The Fifth Hour: Big George & Big Kittens

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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 soul fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to clearinghouse of hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Mahller starts right now.

In the air everywhere.

The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Maller and Danny g Radio A Happy Saturday to you.

It's the twenty second day of March.

We're hanging out here early on a Saturday morning, and normally we start out with some dope holiday and kind of start yapping about that, but I think we should start with the loss of a legend an icon, Danny.

There's people that think George Foreman.

Was just like a grill that you get at Target, Balmart or something like that. But he was a big time boxer for many, many years back in the day.

Oh.

Not only was he a legendary boxer, but you're right, his business acumen was on point. He got a grill, and as the story goes, hul Cogan, what did he get, like a blender or something like that that sucked.

Yeah, the famous story Hulk Hogan. They supposedly contacted hul Cogan. First, there's a couple of different versions of the story. One of them was they called hull Cogan, he didn't answer his phone because he was picking up his kids or something like that. And then there's another version where they said, all right, you can either do the grill or you can do like a meatball maker, and he he chose the meatball maker, the whole Comania meatball maker which never which.

Never made it.

And then they called George Foreman up, and Foreman's like, yeah, but Foreman had done a lot of commercials, like he was a as you mentioned, he was a big time sales guy.

He was in a lot of different crap back.

Yeah, he was a great hitch Man.

Yeah, he did a lot of like McDonald's, and he used to point at the camera. Yeah, he had that infectious smile too. And did he name all his kids George and what.

He sure did? Yeah, George one through fourteen.

Yeah he had. He had a lot of kids.

I'm not sure how many, but yeah, they were all numbered.

There were a lot.

No it was I don't think it was fourteen. But he definitely enjoyed himself. And then he ended up making because of that George Foreman grill. He ended up making hundreds of millions of dollars. I think I remember the story in the late nineties he wrote over the use of his name, and at the time, I think it was like one hundred and thirty something million dollars that George Foreman got.

In fact, you do a little type here this sake. No no no, no, no, no, no, no no no.

I actually somewhere in the garage, I have a deluxe George Foreman grill.

Oh not just the basic bitch.

You've you've gone above and beyond, all right, so it says here, Yeah, Foreman got one hundred and thirty seven million dollars in nineteen ninety nine, he got. So let's do some malar math on that. Let's see, so I'll basically hold on sic. So if inflation since nineteen ninety nine, uh, it's gone up ninety one percent essentially, so uh it was one hundred and thirty seven it's like or two point six million in today's dollars.

He got.

Now, is that is that Foreman grill you have still in the box, Danny? Or is that is that game used?

It's still in the box, but it's light used. When I lived alone, I made a lot of turkey burgers with it.

Okay, that was your go to back in the day.

I burned out the original and I remember finding that bigger George Foreman grill the top like pivots pivot Hey, those were great because remember they drained the grease out into the grease catcher.

Yeah. And the guy that actually invented him. I was reading a story about it.

Last night when we found out that George Foreman had died. And the guy that actually came up with it was this guy named Michael Baum.

I believe was his name A b O.

E Hm, I'm not trying to pronounce that, but he was the creator of it and he was just like a gadget guy. But he didn't get any kind of money out of it compared to what George Foreman got out of it. But he this guy would just futs around with like lawnmowers and snowmobiles and all that stuff, and he's the guy that actually created the product, and then George.

Foreman ended up taking it to the new level.

The other thing that I learned about that Danny, which is great, is this is a testimonial now that we've lost George Foreman. Though it's a testimonial to the power of the infomercial because according to what I was reading, the Foreman Grill when it came out was not really selling. It wasn't all that popular when they first debuted back in the day. And what had happened was Foreman popped up on QVC.

I think that's still around. It was a.

Shopping QVC still there. You could make like five payments for an item.

Yeah, exactly, So early on people were on buying the Foreman Grill. And then Foreman made his first appearance on television on the Shopping that We're QBC and just did the pitch and all that, and he's.

So perfect for that with his smile, and all the old ladies watching around the country.

They say the aha moment was they actually used the grill on the TV show and the hosts were mosing with each other and then Foreman just grabbed. At one point he picked up the burger and ate it. I rotate nuts right out. Yeah, as it was, We've been made and that apparently lit up the phone lines and people could not get enough of them ever since then.

So there's actually an indoor outdoor electric grill by Foreman. Oh yeah, there's there's all nonstick grill griddle and it's on a stand.

Oh is that right? Okay, that's like the next generation.

That's a next yeah exactly. Yeah, that's cool though. I want one of those from my patio.

Now.

You remember the original name was the Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine.

Uh yeah, it was came in that white box I remember.

Yeah, the George Foreman Lean Mean, Lean Mean Fat Reduced seeing Grilling Machine, and they just shortened it to the George Foreman Grill. It's estimated not here, it's dead. He made over five hundred million dollars off that grill. Oh my gosh, five hundred million and hal Cogan maybe sold like seven meatball makers, but does you know, maybe a blender or something.

But five hundred million off that grill? God, how about that? Wow?

Wow? That crazy? Yeah.

And you know, George, I don't know what did him in George at age seventy six. But how about the fact Don King is still kicking at ninety three and we lost George here at seventy six. But Don King still out there doing his thing and these as far as I know, he's in decent. Hell, he lived in Florida and all that. But yeah, George Foreman, rest in peace. One of the great characters back when boxing matted right.

Just was a big deal.

And he was in some massive five We're mostly talking about the Grill because you know, it's the grill, but there were some amazing moments there. And he fought Joe Frazier in the Fight of the Century in nineteen seventy one, and it was also he was the guy who fought Muhammad Ali.

And you know, a.

Bunch of these guys back in the day, so two of the most iconic boxing events of all time. Joe Frazier in the Fight of the Century and then Muhammad Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle. Has there been a better name for a fight than the Rumble in the Jungle? That has got to be top top five, top three, top two all time boxing.

Yeah.

Yeah, And this was years before Tom Brady and some older players, other older players who were still starring on the field. I remember my grandmother pointing at him out all the time, saying, see, just because you're old, doesn't mean your life's over. He was kind of known as the old guy that could still do it.

Yeah. I remember when he came back.

I was just starting my bloviating career and people were like, oh, he mean, he's been out of boxing for too long form and he's not gonna be able to come back. He sat out like ten years and then came back and became the heavyweight championship. A toss up question. Toss up question, Danny g better fight name the Rumble in the or the Thrilla in Manila, But that those gotta be the top two, right, have to be the top.

Ah Thrilla in Manila. Just I could see the poster in my mind.

I know.

But Rumble in the Jungle, you know, it's like the Jim Rome Show from nineteen ninety.

That one sounds racist.

Racist.

Back then, you could get away with that.

Back when was that nineteen seventy four or whatever that fight was back in the day.

Man rip Man definitely a huge, huge legend there.

Yeah.

I did chat with mister Foreman a few times my back in my younger days when I'd go to Vegas for fights or whatever, back when boxing was still big, and they'd fly everyone in and it was like a big spectacle and they'd bring it back all the boxing legend would be a wandering around and all that, and so I do. I did run into Forman a few times back in the day, and very nice man. Not quite the same impact on me as Don King, though, And I've told the Don King story many times. The

Man.

I thought I was the greatest thing in the world and he just couldn't say enough things about me. And then he walked over to the next booth and said the same exact thing about the other gas. So it's like, okay, on this fifth hour podcast we have well, we just did the whole tribute to the grill Master, George Former. We got the Merry Go Round, the Catered Affair, pulls cats and kittens, and we'll see what else we have time for, but we'll start with the Merry Go Round.

No?

Do I like Jameis Winston.

Yeah, he's thirty one, he's He's what I've said you want to have. If you're a team like the Giants, you want at least fun bad. You don't want bad bad, you want fun bad. He's f b He's fun bad. Jameis won.

He doesn't want a guy that's going to tease you all the way to the start of the fourth quarter before he throws two back breaking interceptions.

Yeah, he'll throw his two pick sixes at some moment and break your heart, but they'll be games. Jameis Wins is a one man band. He'll have some games where he throws five touchdown passes. He'll have some games where he throws five interceptions.

Now, it doesn't.

Guarantee just because he's signed with the Giants obviously does not guarantee that they're not gonna go out. And that's some other other quarterback. And the big story from yesterday was Aaron Rogers actually visiting western Pennsylvania, breaking the silence. Rogers leaving the beaches of Malibu to go hang out at the confluence there in Pittsburgh.

Yeah, supposedly he had thumbed his nose at Pittsburgh, but then the Vikings told him not interesting, and suddenly he's on a plane over to Pittsburgh.

Yeah, so he met with some of the big shots in Pittsburgh. The I read it was a six hour situation. What do they talk about for six hours? They have lunch for that lunch is about thirty five mine?

Right, when you did like a radio interview in your early years, Yeah.

Well could that go one hour? Two hours at the most?

Yeah?

Normally what would happen is you'd meet with the program director, they'd walk you around the station, to show you the station, and then you'd meet with them for whatever and that was it. Or maybe you'd go to lunch with them and then you wouldn't even see the station and that's that, you know. Ben I had one program director. He brought me to his house after the lunch because he had

They were in there smoking weed.

Smoke weedy day, just chilling man, just having a good time.

And I was like, man, this, uh, this interview is going to go.

Long app after he is done. But yeah, there was a.

That would have been Kooper Op's dream job.

God, he'd be like the assistant PD if he worked there.

But I remember the Uh.

There was one station I worked at my early days before Fox Sports Radio, and in the afternoon, the program director interviewed a guy who was on television in LA for a job while the host was on the air down the hall, like interviewed his replacement to take his job while he was in the building.

That was very ouch.

He would have gotten away with it, but somebody spotted the guy who he was interviewing and put you know, two and two together and realized what are we doing here? So yeah, Rogers, I mean that would have been a great monologue.

I mean, we'll see. He hasn't signed yet, so we'll see if he's signs.

You got to think he wants to play that it makes a lot of sense. Played season number twenty one in Pittsburgh and they say that.

Yeah deal.

I was going to say, just to back up to the Giants. You're right, they're going to draft a young quarterback. So whether or not that young quarterback is ready to play or not, Jamis is a really good commodity to have as your backup.

If that's how it's going to roll.

Yeah, I like Jamis will be great and the New York media will embrace him and he'll be wonderful for the tabloids.

And oh yeah, you saw him at the super Bowl with that microphone.

And another win for Sequon Barkley.

Remember Barkley at the Super Bowl at that opening night, which used to be Media Day before it was bastardized by the NFL. They Barkley asked or James Winston asked Barkley where he should go, and Barkley said, yeah, or so he was a Southsayer even before winning the Super Bowl. And I you mentioned the Viking's not interested in Aaron Rodgers. Did you see they had discussions with Ryan Tannehill. I thought he was tired. I didn't even realize.

Oh, I thought that that was an old post from Jordan Schultz from three years ago.

Yeah, what is that, Ryan Tannehill? I mean, you go down to the cemetery and dig his ass up. My god, Ryan tanne are you kidding me? Ryan Tannehill is the guy.

What are you doing? I mean, it's very bizarre.

It's like, well, George, the Vikings are like, well, JJ McCarthy's a guy.

But then yeah, well that's why they don't want an enigma like Rogers sucking all the air out of that stadium there in Minnesota. They'd rather have, like, you know, somebody steady and maybe reliable. That's not Santa Hill, but somebody just like a steady Joe Flacco type backup for a young McCarthy.

Hey, well, Joe Flacco's available if you want.

And there was a rumor one of our listeners in Minnesota emailed me a story from some Viking website fan website I've never heard of that claimed, oh the Chargers justin.

Herbert Supply the deal was done according to two sources.

Yeah, I don't know about that one. Methinks probably not. Methinks unlikely.

The deal was if.

As somebody who like anonymously emailed into that Vikings show.

Oh well, those are always good clickbait. Hey, you know, every once in a while, they're right, right, every once in a while, the right. There was a guy the other day this week who was on a flight to Boston and said, Hey, Stefan Diggs is on my flight. He's going to New England to meet with the Patriots. And the Internet was like, oh, yeah, you're full of crap, what a loser, you're trying to get cloud. And then like two hours later it was yeah, Stefan Diggs is going to meet with the Patriots.

You know. So I really do get that.

Stuff right every now and again, but I would be be surprised. However, we know Jim Harbaugh, a Michigan man, loved loved him some JJ McCarthy, and it's not outrageous to think that the Harbor after spending a year coaching Justin Herbert might think this guy is like more of a surfer than a quarterback, and that maybe I should go get my guy who I know and J J.

McCarthy.

It would be fun. Do I think it's going to happen. No, but it's fun to think about. Those kinds of things are kind of cool to toss about. But turning the page on that, I didn't want to mention. You know, this is the Saturday Pod Life of Malar, Life of Danny g. So we had a small shindig last weekend, small shindig family, family, no friends, just family and a good little get together at Malor Mansion. Good to see people hadn't seen in some times. Some people hadn't seen

And what are you? What are you making? What's going on?

But that I felt a little bit like this guy named blind Willy. Remember blind Willie called from Florida.

Oh, I do remember Brian blind Willy. He used to call Klay Travis's show too.

Yeah. I don't know what happened to blind Willy.

But I want to say, unfortunately, he's probably not with us.

You think blind Willy's checked out whom.

Yeah, he was older back when he used to call. That was right before COVID, So yeah, I don't know what happened.

But he I think he worked at like an Applebee's or something like that.

It was some restaurant and he was We always thought it was funny because he's a cook and he couldn't see, you know, he was liked he was legally blind, and he he would make food for people. But I felt like blind Willy. It was a busy, busy night, mission accomplished. Everyone seemed to eat, drink and be merry. So we did that.

I picture you looking like that cook on You can't say that on television.

Yeah, it's it's a little dice. The thing.

The thing about this Danny that I've noticed is that my wife thinks it's like we're at a steakhouse and everyone's gonna eat at the same time, and I'm like, I gotta you know, I.

Gotta put everything together.

You know, I got a whole there's a whole routine, and I try to get the food out as quick as I can't.

But I'm not I'm one person, you know, So everyone's gonna eat at the same time, you know that whole reule. I'm like, well, no eat when the food comes out, they can eat.

In reality, You're right, people eat at all different times. So there needs to be a tip jar in front of you.

Yeah, or hire another chef or something like that, and you can work with magic there.

My goodness. So that was part of the weekend. Last weekend, just.

Kind of hanging out and had a had a fine time chilling. And of course the last couple of days is watching a lot of the college basketball and I'm trying. I'm trying to focus, Danny. I am, I mean, these are some tough watches. These are just a lot of tough games. You know, a couple of g.

Oh yeah, forty point blowouts are no fun.

They do generally make for a better tournament down the line. They make for a better tournament down the line, but it's painful. It's a lot of mislayups, a lot of missed wide open shots and.

Well, you know that mcnee's game a few days back, Yeah, that wound up being a lot of fun because they had to hold on and just watching the team celebrate and the coach jumping up and down on the court.

Yeah.

I mean you see some of these games, like the coaches come out and they're just like, oh man, we're terrible. You know, I do I do enjoy And I said this the other day when I was filling in on the locally in LA. I enjoy Mick Cronin like I I don't know that we appreciate the UCLA coach because he's it's kind of a straight shooter as much as you can be. Like and they early on they were get UCLA on Thursday was getting smoked by a Utah State or they were it was just no, they weren't playing very well.

And Mick Cronin.

You know, somebody had kicked his kitten or something like that, and then and they.

Had one of my thirty points.

Anyway, so I'm worried Cronin's gonna leave. I think I think he's gonna go somewhere else, But who knows. Then we'll see what happens this weekend and later today. Right, we've got Rick Patino and John Calipari. That'll be a game to circle right college basketball today And I watched that.

That'll be a that'll be a fun one.

And maybe you can go hang out with some cats and some kittens and just kind of hang out and watch the game.

What do you say?

Yeah, you remember that catchphrase? Hey are you cool? Cats and kittens?

Oh yeah, oh yeah?

Five years ago? What was the anniversary on Thursday?

Uh?

What was the five year anniversary? Uh?

I have no idea.

That was Carol Baskin. We all got to look into her feud with Joe Exotic, oh Man Figer King, Yes.

Hey are you cool? At Katthain Kittens?

And the week.

Prior on March eleventh, five year anniversary of Rudy Gobert starting COVID, rubbing all the mics.

Oh yeah, patient zero, right, patient zero, and.

Yeah, yeah, and you remember Tom Hanks had it and that's when everybody was like, oh my god, and the world shut down. We thought it was going to be two weeks, you know, for the curve and all that, and so we got into the same discussion.

Can you believe it's been five years?

Yeah, it's pretty pretty wild man. We're just in a hot tub time machine. We are zooming and Joe was it Joe exotic?

Isn't he in jail still? Yeah?

Carol Baskin I think sold the property that she was on. She was an interesting lady. I remember I booked her on Clay Travis's I.

Remember you trying to track her down. I do remember.

Yeah, she was hard to track down. She wasn't as hard to track down as I thought. What was really hard was convincing her to go on the air because a lot of people burned her in the media because everybody assumed that she was a murderer.

Remember, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.

Yeah, a lot of people thought and assumed she murdered her ex husband because that's the way she was portrayed. And so she didn't want to get blindsided by media so I had to exchange email after email with this lady for weeks, sent her pictures of my cat true story, and got to talking with her about pets and everything. She finally felt comfortable enough with me to go on the air. It was awesome and of course the first question Klay Travis asked her was, so, did you kill your ex husband?

Did he did it?

He alluded to the media problems that she had, but he didn't come out and say it, Thank goodness.

I thought she would have hung up. For sure.

Who was who was more impressive to talk to him that time? Her?

Or Donald Trump? President Trump?

Definitely Trump on his cell phone. Yeah, that is on his personal cell phone.

I still I'll run into people and in conversation, you know, Trump's name will come up, and I'll be do you know he he's the president and he calls on.

His own phone.

He calls on his own I still like, I remember when we were kids, and it was like Ronald Reagan would call the Washington Redskins to congratulate, remember the team that won the Super Bowl?

Oh yeah, for sure, I remember. I remember him talking to Al Davis.

Remember, yes, yes, but you remember how it would work.

It would be the White House called stand by for the President of the United States, you know, some some dues from the White ye.

It was like the official secretary of the White House.

Yeah, and then you got President Trump. All right, let's go to Don online three from d C. Don you just it was like texting.

Me and calling me off his cell phone. It was amazing. I'm still mind blown by that. It's such a weird time, man, when you think back to all that and us having those FEMA passes, the producers and driving in every day when nobody, absolutely nobody was on the road, to the point where I got pulled over, not once, not twice, three times during all that and had to show them my THEMA car. Twice in Burbank. Once in Sherman Oaks, I was pulled over because I was literally the only

Yeah, no, there are.

And I remember we started doing the shows from home around that time, but I would go in early.

On the first couple of.

Weeks we were going in and everything was shut down because it was that two weeks, you know, stop the thing and you'll be back. And I remember driving was it flatten the curve? Flatten the curve? Yeah, yeah, I remember that was the thing. But I remember driving on the highway on the you know I five near Dodger Stadium, and I thought I was in the twilight zone. I'm in the second largest city in America and You're the only.

Car on the road. It was unreal.

I was like crazy, and I'm like I'm going, I'm doing like Circle eight C and all.

I'm driving around like a yeah crazy with dude.

Dude.

It's one of my most vivid Yeah, you're you're dead on. It's one of my most vivid memories of all that. And for our Throwback Thursday topic, Covino and Rich for an hour talked about the biggest memories with sports in our network, things that were going on in general in

Name, Oh a good way.

Yeah, he said, that the hour and a half he got to listen to Ben Mallor on his commute to work, because he was still one of the essential workers. That was the only thing at the time that made him feel normal.

Well, there's nothing normal about my show, but I appreciate I appreciate his kindness. Yeah, it was to think about now in hindsight, because I remember when I first came into sports radio in you know, I was a kid, and every year, the one month people bitched about was the month of late from like mid June to late July, before NFL training camps kind of got going.

And the worst was the All Star break.

In Major League Baseball because there were no Yeah, and this was before social media and all that. So to think that we as as sports gas bags, did one hundred and thirty four days of sports radio without sports like the whole thing shut down. It was March March eleventh, twenty twenty, all the way till July two third.

There were no sporting events in America.

There was no There was like Korean baseball we got to watch on TV and stuff, but.

There were the stupid NASCAR simulation races that games of horse on zoom on ESPN.

Remember, Yeah, I was bringing up Marble racing, is what I Hey.

I brought that up on Covino and Rich. I talked about how I'll never forget you doing the monologue on the Marble Race Championship.

Yeah, And I gave the.

Hosts a lot of props because I remember our boss Scott Shapiro getting all of us on a zoom saying, and not sure how long this is going to last, but without games, we really you know, this was when we knew there was going to be no tournament and the NBA said no more, and we thought, oh is this going to go for a long time. Nobody was really sure, and I remember Scott Shapiro telling all of us producers, this is when you got to dig down deep and find some really entertaining content that's not on

Yeah, no, it's true.

We had the most listeners we've ever had in the history of the network. Twenty five years now and the network's been on and the most listeners were during the pandemic. Which does that say that we're not good at talking about sports.

I don't know. But it was crazy and I have and we still.

Get I get letters today from people that started listening during the pandemic that have been with me and with Fox Sports Radio ever since then, just kind of hanging out with us because they were just people couldn't sleep, they were up at night, they couldn't know deal with life.

You know.

Been The memories of this bothered Covino so much that during the segment he had to stand up and talk. As he was standing in right when we went to commercials, he went outside and did a lap. He had COVID to the point where he was in the hospital and a priest came in and gave him a rosary and prayed over him. So he thought he was a goner during COVID.

That's crazy.

It's it was a wild time, and you know it's you think you're we don't do list as you know, Danny, We're not to a list show, but on Big Ben's big board that COVID, And then I remember driving I was at the Fox lot on nine to eleven doing updates when then that happened, and then driving past Lax with no flights because all the airports were closed. I remember remember that had actually been in New York two weeks prior to nine to eleven in the World Trade

And they did go. They were gone. But so after that I.

Did learn that lesson to always even if you only have a few minutes, ye know't do it.

You never know what's going to happen and all that.

But anyway, on that note, I think we will put the baby to bed here enjoy the college basketball today. So I know by the end of the weekend we'll be down to the sweet sixteen. So we down to by the end of the day today, is it the twenty four? Are we down to twenty four teams?

Is that right?

I think you're right.

Yeah, okay, so we go to twenty four today and then by the end of tomorrow it'll be down to the sweet sixteen. Anyway, all right, well we'll do the math on that. The math ain't math, and I think I'm writing into that though I'm not a numbers guy, but that doesn't seem to add up.

How dare you?

All right? Have a great rest of your day today. Thank you.

We'll have a mailbag podcast, a brand spanking new mailbag podcast obviously tomorrow, and we'll catch you then later.

Skater my Folation