It was not quite 10 p.m. on Monday, and radio talk show host Phil Hendrie still had a long night ahead. The satirist signs off at 1 a.m., but post-show adrenaline can keep him going until nearly dawn.
“Caffeine just levels him out,” whispered publicist Maria Sanchez as Hendrie sipped from two triple-shot coffee drinks and a caffeinated soda, tracking news flickering from an array of monitors lining a long metal desk.
“Through the looking glass we go every night,” Hendrie said, tipping back in a swivel chair, wearing headphones and a black leather jacket.
Each week, “The Phil Hendrie Show” attracts perhaps 2 million listeners to 110 radio stations across the country, according to distributor Talk Radio Network Syndications. Hendrie, a resident of Silver Strand Beach near Oxnard, has relied on a formula involving fictional guests to the show for 20 years.
Hendrie creates the voices of his fictional characters, who spout preposterous opinions that elicit indignant phone calls from real, often-unsuspecting listeners.
His shtick predates false naiveté acts like British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and his Ali G. character, Hendrie said. His influences include Monty Python, 1960s satirical group The Credibility Gap, and Lenny Bruce, the stage name for 1950s satirist Leonard Alfred Schneider.
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Photo by Stephen OsmanPaid subscribers to Hendrie’s recently relaunched website can watch live video-casts of show preparations, listening to mumbled, frequently profane ad-lib commentaries as Hendrie hunts the news for satirical hooks.
“I just don’t think that sustains very well,” Hendrie said, scratching a joke about children with autism. Barking into phone props, Hendrie tweaked his voice to impersonate a lackadaisical hippie kid and a defensive high school administrator. A world map, bongo drum, amber bottle of Don Julio Anejo tequila and Franklin D. Roosevelt biography adorned the studio.
“It ain’t the O.C.,” Hendrie said of broadcasting from Ventura County. “It’s not gridlocked with Mercedes. There’s neighborhood pride.”
Hendrie’s show airs on eight California stations, including KIST 1490-AM in Santa Barbara and KTLK 1150-AM in Los Angeles.
On Monday’s show, a fictional Beverly Hills restaurateur campaigned for seven-day workweeks and lambasted President Barack Obama as a wildly unrestrained socialist. Irritated listeners called to snipe about the rights of ordinary workers.
Most listeners are men ages 25 to 54, Hendrie said.
“They’re nontraditional talk radio listeners,” he said. “They dig humor, they dig comedy.”
Born in Pasadena in 1952, Hendrie’s earliest radio memory is listening to late-night eulogies for Buddy Holly while dangling over the front seat of his parents’ car on a trip to Canada, he said.
“These voices would fade in and out from city to city,” he said.
Hendrie eventually moved to Florida, working construction before pitching a demo cassette to local radio stations, he said. In 1973, he scored a late-night disc jockey gig with WBJW 1440-AM in Winter Park.
Hendrie started introducing fictional characters on his KVEN-AM show in Ventura. Nine years later, in 1999, the show went national. After creating about 50 male and female characters, Hendrie announced a retirement from radio in 2006 to pursue acting instead.
Hendrie did voice-overs for characters on FOX’s animated series “King of the Hill” and “Futurama,” co-starred in NBC’s short-lived sitcom “Teachers” and played an NBA basketball coach in the 2008 Will Ferrell flick “Semi-Pro.”
Hendrie returned to radio in 2007, saying he enjoyed the physical aspect of acting but it moved too slow. “I was bored to tears,” he said. “I was waiting for phone calls, waiting for agents to call.”
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Photo by Stephen OsmanIn 2006, Hendrie acquired ownership of a website he began in 1999 while working with Clear Channel Radio.
“We’re entrepreneurs,” he said. “The new generation is about owning and distributing yourself and doing the marketing. We need to be in business for ourselves.”
Website subscribers pay $6.95 a month for access to 13 years of show archives, animated clips, TV pilots, special viewings of weekly video-casts and the hourlong weeknight pre-show, where viewers are sometimes treated to Hendrie’s uncensored “meltdowns.”
Website traffic has increased by 50 percent since its relaunching last month, said Sanchez, Hendrie’s ex-wife and former manager. Now, she’s a consultant and public relations representative for both the show and website.
“Frankly, that’s really where it’s at,” Hendrie said. “We say it’s a reality show wrapped around a radio show. Most radio shows are boring to watch. Mine isn’t.”
Hendrie has been warmly welcomed back to radio, performing in Las Vegas this month for the National Association of Broadcasters’ annual convention.
“I wanted to remind them that we want to keep the ‘show’ in our business,” said NAB Executive Vice President John David. “If you closed your eyes, it sounds like 15 or 30 different people talking. I wanted radio people to see him in action. People engage with his stories.”
Consistent quality radio can be a tough gig, Hendrie said, noting that nightly “great art” is a stressful standard. Topics are timely, but he considers himself less overtly political than commentators like Rush Limbaugh or Randi Rhodes.
Laughter is a better goal, Hendrie said. He abandoned an attempt to run a straight, character-free show upon returning to radio, embracing humor instead.
The satirist, however, has a soft spot for shock. One of his characters is a recovered child molester, and one spoof commemorated Princess Diana with shot glasses. Testing listener gullibility, characters have solemnly announced that scientists don’t yet understand how airplanes fly or why it rains.
Hendrie was hospitalized in December for pneumonia and said he has since kicked a two-pack-per-day cigarette habit. Professional goals include launching a one-man show in Las Vegas and doing more acting.
“He has the most creative, imaginative show on the radio — there’s no doubt in my mind,” said Phil Boyce, president of programming at Talk Radio Network Syndications. “Many listeners aren’t aware the voices coming out of the speaker are his — that’s part of the charm. Those in on the joke are amazingly entertained.”