. . . Sigh . . .

My wife and I are in the study. Me on the computer, obviously. She's scrapbooking. We're listening to the BBC. Ah, the BBC.

Now, this isn't going to be some snotty, Euro-wistful rant on why the BBC is better than anything we have in the United States. Well, maybe a little.

They have shows on the BBC. And not the politic slop, fat men or skinny women screaming and ranting and foaming about what we should believe. Nor the tweedy snots of National Public Radio smarming about what we should believe. Well, maybe a little of that. A lot of that, if you listen to the BBC news.

But we don't. We listen to the comedies. They have comedy programs on BBC radio. Fun stuff. Quiz shows. Situation comedies. Odd little science-fiction bits. Comics. American radio is a wasteland of music. Around here, anyway. I've written about Bob Ziel before. He's the only thing that approaches a radio show here, and bless him for that. But other than that, nothing. I can only handle pop music for a little while. Classical music a bit longer.

And don't point out things like Prairie Home Companion or Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Shades of the real thing. Kellior gets uglier in face and mein every year. And Wait Wait is so dull it can't compare to what the BBC offers.

But we used to have it. In the world of Jack Benny, Fibber McGee, The Shadow, Orson Welles, Burns and Allen, and the rest. They all went to television. Why, I have to wonder? Television was new, yes. But boring.

Radio Memes and the Radio Party

Before the Internet had memes like the Heineken Looter, radio had memes (of course, before radio had memes, cave paintings had memes as well, so let’s not all bow at once over creating them or we’ll bump heads).

Here’s one of radio’s memes, translated into film, which seems odd, but so it goes:



I’m sure the young set out there has no idea what this is. And after I explain it to them, not many of them will care. But this was big, baby, big. Fibber McGee opens his infamous closet and – whoooo – all that stuff falls out. Hilarious. Really. I promise.

Yeah. So if you don’t get that, maybe Cokesbury’s Radio Party isn’t for you. But it should be. Those who ignore the past are not only doomed to repeat it, but also doomed to miss out on a lot of great comedy.



This was the “Pants on the Ground” of the day. All done WITHOUT Internet distribution. We didn’t need fancy desktops or wi-fi or iPhones or the iPad. We had radio and that’s all we needed and we liked it!