago that had previously been given by John Cameron Swayze and John McVane. These are among the many programs on which he has appeared.
The National Association of Christians and Jews named "The Storytellers Playhouse," in which Mr. Brandt played "six or seven" characters as the best show of its type for the year.
Here Six Years
Mr. Brandt and his attractive family have lived in Montclair six years, the last few in the home they built on Windermere Rd. They close Montclair, which they like very much, when they drove through on their way to visit friends in Verona. Mr. Brandt had worked on television with other Montclair residents, the late James Van Dyk, Rosemary Rice and Edgar Stehli, but didn't know until he came here that they lived here.
Mrs. Brandt met his wife when they were both acting in Summer stock in New Hampshire. They have three children, Pamela, 11; Robert, 9, and Richard 1. Mr. and Mrs. Brandt belong to Union Congregational Church and the Northeast Parent-Teacher Association. He appeared in "For Love or Money" and "The Moon Is Blue" given by the Montclair Dramatic Club and "Brigadoon" presented by the Montclair Operetta Club.
For his brief leisure moments, Mr. Brandt has three hobbies, photography, gardening and hi-fi. The latter interest resulted from his experience as disc jockey for the radio program, "Ten Top Tunes."
Mr. Brandt was born in Brooklyn, attended Brooklyn College where he was a speech major, and Columbia University where he studied business and administration. When he was in college he was associated with WNYC and his first job after he finished college was with WOR.
During World War II Mr. Brandt served with the Office of War Information, on detached service, giving Voice of America newscasts from Reykjavik, Iceland, where he remained for two and one-half years. He then went to Europe with the Third Infantry Division. Returning to the United States, after the war was over, he went back to freelance announcing, and worked for all the major networks before joining NBC.
Three months ago Mr. Brandt replaced Martha Scott on "Modern Romances." "I'm very lucky that my two daily programs dovetail," he explained. "Just as I finish one, I'm due at the rehearsal for the next one. 'Modern Romances' is given now at the Century Theatre, so I have a waiting elevator and a waiting taxi cab and I get there, well, generally, just five minutes late. I have a stand-in for that time."

We’ll jump ahead to 1970. Brandt’s connection with one TV soap prompted an interviewer to ask him about the shows. Brandt knew something about television soaps. He acted in one in 1946 on the Du Mont station in New York. There was no Du Mont network and there weren’t even a dozen TV stations in the U.S. at that point. There was plenty of strike talk at NBC in 1970. AFTRA and the three networks reached a deal in May and a NABET walkout was averted in June. This story explains why, in 1970, there were still staff announcers sitting in booths at 50 Rock.

Mel Brandt Divides Between Time Between Soaps and Union
By MARY CLARKE
Herald-News Staff Writer
NEW YORK — Mel Brandt’s watch is three seconds fast. That gives me a little leeway," he says, "because if I'm one second late, I might as well not come."
Why such exceptional concern with punctuality? Because Mel Brandt is a radio and TV announcer. His is the voice which assures you your program is "coming to you in living color," while the peacock on NBC spreads his tail.
The Montclair resident spends most of his day in the RCA building in New York, moving from one studio to another, announcing programs such as "Youth Forum" and "The Doctors" and standing by for the hourly station identification.
A Federal Communications Commission regulation requires that the station identify itself each hour, and a union job-security regulation demands that this announcement be made by an announcer rather than a disc jockey. This means that although the announcement is on tape, an announcer must stand by in case the tape fails, and this lot falls to Mel Brandt two or three times a day.
Besides being the voice, in numerous commercials (Eastman Kodak, G.E., Ford, St. Joseph's Aspirin), Brandt is the announcer for "College Bowl" and president of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
The AFTRA position is the catch. His non-paying, elected post as national president of the group extends his long working day well into the night. The union is presently negotiating a contract which ran out last Nov. 15, and Brandt often spends his evenings with the negotiating team at the CBS studio.
During the day, the announcer uses the time between his assignments at NBC to stop at a studio telephone and call other officers of the union or to talk with members about the negotiations or an important meeting. He also calls his agent, who sometimes has a job or an audition, which he squeezes in between assignments.
A sizeable part of Brandt's day is spent reassuring millions of housewives that "The Doctors will return after this message." He must spend half an hour on the set to be ready to join Ross Martindale, the sound-effects man, who is also from Montclair, in a small sound-proof room in time to make his three announcements during the show.
Each episode of "The Doctors" is taped about two weeks before it appears on TV, and it is written only a few weeks before that. The cast rehearses for hours before Brandt arrives at the studio and the dress rehearsal begins. While Dr. Bellini argues with Phyllis Carrigan about whether to take Gary to Pierre, S.D., for surgery for a subdural hematoma, Mel Brandt wanders around the studio, munching a hasty ham and cheese sandwich.
Brandt defends the maligned "soaps" or dramatic strips as they are now called, as psychodrama. "There is no right and wrong, no good and bad. Everyone can identify with one side or another and obtain some insight into the other side of the question," Brandt says.
The actors in these tear-stained dramas must be able to learn their lines very quickly, and work week after week for years portraying the same characters. These are some of the people for whom Brandt works so diligently at AFTRA.
A performer for more than 25 years, Brandt began his career as an actor in the days of "Ma Perkins" and "Gangbusters." He became an announcer by chance. He was visiting agencies looking for work and he stopped in at an ad agency where the receptionist asked, "Are you here for the audition?”
“I said yes," Brandt says, "because you always said yes in those days." And he got the job. He worked free-lance until joining NBC 23 years ago, giving up more money for security.
When his third term of office as president of AFTRA runs out this July, Brandt is thinking of trying his hand at another profession: politics. A liberal Republican, he supported New Jersey Gov. William T. Cahill and New York Mayor John V. Lindsay, and has been approached as a possible candidate, but admits "I'm not sure I'm emotionally ready to take the ugliness of politics." Brandt lives in Montclair with his wife, Doris, and their three children.

Brandt’s career at NBC outlasted his peacock-assisted announcement; it was retired after 1975. He got caught in network politics in 1981 when he replaced Don Pardo as the announcer on Saturday Night Live (Pardo returned a season later when the politics changed). He continued his involvement with the AFTRA pension fund into 1998.

The award winner of the Brooklyn College Radio Guild and the Brooklyn College “Masquers” drama club (as Melvin Sidney Goldberg), and Technician fourth grade in the U.S. Army during World War II, bought a place in Florida, where he passed away in 2008 apparently without much notice at the time. He was 88.

NBC brought back the peacock moniker for its streaming service. It’d be a nice touch if they brought back Mel Brandt’s voice, too.