Saturday, November 8, 2008

Radio In It's Most Exalted Form

Friends, do you enjoy radio? How about Radio Theater? Radio as an art-form? Not highfalutin, high-brow, shoving agendas down yer throat activist radio ala NPR et al.; but radio the way it was and can be... and in at least this case is.



Phil Hendrie is a radio genius! No kidding. Most anyone involved in radio will tell you so; or at the very least begrudgingly acknowledge that Phil is capable of things that they are not. I remember listening to him religiously in California on KFI AM 640 every evening. His ratings shot to the top as true entertainment was re-introduced to the air-waves. Phil was dangerous to listen to while driving, though. I remember two instances where I almost crashed my car during his show: One time was driving down to San Diego to exchange a couple vehicles for work. Phil was playing a game he called "True Talent, or Pant-Load" where callers were invited to call in and answer "True Talent" or "Pant-Load" to whatever name Phil called out. It went something like this:

Phil "Yes caller, thank you for playing 'True Talent, or Pant-Load'... Brad Pitt."

Caller "True Talent!"

Phil "No! I'm sorry, the correct answer is 'Pant-Load'.

And it went on for an entire segment like that, and I was having a hard time keeping the car under control. Another time my wife and I were rolling into town after a weekend away, and I don't remember exactly what Phil was talking about; something about a man-servant called "boy". Almost took out my wife and I in one fell swoop!

Well here is the point: There is a great Podcast that I want you to check out called "The Phil Hendrie Show Flashback". The fellow that runs this site offers daily clips from Phil's shows going way back into the vaults. Each clip is the corresponding date to the podcast date. In other words a podcast released today will be of a clip aired on this date however many years ago. Subscribe to it and have your iPod machine automatically updated! And remember two things: This is the way radio is supposed to be, and that Phil is doing almost all of the voices himself; the only exception is the unwitting callers.

Dig it, and dig in!

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the links!

    Phil is back on the air in the Los Angeles area. He's heard on 1150AM KTLK from 9pm to 1am (Pacific Time).

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