John Dennis (born c:a 1952 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American radio talk show host for WEEI, known for the Dennis and Callahan show.
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Mr. Dennis earned a bachelor's degree in telecommunications and journalism, magna cum laude, at Kent State University in 1974. At age 22, he served as sports director and weekday anchor for WDAF-TV, an NBC affiliate in Kansas City, Missouri. He later became a studio anchorman at WPSL radio. In 1977, he joined WNAC-TV Channel 7 (later WNEV and now WHDH-TV) in Boston. Over the next 21 years he covered the Boston sports scene for the station holding the following roles: weekend and weekday sports anchor, sports producer, sports director as well as producing several sports features and investigative reports. John Dennis is involved with several Boston based charities, raising money for the Jimmy Fund, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and he is on the board of directors for the Mutual Funds Against Cancer Organization.[1] Dennis has made cameos in many of the Farrelly brothers' films.[2]
In 1999, the Boston Globe's executive sports editor, Don Skwar banned its sportswriters from the Globe from appearing on the Dennis & Callahan morning show because of its perceived lowbrow humor. This came two weeks after he banned Globe sportswriters from appearing on WEEI's afternoon The Big Show after columnist Ron Borges appeared on the show and used a racial slur to describe New York Yankees pitcher Hideki Irabu. After the ban, WEEI retaliated by banning Globe sportswriters from all WEEI programs.[3][4]
On September 29, 2003, during a segment called 'headlines', where they read and comment about current news stories, Callahan and his morning co-host John Dennis made racially insensitive remarks while discussing a story about an escaped gorilla. The gorilla had escaped from the Franklin Park Zoo and had been recaptured at a bus stop. Their on the air banter included these lines:
Callahan: "They caught him at a bus stop, right -- he was like waiting to catch a bus out of town."
Dennis: "Yeah, yeah -- he's a METCO gorilla."
Callahan: "Heading out to Lexington."
Dennis: "Exactly."[5]
METCO is a state program that buses inner-city Boston students to nearby suburban schools. Many perceived the comments to be comparing poor, mostly African-American children to gorillas.
On September 2, 2003, according to the Boston Globe, "Wellesley boy put on Metco bus by mistake". Three days later the Globe reported: "A black kindergartner who lives in Wellesley was mistaken for a student in the Metco desegregation program, put on a Metco bus after school, and erroneously dropped off in Dorchester. The boy, was returned home after the parent of a Metco student who saw him get off the bus in Boston called his family.
The executive director of the Wellesley Community Children's Center, yesterday called the mixup inadvertent. But said she has launched an investigation into whether racial bias clouded the judgment of the white teacher who directed the child to the Metco bus on the first day of school. Wellesley's school superintendent, Matthew King, called the METCO incident "outrageous".
Uncertainty over how such a mistake was made has prompted some soul-searching in Wellesley, a predominantly white community that is proud of its participation in the voluntary desegregation program, which buses minority children from Boston into suburban public schools."
On September 20, 2003 the Globe reported, "Franklin Park gorilla escapes, attacks 2" "Ape cuts girl, 2, and bites zoo worker before recapture"
In his second escape in two months, a 300-pound gorilla stormed out of the Franklin Park Zoo last night, attacking a 2-year-old girl and a zoo employee and leading authorities on a massive chase until his capture nearly 2 hours later.
The adolescent male gorilla was shot at least four times with tranquilizer darts. The animal, described as nervous outside his enclosure and energized by adrenaline, eluded authorities despite the initial shots of sedatives, drawing large crowds of curious spectators and even pausing for a rest at a bus stop. Mark Matthews, a firefighter who lives on Seaver Street, heard the reports of the gorilla chase on his police scanner. "I saw the gorilla sitting at the bus stop. Everybody was scared, including the police. They hit him twice with a tranquilizer gun," Matthews said."
Dennis and Callahan, were joking about the accompanying news photo of the gorilla standing next to the bus stop sign near where the boy from Wellesley was dropped off by the METCO bus, and confused the town of Wellesley with Lexington. The two bus stops are 1.25 miles apart and both are adjacent to Franklin Park, the location of the zoo.
WEEI general manager Tom Baker suspended both hosts for two days, then extended the suspension to two weeks after the Blue Cross-Blue Shield (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts) pulled $27,000 in ads and in turn donated that money to METCO. Dunkin' Donuts responded by ceasing all advertising that involved the voices of John Dennis or Gerry Callahan. Both hosts apologized, though in a way many thought was sarcastic and insincere, and were sent to sensitivity training. WEEI also agreed to provide free advertising for the METCO program on the radio station. In November 2003, WEEI General Manager Tom Baker was replaced by Julie Kahn. Station executives denied there was a connection between the METCO incident and Baker's replacement. Nowadays, both Dennis and Callahan regularly mock their sensitivity training punishment and seemingly the victims of their taunt.
Mr. Dennis had a personal conflict with Ryen Russillo, a New England Patriot commentator at WBCN, during which he left Rusillo a voicemail.[6] following a conversation between John Dennis's daughter and Mr Rusillo at a local Boston bar. Subsequently, and perhaps from Dennis's intervention and close relationship with Patriot's owner Robert Kraft, Russillo lost that job.[7] Russillo currently works for ESPN, which is heard in part on WEEI.