Kubbooms.
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Wow.
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Mallor and Danny g Radio. Happy Friday to you. It is the twenty third day of the month of May and the last Friday Pod before we head to Van Vancouver for the Malor Meet and Greet.
Hopefully you'll be able to make it.
If you're in British Columbia, somewhere in Western Canada or in the Pacific Northwest, come out say hello. All the details all the information available on the Instagram page Ben Maller on Fox the Facebook page Ben Maler Show. The Malar Meet and Greet is coming up on Thursday the twenty ninth, Unless my flight gets canceled.
Thursday of the.
Twenty ninth Malor Meet and Greet in Vancouver, we'll spend the weekend there, have a great time. Cannot wait to check out your fine city. It is going to be a glorious time. Didn't want to mention today is a melanancholy day. Is Lucky Penny Day, as in the penny from kind of like benny versus the penny and all that.
Now.
I wanted to bring this up because the news out this week and I think it's been confirmed, but who knows. There's been rumors on this for a while. The US will stop putting new pennies into circulation by early twenty twenty six. You have got to be kiddy me uh oh spaghettio. Yeah, Businesses will need to start rounding up or down to the nearest five cents. There was a
statement made by the US Treasury this week. The penny currently cost four cents to make, so cutting production is set to save a bunch of money, which is appropriate. This being Lucky Penny Day, the news would come out and we're not sure how the Lucky Penny Day started. We do know some fun facts about the penny. It started in seven seven fifty seven AD. The very first pennies were minted during the reign of OFA and Marcia in Anglo Saxon, England, and then in seventeen ninety three
the first pennies were minted in America. Benjamin Franklin supposedly designed the first pennies. Eighteen fifty seven the penny was resized in America, and over the last number of years it's been pointed out how expensive it is for the penny to be made. A couple of years back, there was a story that for eighty million dollars worth of pennies, it cost one hundred and thirty four million. Gave you the new numbers here. A penny currently cost four cents
to make. So bye bye penny, but not necessarily bye bye benny versus the penny. As that iconic TV show not quite done yet.
We'll see what happens.
It's up to the good folks over there at NBC's side whether or not the TV show will have a longer lifespan than the actual penny. So stay tuned. Inquiring minds would like to know. But on with the show we go. On this podcast, we have the surprise cartoon mascot Storm and Norman and the phrase.
Of the work.
But we'll begin with this so not so very long ago, in a kingdom not listing on any map. We went to the dogs. Because we are suckers for positive feedback. We do this podcast every weekend, and by request, we bring you more tales from the Mox, Tales from the Mox, the files of the Mox. Moxie my dog. Sarah in Minnesota, who's not the normal. I don't think that's the normal Sarah that we know, who I met at the Mala meet and greet there in Minnesota a couple years ago.
But Sarah Minnesota, Lisa in Arizona, and some guy named Dennis in Ohio, which is.
Kind of a big state, so is Arizona.
But Arizona's like pretty much here in Phoenix, Tucson or Flagstaff, right, it's pretty much it the greater Phoenix area of flag Staff, Tuson, Ohio.
You could be where. You could be in Cleveland, you could be.
In Cincinnati, Columbus. You know, there's a few places you could be in Ohio. Anyway, all of them reached out and said they enjoyed these stories last week about what was really one story about Mox. And so here we are again and I will regale you with another story because some of you like this, and even if it's only for Sarah, Lisa and Dennis and that's it, we'll do it for them. The glamours, the glamours of an exciting rock star life doing overnight talk radio, being a professional gas back.
This job is not that easy. This job is not so we just take it one show at a time. Right. We go out there, we do each hour.
We have sixty minutes of content and we just try to do good radio.
Right.
There's no easy radio in overnight talk radio, and you cannot afford to look past any individual segment.
I think I got all the cliches, right, I think I did. I get it, I got most of them.
So nonetheless, getting ready for the show, as I imagine you are, we are all wired the same way.
We're hardwired.
We have routine, and who doesn't like I like poutine and I like routine. And next week we'll be in Canada for the Malor Meet and Greet. We're looking forward to that. It can be a lot of fun.
Hopefully I'll be able to meet you.
If you're in the Vancouver area or British Columbia, or if you want to drive over from another part in Canada, come say hello and very excited to meet you.
And also if you're in the Pacific Northwest.
Details on a previous edition of this podcast, but also available on my Facebook page and the Instagram page. You can find all of that information there. The Instagram page Ben Mahler on Fox, the Facebook page Ben malor Show, two different pages, two different names, and all that. So get back to the story, please, So the Glamour's Life of overnight talk radio doing my thing, creature of habit, and I have my routine, which is not poutine. It's
endlessly looking for things that get my blood flowing. Now years ago on this podcast, we had one of the iconic broadcasters of all time, a Hall of Fame Brent Mussburger. You're looking alive Brent Musburger, who gave some advice, not on this podcast, but he gives some advice and I read it somewhere along the way. He said, the key to life is to stay interested.
Well, it's also the.
Key if you have to do four monologues, which are each about fifteen minutes, sometimes longer, sometimes less. But if you have to do those monologues, you got to stay interested. You can't really fake it till you'll make it, and you can't fake it till you make it, and all that stuff, and so passing the test of time and doing this for a long time my goal every year. The hardest part of the show, and I've talked about this to you in the past. To me, the hardest
part of the show is getting the show ready. It's practice, not a game. We in here talking about practice, if you will. And so the way I go about it my ingredients that I get to make the show. And again I've discussed this, but there's new people listening, and if not, we're totally porked. So the way I approached this, if you were to drop into the Malor mansion, most days,
not not all days, there's some days are different. But most days you'll find me sitting casually on the sofa, laptop open seventeen to twenty five web pages open, scanning RSS feeds, and futzing around on some of the dark corners of the dark web. As I am surfing around the same way I did for many many years at my website. I don't do that anymore, but I have
the same tools that I used back then. I just do it for the radio show to try to find things that interest me, because, as Musburger said, stay interesting.
You can't just do monologues and you don't care.
And that becomes problematic because some days there's not a lot going on. Now, while I am readily working away with my laptop, my right hand, as I like to say, is getting a workout back and forth. I got usually two or three games in my rotation. This time of the year. It's a lot of baseball and then the basketball game. So I'll go to baseball one basketball. Don't tell anyone, and certainly don't tell Eddie, my old buddy, Eddie Garcia.
But occasionally I will mix a hockey game in.
We don't talk about hockey, but occasionally I'll mix a hockey game in if the baseball is not that good. In the basketball game is a blowout. So keep in mind, this is a story about mox my dog, Moxie erf erf. While this is going on, my partner in crime. My wife's at work, she's doing her thing, and so Moxie is with me, our beloved English bulldog. And Moxie is wonderful.
She's also a fat bulldog. She's so fat. In fact, she's not even fat She's strong, but she's so big she cannot fit through the doggy door that we put in, which was designed for my previous dog, the late Great Bella, and Bella was a wonderful dog also, so Bella passed away we got Moxie. And Bella is a very little dog. Moxie gigantic. Right, Moxie is the round mound of dog town.
And so instead of just having her go out the doggy door, I have to let her get busy on the ones and the twos, right, the ones and the twos every so often so she can go the ones.
And it is so this time of the year, it's May.
The weather's nice these days, and so I made an editorial decision that I would take advantage of the great weather and the nice air, good temperature where we do the show from. And so I decided to leave the door open. And then I just had the screen. So I had the screen door which was closed, but the actual door was open. So I let the air flow in. And I'm on my life and I'm neck deep trying to find crap that I think is somewhat interesting that you might be interested in, right, And it's like I
have to be interested. You have to be interested, otherwise we're totally screwed. So why is this night different from all other nights? So I'm throwing down bullet points as I like to do for the Malor monologues. I am minding my own business. I'm in my own world. I got the TV going, I'm watching the game. There was a Phillies Rockies game. That's the game I was watching. No,
I'm a loser watching a Phillies Rockies game. So I'm watching that and I hear this sound and it sounded like something was gearing up, and I knew Moxy was outside, but I didn't really think much about it. I wonder what that is, and then I thought, well, maybe there was some kind of rodent that came in the yard there behind the Malor mansion, and Mox was just going to attack the rodent and that would be that.
So I'm focused, but I hear.
This kind of in the background, and then I hear a couple of steps, and then I hear nothing, and then okay, that's probably it.
That's just over.
And again I'm just doing my thing, and then again I hear the same thing, like i'd something gearing up to attack like maybe Moxie was getting to attack, getting ready to attack something. It's got kind of heavy breathings, the sighing's going on, and I'm like, okay, well, you know again, I'm not just kind of my peripheral hearing. I'm not really focused on that. And I'm putting the bullets together for the monologue and just doing my thing, and all of a sudden, like a police battering ram.
Next thing I know, I'm in a movie and ca boom, car boom. My friend who I let outside on the chance that she would go ones and twos, My friend Moxy. Hand to god, I'm not making this up for the podcast, crashed through the screen, breaking the screen door like a picture shaped cartoon mascot known as the kool Aid Man. The only thing she didn't do was shout oh yeah as she came through. But I'm telling you, she bulldozed her way into the house like a freaking wrecking ball.
And my favorite part.
Of it is not only that, because it's ridiculous that she just was so desperate to get back in that she just slammed through the freaking screen, But then she took one look at me. She was very proud of herself like a peacock with his feathers out. She took a look at me, kind of gave me the eye, and then she was so exhausted because she's out of shape, she laid down for a nap right in front of me, like, hey, sucker, Yeah, you're not going to keep me out of here now, sucker.
It was. It was hilarious.
Anyway.
That is my story of the week, the one and only mocks the Tales from the mox.
If you will now turning the page on that I did want to mention and this is old guy podcast. This is what I'm about to do is old guy podcast. I didn't mention this on the radio, so I think I might have, in passing brought it up at.
One point or another.
But I wanted to spend a few good minutes with a tip of the headphones, a tip of the microphone to someone in my youth that I watched a lot and enjoyed the art that they provided.
And they left this mortal coil this week. And it's not Jim Ursay, although he passed away.
The story here is about a gentleman named George Went, a beloved member of the Hollywood community who for me as a kid, one of my favorite shows to watch was the calm Cheers.
And I grew up in an era we didn't have the little social media.
And all that, so in order to get entertainment, we watched television. And when I was a little kid, we only had like eight channels or something like that before cable really took off and on and b see, Cheers was a very important show. We watched it every week. Everyone talked about Cheers and all that. My parents liked it. We all watched it and George Went was the character known as Norm Peterson. If you didn't watch.
The show and you don't know what the hell it is, doesn't mean anything to.
You, But to me, it was kind of a cool deal because he was a fat guy, and I was a big kid growing up.
I was, hey, this guy's on TV.
You looks kind of overweight, a little disheveled every day, and so I fell out a rabbit hole. When someone passes away, if I don't know them, but I know of them, I try to soak in as much knowledge because the further you get away from the person dying, the less stuff that's out there, and it's fresh and you want to learn these things, and so I started going down a rabbit hole, and I wanted to share some of the things that I found with you from my sojourn down.
The rabbit hole.
Is it true that the iconic actor George went that his character Noorn Peterson was initially intended to have just a single line in the pilot for the show.
However, upon further review, upon further.
Review, after the producers and the audience, they did the testing and all that stuff, they determined that wait a minute, this is like the everyman like, this is the relatable guy, and George Wentz character instead of having just a single line in the pilot episode and that's it, he became central figures in an ensemble cast, but appeared in two hundred and seventy five all two hundred and seventy five
episodes of that that show. There's There's a gentleman we had on this podcast a while back who's a friend of mine. We did some radio stuff together back in the day, and he was one of the writers on Cheers and and has had some great stories to tell me. I don't think it was here, but about working on that show and some of the things that happened, and it was great, and George Went was a decorated actor.
He won six consecutive Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor because of because of Cheers, and they even tossed his real life wife on the show. His real life wife was the voice of Norm's wife, never seen on camera, never seen on camera, but was was mentioned, right, It was mentioned on a a semi regular regular basis, right, And so there was that. Now you had also the academic part of George Went. He attended Notre Dame right
junior year Notre Dame. His GPA was very relatable. It was zero point zero zero was his GPA, and yeah, in that wild Yeah. So he transferred to a school in can City, Can City, where he completed a degree in economics.
So there's some ties there.
And of course we do some fun stuff in Kansas City as well, and he was like acting on stage and all that stuff. He did a bunch of animation George Went. He did animated versions of Norm Peterson on The Simpsons and Family Guy and all that stuff. So, and there's also clearly a sports tie, as he was on Saturday Night Live and one of the great characters
in the history of Saturday Night Live. George Went was a lifelong fan of Dump Bears, the Chicago Bears and had a passion for Chicago sports and that was a part of.
His personality and all that.
And the most famous character outside of Norm Peterson was in the early nineties.
On Saturday Night Live.
It was George Went sitting around as the original super fan sketch on Saturday Night Live in nineteen ninety one and just a group of stereotypical sausage eating beer drinking Bears fans obsessing over Dump Bears and the coach Mike Ditka, and he played this character, Bob Swirsky, and it was it was outsetting in fact, that bit. It was so amazing that it was supposed to be made into a movie, and as I remember hearing the story, there was something that happened that screwed that up.
But it was going to be in the movie.
And didn't quite didn't quite work out. So anyway, he was a fan of the Cubs and all the Chicago teams. In fact, he did celebrate at Wrigley Field as saying them take me out to the ball game because of Harry Carey and all that he was a big part of Chicago sports. So rest in peace. Rest in peace to the late great George went I know him as Norm Peterson, the Great Norm Peterson. All right, time now for the phrase of the week, the phrase of the week.
And here's the phrase of the week.
The phrase of the week is to call a spade a spade. Yes, the expression to call a spade a spade. Now that means to speak plainly and directly about something, even if it's unpleasant and impolite. We've heard this phrase. I use the phrase, let's call a spade a spade.
So the phrase actually comes from ancient Greece. It's an expression to call a fig a fig was the original phrase, and it comes from a Greek philosopher there in the early sixteenth century of the phrase was translated and to call a ho a hoe, as in a shovel, the English version which was translated in fifteen forty two, where hoe was translated to spade, because that was a common digging tool for the English. So you have this all
kind of moving around and all that stuff. And so to call a spade a spade has.
Its roots in ancient Greece.
It passed through Latin and it became a popular phrase in the fifteen hundreds, and it has always been about keeping it real.
Man.
We got to keep it real, is what we gotta do. We gotta keep it real. So there the phrase of the week, to call a spade a spade. And now time for some foody fun. That's right, foody fun, because we all have to eat, the one common denominator that we all have unless we're not around, we have to eat. We have to have to eat, otherwise we're in trouble. Some of the items I saw this week that I thought we're interesting that it would like to share with you. If you are in a region of the company that
has Jack in the Box, what's in the box? Jack in the Box free the onion rings with a one dollar purchase. So if you're a frugal connoisseur of food, of course, all this crap is on the app. If you're a fan of Windy's, we know we have the Windy's guy in Minnesota who's a big fan of the show. Windy's planning their fast food expansion into Poland. Because if there's one thing the people of Poland need that would make their life complete, it's fried chicken sandwiches, square burgers.
What more could you need?
But they're head into Poland Dominoes has served up for a limited time. This is in Australia, a meat pie crust pizza.
Say what.
Yes, this does not look very delicious at all. The crust features Domino's classic dough embedded with many Australian meat pies around the pizza's edge and it's there. It's a cross promotion because I guess for our friends in Australia, it's Australian soccer season or footy season as they call it. So this, yeah, this does not look palatable to me.
But if you're in Australia and you're interested in that, and these things are regional items that if they sell well and they can test them out in the US and they come to they come to the States and then then the next thing you know, to that we're off.
We're off to the races.
The flag is up, as we like to say, the flag is uh, Little Caesars testing a new Artistan style pizza. They're testing this. If you're in Albertquerque, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Charleston, West Virginia, Green Bay, or Appleton Hey, my brother, I have to contact my brother el Central, California and Yuma, Arizona. You have a chance to test out the artisan style Little.
Caesars Pizzazza pizza.
Yeah, you can shake Shack welcoming Fried Pickles. That's very important for alf the Alien opinter, So make sure to make it to shake Shack. The new Fried Pickles the chain's first ever additional side since it went from a hot dog cart to a permanent location in Madison Square Park. I've actually been to the original shake Shack. Fun fact. Fun fact, fun fact, fun fact. When that started one of my trips to New York, my brother said, oh man, this is this amazing burger place.
You got to try it. So we went over there and had shake Shack at.
The original location before before they became this monstrosity that is everywhere.
But it started out as just a shack that and how was the other.
God, there's a there's a Mediterranean restaurant that started on my brother's street, right like right next to my brother street. God, what is the name of it. I forget the name of it, but there's a It's in New York City. It's all over the place, and I forget the name, so it's really no good, and I know I'm gonna I'm gonna remember the name about a second after I turned the mic off, which is gonna suck. But that's the way this works. I can't think of it at
this point, but I know I can kind of see it. Yeah, what else do we have? Burger King that's a whopper launched how to Train your Dragon menu featuring dragon flame grilled whopper.
Who else?
What else you have Fiery Dragon mozzarella fries and more available for a limited time that does not start until May twenty seventh, So today is the twenty third, so you can do the math on that.
So next week you.
Can have your dream come true with a dragon flame grilled whopper. Very very important, very very important, unless unless it's not, yeah, exactly all right, we'll get out on that. Have a great rest of your Friday, and appreciate you listening to this podcast.
Danny should be with me over.
The weekend, and we're very very happy that you're tuning in and being part of the show.
And enjoy the day.
I'm looking forward to watching that Nick Pacers game Gape two tonight from the Garden in Manhattan. And we'll talk to you next time Later. Skater who austa pasta?
I like the extended winner, got a murder.
I gotta go.