You're listening to KFI AM six forty wake Up Call with me Amy King on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Then I traveled to the seven levels of the Candy Cane Forest, past the sea of Swirly Twirly gumdrops, and then I walked through the Lincoln Tunnel KFI and KOST HD two Los Angeles, Orange County, Okay. People, Sata's coming up. Oh my god, Sanah's here. I know him, I know him. Say it's time for your morning wake up call. Here's Amy King. That still cracks me up twenty years
later. Do you know it's twenty years of ELF. A little bit later on wake up Call, we're going to tell you some things you might not have known about ELF. And also, uh Nick and I went out and did a little something something to celebrate the release of EL. We'll share it with you. That's coming up at five point fifty. Oh. By the way, it's five o'clock. This is your wake up call for Friday, December twenty second. I'm Amy King. Good morning, Happy Friday before Christmas.
This is an early Christmas present for Dodger fans. Did you hear on the heels of Shohei Otani signing with the Dodgers. The Dodgers just picked up Japanese pitching sensation Yoshi Knubu Yoshiobu Yamamoto. They got him for twelve years. It's a three hundred and twenty five million dollar deal. So this guy, he's a pretty big time nearly a thousand strikeouts in seven seasons with the Nippin Professional Baseball League in Japan. He's won that league's MVP award three straight times,
and we got him. Here's what's the head on wake up call. Dozens of Anaheim police officers with guns drawn surrounded the Disneyland hotel after getting reports of an active shooter. Officers who responded last night shortly after six determined the reports were a hoax. Gaz's entire population is at imminent risk of famine as
war rages on between Israel and Hamas. The UN says, over a half million people are starving, a quarter of the people living in the Strip have exhausted their food supplies, and the situation is worse than recent near famines in Afghanistan and Yemen. According to the UN, Saturday is expected to be the busiest travel the day of the holidays. At Lax. Airport officials are expecting
about two million people will pass through the airport. This year is on pace to be record breaking, with more than thirty nine million passengers flying around the US over the next couple of weeks. One reason airfares down twelve percent this year. At six oh five. It's handle on the news. Tens of thousands of people are given up and getting out of California for the third year in a row. Let's get started with some of the stories coming out of
the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Of course, the rain parts of Orange and Riverside Counties are under a floodwatch as the storm continues to move east. The alert is in a effect until this evening. A floodwatch in the LA area expired late last night, although the rain continues. The National Weather Service says the rain's expected to taper off tonight with dry, warmer weather tomorrow and Sunday. Home and business owners in Ventura County's coastal cities are cleaning up from
heavy flooding. A downpour late Wednesday night into Thursday morning affected Ventura, Oxnor, Oxnard, and Port Winimi at one point. The Oxnard Civic Center says it got more than three inches of rain in just an hour. Major flooding hit the Winemi Bay community. Authorities ordered evacuations early yesterday. Another half to two inches of rain is expected to hit the coast and valleys of Ventura County. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco says nine people have been arrested in connection with
the major drug smuggling operation inside county jails. Jianco says the nine arrested are from Menefee, Paris, Riverside, Homeland, Marino Valley, San Jacinto, and Hemmet. During the serving of warrants on the nineteenth, deputy say they found several hundred rounds of AMMO, a ballistic vest, brass knuckles, fentanyl, and meth. In fact, Bianco says some of the drugs were being packaged to be sent by nail into the jail. The sheriff says that the
ten inmates who died this year, five were from fentanyl. Bianco says this was one of the largest investigations in years. Steve Gregory, King of Finos, Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has filed for bankruptcy days after he was ordered to pay two election workers one hundred and forty eight million dollars for defamation. Official say the gunman was inspired by a similar shooting in Russia, was an excellent student with no criminal record, and described the shooting as well
thought out. Well, that was weird. Let's go back to Stephen Portnoy. Giuliani is vowed to appeal that verdict, as well as the judges determination that he defamed the two women by falsely claiming they were engaged in voter fraud. We have Gremlins. Gremlins is a Christmas movie, so it works. ABC. Stephen Portnoy says a jury in d C ordered the damages to be paid for lies Giuliani spread about the women in twenty twenty as he tried to
keep then President Trump in power. Juliani filed for Chapter eleven bankruptcy protection yesterday, claiming he has less than ten million dollars in assets. It's five oh six. Let's say good morning to ABC's Jim Ryan. So Jim Time is kind of running out to get Christmas presents, and as people go, I don't know what to get, they go, oh, maybe a gift card. Isn't that a great idea? Yeah? The temptation is there. Every hour that passes, yeah, it gets more intense. But the FBI is
saying be careful, be very careful. There is a crime. It's not a brand new crime, but it's one that certainly is still causing trouble, and the FBI has issued a new warning about it. It's kind of a combination of low tech and high tech crime, combining shoplifting simple as shoplifting, and then high tech computer crime. So here's how it works. Somebody goes into a grocery store. They walk up to that big display rack with all the gift cards on it. They take the card, they take it home,
they take it out of there, or whatever they do. They write down the card number and the pin. They scratch away the little gold over the pin, write down the pin, and then seal the little envelope up again and put it back on the rack, right the cardboard envelope. You walk in, you purchase the thing, You go over to the counter, You have the clerk activate the card and add on one hundred dollars for example, walk out of the place, give that gift card your friend. Your
recipient gets the card and finds that it has zero balance. Well, here's what happened. That original thief who stole the number information, the card number and the pin that gives that person access to the funds that are put onto that card. They have their software. There's a computer program they can use to monitor what happens with the card. And once one hundred dollars is put out of the card, this person can swipe that away and it's gone.
So the person that thief gets a hundred bucks, you're out one hundred dollars and your gift recipient thinks your chief scape. You know. I actually had this happen to me. I had purchased several Visa gift cards for something and we gave them away and then people were going, oh, I am, there's nothing there. And I will tell you it is almost impossible to get Visa. Then to reimburse you, there's this whole long process and you have to fill out forms and then they don't get back to you, and it's
just a pain. So my question is are the companies getting better about reimbursing you or if that money's gone, you're just out of luck. Well, yes, and no one thing you can do with a lot of these cards is register them The first thing you do before you even try to use it is to register it. Make sure you give the gift receipt with that card when you give it to your recipient. That may be a way for them to be protected in some way. Best thing for you to prevent this in
the first place, be very careful about the gift cards you purchase. If you must buy one from a display in a store, look at the little cardboard envelope. Make sure it hasn't been tampered with, cut open or torn open and reglued, or if it has suspicious looking scratches on it or something
you know, watch for that kind of thing. Or how about this, Let's say you're buying a gift card for Trader Joe's, for example, might not go straight to Trader Joe's and purchase the card directly from the store or from the restaurant that you were buying from. You can go online and make these purchases too, so it's an electronic funds transfer as opposed to a hard cash and a physical card. So you know there are ways to get around this, But getting your money back if you fall victim tough, Okay,
And are the companies doing anything to fix these problems. Well, the retailers are some of the retailers are putting these cards as opposed to a big display far away from the where they can be stolen, you know, taken and tampered with. The put back. Some of the cards are going behind the counter the way that you used to find cigarettes or adult magazines or scratch out
to you know, they're all behind the counter. So fund that you put them in the same category edge, Yeah, exactly, So yeah, if you have that opportunity, maybe buying the card from the at the count from behind the counter as opposed to out in the store where it could have been tampered with. Okay, so let's review if you do buy gift cards, and I love going and like seeing all the different things, and you can go to like your pavilions and they've got so many different choices you can go.
Okay, that's for my brother, and that's for my sister in law, and that's and you can kind of cover a lot of bases at one point. Sure, but look at the back. Make sure that there's no signs that this thing has been tampered with or that the cardboard has been peeled back and put back in place. Oh, exactly, that's exactly right. That's the best way to protect yourself when you purchase these things, you know, in the alternative, just go straight to that olive garden or whatever restaurant
it is, go straight online to the retailer, purchase it. That way that we avoid the whole grocery store display rock phassle. Okay, let's hope for a no Grinch gift card this year. Thank you so much, Jim, appreciate it, and Merry Christmas. Ry Christmas. Have a good one, all right, take care. Yeah, let's get back to some of the stories of the coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Police in the Czech Republic say they believe the student who killed fourteen people in a
shooting at Charles University in Prague killed his father earlier in the day. ABC's Andrew Dimbert says the shooter killed himself on a balcony yesterday as officers approach. Official say the gunman was inspired by a similar shooting in Russia, was an excellent student with no criminal record, and described the shooting as well thought out.
Police of increased security at schools and other soft targets. University officials say they'll work with police experts on more preventative measures to increase security around campus. The state of Idaho as asked for a trial date next summer for the man accused of killing four people at a house near the University of Idaho. Prosecutors say high schools and universities in Moscow, Idaho, will be out of session at that time. They say parking near the courthouse is limited and the trial
is expected to get a lot of attention. The trials should last around six weeks. A well known Mexican mafia chief in Orange County's been cleared of a nineteen ninety four murder in Placentia. Johnny Martinez was charged with second degree murder
when multiple people were stabbed in a fight among friends. Martinez attorney Earlier Roni says the trial testimony showed her client was off to the side when a separate person started stabbing people, and most importantly and absolutely no knowledge that his so called friend, the perpetrator had a knife and was going to use it that day. A'rony says. The judge tossed the case Monday, following a change in the law that redefines murder Chrisadler kf I News. The FDA has issued
a warning about fake versions of ozempic. The agency announced yesterday the knockoff versions of the drug popularly used for weight loss, have made their way into the supply chain. Thousands of units have been seized to be inspected. Officials say people should look carefully at their prescriptions and not use units with this lot number NAAR zero zero seven four. Remember that the guy who was the naked baby on the cover of Nirvana's Albin never Mind is getting another chance in court.
An appeals court yesterday decided to revive the case and send it to a lower court in California. Spencer Elden claims he was a victim of child pornography when he was photographed as a baby for the album cover more than thirty years ago. A lawyer for Nirvana called the ruling a procedural setback that says the case is meritless and he expects to prevail. Mother Nature is making it tough for fifteen million Californians who are planning to travel for Christmas. The storm that's been
dumping rain on the region is expected to move out by tonight. Oxnard in Ventura County got slammed yesterday with a month's worth of rain falling in just forty minutes. People were trapped in their cars, roads were watched out. It was a mess rain. We have flood watches in effect for Ventura, for the Inland Empire right now. The flood watch or LA expired last night, but we're expecting rain today. A twenty four year old student at Charles University
has shot and killed fourteen people and wounded two dozen more in Prague. Authority say they believe the man shot and killed his father earlier in the day. The shooter then killed himself. The number of people living on the streets of La could be about to increase dramatically. La Mayor Bas says the city expects the number of homeless people will increase for several reasons, including evictions and the end of pandemic aid for low income households. At six oh five, it's
handled on the news. Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy right after he was ordered to pay one hundred and forty eight million dollars in damages to to election workers. Right now, let's say good morning to ABC's Mike Debuski. Mike,
it's been a huge year in tech. Yeah, it absolutely has been, Amy, And I think it's impossible to talk about tech in twenty twenty three without talking about artificial intelligence, of course, like it's cropped up in all different aspects of our technology lives, and we're talking about official intelligence, we have to talk about open Ai there. Of course, the company behind chat GPT, that consumer facing chatbot that launched in late twenty twenty two,
really powered this company's rise. Throughout twenty twenty three, we saw that the company received major investments from huge tech companies like Microsoft. Open ai technology is what underpinned a lot of Microsoft AI focused tools, things like bing and their new copilot tool in the office software. But it almost came crashing down in November when the board of OpenAI moved to oust Sam Altman, the company's CEO
and co founder. We're still trying to piece together exactly what happened here, Amy, but it seems like there was a division within the company and within the board over the direction that the company should take going into twenty twenty four and the years ahead, some saying that they should hit the gas, they should accelerate the rate the pace of development of these AI tools, others saying they should let off, that they should pause and consider some of the risks
surrounded with AI. Things like misinformation continue to be a lingering concern around these AI powered tools. Well, it seems like that first camp one out. Sam Altman is back as CEO of the company he co founded as Stronger ever before. But going into the new year, I think it's going to be
interesting to look at potential competitors to open AI. Google just launched Gemini, which is their sort of flagship AI technology really seen as a refresh of their AI efforts and one of the big legitimate competitors to open AI going into twenty twenty four. Let's not forget a lot of people have Google accounts, a lot of people use Google technology, and this AI powered tool is going to get in front of a lot of eyeballs, eyeballs that open AI potentially doesn't
have access to. So it's going to be really interesting to track going into the new year. So, Mike, with all of these different ais out there, you're right, they mean they've just come out of nowhere and all of a sudden, everybody's got one. Which one is a open AI? The best or do they are they all kind of on the same level. It depends on really what you're talking about when you ask best. I mean,
they are good at certain things. What we're really talking about here when we talk about things like you know, open ais core technology, which is called GPT four, Google, Gemini, there several others out there, but these are what are known as generalize large language models, right. They are
designed to be good at a whole range of different things. And you talk to experts in the AI field and they say that what we might see in the future is more specific AI models, models that are trained on just very specific, narrow topics. Let's say you want an AI model that can index a library for you and answer questions you know about the books in that library.
That is kind of one of the potential futures for this technology as opposed to one generalized system that can answer any question that you can think of, and all the sort of problems around misinformation and hallucination that come alongside that. So I think that's going to be interesting to look at going into twenty twenty four. Is one going to win out over the other? I think it's
an open question. Google says that Gemini does beat open AI's GPT four technology when it comes to certain benchmark tests, but in the real world that could end up being a sort of different consideration. These things are different every time you interact with them, so it's going to be interesting. Another point on the AI conversation Amy that I'll mention is something that I think we're going to pay a little bit more attention to going into the new year and as we
consider the future of this technology. These systems require a lot of computing power, and that means two things. One the companies that make the chips and the sort of hardware that underpin AI models. Companies like Nvidia are going to get a lot of attention going into the new year because they've seen huge valuations related to their relationship to the AI industry, So that's going to be something interesting to track, the sort of tech companies behind the tech companies, and
also the environmental concerns. Right, this huge amount of computing power requires a lot of raw materials, requires a lot of cooling technology, and a lot of sort of cheap computing power. What does the knock on effect there? What are the third and fourth order ramifications of this technology when it comes to
its environmental impact. I think it's going to be an open question and something that you know, the tech community is going to have to grapple with as we consider the future of AI, and it's going to be evolving and scaring the pants off a lot of us like me. Okay, And then another thing. Another big development from twenty twenty three was x which used to be worth forty four billion dollars. Well, I mean, at least that's what Elon Musk paid for it. That was seen as a sort of overvaluation at
the time when he closed the deal in late twenty twenty two. So this is his first full year as head of Twitter really making some interesting, controversial decisions at that platform which would seem for a long time, you know, rightfully or wrongfully, as sort of the center of the news conversation. It's where discourse started. It's where famous people, journalists and people in business all hung out and had conversations. And there were a lot of problems with that,
of course. But the rollback of certain content moderation guidelines in twenty twenty
three prompted the return of a number of previously banned accounts. The platform filled with a number of you know accounts that had previously been banned, most recently Alex Jones, so controversial personalities, the you know surge and hate speech and misinformation, rise in anti Semitism on the platform also you know, prompted a lot of raised eyebrows and led to the sort of explosion of Twitter competitor that we saw in twenty twenty three. Max Todon has been around for a few
years, but got a lot of attention this past year. Blue Sky debuted as a potential Twitter alternative, and the one that sort of stood above them all was Threads, which was the Twitter competitor that launched in July of this past year from Meta, of course, the company that makes Facebook and Instagram. They're getting into this space as well, the sort of short form text based post and that was seem as the real success story of twenty twenty three
when we're talking about social media. It quickly rocketed to one hundred million signups in just four or five days, which is really crazy. Interests has leveled off somewhat since then. It is still a smaller platform significantly than X, but it is growing and people are flocking to this platform to get their news, to have conversations as advertisers are pulling out of X and that, and users as well are pulling out of that platform over concerns about the content that
is allowed to kind of run rampant there. So that's going to be something to keep an eye on in twenty twenty three. I don't think we've seen the end of that. Two major questions that I'm looking to answer in twenty twenty four, or looking to at least learn a little bit more about it in twenty twenty four is will the company file for bankruptcy? We mentioned the advertiser pull out. Major companies like Disney and Apple have pulled out of that
company as well. And we'll let Linda Yakarino, the CEO brought in from the world of advertising, will she remain at the top of that company at the end of next year. I think they're both open questions. Damien's going to be something really interesting to look at in twenty twenty four. I think they're both open questions because you just never know what Elon Musk is going to
do. Absolutely, it's brilliant and unpredictable. All right, Mike Dobuski, thanks so much for the look back at twenty three and the look forward at twenty twenty four. We will look forward to talking to you next year. Likewising the happy holidays and happy New Year. I'll bok you in twenty thirty four, you too. Gaza's entire population is at imminent risk of famine as war rages on between Israel and Hamas. The UN says over half million people
are starving. A quarter of the people living in the strip have exhausted their food supplies, and the UN says the situation is worse than recent near famines in Afghanistan and Yemen. On the heels of signing two way player Shohei Otani, the Dodgers have pickup Japanese pitching sensation Yoshiobu Yamamoto for twelve years in a three hundred and twenty five million dollar deal, the largest contract for a pitcher
in MLB history. Yamamoto's nearly a thousand strikeouts in his seven seasons in the Nippin Professional Baseball League in Japan. At six oh five, your flight might not be canceled, but there's a better chance now that it's going to be delayed and you're going to be stuck waiting for hours to take off. We'll tell you why. At five point fifty we're going to be celebrating Elf twenty years of Elf in fact, and also my dilemma when it comes to sending
Christmas cards this year, we'll be talking about that. But right now we're going to bring Nick Poliochini in because Nick and I did something that we think is a really great idea to give as a present, That is your presence. So we've been telling you some non traditional gift ideas. Like a couple of weeks ago, we went and did cookie decorating and thought, you know what, spending time with people and giving that as a gift is a really
great alternative to a traditional gift. And I think that part of that is because during the pandemic, you know, when we were all isolated, when you know what I want experiences, I don't want things so much. And also when you get to a certain point, you're like, I have enough things, so maybe do something fun. I know when you're my friend.
Actually, my friend Amy and I've been doing this for several years, Like we I gave her horseback riding, so we were going to go horseback writing, and then the pandemic hits, so we didn't actually get to do it. But we've done several things like that. And this week Nick and I went to an I Pick theater and we're thinking, that's a really fun thing because it's different than a regular movie theater and it's a much more like, you know, you and a friend or you and a love one kind of
experience. And I was surprised because, as you know, if you've listened to the show that Nick goes out and does about everything, you're a very very busy person. But you had never been to an ipic. So I want you to kind of share what the experience was like for you and how how it might be different than a regular movie. Yeah, this is one of those opportunities for you to really get out. And we even talked about
this before Amy came and started hosting Wake Up Call. We talked about it on later with mo Kelly about going out to theaters that have that special premium offering. And I had never been, like Amy said, to an ipick.
It is so incredibly unique and special. So it is a theater that is a little bit smaller than most but has all the state of the art trappings for you to and really enjoy one of those first run movies or even here at Ipick they were doing you know, twentieth anniversary of Elf and other screenings that were happening. But you get these pods and it's you know,
they're set up in set pairs. So Amy and I were able to head in there, and you'll be able to check out on Instagram a little tease of what it looks like inside on Amy k kan or kfiam six forty on Instagram. But they're little, really comfortable recliners and they give you a blanket and there's a table and you have table service and you can order food and Amy loves a nice cocktail, and it really is something special. And I think even having we had we had Jack Ryan on earlier. No no,
no, not Jack Ryan. But anyway, we're talking about the gift cards. This is something you can do. You just go go together and get that movie experience in because you're able to go in there and it's fun because you show up, they have a pool table, you can go early, They have a bar there, they have a beautiful lounge that you can hang out in, so it can becomes more of like that experience that's not just
hey, let's rush to the movie. Let's get our popcorn, let's get our drinks, and head in. You really can get in there and enjoy yourself and make an entire event of And again, like I said, it's not just first run movies at a lot of these what do you call it movie houses? I guess right. But we went to Ian right. If I would have known you, if I would have known you guys had never been there, I would have taken you because my husband and I've been going
this place for years. Oh I have too, and I was just shocked that Nick hasn't been before. And you feel like you're going, like you're going, you go down into like a basement type place. It's just so very feeling. And yeah, you feel like a rich person in your own theater exactly. But that's a good point, Michelle. You feel like a rich person. But the tickets are no more expensive than going to an AMC.
So I think that's a better thing. There a few dollars more, but it's worth it, yeah, because it's again you're not sitting in a crowded theater. It's it's a non crowded theater. And as Nick mentioned, there's they are like set in pairs, so you have you can sit and you can kind of huddle and chit chat with your person, and they have like little semi walls. It almost feels like being in business class on an
airplane exactly. No, not only, I mean, it feels exactly like those little pods that when you're getting on an airplane and you walk through business class. If you're not so lucky to be able to get one of those seats, it's exactly what it looks like, and it's so nice and just really really enjoyable experience wise. And then you know, again, there also are in each of the theaters a handful of single seats as well, so
this isn't just something that you need to do with someone else. If you are one of those people that enjoys going in the movie solo and aren't looking for that you know, experience, you can, you know, put a couple of those pods together for four or more if you want to make it a real event out of it. But there are a handful of seats in each theater that are just for single loungers as well, so it's kind of nice even just for you if you want to treat yourself and take yourself out
for a special you know, holiday you do that exactly the time. Well, next time you do it, will you call me, Michelle? I will. Yeah. The best thing about it too, if you need something, you just push your button and they come to you. They really do. Yeah. They have like table service. So during the movie if you go, oh my wine glass is getting empty, or I need dessert, now, I'll come and they'll get it for you. It's really just a cool way to experience a movie. We don't go for like every movie.
We kind of wait for epic movies because it is a little more expensive because they have full food menus and that kind of stuff. But a really fun way to spend an evening. I'm glad that we got to share that, Nick. It was so much fun, and thank you. It's a great way to kind of wrap up the holiday season just ahead of Christmas, before somebody takes off the Oregon. Absolutely, we're doing an ipic party. I
down Michelle anytime. Let's do it all right deal, And like Nick said, if you want to check it out, we did a little sneak preview that you can take a little look at what it looks like inside the theater. And that's at Amy K. King or at KFI AM six forty dot com. Now, let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty for our newsroom. LA County is giving out one thousand free laptops this weekend to military veterans of all ages and from all branches of service.
We giveaways part of an overall plan to close the county's digital divide in underserved populations the counties. Sellwyn Hollins says veterans officials identified some of those in needs. They drew to our attention some of the challenges in particular that military veterans are experiencing and getting access to services and programs, and most of this
is of the internet. Fllins says there are more than four hundred thousand people in the county without internet service and so far they've handed out more than twenty five hundred laptops to people from various backgrounds. Steve Gregory kain News, a former assistant for actor Vin Diesel, has accused him of sexual assault. A lawsuit filed in La Yesterday claims the assault happened in twenty ten at a hotel
in Atlanta. Asta Jonason's lawsuit also alleges violations including a hostile work environment, retaliation, failure to prevent discrimination, and wrongful termination. Diesel's attorney says the actor categorically denies the claim in its entirety that demonstrators have gathered in Washington State to protest three police officers being acquitted in the death of a black man who took told them he couldn't breathe. Prosecutors say the unarmed man was restrained in
twenty twenty, beaten, tased, and put in a spitmask. Defense attorneys say while the death was unfortunate, it wasn't unlawful. They say the guy had a lethal amount of meth in his system and had heart complications. Trial ended yesterday when the officers were found not guilty. Huntington Beach has canceled cultural celebrations, including Black History Month, Women's History Month, and Pride Month. Counselman Pat Burns says it's about honoring the Constitution. Hearying about those things make
us great. We got city culture, we got state culture, and we got federal American culture. Period. Councilman Dankalmick says this is not the role of local government. We have a lot of big issues, and this is the number one thing we count with, which is coming up with the calendar that my four year old just did in her kindergarten class. The motion calls
for celebrations free of identity politics and passed this week along party lines. Mother Nature is making a little tough for the fifteen million Californians traveling for Christmas. That storm that has moved through and is headed east has been dumping a lot of rain on the region. Should move out by tonight. Oxnard in Ventura County got slammed yesterday with a month's worth of rain falling in just forty minutes. A twenty four year old student at Charles University in Prague has shot and
killed fourteen people and wounded two dozen more. Will you say the shooter may have killed his father earlier in the day before he killed himself. A large section of the sixth Street Bridge in downtown La called the Ribbon of Light, doesn't have any light right now. About a third of the bridge's lights are out after thieves stole copper wire. City officials say they're not sure exactly when the wiring was stolen, but it might have happened during a theft that was
noticed a couple of weeks ago. We're just minutes away from handle. On the news this morning, Americans are spending more this holiday season, but analysts say it's not on gifts. Hmmm. Did you know that Elf first debuted twenty years ago? Conor are you an ELF fan? I'm a massive ELF fan. I am as well. I am a massive ELF fan. Nick Poliochini hasn't seen it or did you finally see it? I have seen it now. I have seen it, and I've done a lot of homework.
Yes, Oh my gosh, no, I've had a little bit, you know me, if we're going to talk about it, I can't not not see it anymore. But I had not seen it in twenty years, So I mean, that's you know where it is there. So I'm singing, I'm in a store. I'm singing. I'm in a store. I'm singing. There are so many classic lines from that movie. I absolutely love it and we watch it every day. My mother even likes it, and she generally doesn't do a lot of like goofy kinds of Christmas music. But you
know, it's a great thing for Christmas. Christmas is the greatest thing in the whole white world. I know. Right, So here are a couple of fun facts about Elf that you might not have known. Any idea on who originally was slated to play Buddy the Elf because it wasn't Will Ferrell. I know, so I can't answer. Thank you for not being a spoiler. Oh so, Nick, you really did do your homework? Did your
homework a comedian? Yeah? Yeah, yep, you have three seconds, and I'm going to tell you because we don't have a lot of time. That would be a great sequel though, That would be That would be fun. Yeah, no, it was. It was Jim Carrey. I don't know if I could have seen him as Buddy though now he's a little too. I don't know, he's a little too maybe, I don't know.
And then here's the other thing about Elf is originally was going to be more of a dark comedy, but then John Favreau, who was the director, said, you know what, I don't want it to be a dark comedy, and so he rewrote the script and kind of used influences from Rudolph the Red Nose Reinder, including the Elf costume or actually uniform or whatever you call
it. That Buddy war it's inspired by Rudolph the Red Nose Reinder. And if you didn't know, John Pevrou was the director, and he makes a cameo he's the doctor when Buddy finds out how who his dad is and he goes to get a paternity test. That's one of the funniest scenes in the whole movie. Did you know about the other cameo? It's on a yes, I had no idea. I didn't either, But till this morning,
I did not know that. Okay, So when you watch Elf this next time and you see the elf ming Ming who's the head of Santa's workshop, and he's like, oh no, you're not a cottonheaded nanny Muggins and all of that stuff, and he tries to console Buddy. The elf that was Peter Billingsley. You know who that is, Ralphie from a Christmas story.
I had no idea. I didn't know either. And also, in case you were wondering if there was going to be an ELF's sequel, eventually there was actually going to be one at one point, but then Will Ferrell backed out of the project. The Elf went back on the shelf in twenty twenty one, he backed out of it because he said that he just couldn't get behind it, and then there were rumblings from like James concept. Oh you
know, it's because Jon Favreau and Will Ferrell had some creative differences. So whatever really happened, there are no plans to have an Elf sequel, which I'm good with because I think that movie was about Christmas perfection. That's just me, okay. So then Nick and I did do something fun in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Elf, and as you know, spaghetti plays a huge part in it. So we went out and about and made Elf spaghetti
and thought we would share that with you right now. Does this sound familiar to you, buddy the Elf? What's your favorite color? Santa? I know him? Don't be a cottonheaded in Ninny Muggins. Yep. They're all lines from Elf and Elf is celebrating its twentieth anniversary. Thought why not celebrate in style? So we went to the store and we found some really cool Elf products. There's sugar cookie pancake mix, of course, syrup ELF,
goldfish, Elf fudgstripes, and Elf wouldn't be complete without gumdrops. Remember when we went through the gumdrop Forest. But then we thought we need to elevate this a little bit, and since spaghetti was so integral to the movie, we thought we needed to make our own. So, ladies and gentlemen Elf, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary, we are making Elf spaghetti. Ooh, do we have the keyfour ingredients candy, candy, corn, candy, cane,
and syrup. Yes we do, okay, so we're going to take our spaghetti generously applies suh oh. And then these are the original ingredients from the movie, of course, chocolate, cereal, marshmallow, candy, oh, and chocolate pop tarts yum yum, yum, yum yum. And then for color sprinkles. Isn't it pretty? And we'll top it off with chocolate syrup. Okay, Elf, this is for you, big bite mm hmm, a jell fulishers yum. Nick nick Can attested that, uh, it
really wasn't very good. It was a lot. It was. It's one of those moments when you're like, this looks great in theory, and then you tasted and that you can taste everything from the maple syrup, so the chocolates, everything's there. Plus that's all It's like sugar on top of carbs, so kids would love it. I totally understand that, and I having seen the movie, now, hey that's perfect. But hey also real quick motto just texted me from Gary and Shannon. John Fabreau was the voice of
the Narwal. Hey, buddy, hope you find You're dead. I love it. Oh, hope you find your dead? Thanks mister Narwal. Oh my gosh, I love that movie. I can't wait to watch it on Christmas with the family. Thanks so much for helping out with a little Elf segment this week. Oh and also it is now posted on my Instagram at Amy K King. Also on my Facebook page and at KFI AM six forty if you want to see our little creation of elf spaghetti. It looks just like it did in the movie. I think we did a good job.
This is KFI and kost HD two Los Angeles, Orange County. We lead local live from the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. I'm Amy. This has been your wake up call and if you missed any wake up call, you can listen anytime on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to wake Up Call with me, Amy King, you can always hear wake Up call five to six am Monday through Friday on KFI Am six forty and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.