 The show's origins were completely by happenstance.In the summer of 1949, then-General Manager Mort Watters asked Lewis (hired on two months earlier as WCPO's first art director) to host an hour-long filler show called "Al's Corner Drugstore", in which Lewis, dressed in a soda jerk's uniform, would take phone-in requests for songs which he would play on his accordion, which would later become one of his many trademarks along with his straw boater hat.At that time, the show was not aired in a closed set, so people could walk in from off the street to watch the show in person.