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10 Questions with ... Phil Hendrie
March 28, 2006
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NAME:Phil HendrieTITLE:Radio satiristSTATION:110 stationsMARKET:USA (and a little bit of Canada)COMPANY:Premiere Radio NetworksBORN:Pasadena, Ca. USARAISED:Pasadena/Arcadia, Ca. USA
BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
My first fulltime radio job was at WBJW Orlando, 1973-1975. I had a disc jockey career that spanned 17 years and the cities of New Orleans, Utica, NY, Miami, San Diego and Los Angeles. I was predictably fired from several gigs before deciding on a career in spoken-word radio. Beginning in August of 1990, I developed, executed and amazed people with a new interactive radio theater-type show in which the actor (me) brings unwitting callers up onto the stage with him. I have since been in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Miami, Los Angeles and national.
NOTE: "Teachers," the new NBC comedy featuring Phil Hendrie, debuts Tuesday, March 28 at 9:30p ET/PT and 8:30p CT/MT, right after "Scrubs."
1. What was it that attracted you to the radio business? Is it still there- do you think that, if you were looking to come into the business now, you'd choose to do it?
I initially wanted to be a jazz disc jockey, picking cool music to play and becoming famous for being hip. I found out that no one on the air picks their own music. They are told what to play by the program director. So getting into the business now, to be a DJ, would be horrifying. However, entering the business now doing what I do would be a Godsend, because there are now more venues than ever before for actual air talent and the music business is killing its relationship with radio anyway. The only proviso I would add to my enthusiasm is that if one is truly striving to "create great radio" one must be mindful of the fact that 97% of all radio management people, at every level, wouldn't recognize great radio if it walked up to them and kissed them full on the mouth. However, at the end of the day, talent gets noticed, so paying the dues is worth it.
2. GMs and PDs don't always get what the show's all about. What's the dumbest thing a PD or GM has ever said to you about the show?
The fact that men and women who call themselves broadcasters and are in a management level position in this business "don't get what the show is all about" not only proves my point, but is enough to make you want to break down and sob. It is honestly dumbfounding but, after 33 years, completely expected. Fortunately, for me, I have a family of broadcasters who carry my show, get it, like it and are proud of it. The problem is most management people come from a sales background, not a creative background. They are not qualified to judge radio air work regardless of what they think.
The dumbest thing I ever heard was something this one guy said to me after I caught him running his fingers along my wife's back, while he was drunk of course, at an industry cocktail party. This is what he said: "I love your show." I told him to shut up, get away from my wife and get away from me.
3. Your show skewers the conventions of talk radio, but is there any traditional talk radio you like? Who are the real talents in radio?
The real talents in so-called talk radio are few, but obviously include Howard Stern, who invented the modern radio show, Jim Rome, who has shown the sports world what real humor and timing is (as opposed to thinking Terry Bradshaw is some kind of a wit), Rush Limbaugh, who brought theater to news/talk (and some people still think its about the politics), Neil Rogers, who is the greatest raconteur to ever hit the airwaves, and myself, of course. The rest of what we call "talk radio" is so boring it's hideous.
4. You did a live-action pilot for NBC and an animated test for Fox, both based in large part on your radio persona, and the results were, particularly for the Fox pilot, high-quality, well-received, and, of course, rejected by the network. Why do you think that your comedy is accepted in radio and not by network television- too edgy, too different, too what?
Radio has always been a bit edgier comedy-wise because of the amount of time we have to fill and the tendency to toss up onto the wall whatever we think will stick. But I am nothing more than an actor. I play several different parts on my radio show. Television has just now sort of figured that out. In other words, and I am grateful for this, they have said, "The guy is a character actor. Why not have him play characters?" Which, had anyone asked me, is something I would have said.
5. A few of your characters are named after former bosses, like former WIOD GM Bob Green and former KFI PD David G. Hall. Should they be flattered or not? Why did they get anointed with namesake characters?
Bob Green and David G. Hall happen to be two of only about ten people in this business from whom I would take advice. They both were extremely helpful to me in my career and both very smart guys who saw what I was doing and knew it had value. So I guess it's a tribute.
6. What angers you most right now?
I could go into a big long thing here but let me just boil it down. I was having a conversation with a female friend of mine, someone I thought very highly of. She was sitting their having her salad and got onto the topic of President Bush and said, "I wish he would die. Someone should kill him." I didn't say anything at the time because I'm a gentleman. But I wrote her an e-mail basically telling her to get lost and out of my life. In my lifetime we had a president murdered. Anytime anyone without a shred of decency or understanding of history lays the problems of the world at the feet of a president facing problems unprecedented in the history of our country, I know I am dealing with an unmitigated idiot. But when they say he should be killed, I would just as soon give them a beating because they are absolutely asking for it.
7. "Teachers" is debuting on March 28 on NBC. You play what the press material describes as "Dick, the veteran teacher who is over the system and would rather barbecue behind the gymnasium than sit in another teachers meeting." What about the pilot script made you want to do this (besides the prospect of a nice paycheck); what's different and good about this show?
a) I totally got the character. I like Dick, I feel a little sorry for him but I completely get him.
b) TV is great promotion for my radio show and after all, radio is who I am and what I do.
c) The subject of the show, "Teachers," hasn't really been dealt with on TV. The students have. The families that send their kids to school have. The students relating to the teachers have. But the teachers themselves have not.
d) Frankly, it's a way to do the kind of character stuff I like to do without having to write it as well. I mean, I show up and another guy has already written stuff for the character to say. I don't have to do all the producing chores that a radio show requires. I'm a hired gun. From my perspective, that's heaven sometimes.8. Of what are you most proud?
In 1990, with no money and nothing left of my music radio career, I took a job for $1,500 a month at a talk station in Ventura determined to do exactly what my instincts told me to do. Five years before I had had a serious battle with depression that I pulled myself out of. I didn't survive that just to keep playing Creedence records. I knew that I had something to offer, even if it was very strange and hadn't been heard before. 16 years later, we're on 110 stations, nice people from TV call and offer me jobs, nice folks from the news media want to talk to me, and, because of that, we've been able to raise over a million dollars for My Friend's Place, the resource place in Hollywood for homeless kids. I met Maria, I met my step kids, they gave me a family. Hell, I guess you might say I'm "misting up" right now.
9. What does Phil Hendrie do for pure fun?
For pure fun, I can't think of anything better than going from the pool to the barbecue then back to the pool then over to the cooler for a greenie then back to the pool then back to the barbecue. Notice I didn't say anything has to necessarily be cooking on it. I just love to walk in that pattern, pool-barbecue-cooler.
10. What's the best advice you ever got?
The best advice I ever got was from a guy in the newspaper business I was complaining to about the lack of calls at KVEN back in the day. He said. "Why don't you make them up?"
The worst advice I ever got was "stay in school." I wanted to be in radio. There is no school in the world that prepares you for that. College radio is fantasyland. It bears no resemblance to what's actually happening. One of these days I will start a broadcast workshop; only, the one I start will actually teach people how to present as a performer, how to deal with formatics, how to pace, how to know when to be the moderator or host and when to be the comic, how to prep, and, most importantly, how to tell people in management, "no, thank you, I don't want to work for you because you are asking me to do something with my show I don't want to do," and not get angry or burn any bridges. You have to be rock solid in knowing what your show is about, and you need to be able to travel light.
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