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 soul fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Wow.
The clearing House of Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Mallard starts right now.
In the air everywhere The Fifth Hour back at it on a Friday, the eighth day of December. We're hanging out with you here because five nights a week not enough. On the overnight and Ben Maller hanging out with Danny g Hello, Danny, welcome.
Good morning.
Yeah, it's so early on a Friday that I was trying to turn a heater on in the garage.
Well, you know, we do these tire rack commercials and part of the copy is the terrible winter weather that we have in California in La how bad it is and really is that wintery mix that we get in California where it occasionally gets down to like fifty degrees or something like that. It's a real problem.
I thought you were going to tell me to burn some tires in the grudge.
Oh no, I listen, if you want, I can do a tire rock commercial now, if you want. I have them memorized at this particular point. We love them so much, Danny that in if you need insurance, I know who you can contact.
What is your favorite piece of copy to read?
Well, let me tell you someth Danny. Winter is coming and you know what that means. To us here that means well, it doesn't mean anything, but for other people it's that wintery combination.
Northern California that means rain.
No.
I have the copy memorized as well, because I get it ready every day for Covino and Rich, so we have that in common in our lives.
It doesn't matter whether you need Bridgestone tires, it be of Good, Rich or Continental. We know them all. In fact, I'm more qualified to work at a tire shop tire rack than I am to do a radio show. So I think I should just sell tires. Maybe that's my future, Dan. I'll just become a tire salesman and I'll work for the people at Tyreck, which is kind of like what we're doing now anyway, right, In many ways in many ways,
we love them, but that's what we're doing. So anyway, on this podcast, we have The Mickey Mouse Show, The Pods, Squad Flawed, the Word of the Week, and Foody Fund. So a lot to get to, but that's always shameless promotion. It is week fourteen in the NFL season. It began on Thursday night.
Can you believe it's already Week fourteen?
Yeah, there's only a few weeks to go in the regular season as we wind things down or wind up for the home stretch. But week fourteen, and for the purposes of this podcast, and if you want to help us out, that means Benny Versus the Penny Week fourteen is back and we are on all over the clock, all weekend long, starting today. The first episode that will air, I believe, is in the Bay Area on NBC Sports Bay Area. We are the pre pregame show for the
Golden State Warriors as they play. If I'm correct, I think they play Okay, see today and the pregame coverage will begin after Benny Versus the Penny. But I believe we if I have the schedule correct, which I think I do. Three point thirty in San Francisco in the Bay Area there and then a non core showing at ten o'clock. But we'll be on all over the map.
The Hub in Boston on NBC Sports Boston, we're on late night after Celtics programming and whatnot eleven thirty pm, and then another replay showing and encore showing after the Witching Hour. Actually it's during the Witching Hour at twelve thirty, so they'll be on there Philadelphia at eleven o'clock. I mean, you go through the whole schedule here. Check it out. Benny versus the Penny goof around with a penny handicapping NFL games, So check that out.
Tons of eyes on you on the Lakers Channel tomorrow as well, pre and post.
Right, well, we'll be on yeah, well we were back to more normal times there on the Saturday Spectrum sportsnet so cal because the six am showing who the Hell's awake at six am? One on Saturday, I don't know, raising my hand all right, yeah, you got a kid, three pm and then seven pm, so three showings at least.
There might be more, but at least three showings on the Laker Channel and then on Sunday if you're in New York or New Jersey or Connecticut and you have SNY you can check it out at eleven thirty am and there'll be a bunch of other showings as well. Now, big doings this week and big thanks to Danny g So the big reveal. Now, I was not at the watch post on Wednesday into Thursday. I did not do the show per normal. Now, we have talked about this
in the past. I don't know if I've done it with you, Danny, but typically in broadcasting, if you take a day off in the middle of the week and then you come back following that, that's less than ideal. Like usually people take days off, it's either Monday or Friday. You don't normally take a Wednesday into a Thursday off. But I did, and there was a reason for it. I was hanging out with a bunch of vermin, well
cartoon vermin. This actually goes back to a story we talked about last year, and it's really been going on for many, many years.
Yeah, you not opening your work email?
Yes, I Ever since I got whacked by the company in nine, I made a pack with myself. I'm never going to open up the work email unless I'm forced to because I have to do some kind of training because when I needed to get access to the email, when I got let go, the first thing they shut off that you want to take You guess what the first thing they shut off is.
Besides bulk erasing all of your voice from everything on the network, Yeah, but shut your email off.
Yeah, it's I remember I was a kid. I watched a History channel and they had to think about Joseph Stalin right the way he would erase people I give it of their photos and it was pretty much what happens. But the email thing was annoyed, right, the Great Purge and the email thing would always you know, So I stop checking my email, and that's that's good because I don't have to worry if anything happens. I don't have to worry about missing email because I don't have I
don't even know it's there. But it's bad because, as Looney used to say, sometimes they have free cupcakes on the fourth floor or something like that, you can't get them, or tickets to big events and things like that. And so iHeartMedia, which is the parent company of Fox Sports Radio, the radio Mega. They don't like the word radio, right, Danny. They just like the word broadcasting or media audio audio audio company.
I think they prefer media company, now.
Company, right whatever, whatever. The consultants all platforms including TV, that's right. So anyway, the people at iHeart the parent company, the LA Cluster, which I don't even know if we're part of because we're not at the LA Cluster. They have a bunch of big radio stations that have a lot of listeners and all that stuff. Anyway, every year
they have an event. We talked about this in years past at Disneyland, the California Adventure, and this is where they close the park to the great unwashed and then it's a private party. I have worked at the company for over twenty years. This thing has been going on, not that long, but close, and I have never ever been to this event. I remember last year you went and I was like, I was, I was very jealous, and several other people went and I was like damn.
So I asked you. I said, Danny, let me know, give me a heads up. I don't check my working and you're a man of your word, Danny, you're a man of integrity. You immediately alerted me to the events the way I guess it had worked in the past, Danny, it no longer worked, right, They had changed it up a little bit this year. Just my luck, right, they decided to change it up.
A little bit.
They still did their quote unquote raffle for employees. Yeah, but who wants to, you know, live their life by chance. So if you are friends with the right people, you can still get into the park for this iHeart event. So I went through the right channels. But yeah, they had given away their extra tickets this year at our company Christmas party.
Yeah, so it looked like I wasn't gonna go. No, to be fair, and just for the record, I liked the event. I wanted to go to the event, and Danny directed, you knew the right person. I actually I knew the person. Also. I reached him as well. A guy that I've known for twenty five years who funny story, our promotions guy, Dave Dave Weis. So I met him he was working I was covering baseball. I was a kid, and he was the He was working at a station
in Orange County where Steve Desager worked. So that's when I first met the Sager and I met Dave Weis. Also, it was like the same the same time. It was a ninety five to nine, which I think is like a religious station. Now maybe I'm wrong on that.
I don't know, but that.
Was the station they all worked at. And so I met him and I reached out to him. You were you were great.
It seems like a religious guy. I've never been to a strip club with him in a super Bowl city before.
That would never happen. That would be that would be inappropriate.
When I got a hold of Dave Ben, I told him and I used your wife, my wife, if I said, look, as long as Ben's been at the company, he's never been to one of our big iHeart events. And his wife is a big Disney fan, so you can't fail him on this.
Yeah, And I was getting pestered. My wife wanted to go, but her aunt really wanted to go, and so I was getting pestered a lot. I hate, you know, I hate getting pestered, Danny. I don't like I hate asking for things. It annoys me. I think so much more stuff. If I just was a pain in the ass and just asked, you know, give me this, that and the other thing. But I don't. I just hate doing so I don't do it. I mean rarely, rarely do I do. This was like a rare exception. But anyway, it worked out.
Was able to go and the Scott our Ball gave me the night off, so that that worked out pretty well, and it was interesting. It's a weird situation because it's I'd not been to this before. Because you go into the park, it's still open. They're in the process of like shutting it down.
Yeah, they kick the regular customers out by a certain time and then only the iHeart winners and staff get to run around the park after that for a few hours.
Yeah. And so I was in social butterfly mode, Danny, thinking I was just going to run into a bunch of people that I knew because I've met a lot of people over the years, and a lot of the radio people. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna have to be social butterfly guy. And I'm an introvert, but I'll be social butterfly guy. I didn't see one person, not one person that I recognized or knew from the company. I mean, California Adventure is a pretty big chunk of land,
so it is a spread out situation. But I didn't see one person, and I knew people that were there because they told me they were going to be there, so I was like, okay, and I started texting people. But that's fine. I mean, it got on everything that we wanted to get on and all that, and it was good.
And to watch the water show.
We did actually, and we didn't take your advice initially because you did advise us to get real close. You told us like to find the times and stuff. We didn't get real close, but the wife loved it, the light show and the water and it's like the Bellagio on steroids is what it's like.
Yes, but it was good.
I only got motion sickness on like one ride, which was pretty good. That's not bad. And I got on the cars right still had like an hour hour and a half wait. We waited till the very end and went on that that's the big ride at California Adventure.
Yeah, that's a good one.
And Soaring Over used to be California, now Soaring Over America. That went on that. So it was good. And unfortunately, to the dismay of Disney, Danny did not dust off the wallet for a five dollars and fifty cents soda.
I was going to ask you about your purchases there because I just couldn't imagine you taking your wallet out to pay for any of their overpriced concessions.
Yeah, well, it was a weird situation because you know, it's rare and appropriate. I'm a rare and appropriate guy, Danny. I'm like, okay, rare and appropriate. You know, how often do you go to Disney It's you know, everything was taken care of. They gave us the VIP status, So I mean they charged thirty five bucks for parking at Disneyland. Thirty five bucks to park your car. That's insane, insane, which is why a lot of people and you should
never do this, Danny. People in southern California will park in the neighborhoods around Anaheim and then walk to Disney.
To say, it sounds like one of my mom's moves.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you might have mentioned that too, But I know that's that's been a thing. But you park, and you just kind.
Of Since I was a kid, my mom parked her station Wagon in the Anaheim neighborhoods and she'd be like, come on, walking's not going to kill any of you.
Yeah, you're gonna walk anyway when you get to the amusement park.
Yeah.
Yeah. So so here's the deal. So I had an interesting day because I was off from the radio show and I spent a lot of my days, you know, Danny, I'm obsessive, compulsive with preparation. I have like a factory type situation getting ready for the show. And I didn't have to worry about that. But I wasn't off because I had the TV show that we record the TV show at Universal Studios on Thursday. So I had the TV show and I had to get ready for the show.
But I was off from work. So I spent time with the wife and we had been wrestling thing we had to go to and all that. But I had to get ready for the TV show. And so what ended up happening. I popped up. I was on my phone using I wrote notes using the I have an iPhone, so this notes thing, which I don't you have an iPhone, but it's a little notepad, yeah, digital notepad, and so I use that and I pretty much wrote all of my notes that I needed for the TV show, which
I don't read. I have to memorize them, or memorize as much as I can but I wrote all this stuff down like on my iPhone. I usually use a laptop, but I use the notes thing, and so I'm like scrambling to get all that done. And then so the Disney thing went to one in the morning, Mickey Mouse Show was till one in the morning. And then by the time you get out of there, it's like one thirty. You had to drive to the house, the Malor Mansion, which isn't that far away from Disneyland, but it's still
far enough. And did all that, but then I had to I took like a thirty minute power nap, and then I started going into TV mode and I had to put my my my church temple clothes on and get ready for for the TV thing. So it was a busy day.
Were you inspired by getting a glimpse of the Great ellen k Well?
Ellen k a legend, And might I add I knew ellen k before she became the Great Well And I don't want to say that before she became the Great ok, because she was like Rick Dez's sidekick.
Yeah, she went from Rick D's to your Boy from American Idol. Oh right, yeah, and then after Seacrest she went to coach FM so man talk about three different lives in radio and all big stations.
Yeah, when I met her, she was with with D's Rick, the legend. This guy was a massive start. I mean, he had the number one radio show in La on Kiss FM back in the yedies, and she was with him and all that. So yeah, I mean they had the Coast logo up in a bunch of different places and they had little photo op things. I didn't take a lot of photos because I was we were running around and all that, but but it was a lot of fun. So thanks Danny for helping it help me
out there. Hopefully next year we can all go again, but who knows. If not, you know, if it's one and done, it's one and done. You know, at least we got in there, so that's good and it all it all worked out now. I didn't want to. I want to mention this as we turned the page. Here the pod squad is flawed. Not the podres Dandy, although you could make that argument. They gave away Juan Soto U and who saw that one coming? Everyone everyone, because the owner died and they're going to cut back. The
TV deal fell apart in San Diego. But anyway, this is not about the poty. This is about the podcast, which we're doing right now. So we need help. Probably not you gotta to mention this on the podcast. But I got this big email. Did you get this big email? Dani's big company email.
I did get that email, yep.
Yeah, yeah. So they made some changes to the podcast game, which affects this podcast and the Ben Malor Show radio podcast, which is problematic. But so we want to be proactive, not reactive. Then I guess in a way we're reactive, but we're being proactive because we're making sure that this
does not continue to cause issues. So we get, according to the numbers, the analytics, because we are all about big data, we get over eighty percent of all of our podcast listens from the Apple podcast, which we've mentioned how we desperately need people to review the podcast. We begged for that on the show. So we have the analytics. I don't know how much of this we want to give out, but over eighty percent of the downloads we get come from the Apple podcast.
Of course, because so many people have iPhones.
Yeah, and so Apple made some rather large changes to the to the way they do business and their metrics and all that, and without getting into the minutia of how they make the hot dogs.
Yeah right, I don't think anyone.
Wants to know how they make DoD dogs. But the main thing is they stopped auto downloading podcasts. For years, we had just begged people just describe to the podcast. You automatically get the podcast, which is true if you if you would, you know, sign up. I guess the terminology has changed. Right, You're supposed to just follow because subscribe means pay for it. We don't charge anybody. It's completely free. So you just follow the podcast. So that's
the big word. They want to follow. You follow the podcast. And the issue here and I mentioned this the other night on the radio show, but it bears repeating because like the show that I do and you guys with Covino and Rich, we're a high volume podcast because we do a lot of content every day. We have the Ben Malacher we have four hours, and then we have the best of podcasts, so we're doing five podcasts a day.
And from what I understand, if I who knows, if I'm right on this, the way it works if you follow the Ben Malershow podcast and then you start getting the downloads of the podcast, and then as a follower of the podcast, you don't listen to the five most recent episodes, and then you don't listen to an episode in fifteen days, they stop, they stop. You know, you don't get we don't get credit. Right, that's it, it's done,
it's over, I believe. Yeah, and so that for us, that's five podcasts a day, and so it adds up pretty quick. So we need you to follow. What can people do here, Danny?
Do you know?
I forgot? There's some of the things that people can do to help us out, but mainly just be vigilant and don't go more than a day. Just give us at least a few minutes a day of.
That's the key is, don't let episodes pile up. If at all possible, at least go back and download Friday or Saturday and listen to at least five ten minutes, and then you know, later you can get more caught up. But yeah, that's the thing. They're not going to let endless amounts of episodes just sit there in a pile on your iPhone.
Yeah. So I do hear from people. I'm sure you hear the same thing, Danny, Like I save up podcast to binge listen to the podcast, which we love that you're listening as you go on a long road trip or something like that. Man, that's pretty cool. That's neat that you listen to the podcast and catch up. I know, moving man, Matt. A lot of the truck drivers, they're on the road a long time. Obviously, they're hours in the car and so in the big rig, and they'll
they'll save up podcasts to listen to. But it helps us out more if you can listen just a little bit every other day or every day. Every day would be ideal, but you got stuff going on and maybe you miss a day or two, but just make sure you're keeping track.
And it helps when it's a topical show, and I think we do a pretty good job with that with our different features. Yeah, it's not that it gets outdated right away, but we're obviously talking about things that are you know, in the news or headlines right now. And so it's fun to listen every weekend because it's like opening a couple of new Christmas gifts every single weekend.
So yeah, I think our listeners are going to be okay with this, but hopefully our competition Ben they have problems and their downloads go way down and our stay way up.
Well, that would be ideal and that we would love that to crush the competition. And I've heard from people the weird weirdos that like to go back way back in the archive and listen to old podcasts because they like to hear knowing. They you know, how you can go back and walk watch an old game and you know what happened to every player's life.
Yeah, like you randomly watch old baseball games.
Oh yeah, yeah, I watch old baseball games, old football games. It's like I started that during COVID and I still do it. A lot of it's nostalgia. I just love the old school broadcast just because it brings me back to when I was younger and watching it and some of the stuff I didn't even watch. Some of the
stuff was before I was even around. And I'll watch a random game from Howard Coseuth calling a Monday night football game and it's so hokey and so like, there's high school football broadcast today that are better than network television was, as you would imagine in the nineteen early nineteen eighties or the you know, the late seventies or whatever it might be like, it was just it's actually high school football broadcasts are better as things have evolved
over time. And you mentioned some of the features we have, including the word of the week, the old of the week, and in honor of hearing NonStop Christmas music, the word of the week is ba humbug, which is really I guess two words, ba and humbug, but combined it I thought it was going to be Mariah Well ba humbug.
And most people know that came from the modern usage came from Charles Dickens Christmas Carol, a Christmas Carol which goes back to the eighteen hundreds, the mid eighteen hundreds, and Ebenezer Scrooge ba humbug talking about Christmas and all that. I don't think he cares. Eben he's a scrooge about Hanaka, but he was very upset about Christmas. So anyway, the ba humbug thing, and obviously he's in part of culture.
Most people know it. It means you dislike something, something that's popular, but you don't like it, so you say bah humbug. But it is interesting note that Ebenezer Scrooge did not create the term humbug, that that term did not mean I hate Christmas. Before Charles Dickens wrote that in to the famous A Christmas Carol that it first appeared in writing about fifty years before Charles Dickens wrote
A Christmas Carroll, but a much different world. There was no Internet, you couldn't look stuff up or anything like that. It was a much different time than today by a
long shot, anyway. Charles Dickens wrote that in the play in his story, But it first appeared in Oxford and Cambridge, and it was described as a word very much in vogue with the people of taste and fashion, they said, And so long story short, it was like a trendy slang word coined by college kids in the era, and the exact person that came up with it, nobody seems to know, has been longustin history. But humbug was used
widely enough that it's definition as was made clear. So anyway, it was according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the actual word humbug, not bah humbug, just humbug, referred to like a hoax, befooling someone, a trick, something which is not really what it pretends to be, like a sham a fraud. Horn swaggling someone sculduggery is a ba humbug. So that is the word of the week. Bah humbug. We went a little along, Danny. So we will have to push
back the Foodie Fund to our Saturday podcast. We'll have that on Saturday, some foodie fun and had I did have a request for FOODI fund that I'll have to try to remember tomorrow when we do that. It is Friday, the eighth day of December. I've already worked. They did the overnight show last night. I'm doing this you, Danny. You have I assume you have a full full plate ahead of you.
Here, take a quick nap and then get on the road to beautiful Sherman Oaks, California, right next to bel Air where the Fresh Prince used to live and Covino Enrich the Friday edition of the show. It's gonna be fun. We're actually gonna do last one standing on a Friday two to four pm on the West Coast. That's five to seven pm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Where they used to have a good football team in Pittsburgh but not any more. Have a wonderful day and we will catch you next time.
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