Humble & Fred

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The Humble & Fred show was a Toronto-based radio morning drive time show featuring co-hosts "Humble" Howard Glassman and Fred Patterson. It began in 1989 on CFNY-FM (later renamed Edge 102) before moving to Mojo 640 in April 2001, and finally to Mix 99.9 in August 2003. Glassman had previously left CFNY for CKFM in May 1991 (which became Mix 99.9 later that year), only to return 19 months later at the end 1992.^[1]^[2] As of 2003, the show had been named Best Morning Show in Canada four times by the Canadian Radio industry.^[3]

In August 2005, Patterson was relieved of his duties with the station (though he remained under contract), which cited struggling ratings as a factor in their decision to shake up the show. The show was rebilled as the Humble Howard morning show. However, in July 2006, the show was removed from the schedule and replaced temporarily by Steve Anthony. Mad Dog and Billie took over the slot on a permanent basis on August 8, 2006.

When Patterson was released from the show, there was significant curiosity about the true story behind the occurrence. Glassman was not able to say anything on the air, but he did offer contact information for his personal BlackBerry and readily invited those curious to contact him for the actual story.

One of the regular occurrences of the Humble & Fred show was its annual "Gift of Christmas" show, the last few of which were broadcast from the Courthouse restaurant in downtown Toronto (the shows had previously been broadcast from the Horseshoe Tavern and other venues). The last Christmas show on terrestrial radio took place without Patterson on December 23, 2005. Longtime performers on the Christmas shows included comedy group, the Doo Wops, and various members of Barenaked Ladies. On December 22, 2006, the 17th annual Humble & Fred Christmas show was made available at humbleandfred.com (no longer working) as a free podcast^[4].

Humble and Fred can be seen in the 2003 documentary film Flyerman. The movie recorded them as they broadcasted live to air at MOJO with their guest.