April Winchell

For some bizarre reason, the comment feature on this site is screwed up. It only allows ten comments, and then it decides you’ve said enough.

I can only assume it’s talking to Pal Jacky.

In any event, we’re looking into it and we’ll do what we can.

In the meantime, here’s some exciting news!

People Magazine has named Rumer Willis one of the 100 Most Beautiful People in the World.

Miss Willis came in just behind La Pequeña.

Do you hear that?

Me neither.

Nothing even resembling a podcast has happened in quite some time. Not only have Marc and I been busy trying to get our mystery project up and running, I’ve actually been . . . oh what do they call that again?

Oh yes.

Working.

In the last few weeks, I’ve done a commercial for Kmart, voiced roles in the new Rob Zombie movie, worked on Phineas and Ferb, and on Thursday, I’ll be doing Penguins, which is a Disney series from the people behind Madagascar. Can you believe that? If I wasn’t so drunk, I’d think I was hallucinating.

I’m not completely sure when we’re going to get another podcast up, but from reading your comments, I can tell you have to get something to listen to pretty quickly. You’ve stopped short of actual threats, but it’s an uneasy peace.

So today I’m uploading three new highlight reels, which you can get here (or at the bottom of this post). What I think makes these worthwhile is that they’re from my first years at KFI, and they’re completely ridiculous.

I fondly recall this period as sort of the tail end of a great period in local radio. Clear Channel hadn’t yet hadn’t yet gotten to the stage where they demanded right-wing conservative blathering from every gasbag they hired, and little fish like me were largely alone to create their own formats. And since I had no sponsors and only did weekends, KFI management didn’t really give a shit what I was doing.

Obviously, not everything I tried was successful, but the failures were entertaining in their own right. It was all part of trying to create a new kind of radio that was more about amusing people than irritating them.

It was great for a while, but the burnout was inevitable. No matter how hard I worked or what I accomplished, I was just a placeholder for another clone. Talk radio would continue to be distilled down to a few personalities, and even fewer points of view.

And I think that’s really the best indicator of how very out of step Clear Channel is. Terrestrial radio is in financial freefall, and the first thing they cut from ther budgets are local hosts. As podcasting explodes, corporate radio responds by giving us fewer voices.

Yeah.

I hope you enjoy these highlight reels. I like to think we’re heading back to this kind of freedom.

I like to think we’re going to demand it.

KFI Highlight Reel: July - September 2002

KFI Highlight Reel: March - November 2002

KFI Highlight Reel: November 2001 - June 2002

(Many thanks to SoCalFKK for sitting through endless hours of marginal entertainment to put these Highlight Reels together.)

From: (Redacted)
Subject: VERY Strange TV Show
Date: April 25, 2008 9:01:37 AM PDT
To: april@aprilwinchell.com

Hi April,

I know how much you love bizarre television, so here’s one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen.

It’s from a British variety show called The Black and White Minstrels, which was apparently very popular in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

It’s kind of like The Lawrence Welk Show, with its wholesome (and corny) musical numbers, but there’s just one thing . . .

All of the men wear blackface (and BAD blackface at that) and white gloves, while the women remain white.

I find it very strange that the songs they’re singing are not minstrel songs; these are middle-of-the-road pop songs which don’t require blackface. So why are all of the guys wearing it? Especially in 1978?

There are more clips posted on YouTube, but this will give you a taste of what the cultured British viewers were enjoying a few decades ago: