The Fifth Hour: Why Am I Doing Jeopardy?

I'm gonna thank Ken Levine who joined us on the Friday podcast. And I've known Ken for a long time. I had not talked to Ken in some time, Danny, and it was good to catch up. Great storyteller, as you would expect from a successful Hollywood writer that he would be able to tell a story. And Ken did not disappoint, So he was great. Yeah, it was nice to hear you laughing that much in an interview. No, because I had heard some of the stories and you know, over the year I worked with him for a while

back in the you know a long time. I'm gonna date myself if I say when, but the remote story when he described the remotes that we did as a lemonade stand, that is the most perfect way to describe what that era of my career was. And you've been in radio a long time day, I'm sure you've had the same experience where you're like questioning what what decisions you made as a kid, like why why am I here? And uh and yeah. And it was even more amusing at the time because we we knew Ken was a

very successful person in Hollywood. He worked on Mash and Cheers and all these big shows, and he's had a little little crappy card table in front of a tire shop in the South Bay at you know, seven in the morning on a Saturday. It was it was just outstanding. It was just great. I try to block those out, Danny, the remotes that we did because it was NonStop. Like the sales department that station was insane. Every I went on three or four remotes a week, and it was

like we had Monday night football every Saturday. Those were guaranteed Monday and Saturday, usually Friday nights and sometimes Thursday. It's crazy and uh bars, we did home improvement stores anywhere that would spend a couple of bucks, they would get a remote broadcast donnut shops. Oh man, I'll never forget.

As a kid, I got to do a live Monday night football broadcast from Carlos and Luigi's if Mexican, half Italian, covering all the bases, all the bas You get both the bread and the chips on the table right there waiting for it. It was at the port in Stockton, California, and I have a picture from it and I'm holding one of those brick cell phones h with two Miller light girls next to me. Great, I love it. I

love it. Yeah, that was well we I did. I've told the story before, I don't have told the reason we we did remote. The one that's the most famous in the in those days was from a sports bar that was opened up behind a strip club, which I don't know is Bob's Classy Ladies still a thing. That was the name of the the location, but in the San Fernando Valley there, and they had opened up a sports bar and they wanted us to get people that

come hang out watch games at the sports bar. Well know that the restaurants, see they had owned they opened a restaurant as I remember a long time ago, but they opened a restaurant behind the sports bar because it was like a restaurant sports bar thing, so you had to it's a great, great idea, So you had to walk by the ballet to get to the sports bar. And we were doing the show from the sports bar

for Monday night football for a while. Genius. Yeah, And it was a good idea in theory, but in execution, uh, it was us. And the only people in there were the strippers who were on break, a bunch of hookers and cocaine trying to get away from everybody, and they realized that there's no one in the in the sports bar, and and then we were trying to for some reason, like we'll got some families to come eat have burgers

at the restaurant part of it. And that's a tough sell to get, you know, your wife to take the kids past the strip club to go eat a cheeseburger. It's not that easy. But anyway, good good memories with with Ken, and I'm glad he got to tell the isotope story, which is hilarious too. That they he was doing a joke on Alburquerque and they named the damn minor league baseball team in honor, in many ways, in honor of Ken anyway, on this edition, it is the life of Mallard, the Life of Danny g And what

is that. We've got time capsule, the Calie flood in the town, and back scratcher, and we're gonna combine all of these things together, and we're going to do a podcast, Danny. We're gonna We're gonna put all of these random things together and then amazingly, we will produce audio. I'm actually on the live are in theory. That's how this is gonna work. It's a house of cards situation. It could come tumbling down at any point in time. I got it all over me exactly, all right. So we begin

by circling back. We had a conversation last weekend, Danny. I told you that the company had given me the dreaded phone call and mandated that I leave the home studio, which I've been working out for two years, over two years, two and a half years, and return to the main studio. Now, it's not for every show, as I said, it's a few times a week, two or three times a week, and outside of a few random shows, following Dodger playoff

games and when the broadcast line went down. I have been working remotely for a while now, so I've kind of got my own routine. Now, I got everything now and H and I got a studio. I got pretty good studio here. I doubled dipped. I had done some shows in Boston remote leave for w e I, and in New Zealand, I had a weekly segment like a weekly show on Radio Sport, which is no longer that went out of business to any when COVID started. They they took advantage of COVID to pull the plug on

the National Sports Network in New Zealand. Yeah, so my friend actually does a news talk who used to do sports talk. He does a news talk show. What he says is the I guess the comparison would be the number one station for news and l A is like kf I like that's their version of of CAB A huge used to anyway. UM, at that time, I spent some money. I got really decent, pretty good equipment in here, top notch equipment, and you know what what the company

wants to company guess. And I actually had Jake Warner come in, our buddy Big brother Jake, and he helped fine tune the podcast part if you if you're listening to this podcast, and actually some of the stuff I've done, like Benny versus the Penny, before Jake came over, it was all stadty he and it was terrible, horrible. I maintain that the equipment I have in the home studio, which I'm broadcasting from right now, is better than the equipment there because it's newer. So I'm going with that.

But I returned to the brick and mortar mother ship, the Fox Sports Radio station, Sport Radio Studio, and I took the long and winding road from the north Woods to beautiful Sherman Oaks. And Okay, I hate to pause the podcast right here, but a producer's note. Right after Ben got done bragging about the awesome equipment he put in at the Mallard Mansion, did you notice how his microphone buzzed out right there Sherman Oaks. I got. I got very comfortable. I've said this is very comfortable doing

the show. I think the show has been pretty good from from where I've been working for but it is gonna take some time getting used to Danny. I'm not gonna lie to He's gonna be a little time. I'll get used to it. I will do it. Wow, But I'm hoping it's not going to impact the show too much because it is such a lump commute time I would spend watching games on the West Coast, uh and and putting notes together for the show. I I don't

have that time anymore. So it's uh, which is you know? Okay, I probably spent too much time getting ready for the show anyway, many people have told me that, so we'll we'll see how that goes. But uh, you know, the equipment. I was hoping maybe some things were different anyway, So it was it was amazing that only one thing it chased out. It was like a time capsule. Danny and I've spent a lot of my life in that building. A lot of my adult life has been spent at

the corner of Sepulva in Ventura. I've seen people jump off the building. I've seen car accidents, bullets flying. You know. It's craziness that that I've seen in that area. But the only one thing to change, what do you think? Danny and we did not go over this one thing I noticed in the building that change what do you think it is? Uh, there's a toaster of it. Now. No, I did not did not notice that toast. I saw the blue fridge and all that nonsense. It is kind

of in that area though. It's right around that general area of the the building. D do do do do do do do do do do? Do do you? I don't know that we have the real wh Why am I doing, Jeffrey, we have the real we go. I have a sound of I have a sound effect machine and the radio. All here we go, dud, we must have an answer. Dishwasher, No, no, the dishwasher I noticed. No longer, here we go. This is very exciting. Here. No longer a women's only restroom,

sexist longer. It is now men and women. For years it was there was a men's room and there was a ladies room. I didn't even know that changed. Yeah, they put they changed the sign on the door, and that was I was surprised by that they must have done that just recently, that they must have done that for Moncy. Right now, she's welcome to the family. Yes, we've now gotten rid of the bathroom. It never made any sense, though, and I'm glad this actually a good

Chang and people say, what are you doing? Men's room? Women's room? But the if you break down the amount of dudes that have always worked in that building compared to women, the number of dudes is insane. Uh, it is scary. In the club business, we call that a weenie factory. I like the extended winner. Yeah, yeah, it was well. In Wisconsin they have the broad Race, a sausage race. Right, that's kind of kind of what it is. But but that's the only thing I noticed that was different.

Everything else in the same carpet was named the coffee stains on the wall behind the studio same it's it is a time capsule, it is, uh, And I guess we're sticking around there for a while longer, right, We'll be staying longer. So it's wild though. It's one of those things in life. I told the story. I went to Nevada a couple of months ago with a buddy and we stopped at that big mall in prim right on the California Nevada border, and it was completely gone.

It was a ghost town. It's like two stars about that. Just last weekend? Was it last weekend? That was like, oh man, this is I spent a lot of time. You have great memories coming back from Vegas or going to Vegas, stopping there. And I go into the Fox Sports Radio studios and I remember how excited we all were. We were broadcasting out of the Michael Reagan studios at the Premiere Networks. Michael Reagan, the Sun, the adopted son of Ronald Reagan, had a show at the Premiere Networks.

Very nice man. And we did the show out of his studio and I remember, Oh, they showed us and it was like they had the red you know, that red tape with the ball, the whole thing. It was unbelievable, the biggest thing in time. Things things get worn down and it happens. But that was the world class radios. When that place opened, it was we were the jewel, the jewel of sports radio. This isn't not the number one station anymore, is it. I'm just do change though.

I'm guessing somebody opened the first typewriter. They're like, oh my god, this is the greatest thing ever, the typewriter. That was that phones. So Bill Miller, now, what did you listen to as you drove in? Well, that actually presented problem. I was in a couple of days this week. One day I actually listened to the Dodgery game What a guy, because I was they were playing the Pirates and lost the embarrassing that what a joke. I would

beat everybody except the damn Pirates. That's fertilizer. Yeah, So that I listened to that. And then the second night, for some reason, the car I was driving the the the Bluetooth wasn't working, so I was like flipping around trying to listen to some music because there's no sports on. So I was listening to some music to do to to to to, trying to get my mind in the right spot there when I when I'm driving in So

I had that that going on. Uh, I have a lot of time to listen to kind one thing I will say, I have more free time to listen to podcast and I feel people that feel for people to have these long commutes, which I guess I'm part of the week. I'm complaining a lot, but there are worse problems to have, although with the price of gas not many, so you know, it's it's one of those one of those deals. But it was good to see someone from

some familiar faces. Alex Tisher, the vegan who's an occasional non vegan, and he had a nasty scar he fell off his ward. Yeah, I saw that. He came in over the last weekend and told this story. He uh, he was showing off the war wounds. Yeah, we've had tight shirt on the podcast, like tech a good guy. And yeah, he was telling because he spent a lot of ways on one of his arms. I think it's his his left arm. He has a sleeve tattoo. He's

fully invested. And he claimed that it was kind of like one of those superhero type movie deals where time kind of slows down. He said he made the decision to screw up his right arm, not his left arm. I believe that's right. Man. The tattoo would have been destroyed because the skin flecked. Appealed back when he when he fell and I said, you probably should. You've you've got an investment. I said, you should wear a sleeve on that arm to protect I'm not a tattoo guy,

but you I would think protected tattoo. And you know what he told me, Danny, He said, yeah, I wouldn't even tan is what he said. That was his lines. Then we're sleeves on both arms. Yeah, there you go. That's that's a good idea. All right. So there's a flood, Callie. Even though it doesn't rain very often in these parts, but there's a flood. Do tell, do tell. Yeah, that's why this stood out to me. So this past week

was the first week of summer school. Oh, now, is it true, Danny, that nobody goes to summer school who's getting straight a's. It's only the kids that did not get good grades. Is that No, Some of the kids there are there because their parents still need some time to adjust to summer hours. Okay, so yeah, not every

kid there needs help. It's half babysitting, half teaching. I was sent over to the art room to teach art, and I got to bring my own curriculum, which means I taught the kids on the first day how to how to draw and air Jordan one, we know, did you really do that? Did? Yeah? You're gonna be the coolest summer You're like? Was that they made a movie about summer school, didn't they? Mark Carman, remember coolest teacher.

All the kids will be like, oh man, we had this guy and he had his I got credit and I just had to draw shoes. Yeah, there were twins in the class, and when they saw what I was going to teach them how to draw, They're like, how can you do that? And one of them he took his shoe off and he set it on his desk and he's like, I'm just gonna draw from the shoe right here on my table. That's awesome. What caused you

to decide to do that? Though? The drawing of the shoe, it's it's a really lame selection normally, so I've seen teachers like teach kids how to draw panda. Pablo Sandabar play with the giant panda. It's usually a teacher teaching kids how to draw a different kind of animal every time, and I'm like, that is so boring. I'm gonna find something different. So had, you know, thirty kids all drawing

and air Jordan's shoe, which was really fun. So afterwards, we go out to all the tables because it's a lunchtime. I go out there. I'm at the lunch tables with some of the other teachers and school staff and one of the kids comes up to me. He's a first grader. He sounds like he's in his twenties. The way he starts talking to me. Immediately, he introduces himself and he says, so do you watch CNN? Who what what an introduction? Yeah,

his first question to me, and he's like yeah. He's like, you know, I watched the news every morning because it's important to knowe what's going on out there in the world. Oh boy, here we go. You're gonna you know, we used to teach kids with the birds and the bees, and now you're gonna have to teach them. There's India side of the aisle. You're on. Which media you get your stories from? No, I'm like nope, I said, I watched Sports Center. I'll watch some different sports shows. I said, yeah,

the news is not for me. And he said, oh, you probably didn't hear about the flood then. Yeah. So he started telling me about the news he watched that morning. Yeah, there's a flood in California. Oh boy. And I said, well, I said, I know there's a flood right now in Kansas City and Brazil. And I said, I think I read about a flood in Mexico. I said, so, maybe you're thinking about one of those, because we haven't had rain here in California in a while. Yeah, it's hard

to have a flood without rain. Normally those two things are connected, an expert. But normally those two things are connected. I said, I think CNN has failed you so far. He said, well, you know, uh, my dad agrees. It's good to know what's going on out there in the world. And I said, well, when you watch it tomorrow, make sure you know where in the world the news is that you're gonna talk to me about. So the next

day on Tuesday, he avoided me. Oh sure, is it? Well, you don't want to talk news with me the second day of school. Yeah, it's all political, it's all He's like, that's a sports guy. I'm gonna stay away from him. No, nothing to with sports. No, no, no, no, no no, no no. What a way to wake up and watch CNN in the morning. You're in first grade, watch some damn cartoon. Be a first grader? Man, what are you doing? You can do that when you're a middle aged angry guy

like everyone else. You don't need to do that when you're a kid. Man, be a kid. Jeez. So have you taught art before, Danny or is this something new to you? You've done it? No? I have? Actually, yeah, worked out of summer school before taught art before I'm sure a lot of the parents were like you, Drew Air Jordan's Hey, art is art? Right? Yeah, I may come on, it's like the old line. Anythings are even a pancake if you present it the right way. Rights,

it's it's how it works. Man. How many students do you have? Ah, there were thirty in that class. And then there was some outside time for the kids to chuck water balloons at each other. Oh well, that's that's and they're allowing that. What if somebody gets hit in the eye. Oh no, So these kids came back to class just drenched. And I said, yeah, I don't think the adults really thought that one through. That's great. They like summer school. Who cares, Let's do whatever they want.

It's not the it's not the regular school, you know. I don't care how awkward this is, how uncomfortable. That's that's hilarious, all right. So I have in the town. In the town, We've got that. So I made a rare and a propriate, rare and appropriate appearance on another podcast other than this podcast. Now normally I only do one podcast, this podcast three shows a week, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Listen to them whenever you want. Um. But it is true that I was a guest of honor in the town.

I was in the town, Danny, you know what that means. I don't know. Mallard Town. Yeah, Mallardton, that's a fact. Jack. Wow. They had the god of their show on the program. Oh sure, yeah, that's it. Yeah, the God of the Fellas and Lady God. Yeah reached out to me. Queen Roxanne was the one that made the initial contact and she sent me a message. Ay, we loved having the show, so we booked a date. Danny and I made my

triumphant debut maiden voyage on the Mallard Town podcast. We zoomed over to the Mallard Town and have you been on this show before? Have you been on? I have not. I did get an invite though. Okay, this is a collaboration between the Ozzy Guy, Jay Scoop, Queen Roxanne, and Robbie the Mariner fan. These are big names in the

Mallard militia. I never heard of him. These are some heavy hitters, especially Robbie and uh and these are these are people that are big fans and show obviously, I've met all of them except Ozzy Guy, Mike, Uh, Jay Scoop, and Robbie. The Mariner fan in Seattle, Queen Roxann came out to California at one of the minor league games we were at. Ozzy guys, I'm gonna meet him at some point. I'm sure I'll go to Australia, he'll come here.

He's geographically undesirable to hang out with right now. But uh, it was. It was a good time. I had a good time. I don't think the show has aired yet, at least as of us doing this. As far as I know, we have not done that. And they asked a bunch of questions about about meat. It was all about Tom Looney would have loved it because it's all about me. He knows when it's all about him. Tom

Looney owns me. I'm his bitch. Clearly without a doubt that Jay Scoop happy play a game show, Ozzie Guy, Pepper smooth questions, rocks In and Robbie checked in with some follow ups, and fun was had by all. The Operative Word Fund for every Man, woman and Child, and I look forward to you being on there. I guess Eddie said on the air this week that he's gonna be on the Mallardtown Podcast. Uh, and my goal now every week is to say that episode is gonna drop.

Because Marcel from Brooklyn for the last month has consistently said that his episode of the Mallardtown Podcast is going to air on Saturday every Saturday. You said that for the like the last month, So that's gonna be I guess Robin Vegas is responsible for that, but I will I will be doing that and hopefully the Mallard Town Podcast continues. I love the fact, Danny, that there's a podcast that's a spin off of the radio show. That's

that's pretty cool. Yeah. Now, is it just like fiance reaction show where they just react to whatever is happening on your live Mallard Show. No. In fact, the great thing about it is I think a lot of the show they ignore my show, our show. They just ignore it. They just talk about whatever they want. You'd think a show named Mallard Town would be all about the Ben Mallow Show, but they do their own thing. They do their own thing and like an alternate universe. Yeah, it's

a different dimension, is what it is. But it was a lot of fun, and I'm flattered that they are a doing it and be put me on. All right, so we have a little time back scratcher, Danny Juke. You scratch our back, we scratch yours. It's our weekly, the tip of the on air light to the loyal p one millions and the Mallard Mission. These are actual views from actual fans who have found the way. This is the number one complaint I get, Danny is I want to leave a review, but I don't know how

to find the Apple podcast page. I get that at least a couple of times a week, I'm not exaggerated. And uh, this Weekednny. You know we had one one route, but that's fine. We'll take one a week. What a week is fine. We we'd love to have many more, but one a week is good, right, One a week keeps the unemployment away, yes, yes, yes, So if you want to help us out the Fifth Hour podcast based now, some of you have been leaving messages on the Ben

Maller Show podcast page. As much as I appreciate that, we're trying to pump up this podcast, the Fifth Hour Podcast, and so that's a different standalone page. It's on podcast dot apple dot com slash us slash Slash podcast. That link is right here in the description fifth There you go. So that's much easier than me telling you how to get there. Just click on that boom, you're right there. So this week we we think we scratched the backtip the microphone to Twizzle T. Who the hell is Twizzle T?

I don't know, but he says, Hey, the fifth hour is Ben at his best. Danny G and Big Ben are a great duo and really funny. They deserve a raise. Wrong, All right, Well that's let's highlight that, which on zero dollars for the podcast should be easy. Yes, yes, it is a labor of love, Danny. The podcast, yeah, is not necessarily. We don't do the podcast for fame, for glory, for financial benefit. I don't really know why do we do it, Danny, I'm not right. No, I love the

I have a good time in the pod. And people do say because it's it's not really about sports per se the podcast. It's just kind of talking, that's it. We're just kind of talking about our lives here. We're not doing sporty radio. It's just really behind the scenes. Yeah, inside radio, we tell you how we make the sausage. You're never supposed to know how they make the sausage because it's not good for you, because you'll never eat

sausage again. But on this show, we take you inside Fox Sports Rading, where all the cockroaches are, where the skunks get into the air conditioning vents, all of that, all of that amazing content. What are we gonna do though, if we move to the new building and it's everything's

pristine and nothing's bad and everything's new. And I don't think it's gonna be that way though, because I was listening to Petros and Money and a couple of weeks ago, they were going off about some things that are broken in their building that they've put work orders in for that have just been ignored. Maybe they were exaggerating and making it sound worse than it is, but by the way they sounded, they have their own set of problems there in the Burbank building. Oh that's good to know

that building is much newer than the one that weren't. Anyway, all right, we gotta get out of here. We get the mail bag on Sunday, Danny, looking forward to that. Any of your promote anything at all, you want to promote her Danny, what do you got? Yes, I'm gonna be doing an online zoom drawing class. It's our You're the new Bob Ross, is what you are. You're the new Bob Ross. You gotta grow your beard out a little more in the hair. You gotta gotta puff up

the hair a little bit. Yeah, and I need a drug addiction smoke Weedy, Well that would help as well, That would definitely. Yeah. I'm gonna be inside the FSR studios of course Saturday's lineup Hartman and Schwartz, Yeah yeah, and then after that it is the Brian No Weekend edition with from Salam, The No Show with you from Salam. Awesome. All right, we'lllet's have a great rest of your day today and we will catch you on the mail bag on Sunday later. Skater gotta murder, Gotta go