Ray Rayner

Ray Rayner
Ray Rayner with Chelveston and Cuddly Dudley on Ray Rayner and His Friends.
Birth name	Raymond M. Rahner
Born	(1919-07-23)July 23, 1919 Queens, New York, United States
Died	January 21, 2004(2004-01-21) (aged 84) Fort Myers, Florida, United States
Show	Rayner Shine The Ray Rayner Show The Little Show Popeye's Firehouse Dick Tracy Ray Rayner and His Friends Rocket to Adventure Bozo's Circus
Station(s)	WGGB WOOD (AM) WBKB-TV (later WBBM-TV) WBBM-TV WGN-TV KGGM-TV
Country	US
Spouse(s)	Jeanne Rahner (m. ?–1995; her death) Marie Rahner (m. ?–2004; his death)
Children	2

Ray Rayner (born Raymond M. Rahner; July 23, 1919, Queens, New York – January 21, 2004) was a staple of Chicago children's television in the 1960s and 1970s on WGN-TV.

Rayner (the name was initially spelled "Rahner" but pronounced "Rayner") grew up in Queens, New York. He attended College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts; his first media job was working for WGBB radio in Freeport on Long Island while he was attending night school at Fordham University. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps, serving as the navigator of a B-17 during World War II, when he was shot down over France April 3, 1943. During  2 ¹⁄₂ years as a POW in Stalag Luft III, he helped prepare the escape depicted in the film The Great Escape—though he was transferred to another camp before the escape took place. It was during his time as a POW that he would discover his talent for entertaining, namely through his fellow prisoners and his German captors. He was interviewed in a documentary titled Stalag Luft III, produced by RDR Productions of Glenview, Illinois.

After briefly working in radio in Grand Rapids, Michigan on WOOD Radio as well as New York and Dayton, Ohio radio following the war, Rayner joined what was then WBKB but later became WBBM-TV in Chicago as a staff announcer; he also worked on a local morning program called Rayner Shine in 1953. This was Rayner's first work with puppets, who were provided for the show by the Mulqueens. He would get a noontime program called The Ray Rayner Show in 1953, he and his co-host Mina Kolb would host a somewhat free form show that would feature music, comedy skits, dance and pantomime. The show, geared towards teens, ran for five years.