Minooka Meatball wrote:
Tall Midget wrote:
Kaplan's former partners on the weeknight broadcasts, Brian Noonan and Andrea Darliss, were/are equally terrible. Noonan's on-air persona amounts to little more than a stale Letterman impersonation and Darliss is an uninformed chick who is there, presumably, to represent the "women's" perspective. This shows you what WGN management thinks of women.
I know there have been a lot of negative comments written about Nick DiGilio in this section, but I still think he's far superior to most of the station's on-air talent. In my view, his shows could be immeasurably improved with some decent coaching. Someone needs to tell him to slow down, relax, focus a bit more, and treat his subjects with a bit more depth. If he does all those things (not a difficult task, in my opinion), he could be a force in prime-time radio.
While I could have done without most of Darlas' non-contributions, I completely disagree about Noonan. You want a Lettterman knockoff? See: Terry Boers. Noonan has a distinct, non-phony "regular-guyness" to him, and was perfect as a counterpoint to Kaplan's Coppock-esque smarm. I actually enjoyed when Kaplan was gone and Noonan ran the show. Noonan's going to get more airtime there in some capacity.
As far as DiGilio goes, "small doses" go a long way. There are reasons why he has never graduated to a regular shift. He is never prepared other than with his constantly recycled five topics, like "commercials you hate", or "commercials that make you laugh", etc. Plus, he's been around for nearly 20 years, if he hasn't evolved in all that time, no amount of "decent coaching" is going to "immeasurably" improve him at all.
If anything, I'd say you have it backwards. DiGilio seems like much more of a "regular" Chicago guy to me than does Noonan, whose privileged background rears its elitist head from time to time. Obviously Boers also derives his humor from Letterman, but that's hardly relevant to the discussion. And while Noonan was certainly more tolerable than Kaplan, that's hardly a mark of honor given that Kaplan is one of the worst hosts on Chicago talk radio.
Your point about DiGilio's "5 Recycled Topics" shows that you don't listen to his program on a regular basis. The guy regularly engages a broader range of subjects than anyone else on the station.
nut Dumke is a frequent guest to discuss Chicago politics, he brings in Monica Eng and others to talk Chicago food, he is constantly talking mainstream and cult films with a wide range of critics, performers and directors, he also brings in that guy from the Reader who does the Secret History of Chicago Music feature to talk local music, etc. And yeah, he will talk about commercials along with reality TV, overlooked cable shows and a bunch of other stuff.
Given your apparent lack of familiarity with DiGilio's show, I find your opinion about his lack of potential to improve unconvincing.
. For someone who has to fill, what, maybe 6 hours of airtime a week?
Maybe I am not as familiar because I don't listen as much as you, as I really can't take more than a few minutes of his show???
OK, to be fair, let's make it the "10 Recycled Topics".
For instance, is he still doing the "what's trending on Yahoo Search" segments? If he was so well-prepared, this wouldn't even be part of the show. Then again, I'm sure he's got other things on his mind, like talking incessantly about his play...
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. For someone who has to fill, what, maybe 6 hours of airtime a week? 