Tom Koch
Date of Birth
Tom Koch (pronounced “cook”) was a writer best known for his work on the radio program Bob and Ray. He also created a comically complex game called 43-man Squamish for Mad magazine.
The game, revealed in a 1965 issue of Mad, and presented as an alternative to organized college sports, ended up being unofficially played on campuses across the country. It involves a pentagonal field, a “Pritz” ball stuffed with blue jay feathers, and a “Frullip” stick with which to hit the "Pritz," or to block the other team from scoring.
Koch was born in Charleston, Illinois, in 1925, and earned a bachelor's degree in journalism at Northwestern University. He broke into show business in Chicago as a writer for Dave Garroway's radio program.
His work with Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding began in 1955 when he was recruited to write for their radio show. He sent the duo 10 scripts, eight of which were bought. He followed that up with another 10 scripts, and eventually wrote almost 3,000 sketches in his 33 years with the pair. The five-minute sketches parodied everything from popular soap operas to the imagined workers of an igloo factory in Greenland. Koch also wrote the Bob and Ray TV special "A Cure for California," earning him an Emmy Award.
Tom Koch (pronounced “cook”) was a writer best known for his work on the radio program Bob and Ray. He also created a comically complex game called 43-man Squamish for Mad magazine.
The game, revealed in a 1965 issue of Mad, and presented as an alternative to organized college sports, ended up being unofficially played on campuses across the country. It involves a pentagonal field, a “Pritz” ball stuffed with blue jay feathers, and a “Frullip” stick with which to hit the "Pritz," or to block the other team from scoring.
Koch was born in Charleston, Illinois, in 1925, and earned a bachelor's degree in journalism at Northwestern University. He broke into show business in Chicago as a writer for Dave Garroway's radio program.
His work with Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding began in 1955 when he was recruited to write for their radio show. He sent the duo 10 scripts, eight of which were bought. He followed that up with another 10 scripts, and eventually wrote almost 3,000 sketches in his 33 years with the pair. The five-minute sketches parodied everything from popular soap operas to the imagined workers of an igloo factory in Greenland. Koch also wrote the Bob and Ray TV special "A Cure for California," earning him an Emmy Award.
His work in television included content for The 13th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards and episodes of All in the Family, My Mother the Car, Petticoat Junction and The Lucy Show, the latter of which was an episode titled “Lucy’s College Reunion,” in which Lucy and Viv relive an old tradition of stealing the school founder's statue. He was also a staff writer for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Dave Garroway, George Gobel, Pat Paulsen, Dinah Shore and Jonathan Winters.
Koch died March 22, 2015, in Laguna Woods, California. He was 89.
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