Easy To You

Moore was a receptionist at WABB in 1958, but this seemly small position under the Mobile Register-owned station would lead to speaking before a wide radio audience with her low tone voice, earning the liking of one WABB announcer. Radio and TV commercials, including a televised March of Dimes PSA featuring Moore as a donor would earn her something more than a year after working for WABB and WKAB radio, the daily half-hour program "Channel 10 Kitchen" on WALA-TV after the previous chef had to leave for health reasons. There was only one problem Channel 10 managed to deal with and that was the fact that Dot was not a cook. WALA's solution was to find a professional chef and let Moore assist before the viewers. Dot also got the last remark in the program's live commercials sponsored by General Electric. Even after retirement, Dot was not very fond of cooking herself, yet up until the very end of her career, she was still seen speaking to her cooking guests in the studio kitchen. Amazing enough, Dot managed to keep her son well nourished on something as easy to prepare as tuna fish casserole, in which Bobby would joke about at times. After the cooking show contract was finished, Dot returned to radio as a commercial copy writer in the WALA radio traffic department. There were also times when the TV side of the building called upon Dot for their commercials or public service spots. She was fired after a dispute with the new radio manager over paperwork that violates broadcasting rules in general. Termination gave Dot time to free-lance in media during the early 1960s. In this busy period of trying to stay in Gulf Coast media and keeping things well at home, Dot was actually contacted by a WALA-TV announcer who wanted her to co-host the station's new program "Poolside" from the Admiral Semmes Hotel in downtown Mobile. Dot accepted the job and continued to expand her horizons, both creatively and physically. After a successful run of "Poolside", Dot returned to free-lancing, including some work for Gayfer's department store and their commercials for Pensacola station WEAR-TV. Just when Dot was getting ready to step out of the public eye after a week of commercials and public appearances in Pensacola, a friend employed at WALA stopped by the Gayfer's store to deliver her some good news. A new afternoon talk show of her very own was set to premiere on the following Monday, with all the guests booked for that week. On May 14, 1963, "Dot Moore & Company" went the air between 12:00 p.m. and 12:30 p.m.. The radio manager who had fired Dot previously was eventually fired shortly after learning of her return from his TV counterpart. Viewers from south Mississippi to the Florida panhandle also got to see Dot help WALA cover Mobile's Mardi Gras Day celebration for 33 years. Ten years after "Dot Moore & Company" went on the air, Dot was given an on-air partner named Danny Treanor and the show became known as "Gulf Coast Today" in 1973. The 9:00 a.m. program following NBC's "Today" continued with this format for the next four years until Dot regained the position of host and producer of the show. In September 1979, "Gulf Coast Today" began airing once a week before it once again bore Dot's name. "The Dot Moore Show" would remain on WALA's schedule well into the 21st century.