Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: Penny for your thoughts?

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The Fifth Hour: Penny for your thoughts? · The Ben Maller Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Kaboom if you thought four hours a day 1200 minutes
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: a week was enough think again he's the last remnants
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: of the old republic a sole bastion of fairness he
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
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  Speaker 1: rich pill poppers in the penthouse wow the clearinghouse of
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: hot takes break free for something special the fifth hour
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: with ben maller starts right.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Now In the air everywhere, the fifth hour with me,
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  Speaker 2: Ben Maller, and you.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: We are united again.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: No days off, even here on a Saturday, because that's
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: what we do. So it is the 12th day of September,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: the 255th day of the year. That means my computer-like
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  Speaker 2: brain tells me there are 110 days left.
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  Speaker 3: That's it. That's all.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: 110 days left. And then we move on to 2027.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: It is a massive college football day today. We'll get
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: to that in a minute. On this Saturday edition, we
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  Speaker 2: have a penny for your thoughts. And when the Mandela
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: effect and the man who shot Liberty Valance have.
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  Speaker 3: A baby, how does that go?
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  Speaker 2: However, we begin in honor of our friend Terry in England,
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  Speaker 2: who is such a big fan. of Benny's Big Board,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: which is not a list. It's Benny's Big Board. So
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: here's my plan of attack today. The two biggest games
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: in college football, and I'm never wrong about this, the
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: early game in the noon television window, which is 9 a.m., where.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: I happen to be, Oklahoma.
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  Speaker 2: Boomer Sooner, number 11 in the country, I believe, at Michigan.
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  Speaker 2: Oklahoma is a five-and-a-half-point favorite in that game.
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  Speaker 3: It's on Fox, so you better watch.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: And everyone wondering what the Wolverines do after being given
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: a gift by the corrupt Big Ten, it would appear,
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  Speaker 2: getting an extra second to.
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  Speaker 3: Beat Western Michigan, the clock Hail Mary game.
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  Speaker 2: And they fell out, Michigan, of the AP Top 25,
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  Speaker 2: which is the way the media said, hey, you guys
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: are a little corrupt over there. And Bryce Underwood gets
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: another chance to show that he doesn't stink.
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  Speaker 3: The line movement on this game was insane.
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  Speaker 2: Michigan originally opened up about a two-and-a-half point favorite, I believe,
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  Speaker 2: on the look-ahead line. The market completely flipped. Oklahoma, a
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  Speaker 2: five-and-a-half-point favorite. That is an eight-point swing. Eight-point swing in
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: this game. Now, the game that I'm planning my snacks
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  Speaker 2: around is Ohio State.
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  Speaker 3: At Texas. The Longhorns are a one-and-a-half-point.
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  Speaker 2: Favorite in that game. I will be giving out— you know,
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  Speaker 2: I'll do it right now. I'll give out a couple
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  Speaker 2: bonus picks. I'm going to take Ohio.
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  Speaker 3: State— In this game, I don't trust Arch Manning.
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to take the Buckeyes, more talented team, and
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  Speaker 2: Ohio State will win this. They're the number one team.
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  Speaker 2: I'm also taking Oklahoma. I agree with the wise guys here.
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  Speaker 2: Michigan's not very good, and they'll play better, I would imagine,
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  Speaker 2: than they did against Western Michigan, but how much better
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  Speaker 2: are they?
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  Speaker 3: So there's that.
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  Speaker 2: Some of the other games that I don't know how
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  Speaker 2: many I'm going to actually watch today Alabama is a
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  Speaker 2: 10.5-point favorite at Kentucky. That'll be in the 3.30 Eastern
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  Speaker 2: TV window. Tennessee at Georgia Tech. I don't know if
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  Speaker 2: that's coming out of my radar.
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  Speaker 3: You have the.
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  Speaker 2: Iowa rivalry game, Iowa State versus Iowa. The Hawkeyes, a
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  Speaker 2: 14.5-point favorite in that game. Two touchdowns feels gigantic in.
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  Speaker 3: A rivalry game.
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  Speaker 2: And Iowa, I can't wrap my head around them actually
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  Speaker 2: having a good offense this year. So we'll see about that.
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  Speaker 2: There's a bit of a trap game is the right way.
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  Speaker 3: To say it.
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  Speaker 2: But Utah, a top 20 team playing Arkansas, a big
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  Speaker 2: bad SEC team.
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  Speaker 3: That is a late game.
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  Speaker 2: And I believe that is the top late night game.
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  Speaker 3: SEC team playing in altitude.
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  Speaker 2: Utah's got that voodoo boogaloo at home. So that should
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  Speaker 2: be a pretty good game. Now, as for a penny
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  Speaker 2: for your thoughts, so you're probably asking, what happened to
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Benny versus the penny?
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  Speaker 3: And I have saved this for today.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm willing to spill the tea, if you will.
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  Speaker 2: So this is a story about television. big television which
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: means it's mostly a story about waiting waiting for a
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: phone call waiting for emails waiting for somebody to give
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  Speaker 2: the green light and just green light what we got
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  Speaker 2: going on say the magic word yes what a magical
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  Speaker 2: word that is yes waiting for somebody to even say
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  Speaker 2: no And occasionally waiting so long that you begin wondering
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  Speaker 2: whether the people you're waiting for have decided to leave
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: the country and start a new identity in the witness
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  Speaker 2: protection program. So for the past couple of months, just
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: to give you the inside skinny here, for the past
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  Speaker 2: couple of months, I have not talked about this on
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  Speaker 2: the radio or here on the Fifth Hour Podcast because.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: There was actually... Nothing to update.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: There was something going on behind the scenes, but yet nothing.
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  Speaker 2: We were in standby mode waiting for a runway to
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  Speaker 2: open up. And standby mode sounds kind of exciting. If
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  Speaker 2: you had asked me when I was starting out my career,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: I said, oh, you're going to be on standby with TV. Oh,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: my God, that's so exciting.
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  Speaker 3: But standby....
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: It's like you're launching a SpaceX rocket standby. No, it's
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: considerably less exciting when you're a middle-aged, I guess slightly
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: older than that now, mostly bald radio gas bag checking
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: his phone every 17 minutes. We have had conversations over
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: the last handful of months with the good people over
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: there at NBC about bringing back Benny versus the Penny
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  Speaker 2: for another season. As you know, last year, it didn't
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  Speaker 2: work out. We got the kick in the nuts right
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: before the season. So my good friend Bill, who's a
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: great dude, I have nothing bad to say about him.
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  Speaker 2: He made all this happen. And Bill was interested in
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: putting something together and And it wasn't just Benny versus
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  Speaker 2: the Penny. There were conversations about other shows. There were
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  Speaker 2: elevator pitches that were made about other opportunities, different concepts,
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  Speaker 2: not just Benny versus the Penny. There were non-gambling concepts.
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  Speaker 3: That were talked about. So naturally, I started.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Imagining a television empire. You start daydreaming. And of course,
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  Speaker 2: I daydream because I sleep during the day. Benny versus
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  Speaker 2: the Penny. That was possible.
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  Speaker 3: There were other things.
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  Speaker 2: Benny After Dark, The Bald and the Beautiful. Yeah, the
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  Speaker 2: B & T show, Ben and Tom. NBC, though, ultimately
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  Speaker 2: went another direction. We were in the running. We came
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: up a few votes short. That's television. Television is the
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: only business where people can tell you how much they
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: love your show while simultaneously making sure nobody ever sees
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: it again. It's fascinating. In radio, people are just assholes.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: We can say that on the podcast. They're just schmucks.
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  Speaker 2: They'll tell you your show sucks. In TV, everything's great.
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  Speaker 2: Everything's wonderful.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: And what inevitably happens and what happened here is somebody
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  Speaker 2: enters a conference room carrying a spreadsheet and the spreadsheet
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  Speaker 2: always wins.
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  Speaker 3: The spreadsheet always wins. We were trying to.
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  Speaker 2: Sell a cable television show at roughly the same moment
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  Speaker 2: America is trying to remember what does a cable box
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  Speaker 2: look like?
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  Speaker 3: We were a couple votes short. That's the story of
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  Speaker 3: my career. Always a bridesmaid.
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  Speaker 2: Occasionally I do get to be the pallbearer, which I
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: don't like, but that happens. And the larger problem is
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: television itself. The landscape has changed dramatically. Cable television isn't
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: exactly living high on the hog these days. It's more
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: like the last helicopter leaving Saigon.
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  Speaker 3: I think I have to update that reference.
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  Speaker 2: Wasn't there a thing with Biden back in 2021 or
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: something like that, where everyone was trying to leave Afghanistan? Anyway,
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  Speaker 2: I feel like the Saigon thing still works. Anyway, everybody's trying.
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  Speaker 3: To climb a board, right?
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  Speaker 2: And there's some executive there hanging from the landing gear yelling.
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  Speaker 3: We don't have the budget.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Now, that's particularly frustrating because we originally had the blueprint.
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  Speaker 3: To do Benny vs.
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  Speaker 2: The Penny on NBC way back in 2020. Somewhere there
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: is an alternative universe in the multiverse where Benny vs.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: the Penny was launched in 2020, and there was no
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: pandemic anywhere. and it became a television institution and at
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  Speaker 2: this moment in that dimension I am insufferably wealthy unfortunately
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: I am currently stuck in the universe that you're in
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: and yeah Excellent timing by me, unless that's not the case.
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  Speaker 2: We planned to launch a TV show right before a
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: global pandemic. Some people went out and bought Amazon stock
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: in 2020. Some people bought some Bitcoin. My friend Sports
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: with Coleman, I tried launching a television show. Again, excellent
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: broadcasting instincts. Now, had we gotten Benny versus the Penny
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  Speaker 2: on TV way back then, I'm convinced that And some
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  Speaker 2: of my friends at NBC believe this, too, that it
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  Speaker 2: would have caught on and we would have still been
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: doing the show today. Cable TV was healthier then, and
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  Speaker 2: we would have become one of those legacy shows that
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: continues to get renewed year after year, even though they're
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: not that good.
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  Speaker 3: But timing is everything. I've said a few times over.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: The years, I think of Paul Molitor when I think
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: of this great player, Hall of Famer, Baseball player, by
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: the way. Hall of Famer, but for those that don't know.
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  Speaker 2: But imagine if he'd spent his prime years with the New.
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  Speaker 3: York Yankees instead of Milwaukee.
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  Speaker 2: Same player, different spotlight, different environment, completely different level of celebrity.
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  Speaker 2: So sometimes you get Yankee Stadium. Sometimes you get County Stadium.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes you get COVID. And so COVID shut down the world,
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  Speaker 2: took Benny versus the Penny with it, Of all the
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: casualties of the pandemic, people got sick, kids couldn't go
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: to school, adults couldn't.
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  Speaker 3: Go to work. There was a lot of bad stuff
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  Speaker 3: that happened.
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  Speaker 2: So admittedly, during the pandemic, we were pretty far down
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: the list, pretty far down the list. Now, I have
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: spent much of my broadcasting career arriving at the train station,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: the depot, just to watch the caboose disappear. So why
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: is Benny versus the Penny suddenly showing up on the
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: radio again, again, again? Well, we'll answer that. Also, where
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: the hell's Tom Looney? So we had discussed bringing the
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: show back.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: Here on the Fifth Hour podcast.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: We had also talked about doing another YouTube season of
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Benny versus the Penny.
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  Speaker 3: The problem was....
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: That NBC's final decision, the kill shot, the suicide shot, came.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: Very late in the game.
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  Speaker 2: And by that point, we simply did not have enough runway.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: That's a cool broadcasting term, runway. We didn't have enough
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: time to put together the advertising needed to make the
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: proper digital version of Benny versus the penny walk, you know,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: work there, there are some production costs involved in all that.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: And Benny versus the penny. The main problem is we needed,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: and we still do a signature sponsor. We need a
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: sugar daddy. I need a sugar daddy, a wealthy benefactor,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: preferably someone who owns several oil wells, possibly has access
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: to the Saudi wellness fund makes terrible financial decisions.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: I'm kidding.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Uh, without that sponsor producing the full show does not
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: make any financial sense. Uh, the time is one thing.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And then also the quality. We want that to be
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: as good as possible. That means you got to add
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: some bells and whistles. Those things cost money. So it
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: just didn't make sense. And now if somebody listening that
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about you, uh, and you're a fan and
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: you want to become part of the thing, um, business partner,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: whatever it might be. The door isn't locked. We can
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: certainly bring back Benny versus the Penny and bring the
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: band back together on YouTube or another platform. I'm not
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: difficult to find. Make sure the headline on the email
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: is good. Otherwise, I might not open it, but I'm
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: not that difficult to find. I'm the tall dude kind
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: of bald, but I wear a hat to cover it up,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: wearing glasses, holding... a giant souvenir penny. Now, as for
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Tom Looney, Looney Tunes, he is stepping back from his
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: broadcasting gigs right now. I guess he's still doing something
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: with JT the Brick, but that's about it. And he's
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: got some non-media opportunities that.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: He is pursuing. So that's his story to tell.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: That is not my story to tell.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: He has been a friend of mine for 30-plus years.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: I wish him well. Hopefully we'll do something together.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, again, but meanwhile, I'm still here in the pod
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: studio talking into a microphone during the week in the
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: overnight hours like a man. I'm yelling at the microphone
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: and like somebody arguing with the drive-through speaker at Jack
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: in the Box. However, Looney has told me this off
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: the record. Of course, I'm saying it on the podcast.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Looney has let me know. that while he has other
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: opportunities that are non-media related, he has informed me if
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: we land the right sponsor and the money makes sense,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: he'd be more than happy to resume his role as
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: the penny to make a comeback. It's funny how quickly
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: broadcasting retirement disappears when someone backs up a big rig
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: filled with gold bullion. Now, I still believe strongly in
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Benny versus the penny. It is my intellectual property, so
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: I control the rights, the penny versus the penny, and
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: I can do what I want with it. And I
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: have some freedom that I don't have with other things
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: in my broadcasting world. So I know there is a
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: platform where this thing can be bigger, better, and more profitable.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: But until that happens, I have something television executives don't control,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: a microphone, which is jumbo-sized, and a bully pulpit, a
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: big stage that happens to be broadcast in more than
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: 600 different radio stations. I have a global reach, and
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: it's pretty cool. So we're going to rise again. We're
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: going to rise up again, but we— We don't have.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: I.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Guess we don't have enough radio time, is the way
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: I would describe it, to handicap every NFL game. So
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: certainly not the time we would have here on the
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: podcast or on YouTube, television also.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: We don't have a lot of time. But instead, we're
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: going to cherry-pick the marquee matchups, the island games, the
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: island life.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: The biggest games of the week, and give them the
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: full car wash, Benny versus the Penny treatment.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Now that said.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: I will still pick every.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: NFL game against the spread, and I'll post them on
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: social media platforms. The penny is not dead. It has
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: just been relocated yet again. Television put it in storage.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Radio found the key, and somewhere sitting quietly in the corner,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: off to the left, the giant penny is staring at
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: me right now like it knows something, and I'm not
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: sure what it knows, which I got to tell you,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: a little disturbing. Little disturbing because historically, at least recently,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: the penny has been right more often than I have
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: picking these NFL games. There's something poetic about a TV
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: show involving a penny being undone by economics.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: It's just perfect. Not for my finances. It's just perfect
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: for everything else.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: So turning the page on that, I did want to mention–
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Barry Melrose died this week at the age of 70,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: which means hockey has lost one of those people who
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: seemed less like an actual person and more like a
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: recurring character that the sport had hired way before anybody remembers,
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: like way back and just simply forgot about. There was
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: the mullet, the goatee, The suits, which occasionally looked as
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: though they had been selected by a colorblind riverboat gambler.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: And then there was the resume. Barry Melrose played 300
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: NHL games as a defenseman.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: And he scored how many goals? Not one, not two,
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: not three, not four. How about 10? 10 goals in
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: 300 games. 10! 10!
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: In fact, Barry Melrose had 728 penalty minutes, which means
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: he spent considerably more time on the naughty list being
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: punished for playing hockey than being rewarded for playing hockey.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: He was what in that era was known as a goon,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: an enforcer, a tough guy.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: That's what Barry Melrose was.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Now, naturally, this qualified him to eventually coach Wayne Gretzky,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: number 99, the greatest hockey player who ever lived.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: It's life with a sense of humor.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Now, way back in the 90s, early 90s, 92, 93,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Barry Melrose took over the Los Angeles Kings. He was
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: a no-name for people in L.A., and he took over
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: and coached them up all the way to the Stanley Cup.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Cup final. Gretzky was Gretzky. It was at the tail
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: end of his prime. Melrose became a coaching star, and
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: the Kings lost to Patrick Waugh in Montreal, which is
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: still the last Canadian championship all these years later in
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: five games.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: That's all five games. Now, that postseason became the foundation
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: of the Barry Melrose coaching mythology. And this is the
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: intersection where the man who shot Liberty Valance and the
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Mandela Effect get together.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: And they have a little baby.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: So when the Mandela Effect and the man who shot
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Liberty Valance get together, that would be this part of
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: the story.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Let me explain why.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: When the legend becomes the fact, you print the legend,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: and eventually everyone remembers the legend as a fact. People
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: remember Barry Melrose as a very successful NHL coach. His
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: actual record was 84-108-29-4.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: The man had a 447 winning percentage.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: And that's the wonderful Melrose contradictions. Because he really had
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: one spectacular spring, and that became more powerful than all
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: of the arithmetic that followed.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: I was blown away by that record. In sports, this
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: actually does happen all the time.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: We claim numbers never lie, and then immediately ignore the
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: numbers we don't particularly care for. Now, I have my
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: own Barry Melrose connection, and I thought, I wanted to
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: share this for a couple of reasons, but the main
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: reason is I, I don't want.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: To forget it someday.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: And I feel like if I, I share it with
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: you and I'll have it on the podcast and then
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: somebody down the line can say, Oh, let's hear the
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Barry Melrose thing. I don't even know how good a
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: story it is, but Melrose only coached the Kings for
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: like two and a half years. His final season coaching
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: the Kings was 94, the 94, 95 season. He lasted
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: 41 games. It was like half the season before.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Being excommunicated Barry Melrose.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: At that time, I was a teenage reporter who occasionally
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: didn't do it all the time, occasionally was assigned to
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: the Fabulous Forum, wandering around with a microphone and enough confidence,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: which I don't have anymore, to compensate for the fact
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: that I absolutely had no idea what I was doing.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: The fake it till you make it situation belonged there.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: I wasn't a hockey guy, but yet I was out there.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: And I.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Remember that year, because it was kind of a big deal,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: because I'd watched the Kings and the Stanley Cup a
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: couple years earlier than that. And so I stuck that
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: microphone in Barry Melrose's face when I was out covering
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: the Kings.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: I didn't really know if I was allowed to do that.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: And I'm sure this was a major moment, a major
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: moment for Barry Melrose, unless it was not. And might
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: I add our life journey, the life journey together. crossed
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: pass again like a couple of ships out in the
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: ocean there 5 207 days ago june 11 2012 not
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: that i'm counting june 11th of 2020 12 the kings
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: were going to be the kings they were about to
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: win their first stanley cup beating the devils in game
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: six at staples center Now, I happened to be covering
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: that game. I was downstairs in the bowels of the
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: building with the media herd watching the final moments.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: In this case, I was watching on.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: A small monitor while waiting to stampede onto the ice, ice, ice, baby,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: for those riveting post-game interviews. And who happened to be
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: standing there with me While we watched the final seconds
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: on the clock as the Devils won that game, I
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: think the final was like 4-2 or something like that,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: 5,207 days ago.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Well, none other than Barry Melrose. That's right.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: There was something wonderfully symmetrical about that moment. Almost two
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: decades earlier, I had been an annoying teenager sticking a
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: microphone down the throat of Barry Melrose. And this not
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: that long after he had taken the Gretzky Kings closer
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: to the Stanley.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Cup than they had ever been in their history.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: And now we were standing together watching the Kings finally
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: win the damn thing.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: And I remember thinking how cool that was. I still do,
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: by the way. I still do. That I happened to
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: just be there.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: It was me, Barry Melrose, and one of his ESPN
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: TV people. And over time, Barry Melrose became something even
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: more valuable than a coach or a hockey enforcer. He
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: became one of the signature voices of hockey. The mullet,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: the goatee, the wonderfully ridiculous clown costumes.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: That he would wear as suits. He helped make hockey
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: seem like it mattered. He was entertaining. He was someone
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: who People just saw Barry Melrose on the street. They're like,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: that's Barry Melrose. They knew who he was. And they
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: weren't even like hockey people. They weren't even really hockey people.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: But they knew Barry Melrose. And they didn't change the channel. Unfortunately,
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: life got in the way.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Barry Melrose was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2023.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: And now here he is gone at age 70. So
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: the Statistics will tell you that Barry Melrose was.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: A below 500 NHL coach who had one magical playoff run.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: But memory doesn't keep standings. It keeps moments. And that's
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: what all of this crap is about. It's about moments.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: And whatever happens in an athletic career, one moment can either.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: Define it Or one moment can blow it up. And
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: it's across the board. It's across the board. I'll give
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: a random example.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Nelson Cruz, baseball player for the Texas Rangers, a bunch
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: of other teams. Nelson Cruz was a really good player. Now,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: there are a couple things that defined him.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: He was a steroid guy, if I remember correctly.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: And the Texas Rangers were in position to win the
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: World Series against the Cardinals. And Nelson Cruz did not
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: make a play in the outfield that would have, could have,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: should have wrapped things up for the Rangers. Now, they
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: eventually won the World Series. But at that time, I
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, my goodness.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: What are you doing?
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: And whenever I think of Barry Melrose, I will remember
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: a little television monitor in the underbelly of Staples Center.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: the Kings about to become real Kings of hockey. And
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: somehow after all of those years, the kid with the microphone.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: Standing next to the, the man with the mullet. And
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: it's a, it's a nice memory.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: So rest in peace to Barry Melrose, leaving this world
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: too soon at the age of 70, but what a,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: what a wonderful time he had. impacting people's lives, that matters.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: That matters. So a sad tale there.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: If you would like to be part of this podcast,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: we have the fifth hour mailbag. We had a round
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: robin last week. As of early on Saturday, I don't
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: know who's going to be part of the mailbag. I
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: have no idea. We're going to find out who is
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: going to be part of it later on at some
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: point here. So if you want to send a question in,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: You can send it, Kara, realfifthour at gmail.com. That's all letters,
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: no numbers, realfifthour at gmail.com. We thank you in advance
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: and enjoy the college football today. So again, I got
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: the Buckeyes and Oklahoma. So I'm taking the road teams
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: in those two big college football matchups today. We'll see
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: how that works out for me. These are not officially
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: sanctioned Benny versus the Penny picks, but that's who I'm
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: going with. Anyway, have a wonderful, glorious rest of your
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Saturday here. We thank you for supporting the Fifth Hour Podcast.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: And if you're listening to this on Sunday or Monday
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: or Tuesday or Wednesday, just have a really nice day.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: As Dick and Dayton would say, bye-bye, bye-bye.