It started with Tom Schaer and has never really taken off. The score has never been able to get the morning show quite right. The have tried the heavy sports talk format (murph & fred). They have tried the Ex-jock thing (the bull & the bear). The show has now "evolved" into a whatever mike north wants to talk about show. The morning show history is not exactly what one would call stellar. The show should be a winner as it is the only local sports talk show, but it has languished in the ratings. Why can't the score find a direction for arguably it's most important time slot?

If you consider the numbers that Mike & Mike get and add that to Pappy's pathetic numbers you know the audience around if there is a great local host. Unfortunately Pappy has a contract for a year or two that the Score will not eat. Plus the people who run, produce, and are on the air don't even realize how bad the Pappy show sucks. This current show can never be fixed if the people there don't even realize it sucks. They all just bury their heads in the sand.

Getting back to the point, no I don't think there has ever been a good morning show. I think the pace required of a morning show does not lend itself to the type of broadcast that made the SCORE popular. They must pack the time with commercials and recaps from the night before. This leaves little time for interaction with listeners.

I would be interested to see what other local sports stations do for their morning slots. WFAN in New York is tremendously popular but I believe they had and continue to have Imus as their morning man. I don't know what WEEI in Boston does but it has great ratings as well.

You guys might think I'm crazy but I liked Da Bear & Da Bull. On school mornings, I used to catch the end of Grobstein and then the first 30 minutes of Norm & Doug. The Score probably realized both guys could only really talk about either football or basketball, so they threw Jim Memolo in there to add some balance.

It probably was a bad show though...the nostalgia is clouding my perspective a little bit. But I'd take that show over the current morning mess any time. Hell, Murph & Fred was even okay (in small doses).

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Small doses was all we were given with that terrible show. Between the moronic "Scores on the 4's" every 10 minutes, updates, and constant commercials, there was only like 30 seconds each segment for actual sports talk. I remember they'd have the coming out of commercial music, take a call or two, and in the middle of the second call there would be the going into a commercial music starting already. Brutal programing and terrible show. Never even had the chance to get any rhythm or conversation started.

No, Kid, I think you're deaf



They put Memolo on there for two reasons. First, he was under contract without a show (remember, they had him filling in at night, and doing some updates). Second, Bear & Bull sounded horrible - no direction, nobody driving the show, the production was terrible (I remember specifically faxing Norm because they were running out-of-date commercials - things that had passed months before). Memolo drove the show once he was put back on.

I guess on a morning show you can't expect a lot of calls with news, traffic, etc. I'd settle for some reasonable discussion of yesterday's games by the hosts. Murph spending an hour on some bunt or his Trib hang-ups was too much for me. Norm and Doug talking "fire" and "attitude" was a waste of time.

Monday morning during the football season is the worst. I want to hear everything about Sunday. Instead I get scores rattled-off faster than I can absorb and North babbling about the United Nations or something.

Wierdly you get more info, even on Chgo games, at ESPN.

What was really wrong with the original Shere Show? I heard it. Remember nothing very good or bad about it.

Tom Shaer was the host.

Here's the thing, though - Shaer at least talked sports. He wasn't trying to be a sociologist or political economist. Granted, it wasn't the best sports show around (not even close), but I didn't find myself switching stations as often as I do now with the Mike North Morning Disaster (actually, I stopped listening to this POS show long ago).

Yes, Kid, you are crazy. Don't you remember how Norm would show up late fairly often and get pissy if anyone called him on it?

Or, my favorite. When asked his thoughts about a Bears game that had playoff implications, Norm admited that he had been in SoCal all weekend and missed the game. Evidently, there was no TV to be seen where he was.

Depends on when you're talking about. The early days of Bear & Bull, where Norm'd show up, and Shakey was producing, was well paced and funny. Then things went downhill and Memolo came in to shore it back up. But that was the closest they had to "good show"...

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry