No they're not. I did find it interesting Fred basically saying how happy / relieved he was to have Rich gone.
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RIP Toucher and Rich Show ... It was fun while it lasted
- Thread starter HomeBrew1901
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I actually think there’s a place where Roche could be a third man with Fred and hardy or something like that. Someone who’s not an ascerbic bastard first thing in the mornings just for variety.
Fred doesn't come right out and say it, but he doesn't go out of his way to hide his contentment with Rich gone. Listen to the show as they come back from any commercial break and Fred awkwardly mentions how the show has no name with Rich gone, and it usually comes with some commentary about Rich's exit there.
I appreciate Roche as one of the minor characters in the show's universe, but more than a bit at a time equals toxic positivity.
The lack of preparation and structure without Rich is glaring. Outside of regular guest interviews (Reiss, Callahan, Ty Anderson, Gorman, etc.), it's a complete mess. Trying to get Roche to be embarrassed about the football player orgy was ridiculous. Fred might be content now that Rich is gone, but I think he's whistling past the graveyard given what the show has sounded like for the last week+.
No, that's why Fred is leaning into it so hard, to make Dan uncomfortable with the all the references to him leaving WBZ
Hard disagree. Give me 2 days of Roche a month and that's my fill. A few hours a month of Tito and Papi stories from their glory days, some Disney updates and I'm set. Everyday? I can't imagine
Yep. Maybe Rich wasn't producing the bits anymore, but I have yet to see evidence that he wasn't the structure/ideas guy - which may be more important than producing the stuff based on how good Mike is in that role.
It's early and all that, certainly not burying the new show.
Fair enough, multiple hours every day would be…a lot.
I’m not sure it’s actually a show at this point. They get time to reconstitute of course! but Fred riffing without any apparent structure isn’t so compelling four hours a day.
He’s very gifted at improv but I don’t know that he is capable of more. Rich carried the water for so many years on this front seemingly solo, but maybe those chops are there. Not to be too melodramatic but someone very strong (or otherwise acceptable to Fred) will potentially have to save the show from itself come January.
I think we are going to find out that what we had been listening to for all these years was "The Rich Show starring Toucher".
I haven’t listened yet, really, but are they doing any bits? I know they tried to cover “SAS is Horny” but so many segments of the show were dictated by Rich - he was good for an Armpits/Fart Court a week, plus recurring stuff like Brookline 911 or one-off rabbit holes like the conversation van show. Even the Stack was his content. The comic sensibility of the show was his, more or less - Fred had unlimited room to work in the spaces Rich set up. Lockhart might be a great producer, but who’s watching the news to go grab sound from some local news broadcast because it’s something Fred can riff on?
That I can recall, they've done a SAS Is Horny 2.0 (mixed reviews in this thread), and then Fred did Shootin' The Breeze on Friday, which is his sweet spot (but I don't feel like you can do it once a week to fill time). With only a few weeks left in this book, I'm not sure whether they'll workshop any new bits; they may just punt until the new guy/gal is in place and use the XMas break to re-boot.
I know it's not everyone's thing but I think it's been great. I love sarcastic Fred for hours a day.
I do agree Rich was the content guy, they have no content guy, but whomever they'll bring in will do that. If it's Hardy, Keefe, Arcand etc. they all do that already. Hardy's as good of a segment producer than Rich is.
@Chad Finn I appreciate you putting my post in your latest news, albeit not sourced which upsets me. I agree with you! I haven't been this honored since you mentioned my comment about Dan Dierdorf retiring from pointing out the obvious a decade ago!
https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-celtics/2023/11/18/chad-finn-drew-carter-celtics-nbc-sports-boston-toucher-and-rich-985-the-sports-hub-charissa-thompson/
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Sorry, I didn't make it at all clear that I was quoting Chad saying that the listeners like Jon Wallach before asking if he's read any of this thread.
I guess we must agree. Hardy wants the gig, as I wrote. If they do what makes sense there, everything else falls into place. Johnston is better than Wallach, but every time I criticize Wallach -- such as saying he's not good enough for the Cs gig -- I hear it from fans of the show. They like the character.
I was just being sarcastic. I know you didn’t steal my post but more like great minds think alike!
Seriously though it seems like such a logical situation for everyone.
move Hardy to mornings. Move Wallach to middays. Add RJ to mornings. Z&B would LOVE that.
Zo would murder Wallach in a week, which is sure I'm what you want Fred. I know this is your burner account.
Fred takes every opportunity to talk about the contract "dispute" with the station. They had Giardi on to discuss Tom Brady possibly doing color commentary for NFL games. This lead to Freddy T making a metaphor about his contract talks and how he took so much less than he could have had he played hardball.
It is like when you have a favorite comedian that has a podcast, and the comedian and guest spend an hour on the "business of stand-up", which gets old quick.
I almost can't even blame him, it is like he knows he has to create more content and talking points due to Rich being gone. This is also relevant for him and I am sure that it took up a lot of mental energy, so it is always top of mind.
Cracks are starting to show with this program, and it has to be difficult to "riff" for 20 straight hours.
It is like when you have a favorite comedian that has a podcast, and the comedian and guest spend an hour on the "business of stand-up", which gets old quick.
I almost can't even blame him, it is like he knows he has to create more content and talking points due to Rich being gone. This is also relevant for him and I am sure that it took up a lot of mental energy, so it is always top of mind.
Cracks are starting to show with this program, and it has to be difficult to "riff" for 20 straight hours.
I'm listening to the segment and I'm getting the feeling that you might not be entirely serious...
Do you guys remember from the better times when Fred went on that rant about Minihane and Callahan and claimed that a radio insider asked Fred to listen to the 4th hour of their show - that it was going around the industry as one of the worst hours of radio in major market history? Well I did listen to the break Fred was referring to and it was better than today's bankroll bunch segment.
Yeah, 40 minutes of Kendra on her own getting grilled by Fred is definitely not "great radio". It was absolute cringe. And as I referenced above, the rest of the time Fred just took shots at Lifshatz, who he is clearly done with.
Only thing I’d say is by now we’d be saying the same (or worse) if Fred left and Rich was solo: there’s a reason we all said what we said about 1+1=3 here. Also, I can’t imagine the Kendra bits. I do the podcasts so the gambling ‘sharps’ hours go immediately to circle file.
I don't think Fred likes the gambling angle at all... I seem to recall that was Rich's "thing". Fred also makes it clear he doesn't really care about gambling with his disdain for Dan. I'm sure Fred would love to ditch the gambling segment, but he's infatuated with Middleton so I'm sure it will stay a while longer. I mean, I'm not sure there was more than a minute or two of gambling discussion this morning... it was all unctuous, lascivious drooling from Fred. I give Middleton credit for laughing it off because it is super cringe.
We did have what was essentially The Rich Show for about a year. It wasn’t nearly as good as when Fred was in. However, when Johnston had extended stints in the second chair with Rich I found that show to be pretty entertaining.
I’m not going to judge the current incarnation of the show since they’re just marking time until they decide upon Rich’s replacement. I’d rather have Fred spending his time working on what that show will be, and just riffing on air from now until after the holidays.
The gambling bits are heavily sponsored. They aren't going anywhere regardless of Fred's opinions on them.
Gambling segments, now that it's all legal, are just terrible radio. There are way better handicappers everywhere other than "the bankroll bunch" so it may as well be a bit. Kendra's gambling takes are asinine "gee, I think the Jets are angry this week and therefore will cover" (that's not a direct quote, but basically her insight) She gets leeway with these "takes" because she's a sort of attractive woman.
Lifshatz is awful but at least has some GAMBLING insight. "team X has gone under 7 straight times at home so I think that trend continues." When he tries to invoke sports takes it's awful radio (IE the Lillard trade was bad because they lost Greyson Allen)
I'm comfortable saying the Kowloon brawl would have been A+ comedy with Rich. Armpits of America, local edition. Instead they just replayed Robbie Roadsteamer's insta reel and ran out the clock?
This is where the show is going to sink or swim, and I'm not optimistic. I think they have until after the Super Bowl or so to figure out an actual approach to comedy bits, and not just freewheel with Fred & pals. Once those early spring doldrums hit, the Pats recede a bit as an evergreen topic, listening to Fred rant and do voices for 4 hours (with Wallach interjecting a "Jeezus" at key moments!) won't be so forgivable.
One reason T&R were such a breath of fresh air related to their sports show competition is that it's painfully obvious those other shows are just filling time, and doing it badly most of the time by ranting or manufacturing outrage. T&R vastly expanded what entertainment could be on a "sports" radio show. The current incarnation seems to be much more like any other Sports Hub show, but leaning on Fred to be funny enough to not make it seem that way. (So far, eh.) But maybe whatever the new show is will address that. Even though I like him, I don't think Ryan Johnston fixes anything in the second chair. Hardy, maybe.
This is where the show is going to sink or swim, and I'm not optimistic. I think they have until after the Super Bowl or so to figure out an actual approach to comedy bits, and not just freewheel with Fred & pals. Once those early spring doldrums hit, the Pats recede a bit as an evergreen topic, listening to Fred rant and do voices for 4 hours (with Wallach interjecting a "Jeezus" at key moments!) won't be so forgivable.
One reason T&R were such a breath of fresh air related to their sports show competition is that it's painfully obvious those other shows are just filling time, and doing it badly most of the time by ranting or manufacturing outrage. T&R vastly expanded what entertainment could be on a "sports" radio show. The current incarnation seems to be much more like any other Sports Hub show, but leaning on Fred to be funny enough to not make it seem that way. (So far, eh.) But maybe whatever the new show is will address that. Even though I like him, I don't think Ryan Johnston fixes anything in the second chair. Hardy, maybe.
I think they're treading water until the new year when they announce the new direction for the show, so I'm willing to cut them some slack in the interim.
Agreed. I said the same thing up thread before. The glass half full view of this is at least it amplifies for Beasley why Wallach would be an utterly horrendous permanent 2nd chair to Fred and why they need to have someone who can reel him in and add more content to the show.
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That bit wouldn't have worked if Rich was there either, there's no audio for them to riff off of. It's just a video with people shouting and you can't really know what's going on unless you are watching.
The reason armpits worked well is you had newscasters saying insane shit, interviewing crazy hillbillies and that provided the opportunity to pause the audio and riff. Which to be fair isn't some magic science that only rich could do, it's just finding a funny local news broadcast, lots of shows do that all the time
I broadly agree but I I think this underplays what Rich did a bit. The dude hustled to find audio and wrap it in production. I bet he would have found something on Facebook, Insta etc. - or come up with some kind of approach. If you notice, his bits always had a structure - intro, reveal, wallow in the comedy (this was where Fred would take over) and then callbacks or connections at the end. (I listened to way too much of this show.) Even if they find a production guy, who’s got the instinct to chase down and produce comedy (not just source soundbites) for the show?
Any Suits fans out there? I’m rewatching it now on Netflix and I’ve come to the realization that Fred is Louis Litt.