2/18/2007

Gung hay fat choi! That’s (I think) “Happy New Year” in Chinese- because today marks Chinese New Year! (I’ll have to ask my friend Linda Yu if I got that even close!) There’s even more special days this week- President’s day tomorrow, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, Washington’s birthday, Flag Day on Saturday (that’s in Mexico)…I once worked on a pilot for a radio feature called “Every Day’s a Holiday”- in which we’d do a shtick thing for whatever special day it was. Stuff like National Clown Day Could be found on a special calendar that many radio and TV stations could order that had listings of the various special days and birthdays for each day (yes, this was WAAY before the Internet.) That way, Jerky McDiscJockey could know that it was Phyllis Diller’s birthday, the beginning of the cowchip throwing season in Duluth, and the first day of National Take a Pickle to Work Week. This was always good filler for bad air personalities. I always loved doing radio- and hope to go back and do some more before I eventually retire. Obviously, I’d need less make-up. Thanks to my various friends on the air, I get to be a guest every so often, and it’s almost always fun. Maybe it’d be fun to do a weekly Svengoolie radio show- but I’d have to simulate the sound of the rubber chicken barrages- maybe like they used to do when “recreating” baseball broadcasts years ago-they’d hit a leather cushion with a bat to make the sound effects. I’d probably have to do it with an actual bat (the “squeak, squeak” kind- no, never mind, the PETA people would be after me.) As I’ve mentioned before, Sven was a prominent character when I did mornings at WCKG back in 1989…we even used to do radio versions of “Sven-eymooners” episodes! When I did fill-in work at WGN radio, we had to steer the callers away from always asking Sven questions- the management didn’t want the shows to become only Sven oriented. Now, many years later, when I visit with Steve and Johnnie on that station, Sven is a welcome guest. I did fill-in work during some of the final days of WCFL, when WGN’s Dean Richards was program director, and Sven was a part of those shows as well. So, Sven’s been a radio personality in his own right! I always envision doing an old-time radio show, like they had in the 40s, done with Sven, Doug, Tombstone, and the other Sven characters – maybe that’s something we could do on the TV show sometime (with the characters reading scripts into a microphone, somebody doing “live” sound effects- it would be a fun retro thing!) In the meantime, Mr. Goolie will be sticking to television appearances- but, you’ll have to wait a few days for the next one (unless you check out the Sven webisode here in our video room)-but- I will be back tomorrow with more blogging…