Phil Hendrie and the mocking of talk radio

It doesn’t happen often, and in today’s reality it is even rarer, but occasionally a radio program comes along that is special. Different. Wacky. Perhaps even insane.

We had that. It was The Phil Hendrie Show, as heard on KFI (640 AM) starting — if memory serves right — about 1996 and running locally and later syndication for about ten years. This is another show that defies description, and the uninitiated may not ever understand.

It was comedy. It was satire. It was a damning indictment of talk radio, as it mocked the format carried by the stations that ran it, including KFI. And it was all done by one man: Phil Hendrie.

The show consisted of the host speaking with guests — often more than one — and taking calls, just like any other talk show. Except that there were no guests … it was all Hendrie, an accomplished voice actor moving between multiple personalities all the while talking calls, some of whom were also Hendrie.

It was true radio magic. Hendrie would seamlessly move between his multiple characters throughout the night, often highlighting extraordinarily absurd statements and positions, all the while taking calls from actual listeners who thought everything was real. Regular “guests” included:

• Jay Santos, of the Citizens Auxiliary Police, dedicated to overly aggressive and strict enforcement of neighborhood rules. Santos and Dooley (below) once advocated for driving with the front door open and left leg sticking out to slow traffic in their neighborhoods.

• Mavis Leonard, known primarily for out of touch, absurdly old-fashioned views on life and how the world should be.

• Bobbie Dooley, a nosey housewife who got herself into controversy by advocating for things such as calling for the city to send more police to richer areas as they deserved more protection than others due to the higher taxes they pay; poor cities should not get such service.

• Steve Bosell, known for being a loudmouthed complainer who usually caused his own problems.

There were more, and often they would build on each other through the night as either in-person or call-in guests, again, all voiced by Hendrie himself, to the foil of actual callers who were not in on the joke. In fact, that was the point – mocking callers of talk shows for often not “getting it.”

The show was genius, and I am told that it was a real experience to watch. Hendrie would move between a regular microphone and an actual telephone to make his call-in guests sound authentic, and he often had pre-recorded background “ambiance” noises to simulate various locations that the “guests” would be calling from, be that a restaurant, on a street, or in a car.

He was able to keep the voices straight, and the only way you might know something was amiss — outside of the absurdity of it all — was that no one ever spoke at the same time. The characters would interrupt each other, but obviously being voiced by one person in real time, they could not talk at once.

Alas, in 2006 after one year on KLAC (570 AM) rather than KFI, Hendrie retired from radio. He came back a few times, and the show has had various incarnations since that time including a current online presence via podcasts and at philhendrieshow.com. But it’s not the same as when listeners would be so convinced it was real that they would call the KFI studios and write to the FCC complaining about the program, even if it was all in fun.

As it turns out, the show was so good, someone did a movie about it. Available on Amazon Prime and I am told other platforms, Hendrie tells the story of his show and its development. I have not seen it myself, but I plan to. It’s produced by Freestyle Digital Media and directed by Patrick Reynolds.

Cumulus Bankruptcy

According to TheStreet.com, Cumulus Media — owner of KABC (790 AM) locally, along with stations across the country — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Southern Texas Bankruptcy court on March 5th.

This is another “pre-packaged bankruptcy” designed to eliminate the company’s debt, where terms are agreed-upon by the parties involved ahead of time in order for it to process faster and smoother than normal. It’s not a slam dunk, though, and it shows the problems still facing the industry. This is not the first time Cumulus has gone through it.

Says industry observer Jerry Del Colliano of InsideMusicMedia.com, “The upside is limited and a lot could go wrong.” He says to watch out for asset stripping — selling the stations or property for whatever they can get, along with increased FCC scrutiny. In other words, even if this process is smooth, the future may not be.