‘Billie the Brownie’ was featured in 2006 PBS documentary

Sari Goodman Ross was a high school student in Milwaukee, Wis., when she auditioned in 1943 at WTMJ radio, reading lines for the part of the “Billie the Brownie,” a beloved Christmas character who had been created by the art department of the Shuster’s Department Store chain in Milwaukee.

Sari had gained experience performing as a child actor in community theater, so she was hired on the spot by WTMJ’s Larry Teich. He instructed her to use her “high-pitched little boy voice” to portray the elf-like Billie.”

During the Christmas holiday shopping season, the 15-minute radio show was broadcast Monday-Friday at 5 p.m. and on Sunday morning. 

Children faithfully tuned in to listen, hopeful that their letters to Santa would be selected to be read on air…seemingly increasing the likelihood that their special gift requests would be honored by Santa on Christmas Eve.

Sari held the role as Billie for three years. She reminisced about that experience with television host Jim Peck of PBS Milwaukee in 2006 for a documentary observing the 75-year anniversary of Billie’s radio show, which debuted on Nov. 8, 1931.

 

Also appearing on the studio set with Peck was Doris Alaimo-Melillo, author of the 2006 children’s book, “Dori Mae and Her Friend Billie,” which masterfully tells the Billie the Brownie story from a young radio listener’s perspective.

 

Peck and his guests laughed about some of the rituals associated with the Billie the Brownie program. 

For example, Doris said: “Children were urged to be obedient and kind to their parents, not bicker with their siblings, eat their vegetables, brush their teeth, make their bed, hang up their clothes and do their household chores. We knew the invisible ‘Peeping Brownies’ were out and about checking up on us”…and filing their reports directly with Santa at the North Pole.

So, when the children were instructed by Billie to face the radio and assert loudly “I’ve been good,” it was a morality check, Sari interjected. “If too many kids were fibbing, Santa’s magic storybook would not open that evening,” she said.

 

As a young girl, Doris was called Dori Mae, and she was a loyal Billie fan. “Oh dear, was it me?” she asked herself. “Did I do something wrong? Did I forget to brush my teeth or hang up my clothes?”

Doris’ fond childhood memories of growing up in Milwaukee provided the inspiration to write the 32-page book to commemorate Billie’s 75-year anniversary in 2006 and “preserve an important part of Milwaukee’s heritage.”

Peck told his audience that he totally “loves the Dori Mae book; it’s a terrific story…and is beautifully illustrated” by artist Christiane Cassan Wiese.

Local Milwaukee historian Paul H. Geenen reflected on the “timing” of Billie’s premiere on WTMJ in 1931: “The Great Depression was a worrisome time of penny-pinching and determination.”

 

“Families made do with essentials, with little left over for holiday excess. This was the time of radio’s debut in America, the internet of its day, a perfect home for Billie.”

By the mid-1930s, this mass medium had found its way into 60-70% of American homes. People could turn the dial and find immediate local and national connection. For the first time, Milwaukeeans needed distractions, reasons to forget their troubles; and the marvel of a squeaky-voiced, invisible brownie named Billie came into their homes through WTMJ radio.”

“When the Great Depression gave way to World War II, the show brought cheer to the next batch of children,” Geenen wrote. “But gradually, television sets with jaunty antennae replaced the stately radio in American living rooms. Billie did not make the transition.”

 Yet, as Doris attests: “Billie remains a magical being at Christmastime.”