Polkas! Elvis gets the boot for polkas? Clearly this was major news.
And, sure enough, the story soon spread to places as far away as Memphis and Denver. "The fans are being shafted and I'm being shafted," Cade told reporters who called.
Elvis loyalists, meanwhile, staged a brief rebellion. They wrote letters. They signed petitions. They lighted up the switchboard. They formed picket lines in the rain outside the Trenton radio station.
All for naught. The King of Rock and Roll, it turned out, was no match for the Polka King of the Delaware Valley. To this day, WTTM listeners are still greeted at 10 a.m. Saturday with the familiar, bilingual holler of Leon Fornal.
"Hello, you!" Fornal roars into the mike. "Ja cie szukam a ty tu!"
Then, for two hours, it's polka, polka, polka. Fast, lively Polish- American-style polkas, none of that oompah-oompah German stuff.
Though the Elvis show eventually resurfaced on a larger station in the area, WTTM officials have never regretted the move.
"That 10-to-noon Saturday slot was prime real estate, and that polka show really sells the ads," says John Forsyth, general manager of WTTM. "I'll bet there's not a kielbasa joint in the area that hasn't bought an ad on Leon's show."
All in all, the episode probably says less about polka and Elvis than it does about the popularity of Fornal, a sunny, 60-year-old grandfather with the hairline of an egg, the record collection of a beer hall and the cornball, elbow-rubbing style of an old-school politician.
"You don't have to be dressed. You don't have to have a reservation. You don't need a tuxedo. It's all free, so let's have a polka party!" Fornal exhorts his audience as he cues up another record.
