Curious Hair wrote:
I think John Williams is the right guy for mornings. I don't know if I want weekday Nick D., though. The appeal of his show is that it's on late at night and it's weird, enjoyably weird because you're in a different mood by then. If I were listening to banter about crappy B-movies during my mid-morning peak hours of mental acuity, I think I'd just get irritated.
Nick D is way too talented to be pigeonholed to graveyard shifts for the rest of his life. Overnights could permanently use a guy like him, but he deserves a shot to move up. Roy gave him his 1st opportunity. Old and stodgy WGN has probably held him back from where he should be.....the Gary Lee Wright pairing bogged him down--WGN couldnt trust a young guy to go on his own without the training wheels. They've come a long way now from all nite BigBand Muzak Saturdays and Kumbaya Sundays .
The banter just comes with the territory of being overnites . Improvising thru dead air has given us some of his best podcast moments-- worthy of Steve Dahl ,Johnny B or Mancow at their best. The quality of guests he books often exceeds what you'd expect from that time slot--- the whole show could be 'Ridin shotgun' or a Nugent free-for-all if he wanted to. Both Williams and Cochran have flagrantly 'borrowed ' plenty of material from NickD thru the years. Remember John William's voice mail bits?
Gotta roll the dice as far as time slot adaptability goes. Boers and Bernstein used to be pretty loose during Middays --they've since tightened up pretty well for afternoon drive. On the other side of the coin Kevin Matthews was a disaster on his change from middays to everywhere else. I presume NickD will be able to adapt.
The hard part is staying interesting while still appeasing the 60-70 year old WGN seniors crowd. He's filled-in well in the past.
From WGN's standpoint, its a no-brainer. Homegrown talent is the cheapest solution to start. I'm sure he's auditioning on the fill-in shows this week. Good luck NickD !