Juice's Lecture Notes wrote:
Had to drive to Indy today, figured I would give Dan's show a listen. I heard it all, from transition with Mully & Haugh (where Dan was beautifully cornered by Haugh given Dan's contention that Aldrich's name should be left on the cup as reminder to feel shame, and his preening on twitter about how his stupid kid covered up the Blackhawks logo on his key chain and how that was Actually Great) to transition with LoHo. This show sucks beyond belief.
First, Leila sounds like garbage. Her EQ is terrible compared to Dan's and there's absolutely no punch to her sound. And I don't know what's causing it, but she constantly has this "gum mouth" sound that makes it sound as though she's got cotton balls in her mouth or she's chewing on a big piece of gum while trying to speak.
Second, their chemistry is STILL terrible, and this show has been going on how long? Today, multiple times while discussing the Bulls, Dan was pontificating about some super-basketbally point or another, and ended with that downward inflection common to radio hosts signaling that they have completed their sentence/thought, and it's the partner's turn to either keep the conversation going, do a read, throw to a break, whatever. Except instead of doing any of that, there were multiple-second pauses of completely dead air, then Leila went on about some almost completely unrelated tangent, like her feelings about the atmosphere of the game, at the conclusion of which she used the same inflection cue and Dan did the exact same multi-second pause that she did to him. Then, later, Dan made another x-and-o point about the game, and Leila gave it a few beats and went right back to the atmosphere angle. At multiple times throughout the show, on multiple topics, it sounded like there were just two people taking turns giving their sports thoughts to no one in particular.
Thirdly, like MANY of Dan's previous shows since B&B, the only time either host showed an ounce of passion was in doing Sexual Assault Radio, which came complete with a full read of a brooding email from Stonecutter! SJW Radio is alive and well.
Finally, Dan works way too stiff for Leila. She wasn't afraid to make a little fun of herself and talk about social media hijinks, she even turned a horribly boring story from Dan about not liking Hostess Cherry Pies anymore because, "maybe the cherries got too expensive" into a riff on how one could make their own cherry pie strudel type of deal. Dan's response (after trying multiple times to interject while Leila was riffing)? "Maybe YOU'RE the reason cherries are so expensive!"
I say this all to say that Leila isn't objectively bad, she's at least Just Fine as a host, could maybe be more if she doesn't leave for another TV gig, and she checks the right boxes. Dan's best years are obviously well behind him, and if you want to make Leila the future of middays on the station, fine, but these two cannot work together and create a cohesive, entertaining radio show.
I came on here to essentially say the same things, but JLN and Curious have already captured the exact issues with this show. Zero chemistry, Leila doesn't seem to have strong sports takes (but isn't really consistenly funny enough to be that kind of host either) and Dan is neither being driven by somebody to be better or driven by somebody to be funnier.
I can't believe they've stayed together at this point and I can only hope that some where in the shadows Ronge is lurking, ready to return and make Dan moderately funny again. Send him off into the sunset that way. This is just painful and unlistenable.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
