Transcript of Phil and Ted’s Sexy Boomer Show with guests Fritz Coleman and Louise Palanker.
May 23, 2023
Ted Bonnitt: [00:00:00] Welcome to Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer show. I'm Ted Bonnitt.
Phil Proctor: And I'm Phil Proctor. But I don't hear myself. You don't? No, I,
Ted Bonnitt: You're not missing much.
Phil Proctor: Alright. Our producer, Donna's coming in and saying, uh, here, get out of the way. She's saying, get out of the way. And there. Oh my God. I can [00:00:30] hear myself. Ah. Oh, this is wonderful.
I love listening to my voice. You know, and first of all, oh, we've been gone a month. We've been gone a month. And we'll talk a little bit about that. And I wanted
Ted Bonnitt: to thank M.C. Gainey, who was a very, very devoted co-host. Substitute co-host God. Oh, good. He was wonderful. Um, and we had a, we had a great time with Troy Evans.
Yes. Who's a guest and, uh, and Noel. Yeah. Noel Blanc last week was Mel Blank's,
Phil Proctor: uh, son. Wow. Who has [00:01:00] had an amazing career.
Fritz Coleman: So was any of that hereditary? Does he do force? Yeah, he
Ted Bonnitt: does. Yeah. Oh, in fact, he did the voices for, uh, a few years after his dad passed, I think. I mean, they. Noel was a radio producer.
His, that he and his dad partnered for 35 years and they were doing sort of Freberg, like comedy radio spots. They discovered they, they hired um, Robin Williams for his first radio. Radio. That's his first radio games. Yes. It's on our website cuz this is also a podcast, the Sexy [00:01:30] Boomer Show. And you can go to sexy boomer show.com.
You can hear the Noel. Blank because Noel himself is like a Zelig figure. He, not only does he have incredible stories about his dad, but he's been in these incredible circumstances from being best friends with Kirk Douglass and almost dying in a helicopter crash with him. He was Oh, he was him that I remember that.
Yeah. And uh, Noel was witness to. Nicole Simpson being introduced to OJ Simpson the first time, and then went on the Wow. Went on double dated with them the first two dates. Wow. [00:02:00] And then years later, he's with Bob Shapiro, who's an old friend. And the Kardashians we went to school with when they got the calls from OJ on the way back to Yeah.
Fritz Coleman: I watched The Kardashians and I'm, I'm, I'm sort of glad Bob's passed. Yeah. Because he's rolling over in his, whatever
Phil Proctor: his podcast. We're talking with our guests, Fritz Coleman and Louise Lanker, who are doing a podcast of their own. That's right. For a couple of years about the media. It's called Media Path, correct?
Yes, sir. The Media Path
Fritz Coleman: Podcast.
Louise Palanker: We're [00:02:30] doing a podcast about what we're doing, which is I love it. It's the, an infinity loop and it's endless. Oh, there's no escape.
Phil Proctor: I, I can see, I don't see any more gray hair though. No,
Louise Palanker: I just went to the salon
Phil Proctor: when I was talking to Fritz right before the show. I mentioned that Marshall McCluen, who I had the pleasure to meet in a very funny and strange way.
Uh, he said The medium is the message. And I kind of understood that, you know, kind of, oh yeah, [00:03:00] well television is different from movies all but today. The media is the message. He, he couldn't fathom social media. Yeah. Right. There's no control of it, you know? Mm-hmm. It's, it's, any, any kind of a message can get through if you believe in the medium that you're listening to.
Yes. Well, must be true. Yes. It
Ted Bonnitt: was on social media. Well, you know, and I think that's a. We've been heard podcast been, been around a few decades. The, the cascading effect of the fairness doctrine and the commercialization and profitization [00:03:30] of the news segments of licensed broadcasts, United,
Fritz Coleman: all of
Ted Bonnitt: that has Citizens United.
That's an, that is to me the,
Fritz Coleman: the single biggest mistake the Supreme Court ever made. Yeah. Yeah. We should make
Phil Proctor: it citizens untied.
Louise Palanker: You know, it wasn't a mistake from their perspective. No. It was by design. Right. And how dare you not. Embrace the feelings of corporations,
Ted Bonnitt: which are people, because they're people too.
Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They're big people.
Fritz Coleman: Yeah, they're big people. Don't be right about that. And that's the conundrum we find ourselves in. Now, [00:04:00] there, there's no gatekeeping in social media news delivery. Mm-hmm. Yeah. How are we gonna do this? Because people have been twisted in Ben, and that's where we, that's why we find ourselves where we do.
Mm-hmm. Because people really don't know what's true.
Phil Proctor: But I'll tell you something, in, in during the Hitler regime radio, Was the instrument of propaganda. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That was the medium and that, and it was their message. Now we have, you know, right wing radio stations that, thousands of them as compared [00:04:30] to one Tom Hartman, you know?
Got it.
Ted Bonnitt: Right. Well, that's because of the siloing effect. I mean, we, no, absolutely. We had the, the water cooler conversations. There were three broadcast networks. There was a. By virtue of consensus, and now things have been siloed to a point where without regulation, the shattering effect of attention splitting is such, yeah, unless you're
Phil Proctor: driving.
That's true. It's shattering,
Ted Bonnitt: but it's disorienting. Hey, it's
Phil Proctor: disorienting because the chips come from China. [00:05:00] Thank you. Thank you. It was like a delay. I love to hear There was a little, I'm sorry. Little timer there. I'm sorry. Listen, you were just gonna say
Fritz Coleman: No, I was gonna say that, that's just a, a very interesting comment.
My friend was a professor at Cal State Northridge and had a whole sort of an investigation he did about this particular, um, phenomenon. He called it vertical learning back when we were. Kids. We, there were three networks. We had these iconic figures, which were, you know, uh, [00:05:30] Walter k Cronkite, Walter Cronkite, you know, Huntley Brinkley, those guys.
And your information came from a, a fairly trustworthy source. He said. Now, because it's not a buyer's market, um, I beg your pardon. It's not a seller's market, it's a buyer's market. You can consume your media any way you want. Yeah. And you can consume only the media you're interested in. That's right. For instance, he used to.
Describe it to as college students. This way, if you're interested in only skateboarding, you can go on the internet and you can be the most, um, [00:06:00] uh, knowledgeable person on the planet about skateboarding, but it's a silo, as you mentioned. Mm-hmm. It's vertical learning, but that doesn't make for a great voting public because they don't know what's going on on either side of them.
Mm-hmm. I'm telling you,
Louise Palanker: I, I, I'm pro skateboard, vote
Fritz Coleman: for me,
Phil Proctor: and, and if I were skateboarding to be a horizontal event, Now, Louise, you have a long history. You're one of the co-founders of, I guess, one of the first radio distributors. Prime, uh, premier, premiere, premier
Louise Palanker: Radio. I don't know that we were first, I [00:06:30] think it feels like we were sort of midstream.
Mm-hmm. And we never could have a appreciated the wave that we were on was gonna hit the shore. It, it just, it. It. That was an unknown. We radio was radio and it was forever. And now you just announced at the top of your show this is also available as a podcast because Yeah. Now streaming is, you know, pressing pause and coming back to something and having it be there for you is what everyone
Ted Bonnitt: expects.
Yeah, and it's interesting because we've been doing the podcast for a couple of years and it's an entire, [00:07:00] as you know, it's an entirely different animal from radio. Well, yeah, we get a lot
Phil Proctor: of whales listens to our podcast
Ted Bonnitt: when we. We started doing the show here. Um, we were talking about how we increased our audience by probably a hundred fold.
Yeah. Our listener, two people, listener, and, and the, the, the thing is, is that radio still has that collective experience. Um, I get more response and feedback from friends and people who. Listen to the show because it's still an appointment. It's sort of a group activity. [00:07:30] It's, it's an entirely different consumption process than, than the podcast
Phil Proctor: is.
And that's odd because you would think, at least I thought that when the, this global network really opened up to us, I thought, what a wonderful opportunity now to share ideas and all that. And I had, but the narrow casting aspect of it mm-hmm. Didn't
Louise Palanker: occur to me. I mean, what, what didn't occur to us was that, Not only were people gonna only consume content about skateboards, if that was their bent.
Mm-hmm. But they were also gonna wanna consume [00:08:00] content that agreed with them. Mm-hmm. That validated. That's right. What they wanted to believe was true. Yeah. The echo
Fritz Coleman: chamber aspect. Echo chamber
Phil Proctor: bias.
Ted Bonnitt: Confirm confirmation.
Louise Palanker: Absolutely. Right, right, right. And that's what's scary because. We didn't realize. Now these people have come to the surface and they're very loud and they're angry.
Mm-hmm. And they enjoy being loud and angry. It's kind of what fuels them.
Phil Proctor: Well, actually, the, the, they are an example of artificial intelligence.
Ted Bonnitt: It, it's degenerating into [00:08:30] a situation that's a bit of a concern. I think we're in a pretty warm, cold war right now. Mm-hmm. Domestically. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And a lot of that is fueled by agree, you know, using agreement to, to, um, motivate people because angers and energy Right.
It's And weaponize them and weaponize them. Go ahead. No,
Fritz Coleman: I was gonna say about your exact point. Um, Uh, the thing we have to figure out is where we put the First Amendment aside and then mm-hmm. Protect, uh, the health and welfare of citizens of the United States. What is free speech? [00:09:00] Yeah. What is free speech?
I mean, when it becomes destructive then it's yelling, fire in a crowded place. Yeah. But I think the only thing that gives what they call legacy media or all the, the typical, um, the typical channels and networks and papers is credibility, is that over time, People understand that that's where truth is coming from.
Mm-hmm. It's just mind blowing to me that the previous administration, uh, all the stuff they predicted and all the stuff they blabbed about, none of it came true. So how do these, these, [00:09:30] you know, digital networks still have credibility? It just kills me. It's a, well, it's
Phil Proctor: amazing that. Trump, oh, that guy. He, you know, he's up again for defamatory, uh, uh, statements about, uh, uh, the woman that he, oh, I think that's fantastic.
God bless her. Mm-hmm. And, uh, And, and it's the same thing that's happening to people who they, they are sticking with him because he's a, he's victimized. It's a
Ted Bonnitt: political, but you know, it's interesting, um, [00:10:00] wonderful podcast, the New York Times Daily. Mm-hmm. Yes. And they, they did a piece yesterday about this, which was fascinating.
They were talking about the reporter had gone to the first R N C meeting. It was down in Dana Point. To sort of assess what they're gonna do for this election. And the conundrum they're facing for selling out is, uh, is that, uh, there's a solid unmovable, 30% or so of, of the base that will never vote for anything but Trump.
Mm-hmm. But that's not enough to elect him. Right. Right. So that [00:10:30] DeSantis is trying to come in and appeal to that base by not attacking Trump too much. And the, so they, he, he's a human wrecking ball. I mean, I've, I've followed Trump since New York in the, in the late seventies.
Fritz Coleman: You were there and you could have warned us ahead of time what happened, you
Ted Bonnitt: know?
Yeah. I, it's so funny. You know, going back to the, we were talking about, you know, I would go down south in the early eighties to see my sister married somebody from down there and went down there. I would go to Atlanta and, you know, they always had this distrust of us New Yorkers, you know, fast talking New Yorkers, and [00:11:00] then they end up falling for the one that they were
Fritz Coleman: bamboozled by.
The biggest
Phil Proctor: one that we all knew was an ass. You've been doing your show for two years now. Is that about
Louise Palanker: About right? I'm not good at math, Phil, but, uh, it's, we just did episode 300 and No. Oh my, wait, what was no, 137. Wow. I knew there was a three in it seemed. Phil, I warned you. I can't, I can't even quote numbers accurately, but that's good.
1 37, so however many weeks that is cuz we've only taken a few weeks off and, and,
Phil Proctor: and [00:11:30] you've been. Who would you say was the most interesting person that you interviewed? Or what did you, what are you learning about media and its effect and you know, what are you doing with this podcast?
Louise Palanker: We are learning that, you know, you can really embrace.
Your passions from your childhood, all that is now findable. You know, TV shows that you, where your parents were you, you took you somewhere and you missed Flipper, you, you know, [00:12:00] yeah, you can find Flipper. He's there. So all the stuff that you thought was just. Like, like a vapor, you know, drifting away. And you, you know, you couldn't, you, you, you didn't have enough money to buy that record.
That's right. And you don't even remember how it goes. Now. You could type in like three words from a song. Yep. And it, Google will show you the song and then Spotify will play you the song. So I. We love just finding those things that really, really touched our hearts as kids. And then we love introducing folks to new content that they can enjoy.
So we, [00:12:30] we start the show by recommending things. Mm-hmm. We don't review, we just recommend the things we love. And then we have guests on and we talk to them about their media path. Not only what they're consuming, but what they're
Fritz Coleman: creating. I think, uh, on our wall of fame, it would be Adam Schiff. Mm-hmm.
One of the brightest politicians, his book was so good. Yeah. A hero. Yes. And so dense, and he's gotta become senator. I hope he will. But, um, I agree. But, and, and Henry Winkler, oh. Who may be singly [00:13:00] the, the most lovely human being in show business. We had the pleasure producing a pilot. With him for Comedy Central and the Honor was to walk around various places with him and see the planet react to Henry Winkler.
Here we go into ICM or one of these places and this seas would part and it's, it's the Fs, and they give him a run, but applause and everybody asks for an autograph or everybody asked for a selfie and he was patient with every single person and looked him in the eye and asked them about themselves.
Themselves. I just. [00:13:30] It's something that always has appealed to me in my peripheral role in show business being a local weatherman, which is slightly below dinner theater in the hierarchy. But, but, um, but, uh, I love people who are immensely talented but comfortable in their own skin. Henry is a great example of that.
Wouldn't you say that he's probably one of the best guests we've had. Oh,
Louise Palanker: yes, he's, he's, uh, he, he's just extremely warm and he's very interested. He's very active, and he, he loves knowing what's [00:14:00] going on and he loves participating. So, Henry on Twitter, you guys should follow Henry on Twitter. It's, it's almost as good as following share.
Are you guys following share? Oh, yeah. It's relentlessly entertaining share. There is not an emoji. Thatcher hasn't become comfortable with, I think she's just playing emoji roulette. She just taps
Ted Bonnitt: one in. I've been following Henry on, um, Barry. Oh
Phil Proctor: yeah, God. What I mean,
Fritz Coleman: life actor mean, and, and that that performance has more impact when you know that he is [00:14:30] so far the opposite of that character.
Yeah. Although
Ted Bonnitt: his empathy in the character
Fritz Coleman: comes out. No, no. That's the only way people get
Phil Proctor: behind. Well, here's, here's a topper In Italy, they have a, a snack called Fonzi. Really? Yes. Wow. And it says in Italian on the front, if you ha, if you don't lick your fingers, you're not getting the full pleasure. I love that.
And they're great. They're like little corn
Louise Palanker: twisty. You know who would love that is DeSantis, because he likes to en, he likes to enjoy pudding with his fingers. His fingers. That's right. Upon [00:15:00] occasion, it's been rumored.
Phil Proctor: Fritz, you, you mentioned that you were a weatherman. And that's how of course I first got to know.
Mm-hmm. You mm-hmm. Uh, and you were delightful in doing it. How did you, how did you find your way into that? Now, David Letterman remember, was also exactly in Indianapolis. He
Fritz Coleman: was a weather man. Mm-hmm. I, I, I will tell you, and I, I say upfront as my great disclaimer, real meteorologist, hate this story, but I was a comic at the Comedy store and I was working in [00:15:30] 1982 and.
Uh, my friend that worked at NBC at the time said, I'm coming down to see your show on Friday night. I'm bringing my boss and uh, and his wife. So he came down there and I had a short anecdote, uh, in the midst of my show, uh, because I had started my broadcasting career in Armed Forces Radio when I was in the Navy for four years.
And I was on a ship and I did radio shows and TV shows, and I did weather. Uh, and the Navy didn't seem to care that I didn't know anything about weather. They just forced me to do [00:16:00] it. As long as my shoes were shined and I was reasonably respectful to the anchor people, they didn't care. Are you
Phil Proctor: So I, I told, I told you had a meteorologist who was telling who was gonna happen.
No. Would
Fritz Coleman: rid the stuff from the AP copy. I love it. And say, okay, how is it in the Central Atlantic right now? And I'm gonna read this to the sailors. Personal. Personal, really? And so, After my show was over at the Comedy store on this Friday night, I went backstage to meet these people and this man said, I have a question to ask you.
It's, it's a little off the wall, but [00:16:30] do you have any desire to come to Channel four and do some vacation relief? Weather casting for me, I have a main guy who hasn't had a vacation in a year. I need help on the weekends. Would you have any desire in doing that? And I was making $35 a set at the Comedy Store.
I said, yeah. When do you want me to start? I
Phil Proctor: made $35 a week doing an off Broadway show in 1963 or something like that. Yes. Imagine that. Yes. $35
Fritz Coleman: and, and you were farther up the food chain in fame than I certainly was, but, uh, I, I was, I [00:17:00] was climbing. I was starting to, but, but then he, uh, I said, yes. I mean, I, I would love to do that.
What do I have to do? He said, well, you have to audition. And I said, I, I think I explained on stage. I don't know anything about whether. And the boss said, this'll be perfect. There's no weather in California. This will work out great weather or not. So this is true. It's a true story. So I got my job from doing, uh, stand up from the comedy store and, and over the arc of time, I retired two weeks shy of my 40th anniversary there.
Wow. Wow. [00:17:30] But over the arc of time now there's. Climate change and people are taking weather really serious. And so I could, I couldn't even get the job. Everybody has to have the a m s seal now that AMS, American Meteorological Society thing. Oh, that means that you have a degree in, uh, meteorology or atmospheric sciences.
I couldn't pass that test
Ted Bonnitt: and try booking them. I, the, the, the person that's always quoted in the, the papers at ucla, the weather, uh, yeah, I know they have a, yeah. Can't get 'em. You know, they, they're so inundated with media requests. No, it's a big
Fritz Coleman: deal now. It's a [00:18:00] big deal. And, uh, for anybody and for any disbelievers now, you better pull your head outta wherever it is, because it, it's here.
Ted Bonnitt: So it's true that you, so you were a weather forecaster on a major market too. Major market San Diego
Phil Proctor: too, right? Yeah. Yes. San
Ted Bonnitt: Diego for a while too, because they always said that. It's like back in, you know, back east, we. You'd hear about that. Well, there's no weather in la. What does a weather forecaster do?
Fritz Coleman: And there is weather in LA though. That's just a broad statement. So did you learn who are, who are vacationing here for a brief period of time? Yes, I [00:18:30] learned over. Time from on the JOBB training that there are four or five recurrent weather patterns in Southern California. Ah, the main one between April and November is morning clouds and fog hazy afternoon, sun high in the low seventies.
What was the question? But, but, but as a comedian, my function was greater. Than being a weatherman. I, I was, I considered myself the pallet cleanser between the tragedy and the sports. Very good. Somebody needed a
Phil Proctor: tire queing and used [00:19:00] bouch.
Fritz Coleman: Yep. That And so I, but, but that, that role's completely gone now.
Now they're not playing around, you know, if they, well,
Ted Bonnitt: I had read years ago that, um, local news, television news was always having to appeal to every demographic. Yes. And the weather forecast, why they call it broadcasting? Yes. Mm-hmm. And the weather forecasting segment was a prime opportunity to hire somebody that would appeal to older ladies who didn't like the violence.
So they would [00:19:30] always try to hire a young, looking like a nice boy, a nice boy. That's our fritzie. That's
Fritz Coleman: quintessential, quintessential.
Phil Proctor: And so, and we,
Louise Palanker: you know, when we started put, when we, when I started producing his plays and we would take them around.
Phil Proctor: Yeah. It one man, uh, actually one man
Louise Palanker: shows. So Ian was the, our young tech guy that would advance the slides on a, a, a play that he did that included like a, you know, audio visual presentation.
Mm-hmm. But after the show, one day, uh, Ian go, Ian [00:20:00] whispers to me on the side of his mouth, you know, as he sees that, you know, Fritz bum rushed after the show. Ian goes, Fritz can get all the 80 year old tale he wants. Yeah.
Fritz Coleman: Well, I mean, uh, the thing about it is, you, you expressed it perfectly. We're the only non-threatening part of the newscast, which is the weather.
But now it is. Yeah. The now it is, now it's killing people. And they say, oh my God, here we go. But, uh, but, um, it, it was, uh, it was this recurring character and [00:20:30] mm-hmm. And, and the local media is very interesting, um, because you become part of the continuity of people's lives. And I learned this from people's response to me in the public, both good and bad, that even if they don't like you, If you're on the air for 40 years.
Mm-hmm. They know who you are. Yeah. They're TV q you would've high recognizable factor even if they hated your guts. That's right. They knew exactly who you were. But when you think about it, I came on at the same time, 20 after five for 40 [00:21:00] years in a row. 40 years. Wow. So people would turn the TV on, oh, Fritz is here.
I must still be alive because they're, but seriously, you become part of a continuity of their lives. Yeah. It's a fa you become part of
Phil Proctor: their family. That's really interesting.
Louise Palanker: Your son may not call, but Fritz
Fritz Coleman: will be on. Yeah. And that's right. And and and truthfully, it's one of the only mediums where you break the fourth wall and there's an, even though it's a false intimacy, there's an intimacy that goes along with that.
That's that's right. And so you really connect to people. And then you have an 85 year old woman. [00:21:30] They'll come up to me in Vons at 10 o'clock at night and say, listen to me. I watched you all the time. You've been on the air and I love you. You're a part of my family. And don't ever wear that tie. You were left.
It's very unflattering. Your all right father, they have a proprietary interest
Louise Palanker: in you. At some point. Did you know that Fritz's mother was the first woman in her county to invest in a satellite dish so that she could make sure her son was okay? Oh, in Florida
Phil Proctor: now? Now you, you implied that you. [00:22:00] Were a character that you were playing a part.
I never got that
Fritz Coleman: vibe from you watching. No, it, it, I, I, I think I played a part within the newscast. Good. You, but I mean, I, I think, because I'll tell you another thing I learned. It's very interesting you brought that up. The camera does not lie. People can see into your soul. Mm-hmm. It's so interesting.
Mm-hmm. Because I would do, I would do, uh, speaking engagements and people would say, uh, What's the deal with that anchor guy at five o'clock? You know what's, you know, because, and he, although he is never said [00:22:30] anything overtly negative. Yeah. People can see people's attitude. They can see their narcissism.
Mm-hmm. They can see the way they react with their coworkers and they just know they, you, you don't have to say anything. You, you just know
Ted Bonnitt: when I first moved west, From New York. Um, I didn't have anything going yet and I wanted to pick up, I wasn't going to go back. I had just moved in the late fall and I wasn't gonna go back east for Christmas.
It was too early. So I thought, I know how to get some work real fast. I can write new. Cuz I wrote for CNN and NBC back in Oh wow. In New York. [00:23:00] And so I thought, oh, I'll just go to a local, which I've never done. So I went to Fox, which was at the time, well I guess it still is a union shop. It was actually a pretty good pay.
Yeah. Yep. And I was, I thrust into this environment for the first time for about a week or two. First of all, there's certain things you learn about Christmas time in the newsroom. Mm-hmm. You do get the Turkey dinners, but they're only from Chinese restaurants. All the Chinese restaurants. Oh. Like the movie and all the, all the news personality and reporters.
They each take turns buying the news [00:23:30] writers. And the crew dinner, that's sort of their penance. Sure. For, for sucking the wind out of everybody's pay. And it was just, it was really fascinating. And um, John Beard was,
Fritz Coleman: that's the guy that brought his boss to see me perform cuz he worked at Channel four.
John, John did. John's one of my best friends. I'll be too. Wow. Now I spoke to him yesterday. Oh, well he's retired in Buffalo, New York. He lives in a hotel with his dog and he's ever been happier, really
Phil Proctor: growing a beard.
Ted Bonnitt: So he came in. So I was observing him and I was, you know, [00:24:00] just observing the personalities of this news team and what they were doing in the.
The women and the really tight dresses who were doing was doing weather. I don't know how you competed with that. I know. If you
Fritz Coleman: can watch the weather with the sound, turn down. Oh yeah.
Ted Bonnitt: So John, and this is not taking anything away from Toronto, but it's like what gets him that salary and I was watching him.
Yeah. He came in kind of late go, was very nice Guy. Goes into his office, he reads through, You know, very, very low key comes in and says, eh, try that. And you know, okay, great, John, very low key. And he gets on [00:24:30] and we write the, we write the newscast, and now I'm gonna sit around, wait for 10 o'clock to see how it goes.
And I'm just watching him intently of like, what's his secret? And he's just a regular guy, sits down and then they're doing the countdown to 3, 2, 1. And he does this face like, Good evening, and I went there it is. There, it's
Phil Proctor: here.
Fritz Coleman: But I, I, I must tell you, uh, um, uh, he's been my friend for a long time. I, I worked in radio in Buffalo when he worked in [00:25:00] television.
Oh, wow. I worked for the radio station, W B E N, that was owned by the television station where he was the anchor, and we got together and spent many nights in bars late at night. And he is one of the few people who is exactly the same personality-wise, not delivery-wise. Mm-hmm. Off the air. He is on one of the funniest, warmest people and people loved him.
Mm-hmm. And, uh, not a workaholic. You know, he committed five minutes before the show and
Ted Bonnitt: yeah. That's kind of what I picked up on. Yeah. And I was like, it's all. His technique.
Fritz Coleman: [00:25:30] His technique? No, it's, it really is. He was a great, uh, television communicator. And those days are drifting away too. Oh, they are. The importance of the main anchor person is drifting down that Oh, yeah.
Because of cable news. Mm-hmm. But it must have been, or an interesting, uh, Um, sort of a, a complex feeling for you. I know it was for him because Fox was just doing a local newscast. They didn't have the political bent that the network had. That's right. But people would paint them with the right wing aura that they thought and he said it [00:26:00] was a tough thing.
The
Ted Bonnitt: separate entities, they really are absolutely. The prime time is entertainment.
Fritz Coleman: We, we ran into the same thing at N B NBC cuz MSNBC is the left version of Yeah. And, and so people would come out, ah, it's all left wing crap in the public and say, not us. No, no, no. We're we're doing drive-bys. What are, we're doing freeway chases.
How could that be politically? Ben's
Ted Bonnitt: right. You know. Anecdotally, but you know, I find that Fox News affiliates in even smaller markets usually have a much better operation than the others. And, and they are completely separate. [00:26:30] They are a news
Fritz Coleman: gathering operation. They don't have a political acts to grind.
They're just local news. It's a whole different set of services.
Ted Bonnitt: But they did come over to me at one point and said, Ted, I'm so sorry to make, ask you to write this, but it's like day old news, but it's good. And it was bloody, it was if it bleeds it leads. Right. So it was just, it was accident footage. But it was the, it was the telegenic, yeah.
Of the story. It didn't matter that it was old news. Oh, no.
Fritz Coleman: Now, people would say to me, why is it important to show a fire? And an apartment building in Chicago Yeah. Mm-hmm. [00:27:00] To a Los Angeles audience. And I said, because it's a visual medium, it's whatever raises the emotions of the person viewing. And if you see a fire where people are jumping out the window, they don't care if it's in Chicago or San Francisco.
That's right. It still has an emotional,
Ted Bonnitt: uh, reaction. And, and that's, you know, that's an interesting point. I, I, I have a lifelong consumer of nightly news. Mm-hmm. You know, I read papers primarily, but I wanna see the visuals to organically sort of mm-hmm. Connect with the story. Mm-hmm. And so I have, you know, my dad, it's just a hit, [00:27:30] you know, my dad's gone now, but we kind of grew up watching NBC News and we always like Lester Holt, you know, we always like Lester Halt.
Good guy. So I'm watching Lester Holt and I gotta say in the last. Year or so. They have really softened their edge and it's pandering and it's emotional and they run literally NBC nightly news runs the same footage, sometimes two, three newscasts in a row. Wow. And their whole A block, which is usually the first four minutes the other day, was devoted to the chase of the [00:28:00] Royals in New York, which was the New York City police said was a non-story.
Mm-hmm. They did a full five minutes cuz they wanted to connect it. To the horrors of Princess Diana's death.
Louise Palanker: Mm-hmm. I don't watch network news. I, I watch msnbc. Mm-hmm. So I know Lester Holt exists, but I don't watch his show cuz it doesn't seem necessary. After I've watched like a couple of blocks of.
Nicole Wallace and Yeah.
Phil Proctor: Yeah. Because they're dealing with the same news. Yeah. Pretty
Fritz Coleman: much. I, and [00:28:30] as we, as we said at the beginning, um, the, the, the iconic tent pole guy is not important for the newscast anymore. I mean, that was because, you know, in the Cronkite era, That newscast was an amalgam of everything you needed to know in the day.
In the of the day. That's right. You had know the resource to go to other than the newspapers. So you could learn a little about politics, a little about international affairs. Uh, a little about, uh, something interesting locally that happened. Now, if you're [00:29:00] interested in politics, you'd go to one of the cable networks.
That's right. So they're looking
Louise Palanker: for a viewer who isn't me. So I, I'm not sure what they're after, but they're after someone who is not as invested
Phil Proctor: in the news. Well, you know what I do now? I listen to CNN and, and Ms. NBC on my smartphone. Mm-hmm. Yes, absolutely. Just listen to the thing and the apple on there, and they have wonderful descriptions of the stuff that they're showing.
And I, I'm doing the old radio, see it in my own imagination. Mm-hmm. You know, I don't have to really watch the, the Ukraine war footage to know [00:29:30] No. What's happening now, I want to mention one thing. Both of you ha have a connection to Buffalo. Yes. Were you born in Buffalo Louise? Or Born and raised? Born and raised in Buffalo.
Right. I'm so sorry. Is that why you're here in California? I'm so sorry.
Louise Palanker: As, as Fritz would describe in one of his many wonderful shows, I'm here for, to Let my toes thaw. Yes,
Ted Bonnitt: yes.
Phil Proctor: Wow. And it's, that's still the way
Fritz Coleman: up there. I worked there for four years. Yeah, you, I work to ABC in Buffalo and That's right.
You're from, you're from Pittsburgh? No, Philadelphia. Wikipedia. Oh, Philly. Oh, Philly.
Phil Proctor: It's [00:30:00] WikiEd. I have a connection with that. My, the Amish side of my family, oh,
Fritz Coleman: listen, is from there. Lancaster, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Oh yeah. Easton. Yeah. And Redding and Easton. I'm a
Phil Proctor: Yoder on my mother's side. Oh my gosh.
And Yoder is like, you know, that's
Louise Palanker: the, everybody who's Yo Yori, Yoder ambitious named Yoder. Yoder. That's right. Right. You don't have to change your name when you get married. So the towels, you can keep them embroidered,
Fritz Coleman: right? With the big fly. Yeah. It's a beautiful part of the United States. Yes, it is. It is a beautiful part.
So, I don't know what I [00:30:30] was saying. What was I saying? Oh, we were talking about, I worked in Buffalo and so in Buffalo, my first job doing weather was, uh, filling in for the main weather guy at noon. And they had, and their shtick was the weather outside and every day, 365 days a year, regardless of what typhoon, what nor Easter was blowing across Buffalo.
You stood in the, they would open the, the garage doors during the commercial preceding weather. They would wheel the green screen out there, anchor it down [00:31:00] with sandbags so it didn't blow away, and weather outside. And then I'm standing out there in with a, with an Alaskan Parker, and all you can see is my mouth moving and.
Every day we had to do the weather. Well, he was like the
Louise Palanker: parakeet cuz it's like, if this guy can survive, we can go out there. Yeah,
Phil Proctor: that's right. The canary, the canary, the per, yeah. The, the
Fritz Coleman: canary. No, because I'm my Karmic pay back there so I can be a weatherman.
Phil Proctor: Not having
Ted Bonnitt: any weather. Well, so I'm a little confused on the timeline.
So when you were doing standup out here and got asked to do stand, you had [00:31:30] already done
Fritz Coleman: weather? I had, I had, but it was really, I, I didn't even describe to them that I had that experience. Did they know that? Because I was really bad and I did it like six times for the new guy at the a b, C station wk. Oh. So they didn't
Ted Bonnitt: know.
No, but it was sort of in your, uh, destiny, obviously, whether
Fritz Coleman: Oh, I know that's, that's big sigh. But I mean, I, I love the origin story because I always describe it as the greatest show business accident that occurred since Rita Hayworth was discovered at Schwab's pharmacy. [00:32:00] Is that who it was discovered at Lana Turner was discovered there.
Ted Bonnitt: Wow. I mean, that is a, you did have unbelievable
Fritz Coleman: the, and the older I get, the more I understand I was the beneficiary of insane amounts of good luck. Yeah.
Phil Proctor: Yeah. Now you, since you were with doing this for such a long time, the media was changing. Absolutely. Wasn't the medium, I should say.
Mm-hmm. Though, because I remember watching, uh, in New York, a guy who had little magnets.
Fritz Coleman: Oh, yeah. He put on, or the guy that could write backwards with a grease pencil. Yeah. And so you [00:32:30] storm Field and Frank Field,
Phil Proctor: and so you had to keep up with the changing media. What was that like? Yes.
Fritz Coleman: Well, uh, the presentation has improved greatly over time.
Yes, the, uh, accuracy is not necessarily improved over time. Good. Now we have all kinds of great electronic things to keep. It's like a misdirection. As long as you see satellite pictures, the blowing red lines, dazzling. Oh yeah. Everything must be good, but still it's only 85% accuracy. Yeah. Look at those
Phil Proctor: yellow marks.
Oh, that's heavy rain. I'm glad they're not living there. Yeah. But yeah, I, I actually imagined that, uh, as a [00:33:00] writer, I once wrote a piece about a weatherman and how suddenly you could get pictures from satellites. This is way back. You'd like fireside theater doing kind of a predictive, the
Fritz Coleman: best thing. You know, the best.
Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. No, it was, they were so an experimental in freeform and.
Phil Proctor: Yeah, I know that's, that's why it's cool against when, when I met you after one of your shows, that was what we talked about. You know, Lord, how lucky how lucky
Fritz Coleman: we both Jamie Alcroft, a, a good friend of both of
Phil Proctor: ours. Oh yeah.
Mm-hmm. [00:33:30] And I love Jamie and Jamie. I'm sorry. No, just that I love him. Well, you, but here's, here's, for those who don't know Jamie, uh, he was, uh, uh, a popular comedian with a fellow named Mack, uh, Dryden, Dryden Mac Dryden. And it was, uh, Mac and Jamie, and they had a television show on CBS and all this stuff, but he had a bad heart condition.
Mm-hmm. And about, gee, I guess it's maybe almost four years ago now. Mm-hmm. He had a heart and liver [00:34:00] transplant. Isn't, and he's with us. And a miracle. It's a
Fritz Coleman: miracle. Yeah. And the miracle of it was he had, he was actually over the age. Yes, there's a wind. That's
Phil Proctor: right. You're right. He
Fritz Coleman: was over the age that made, and not a lovelier guy.
I said, this is the karma wheel spinning gently for Jamie. He was, yeah. Jamie's of
Phil Proctor: course been on nice show and actually, We did a boomers thing, uh, which you can see two boomers on a bench, two boomers on a bench. Man, that was hysterical. Thank you. And when you look at it, I mean, I'm, it's still timely.
Fritz Coleman: Oh, of course it is.
You know, that's, you probably could have expanded that a little bit. [00:34:30] You might have been a little early to draw people's attention. People are used to watching shows on the internet now. You probably could re reintroduce that and. Yeah, you're right.
Phil Proctor: And, and, and one of the mistakes that we made, uh, a media consultant told us friend Uhoh, was be on as many platforms as you can.
Mm. Now how do they reach
Ted Bonnitt: your show? Give us, yeah. Well, first of all, how, tell us about your show and how you, how did you guys get together to do this and when?
Louise Palanker: We've been friends for, I, I don't know how many years, but 35, [00:35:00] maybe
Phil Proctor: 35 years. Did you meet through his
Louise Palanker: standup or, or, I went to see a play that he was doing his first play.
Oh. A friend took me to see his play, and it was such a small theater that you could actually engage in a conversation with him during the play, so, So I thought this would make a great, it was a fa it was a Father's Day, it was a father's sort of play. He was leaving a time capsule message for his boys that they could watch when they were old enough so that they could learn more about him and the background of their family, [00:35:30] et cetera.
So I said, how about a Father's Day special on, and you know, on nbc, and we just started talking and we hit it off. And we've been fr we've been friends. I started teaching his kids drums and guitar and,
Phil Proctor: oh wow. That's right. You, you play the drums, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. And, and you've gotta set up in your home where your studio is.
Where I had the pleasure of doing, I, I think I did two shows
Louise Palanker: with you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You did. Our, my previous podcast, things I found online with Jamie Alcroft. Yeah. And Danny Man. And Danny Man, yeah. Danny to the Funniest Men in the world.
Phil Proctor: Funny, [00:36:00]
Ted Bonnitt: funny people. We did, I think our very first show was with Jamie and Danny Wasn't at Danny.
Yes, it was at, at Chez Jay. Ah, oh yeah. A bright idea. It was, it
Phil Proctor: was his smart idea. It was a charming idea to do a, a, a, a conversational podcast from a restaurant that had a great, famous story. Behind it
Ted Bonnitt: is a Table 10. Are you familiar with I am not. AJ is one of the old. Of the last old joints in Santa Monica.
Yeah. And it's right by the pier on Ocean Avenue. [00:36:30] And it is adjacent to, um, what the old building of the Rand Corporation. So there is one. And this is a place where Steve McQueen and all the guys would hang out there because John Fitzgerald meeting with Marilyn. Yeah. Because there was no. There were no, uh, paparazzi allowed.
Jay who ran the place was very cool about that. So guys could come in there. Robert MitchuMitchumm, they would all hang out there, man. And there's little room and there's just, yeah, there's, there's a booth in the back called Table 10. Table 10, and it has curtains around it [00:37:00] and it's where. Um, Warren Beatty cast shampoo, and it was where, it was where Henry Kissinger would dine when he was at the Rand Corporation.
It's allegedly where the Pentagon Papers were handed over. It's also where Marilyn Monroe hid out until she got the call to go down to Peter Lawford's place on the beach to hook up with the president. So we thought, well, what a, what a great place to have a heavy vibe in there. Let's have, let's have a, let's have a radio
Phil Proctor: show.
Let's just push those ghosts out of the way. Yeah. So
Ted Bonnitt: we had, so we had, uh, we had no [00:37:30] idea what we were
Phil Proctor: doing. No. And. In the background. Of course. You know, it was
Fritz Coleman: fun. That's fun. You know, the live audience aspect of that must have been fun. I think it'd be a fun podcast. I always tell
Louise Palanker: people, if you're gonna do a podcast that's supposed to be coming from this really cool location, do it in a booth.
Yeah. And add the sound afterwards. You're so smart. Yes. That's, you just cannot control how annoying. A a, a, a fork hitting a plate is going to sound and you can't get it out of the mix. And
Ted Bonnitt: no, nobody had time to eat the guest. No, no, the guest never got lunch. No. [00:38:00] You know, and then the pandemic hit, and that was
Phil Proctor: the end of that.
Speaking of that, we missed having lunch with you today because of, uh, some mix up in the media, a media mix up media, this path. Yeah. Somebody took a short cut and went off and anyway, uh, so I brought some, uh, I brought some cookies for dessert. All right. All right. And, uh, you got, oh, he's got em in his, his co the good them
Fritz Coleman: outta his contraband.
Louise Palanker: So they look like they're gluten
Phil Proctor: free. They, well, isn't, isn't everything. But anyway, so Louise deserve
Fritz Coleman: communion wipers. [00:38:30] You, you, um,
Phil Proctor: here's the
Ted Bonnitt: wine. You have such a. Remarkable career in radio. Yes. Being a co-founder of Premier, which is still, you know, under the iHeart umbrella it is, is the largest producer of radio programming in the country.
According to the website. At least I don't,
Louise Palanker: I don't think
Ted Bonnitt: they're making that up. Yeah, I, I wouldn't think they are
Louise Palanker: either. I, I think you can believe that. That sounds accurate.
Ted Bonnitt: So what does it feel like? Well, we, we talked about that, but what is your take [00:39:00] now doing the podcast? Uh, you know, what, what is your take on the Mediascape at this point?
There's
Louise Palanker: less people who come to work, uh, and I know all the names. You know, premier got to the point where like, my partner Steve, would just be like, Hey buddy, you know, and people would come into my office, go, I don't think he knows my name. And I'd be like, yeah, I don't,
Ted Bonnitt: I don't think he does.
Louise Palanker: If you hear someone yelling Buddy turn.
It could, it could be you. It could
Phil Proctor: be you. And what, what, your nickname is Weezy, is that right? Right. How did, how did that happen?
Louise Palanker: Oh [00:39:30] no, it's, it's, there's no h so you don't have to make any Ah oh, you don't have to gasp or anything. No. It's a nickname for Louise. It. I was a page on the Jeffersons. Oh. So if your name is actually Louise and you're a page on The Jeffersons, I don't write these rules, Ted.
This is just the way it is. You're going to acquire that nickname and you're going to embrace it. Mm-hmm. Because the great Isabel Sanford, Isabel Sandford. Oh, that's beautiful. You know, George Jefferson would yell is eight. So [00:40:00] I didn't call when he yelled for me cuz I knew he was referring to Isabel, but on The Jeffersons, her name is Louise and his nickname for her is Weezy Weezy.
And I've just been
Ted Bonnitt: Weezy across, I went to the American Comedy Awards with Edie McClurg many, many years ago. I love her. And, um, we, we, we, it was a funny night because she wasn't part of the ceremonies. I know Tom Hanks came up to talk about, uh, Forrest Gump. So that, Sort of dates it. Mm-hmm. That's where he talked about how it took 10 years.
We were to get that [00:40:30] movie made 10 years to get it made. So we were in what they call, I guess they call like a cutaway table. Mm-hmm. So we're under the lights so they can cut away to the celebrities going, ah, yeah. And, and Edie was asked to do that and Edie was not happy about, oh, I don't wanna be a cutaway, be a camera monkey.
No. And so, so people got progressively drunker and sharing the table was, uh, George Jefferson. Ah, Sherman. Sherman, Shermans. And as we're [00:41:00] all waiting, cuz it was late, you know, as they were late on the getting it started. And George always, you know, and, and Sherman's getting a little drunk. Yeah. And it was just surreal.
And then, Sherman's getting changed. JJ Walker, j JJ Walker comes over turn and two of them are like, RAs, mataz. And I'm thinking, I'm just, I'm like having a hallucination and, and, and, and it just kept going and going. And finally, Sherman, she says, man, every year, same thing. Always stop. Two
Phil Proctor: hours late. Two hours late.
Come on,
Ted Bonnitt: George Jefferson. [00:41:30] S's a pretty drunk good impression. Edie's getting increasingly pissed. No,
Louise Palanker: Sherman was actually a, a very shy man, and I, I do not know, uh, that's the most like, jumping into character. That was the biggest transition I've ever witnessed As a page. Yeah. Cause I did all the Norman Leah sitcoms of the year that I was a page.
We did How exciting. Facts of life. Different strokes One day at a time. Well
Phil Proctor: then, did I, did I meet you? I did. Uh, your insurance is canceled. Of Yes.
Louise Palanker: Did you I had a name tag. I was wearing a polyester,
Phil Proctor: I was, uh, blazer. But anyway, I've seen the [00:42:00] episode. It's really quite funny. Which, which show were you on?
It's called Your Insurance is Canceled. That's the name of the show. Yes. Some black people had moved in next door. I was his cousin. So you're talking about the Jefferson, when Will Hornsby? No, he's talking about Wendell
Ted Bonnitt: Hornsby. All, all in the family. You're talking about all
Phil Proctor: the family. All in the family, yeah.
Oh,
Louise Palanker: I wasn't a page on all in the family.
Phil Proctor: Oh, drown. Well, we'll just turn. Let's turn that page there.
Fritz Coleman: Look, look at those sheriffs, just the spin up there. Jeffersons in black content and all in the family would never get made. Now were so politically correct, so true that [00:42:30] the, that the topics and the areas that they broached on there would never, they'd never
Louise Palanker: make it.
Well, I would, I would beg to differ because Norman Leer was a visionary, so he, you know, he knew. In, in his time period, what you, what you needed to put out there and what would be really pushing an envelope in a, in a positive direction. And the, and have you seen the live reenactments and word by word from the scripts of the Jeffersons?
Uh, different strokes. Uh, I the family. Yeah. And they're as [00:43:00] timely today. Yeah, of course.
Fritz Coleman: Oh, that's what I mean. They're ahead of their time. Yeah. But I mean, to go in and do a pitch where you're talking about the N word in the Jefferson Show mm-hmm. Which they dropped all the time. They would never do that now.
No. And, uh, some of the political and racial stuff in, in All in the Family, I, I bet they would edit. But we have such
Ted Bonnitt: a racial history in this country. Oh my God. What happened? Not in Florida. No. Oh. But I think that, I think that the, and I thought they were brilliant shows. Don't get me wrong, but I also think that it did sort of empower people to laugh and be able [00:43:30] to say words they couldn't say even back then.
I mean, I
Fritz Coleman: witnessed that it did help you. No, I think it's served a great purpose and we need it now. Yes, we do. But, but that, there's an honesty that goes with that, and I think we're, we're avoiding honesty at all costs now. Well, do you think there, I mean,
Ted Bonnitt: You, are you doing standup at your Yes. Yeah. So are, have you had to change?
Fritz Coleman: I don't do any politics and I, I, I have a new special that streams on Tuby called Oh, about being old. It's called Unassisted Living. And, uh, and, uh, I, [00:44:00] I just talk about the common experiences related to aging because. And what made this saleable to a streaming service, and we're gonna try to spread it to others, is that I think our demographics, boomers, and older are way underserved in the standup area on streaming because people my age don't want to be assaulted with profanity.
I mean, I, I, I love Dave Chappelle. I think he's brilliant. I love Chris Rock, but there are a lot of people that don't. Want to be assaulted with that language or the raw material. So I thought, well, there, there's an underserved [00:44:30] part of the audience. Mm-hmm. Well, I, I, cuz
Phil Proctor: I knew Richard Pryor. Yeah. And he really was the first one to break that area.
Fritz Coleman: Yes. Of course. Everybody's just doing an offshoot of Richard. But, but, uh, this is hard. But I, and, and so that, that made it sort of, uh, appealing to the Tubie folks. And so, uh, it's fun. It's just, Common experiences of getting old. It's, uh, your kids and your grandchildren, kids doing school on Zoom. It's about vaccinations.
It's about all kinds. People start place common, but I don't do all that was a long [00:45:00] way to go. I don't do politics. Yeah. I think people now just sorely need a one hour escape from all the crap they're lived. I won't
Phil Proctor: tell you a funny thing. I, I co-authored a, uh, a play with Samuel Joseph. Called, uh, God help us and we, and it was a political show.
God brought down a two talking heads, a liberal and a conservative, and had, and was asking them to debate these ideas. He was afraid that the fabric of his universe and that [00:45:30] his beautiful planet was being torn as under. By, by this partisanship. And we wrote this funny play about it. And how long ago was that?
Oh, this was about, uh, three years ago at Ed Asner played God, oh, bless his heart. Yeah. And we, he toured, uh, America and some of Canada with it. And people loved it because we were presenting both sides of the story. And the, the, the, the end of the thing for God was basically, uh, switching parts [00:46:00] so that the
He, he made the conservative into a liberal and the liberal. And a conservative, by the way, he was a man and a woman who had a previous history
Fritz Coleman: together. Okay. That's kind of the way they do family therapy. Let's do some role reversal now. Exactly. You hit your husband with a baseball bat now and,
Phil Proctor: and, uh, that sounds great.
It was well embraced. I'm so sorry we lost Ed. We haven't been able to find somebody to fill those wonderful shoes. Of
Ted Bonnitt: his, you're listening to Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer show on K P F K with our wonderful guest, [00:46:30] Louise Lanker and Fritz Coleman.
Fritz Coleman: And I gotta say, we're very honored to be considered sexy boomers, aren't you?
That's the highest compliment I've ever
Louise Palanker: been paid. Yeah. Thank you very much and uh, I appreciate. That, uh, how interesting and enjoyable it is to be sexy for this
Ted Bonnitt: hour. You know, we get a lot of that and, you know, that wasn't the, the intention. That wasn't the intention at all. You know, it's a wink. I know.
No. What we did was we, uh, when we were starting what we're going to call this show, well, it's, we're talking to boomers. Yeah. So boomers should be in it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, uh, what else? My
Phil Proctor: [00:47:00] wife, Melinda Peterson, was
Ted Bonnitt: present for this. Yes. And I had made a movie, I made a documentary called Mau Mau Sex Sex. And just because I had that title in it, I had, what was it about?
Just, it was, it was a profile of two old film exploiters who lefted all their way to the bank doing free pornography, the worst movies ever made. Just hilarious. Is that streamable? That sounds really fun. It is. It's, well, you can see it on Vimeo. Oh, great.
Louise Palanker: So you, you titled your show with search terms that are popular boomers.
That's right. And sexy
Ted Bonnitt: Sex. So Sexy boomer, you guys [00:47:30] are geniuses. Oh, thanks. Well, sexy, you thank our listener and, uh, we should change the
Louise Palanker: name of our show to Sexy, sexy Media. Sexy. Well,
Ted Bonnitt: so the, so the point is, the point is, is that, you know, we were talking about is like this, the, the baby boomers is a much maligned.
Generation at this point. I mean, yes. Yes. Okay. Boomer. Yes. Guilty is charged. However, um, not entirely. And we also are by far the wealthiest demographic. Yes, we're idle. Speak for yourself. There's people want to, uh, you know, people want, you know, people are available, [00:48:00] want to be entertained. They're not being spoken to.
It's this really grand opportunity. But oh, as you know, 55 plus don't. Know about podcasts?
Fritz Coleman: Well, that's very, very true. As a matter of fact, when we first started, we did little tutorials on how to Yeah. Launch a podcast in your car. But you have to, the way that I
Louise Palanker: look at it is that they've, they've barely mastered audible.
Mm-hmm. Audio books, they can listen to a book in their car. Mm-hmm. And I, I think the next step is, Hey, uh, [00:48:30] grandpa, listen, let show me your phone. Because it's, they don't re, they hear the word podcast and they think it, it's like saying HBO o to a person who doesn't have hbo. O Yeah. It's not for me. I don't have it at, uh, I don't, I don't get podcasts.
Yes, you do. Everyone gets podcasts. If you have a phone, it came with a podcast app. All you have to do is type into the search field media path, or sexy boomers. That's right. If you start typing the word sexy, though, it's gonna auto fail some other stuff. So yeah, be prepared for that. That's true. Keep keep typing.
[00:49:00] Don't get distracted.
Phil Proctor: By the way, I have to mention, June is audiobook month. Ah. And uh, I did an audiobook of my book, where's My Fortune cookie? Oh. Where I added some new material and everything. And, uh, it's going to be available now at Sue Media. I mean, they're just pushing it again. Uhhuh. Where's my fortune cookie?
Phil proctor sue media.com. You'll
Ted Bonnitt: find it. You know, and, and the other thing too is audible search where you just can, That's one of the things I talked to [00:49:30] younger people in their thirties and forties, like tech bros that are, you know, like, um, and I found out that they actually are buying Siri for their parents because they're tired of the questions.
Like, why? Where, just talk to the
Phil Proctor: box. Just talk to
Fritz Coleman: the box. Well, again, I buy, say buy, I I you buy it for the safety aspect of it. I bought it from my mom and, uh, And, uh, the, because she lived alone until late in her life, she had, uh, She wanted to be [00:50:00] able to turn the lights off and on at will. Mm-hmm. She wanted to turn the heat up and down at Will.
Mm-hmm. She wanted a security system. She wanted the, the, um, the cameras and everything. And then, um, like three days after she installed it, she called me, she said, I keep talking to this thing and it's just not responding to me. And I said, well, well, let's go through it and how do you do it? She said, Siri, uh, why don't you?
And I said, well, first of all, It's Alexa. It's not Siri. Siri in the car. [00:50:30] Mom, Google. And then, and then she
Louise Palanker: only had one kid cuz she didn't wanna learn a lot of names. No,
Fritz Coleman: that's right. And, and, and uh, and I said you have to pose everything as a question. It's like, jeopardy, everything has
Phil Proctor: to be a question that's in the form of a question.
Fritz Coleman: And so anyway, did she, did she get the hang of it?
Ted Bonnitt: Yeah, she did. Right. But theoretically they could bark out. Hey, play me the Media Path podcast and it should come on. Yes, absolutely. Oh yes, people do that.
Louise Palanker: Or the Sexy Boomer. But you do have to say Alexa, and I hope if I'm saying this on your radio, [00:51:00] it didn't ignite your
Phil Proctor: Alexa.
No. Do apologize. Did you see the, these SNL skit about, uh, uh, what, uh, whatever the name is, uh, present for older people? Yeah, I did. Where you could see, you could, she would answer to Excedrin. I
Louise Palanker: think it should be grandson.
Phil Proctor: Grandson. Uh, anyway, it, it is amazing. The robots have won. We folks. Oh no. You know they have no,
Louise Palanker: there's no robot as funny as you, Phil.
Oh, well you're funnier
Phil Proctor: than, [00:51:30] well, we're not talking, uh, artificial intelligence cannot write a joke.
Fritz Coleman: No, that's you, you took the words right out of my mouth. I said I think the last entertainment. Medium that won't be faked is ours. Is is humor. Humor. And, you know, because it's about attitude and, uh, I don't know.
And
Phil Proctor: I, I, I put out a thing called Planet Proctor. I don't know. Are you on my, my list? Yes. And Fritz, I'll send it to you. I I will get there. I'll get on it. And, and, and Planet Proctor. Uh, the last issue I published, uh, one [00:52:00] article in, in the thing that was written by artificial intelligence that Ted gave me.
Mm. And nobody. Yes, very few people. It's mind
Fritz Coleman: blowing how it is, but humor's a different thing. Yeah. Humor is an alchemy that I don't know that we'll ever be able to. I hope not anyway. I hope
Ted Bonnitt: not. Well, it's interesting. I used the free chat GDP program to find out, you know, oh yeah. This is to ask, you know, who is Phil Proctor and who's Ted Bonnitt?
And they both. Completely got it wrong. So then I upgraded to the $20 a month chat, DDB [00:52:30] four. And both, both responses. Oh, you
Fritz Coleman: want facts, that'll be a more, Heather cost you more money. And
Ted Bonnitt: both responses were, we don't have any information on these people.
Louise Palanker: Wow. Maybe if you have a Wikipedia page though, it, it would.
Phil, you should have a Wikipedia page. You don't,
Phil Proctor: you know, and uh, the answer to that is yes. There's a Wikipedia thing on on me, and I don't know if they,
Ted Bonnitt: no, I've hit out. Well, we're outta of time. Can you,
Louise Palanker: oh, wait a second. I have more things to say. Cut. I wanted to be sexier. Oh, well
Ted Bonnitt: you [00:53:00] come back. Less is more on the sexy thing.
Louise Palanker: So where will leave? I'm guessing. Where
Ted Bonnitt: will we, where can our listener find you?
Louise Palanker: So we're on YouTube and so there's a, a video version of everything. So if the, the guest is talking about someone like What does this person look like? Just watch the video. It's on YouTube Media path and we are at Media Path Podcast cuz you, YouTube now has usernames.
Ah, but we're also on all the podcasting platforms. See, that's the wise thing to do. Apple Podcast, Spotify, [00:53:30] Stitcher. Overcast wherever you go for your
Phil Proctor: time. And before we say goodbye, I want to wish a happy 31st anniversary to me and my darling bride, Melinda, Peter, Melinda, Peter. Tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen, 31 years something major.
Plan count.
Ted Bonnitt: Louise. Fritz, thank you so much for coming on. Sexy. You can hear the show at sexyboomershow.com. I'm Ted Bonnitt.
Phil Proctor: I'm still Phil Proctor.
Ted Bonnitt: And we're gonna have Carl Gottlieb, the man who wrote Jaws on next week, and he's gonna talk about the strike, the writer [00:54:00] strike.
Phil Proctor: Oh, that's right. Let's tune in for that. That's right. We, that's why the show is spontaneous today. Yes. No writers, no writers.
Ted Bonnitt: Thanks!