For the first time in almost two decades weather conditions were pleasurable at
Picnic Area 5(1) Ballpark for the quin-annual 16 inch softball grudge match.
Teams featured were the league leading Pokeys and the In Da Basement Gumbys.
The grandstands were packed and a full seven inning regulation event began with a severely abbreviated national anthem and verbal fireworks.
The Pokeys took to the field with their famous “Deep Space Nine” lineup while the Gumbys just horse played around seeming to wander the field aimlessly.
Later innings featured several high scoring frames prompting the Pokeys
Charlie “Big Slugger” Clark to extort – “We Injured Da Ball.”
Fans exiting the ballpark post game were heard chanting
“We want a pitcher not a belly itcher!”
Losing Gumbys pitcher Gary West grumbled
“Our fans are just a bunch of Wild Irresponsible Drunken Buffoons”
adding plenty of fuel to the fire for the next Gumby/Pokey game in 2020.
The very first fully live in the studio episode. Floss Daily (Pete Jacobs) stars as the conductor – Floss saved the day…I just could not come up with an adventure idea all week. At about 4pm that Friday Floss stopped into the station….sensed my impending doom and remarked….. you are going to take a train and I’m your conductor! A tad past 5pm we were finished in production studio…and I was busy typing script in the sales office (yes on a real typewriter….no computers back then). This episode was so quickly thrown together and then it turned out to be one of the most entertaining (at least for Rankin as I always have difficulties making sure carts are cued!).
The very last station stop on the train ride has a really good remembrance on my part. Conductor Daily voiced together a cart of several train stops that ended with the last one you hear…..and I knew that one was the very last one. Problem was I really did not remember the order of the stops and I desired to end the episode with that particular train stop….thus a “reason” for the drawn out silly discussion with Rankin and all those extra train stops. Rankin finally had enough of me (the scheduled 5 minute segment turning into almost 10 minutes) and wanted me out of “his” studio to get on with “his” music programming. So when Rankin went back to his regular gig and spun the Iggy Pop tune on the turntable….I swiftly got up from my news chair, walked over to the board, reached over him and hit the green button on the cart machine one last time. Rankin went completely nuts and scolded “don’t you ever touch my board again!!” The cart pot was still up and honestly it’s an unadulterated WIDB moment that final train stop was cued up on the cart – and boy does the finish back to the music sound absolutely fantastic……all good karma….completely by chance!!
The show’s sponsor Two Smart Cookies is highlighted and subsequent episodes also contains this commercial. Voice credits/production – Floss Daily featured as Holmes and Dave The Rave (Dave Linke) as Watson.
I never knew until this day that Eric Clapton is Rankins’ father.
Episode was in part inspired by bomb scares on train rides home…Carbondale to Union Station and then to Downers Grove…back in the early 80’s I remember getting evacuated from the Amtrak train in the middle of nowhere south of Champaign and north of Mattoon because of some phone call threat.
The last of the Rankin live – Hot Spotts carted show (sort of – at the end of the segment Rankin graciously invited me into the studio “LIVE”). From that point on all HSIC epsiodes would be live in studio. The patented Hot Spotts theme anthem makes its debut. Jamberg, K2 (Ken Krause) and Mitch all made huge contributions to the opening theme. The creating the theme in the production studio took about 2 hours and I cut myself at least twice slicing reel tape.
Major help with the sound bite ideas and production by Floss Daily (Pete Jacobs).
Inspired by SCTV, cardboard boat races and quaffing warm Moosehead Beer on the porch of the Caddyshack shaking and quaking as semi trucks roll past on Highway 13. Yes my house really did shake and creak when semi’s hit a crack in the street just the right way!! Again bear with us as these episodes really do get much better after this one…
When I look at a clock and discover it’s 6:30pm I still chuckle after all these years.
As the newly minted News Director of my senior year I desired to make our department stand out and do something different. On a crisp fall sunny morning in 1981 outside of Lawson Hall I ran into a bunch of my fellow IDB’ers. Unfortunately I don’t remember exactly who was there (two or three folks on the sales staff and I think the GM) and in the course of conversation I floated an idea where we’d have a segment with the news every Friday which would inform folks what was going on in town that weekend.
Movies, bands at bars, student center happenings and the like.
To my complete surprise there seemed to be group consensus and suddenly a name that show contest containing “in Carbondale” ensued. Within about three minutes out of nowhere someone said – why don’t you call it “Hot Spotts?”
Those 5 minutes started a dizzying chain of events at the station and within a week a time slot was fully sold/sponsored for the year, a lengthy discussion with the PD (Jamberg) gained approval and then the MD (Rankin Rich) got stuck with it on his prime time shift each Friday at 6:30pm. The segment was in need of “hook” so listeners would desire to tune in so each week so I came up with an adventure theme where I’d go about the town of C’dale explaining the all happenings.
And that’s how “HOT SPOTTS IN CARBONDALE” came to be.
Imprudently and by some miracle most of these weekly episodes were taped on the reel to reel in the production studio. Over the years these have been transferred from reel to cassette and finally from cassette to a burned CD. Looking back I hope you’ll find some humor, old movies to watch and some music you really need to discover again.
In honor of the 45th anniversary of WIDB – the reunion committee has repeatedly implored (demanded) that each unaltered episode is shared with you over the coming months with some comments/credits prior to our big 45 rpm gathering in June of 2015.
Of course each episode will be posted at exactly 6:30pm on a Friday….
Our adventure begins……
Episode I – “Chopter”
The carted edition of the very first Hot Spotts in Carbondale (HSIC) that aired in the fall of 1981….no taped version with DJ accoutrement exists of this show. The initial concept was for the adventures to be “in the can” and Rankin Rich would be given a script at least a day before which of course never happened. Rankin decided after this show that Hot Spotts needed to be 100 pct live in the studio however I blindly insisted that we give this type of concept at least one more try. Rankin did win this argument and later you’ll hear fully live shows after Episode II. This is the worst one so please bear with it or just turn it off – remember it’s a very first try – and the beginning of truly epic journeys each week.
Episode inspired by watching “Dog Day Afternoon” (no sound) while listening to The Tubes “Power Tools” at full blast (11) at the Caddy Shack (the name of my house on E Walnut) while blowing off accounting.
Gumby Celebrates Loss
