The Phil Hendrie Show

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The Phil Hendrie Show

Genre	Comedy, Talk
Running time	3 hours Monday-Friday, with an extra fourth hour exclusive to KTLK
Country	United States
Home station	KTLK AM 1150
Creators	Phil Hendrie
Air dates	1990 to present
Website http://www.philhendrieshow.com

The Phil Hendrie Show is a comedy talk radio program. The show is syndicated throughout North America on Talk Radio Network. It is known for outrageous guests, all of whom were fictional and voiced live by the host, Phil Hendrie.

Though Hendrie often explained that he was doing the voices, listeners unfamiliar with the show's format were duped into believing that the guests on the show were real and were invited to call in to engage in conversation with the "guests". Hendrie rapidly switched back and forth between a studio microphone and a conventional telephone, creating the illusion that his "guest" had called into the show. Adding to the illusion, the telephone line often featured recorded background noises that simulated various locations, such as a bowling alley, the kitchen of a restaurant, or, on at least one occasion, a washroom. Hendrie commented many times on the air that the actual point of the show was the callers' reaction to his "guests", not the guests themselves, and that he was merely illustrating his perception about the ignorance of talk radio listeners.

The show ran for nearly 16 years, from August 1990 to June 23, 2006, when Hendrie announced his retirement. Reruns continued on KLAC in Los Angeles through November 2006 and CKTB until April 2007.

In June 2007, Hendrie announced he was returning to the airwaves, via the Talk Radio Network, starting almost exactly a year from the day of his retirement (June 25) in a later time slot (10 PM-1 AM PT). This incarnation of the show was originally more political and issues oriented than its previous versions. Within a few weeks of the show's re-launch, his old mock guests returned to the show, but initially they no longer interacted with the callers. In May of 2008, callers are sparingly included in the show as before, starting with a segment featuring Bob Greene and an unsuspecting female caller on 5/2/2008.

Within a month of the show's relaunch, Hendrie's show had already achieved forty affiliates, although in one notable instance Brian Maloney reported that in Boston, Hendrie affiliate WTKK saw its listenership drop 91% in the overnights after Hendrie started airing in the slot.^[1]

1 Show history
2 Show format
3 Guests
4 External links
5 References

[edit] Show history

Hendrie began doing voices on his program at KVEN in Ventura, California during the Gulf War when he created "Raj Fahneen," an Egyptian who demanded that George H. W. Bush bow down to Iraqis^[2]. After leaving KVEN in 1992, Hendrie did a short stint as an evening host at WSB-AM in Atlanta before moving to WCCO-AM in Minneapolis. Phil left WCCO-AM on March 12, 1994 and moved to WIOD in Miami. Hendrie hosted the afternoon drive-time slot, and further developed his characters' personalities, adding their lasting traits. He garnered a large fan base there, and released three "Best Of" CDs, all of which benefited the Miami charity organization Center One. In 1996, Hendrie moved to KFI in Los Angeles to further develop his show and reach a larger audience. In September 1999, Hendrie became syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks, and eventually reached around 100 affiliates.

In February 2005, Hendrie's show moved to XTRA Sports 570 (KLAC), deemed a better fit for his show's mostly male audience. John Ziegler, a local Los Angeles conservative talk show host, moved into his slot on KFI. ^[3]

[edit] Show format

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When Hendrie had one of his "guests" on, the opening segment was usually cordial, and presented an unusual premise for discussion. In the second segment, a new outrageous element was usually brought into the ongoing discussion, and callers were introduced. The callers usually expressed outrage at the guests, and the guest typically responded in a caustic manner. In the third segment, a third and final surprise entered the conversation and often a hilarious crescendo pitch was reached that left callers exhausted and enraged and listeners laughing. The caller and guest conversed in downright bellicose tones, which often became a surreal good cop/bad cop routine as Hendrie hung up on his guest and apologized to the caller.

Typically, two hours of the three hour show were devoted to character-based comedy segments, where the fake guests interact with real callers. The remaining hour was devoted to Phil's commentary on the topics of the day, and to short comedy bits that could not occupy a full hour of the show. Sometimes, two hours were used for commentary and shorter bits, and only one hour of a fake guest was performed. Hendrie's other segments included "How to Read a News Story," "Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell (an impersonation of radio host Art Bell)", "Phil's Mailbag," "Flashback Requests", "Bud Dickman's Radical NASCAR Accidents", "Phil Explains the Bullcrap with Frodo the Puppet," and "Life Imitates Phil," a segment where an outrageous stunt made up on the program was later duplicated in real life.

Phil was joined in the studio by Bud Dickman, a slightly mentally-retarded intern voiced in a relatively cartoonish Kermit the Frog-like tone by Hendrie. According to the character's backstory, his brain damage is the result of a motorcycle accident that sent him head first through an oak tree near Ojai, California. Bud often antagonized Phil by making bad jokes, or ratting him out to programming director David G. Hall (a fictionalized version voiced by Hendrie) when the host says something that could be metaphor for sex or genitalia. Hendrie has admitted on several occasions that this "sidekick" was something of a safety-net, bailing him out of long rants or unsuccessful bits. At the same time, Bud had become one of the shows' most beloved characters, and there was a fan uproar when Phil "fired" him briefly in 2004. Bud had also been "killed" at least once by Phil, only to reappear moments later saying he got better.

Often during some segments of the show, Hendrie provided his own personal opinions and commentary on his life, career, and various news stories. The number of these segments devoted to political commentary increased following the September 11, 2001 attacks, as he has become a staunch supporter of President Bush's war on terrorism. A longtime Democrat and staunchly liberal on a number of issues, Hendrie has strongly voiced opposition to the Democratic Party in recent years, accusing it of having lost touch with its core constituents and failing to adequately engage with a philosophy to win the war on terror. Beginning in January 2004, however, The Phil Hendrie Show decreased the number of "serious" segments in Hendrie's own voice and returned to the commentary-through-satire which originally made him famous. The 2007 revival of the program resembles primarily these "serious" segments.

In earlier shows, particularly during Hendrie's stint at WIOD in Miami, Hendrie would field questions and complaints in a one-on-one format with callers, pretending to be station manager Bob Green, the station's rabbi, or in one case, "Manager of Accounts" at Century Village, a local retirement community.

Hendrie often promotes My Friend's Place, a resource center for homeless youth based in Hollywood, California, and donates all the proceeds from the sales of his "Best Of" CDs to the center.

[edit] Guests

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The show featured dozens of recurring fictional personalities. While Hendrie's was not the first nor the only show that featured fictional characters, Hendrie's guests were at first never proclaimed to be fictional. Hendrie used these fictional personalities, which usually had some sort of outrageous personality trait, as "guests" for his show, conducting a mock interview with the character and allowing the unsuspecting caller to call in.

A complete listing of Hendrie's fictional guests can be found here. (Subscription required.)