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In 1959 "Big Daddy" Dave McCormick was hosting the Hi Fi Club, a syndicated radio show, on C-FUN. The producers would send the package but the local deejay would run the contests, read the commercials and follow the scripts supplied. Dave\u2019s show became so popular station management suggested he take over programming, and Dave took C-FUN to its very first Top 40 format. Dave was creative and went up against established CKWX and won the ratings battle. He was inventive, promotion minded and saw the future. He knew what the kids wanted and delivered with great deejays and music. Dave hired Frosty Forst, Jerry Landa, Brian Lord, Andy Laughland and Al Jordan and called them the Good Guys. He was the first in North America to use this phrase. \n\nWhen I returned from working in the US in 1961, I returned to CKWX but times had changed and C-FUN was now King of the Hill.\xa0When Dave quit C-FUN in 1962 to take a job in California radio, we worked together on the transition. We both introduced C-FUN's top 50 songs of the week on a 4 hour radio\xa0show.\xa0Dave returned in later years to CFMI with his new show and a feature he called Discumentary. \n\nDave McCormick passed away yesterday and the radio people who knew him loved him as listeners over the decades will long remember his gifts to Vancouver radio. We all will miss him. Rest in Peace old friend. \n\nBack in December 2009 I wrote about this painting on redrobinson.com.\n\n"The timing couldn\u2019t be better for the genius of Bruce Stewart to strike again with this brand new \u201cfantasy\u201d painting of Dave McCormick and the original C-FUN deejays. Bruce has the ability to capture the essence of an era. This period at C-FUN was the first fling at Top 40 that was totally driven by Dave. He left in early 1962 and that is when I joined the illustrious group. Brian \u201cBaby Blue\u201d Lord left at the same time.\n\nFor more on C-FUN, visit Jim Bower\u2019s FUN-tastic site Vancouver Top 40 Radio http://www.vancouvertop40radio.com/. Jim was kind enough to pass along Bruce\u2019s note:\n\n'Late evening \u2013 summer of 1961. I, as a boy of almost fifteen, in hospital for a small procedure, but bed-bound for almost two weeks. Nothing to do but count the holes in the acoustic ceiling tiles, over and over \u2014 and listen to C-FUN, when Roy the Boy was \u2018Crying\u2019, and Paul Anka was \u2018Kissing on the Phone\u2019\u2026 all I could think of was the hot days and how they were passing me by, outside my window.\n\nAnd that imaginary summer view inside another window: the \u2018Control Room\u2019 and the board, where mischief was afoot, with Big Daddy at the controls, the Good Guys providing backup, awaiting their turn at the mike, taking requests, spinning the disks and weaving the magic! A fantasy image of what the listener (me) imagined just what the DJ board at C-FUN might look like amid the chaos of a Summer Soundathon week \u2014 if radio had pictures! Only in the mind\u2019s eye of a listener, out there, everywhere around a place called Funland!\n\nIn the late 60s, when I was working summers at UBC, I did an illustration for a dual Ampex tape deck module (reel to reel) commissioned by Stan Davis, whose company Broadcast Technical Services produced the module. Long after, I learned that Stan (now sadly passed) designed and built the technical end of C-FUN in the early 60s. I guess he was my inspiration for this piece, although a lot of my \u2018technical\u2019 input was made up \u2014 part of my \u2018imagining\u2019 concept. It IS a change from the other illustrations on the Vancouver Top 40 site, however! I kept adding more and more \u2018stuff\u2019, until it became a bit of a MAD magazine piece with subplots abounding... cats keeping the mice population down, and Frosty passing a chipped 45 to a harried and overworked Dave!'\u201d