Phil Who?
Phil Hendrie is kind of a genius. He’s sort of the Andy Kaufman of talk radio, making his audience the subject of his comedy, not the guests on his talk show. Because you see, there aren’t any guests on The Phil Hendrie Show. Everyone on the show is voiced by Mr. Hendrie, who sits alone in a Los Angeles radio studio talking to himself. Phil’s guests (there are about 40 or so regular characters) are always outspoken, and the topics are generally newsy. One recent show included “guests” Raj Fahneen, who had a theory that natural born Americans couldn’t pass their own country’s citizenship test, but are very knowledgeable when it comes to fast food. And Tony Neal, who runs a couple of adult websites with child-oriented names, who said that parents and churches are to blame if a kid catches a glimpse of his pornography. These outrageous opinions then irritate listeners not in on the joke, who in turn call Mr. Hendrie’s show to give the guest a piece of their mind. When Phil Hendrie is playing the host, he always sides with the callers, but when Phil Hendrie plays the guest, he antagonizes them as much as possible, frequently baiting callers into profanity riddled tirades — all while flawlessly switching between host and guest. His voices are so good in fact, that he’s played characters on both Matt Groening’s Futurama and Mike Judge’s King of the Hill. He’s even landed a couple of failed TV pilots. But Phil’s real home is on the radio, where his show is aired on nearly 100 stations around the country. Click here to see if you’re lucky enough to live within earshot. Or check out a 5 minute sample of his show here. There’s also an archive of Mr. Hendrie’s shows on his official site, though you have to be a paying member to access them.



02.04.05 at 7:16 pm
Phil Hendrie is great. It took me about a month before I realized all the guests were fake. I wonder if any of the callers are fake too — I mean not voiced by Phil, but listeners playing along?