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Thursday, April 27, 2006

Phil Hendrie sells out

Now it’s safe to kill your radio.

First Howard. Now this.

Phil Hendrie, radio’s one true mad genius, is giving up the greatest show on the airwaves for a crummy sitcom career.

He's quitting radio to pursue acting.

For more than fifteen years, Phil Hendrie has run the wildest, most creative, most satiric show in any medium, creating and voicing characters that call in as if they’re listeners, debating himself and morons who think the characters are real (hey, we thought it was real the first night we tuned in, driving through the Valley, trying to figure out what he was doing and how he was doing it) and pulling off real comedy and comment in the process. Unique. Twisted. Totally gone. And totally suited to radio.

But Hendrie wants more. All radio stars do. Ask Bob Crane. And now that he’s getting a taste of the TV business with the middling NBC show, Teachers, we'll be getting more of him, and less--seeing him, and losing him.

We understand the radio industry can be a frustrating box for an artist and that the numbskulls who run it don't know what to do with a cranky treasure like Hendrie. We also understand that money talks. But we don't watch sitcoms. And we look forward to finding him and his characters on the radio. Bad news. Last show: June 23rd.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

VERY bad news. I love Hendrie. Great post, especially since I agree so wholeheartedly. Selling out for a lousy sitcom. There oughta be a law. How can Doug Danger leave us? Hendrie is a verbal magician, enormously talented, whose once-in-a-lifetime assets will be wasted in Sitcomland.