Tuesday, October 21, 2008

FIXING FRANCESA

The words BORING, TERRIBLE, BORING, AWFUL, BORING, LAME, BORING, have all been used to to describe the post Mike and the Mad Dog radio show run by Mike Francesa. Those words are all accurate. They are deserved descriptions of what has been a collection of many bad radio shows over the past few months. These are the facts. We all know this. The question is WHAT NOW?

We all like to sit here and criticize the show, criticize Mike, probably Mike more than the show but maybe both equally, but it's time for us to get productive. We at Mike and the Mad Blog need to fix this thing.

Here's the deal, we are asking you to provide your suggestions on what would make a more compelling show, from a co-host, to a jingle, to segments, whatever it is, you have an idea share it. Then we will submit the collection of ideas to Mark Chernoff.

It's an election year, let's have our voices heard. Mike clearly cannot fix this on his own.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ummm...How about a working knowledge of any sport not called baseball or football. On 2nd thought, he's not so hot on either of those topics either. Was driving along this afternoon with by bro and we turned over to 660 AM. There they were, Mike and Chris, getting ready for round 5 of nonsense when Mike starts reading the promo for the sure to suck Jones v Calzaghe fight coming up. The promo, in which Mike calls Calzaghe, Cahlzago, states "two sure fire hall of famers, blah, blah, blah". Mike, in the midst, of reading this promo realizes that since he's never heard of "Cahlzago" there's no way he can be a hall of famer. Jones, of course, is obvious, according to Mike. Oh, the ignorance and arrogance is astounding especially when you consider that at worst, their careers were comparable with Calzaghe very possibly being the more accomplished fighter. The real tragedy: None of this is surprising.

Rock said...

Put Mike and Joe or Evan together. Mike needs a partner. He is lost by himself. Snoozefest.

Bud Weiser, WTIT said...

You've won me over. This show sucks. Carlin again? Pleeeeze! And it's "Mike & Chris"? Not good. I speny years on radio (I do not know Mark Chernoff but we went to same college at the same time.) My first (2nd & 3rd)choice is Sid Rosenberg. Second is outside the station with a guy who is funny. Give Mike what Criag gives Boomer in the morning. But better...

Anonymous said...

Mike definitely needs a partner, and I hate to say it because I can't stand him, but Evan was the best of the partners he had during his experiment. How about Mike and Sweeny? We could listen to Mike abuse him for 5 1/2 hours a day.

And while Sid would gladly burn his bridges in Florida by walking out on the station that gave him a second chance, he probably doesn't want to partner with Mike, and no way Mike wants to partner with him.

Anonymous said...

Evan is the clear choice for a partner...he is the only one that has been on that will stand up to Mike and actually offer a differing opinion to the one held by the Mighty Mike himself!

The problem is Mike's ego!! He is letting it get the best of him and it is ruining the show. I would love to see Sid in the booth, but MF would never let that happen. The only person Mike hates more than Sid is Dog.

Evan is young (mid-20's) so he would offer a different perspective than someone like Joe B. Carlin is a joke, he is such a Francesca jock sniffer it borders on ridiculous. Kim Jones is OK...but Evan is clearly the best choice.

Create a new jingle to promote the show and settle on 1 or 2 update guys so they can add some consistant flavor and banter between the hosts. I would think Minko and Recco would be the best choices. In addition to Heyman, how about a weekly appearance with an "insider" from Pro Football to discuss the past weeks happenings and upcoming matchups. They need to create some consistancy and continuity with this program....isn't that what Chernoff should have been doing all this time?

Anonymous said...

The problem, in all seriousness, is Mike's ego. His and Russo's schtick for all those years was to yell and scream and argue and be pompous and talk down to callers and guests and all that. That got them ratings and it worked, but alone Mike just looks like a delusional ass.

What I have noticed about Russo is he doesn't take himself too seriously, and he actually can be a gracious host and has a good personality. If you ever noticed when Mike and Russo were together, it was as though Dog was always interviewing Mike, and rarely ever the other way around. Mike always bullied Dog, and Chris came off as the little Dog with the big bark (ok, enough puns). Mike's try at being a sincere host comes off as a bad act, and not many people in the sports media take themselves more seriously than he does.

So step 1 is Mike needs an attitude adjustment. He needs to treat the callers like people and realize he's no better than his fellow hosts at the Fan. And he needs to realize that if someone disagrees with him, it means he could be wrong on something. I don't think this is an adjustment he can make, honestly.

So then the next step is to get a co-host, because that's the only other way to tolerate Mike. He'd need someone who can be a legit host with a good personality and an opinion. But Mike at this point would just go with a yes-man like Joe B. Maybe Boomer Esiason would do well, but I think that would be boring too because neither is really humorous. Russo can be funny, at least. The only legit choice for Mike right now at the station is Craig Carton, but no way would Mike tolerate that kind of volatile environment again.

Carlin might have the chance to make things better. I could see him as being the most realistic option at this point, but I don't know well enough how much better the show would get. But in any case, Mike needs a co-host. He alone is intolerable, just as I knew he would be. He was bad enough alone when Russo would take his vacation, but at least that wasn't on an everyday basis. Russo alone was far more enjoyable, even though he might be having his own problems on an everyday basis...

KBilly said...

Can Mike be added to the Stinks List?
He just plain stinks.
Dog is doing a great show...Why won't y'all acknowledge it???

Anonymous said...

I said it about two weeks ago, the way to save Mike's ass is to put Evan on the show full time. It helps to massage Mike's ego into thinking he is "grooming" Evan to eventually take over the show and brings a contrary point of view so the show can again be the give and take of separate opinions that it was before. Evan has his own issues of being an idiot sometimes but we all do and he is the absolute best long term solution. That said, Mike wants a yes man and he'll go down in a blaze of bad.

Anonymous said...

This is more about fixing WFAN than the 'afternoon dive' that
croans from my radio...

The post-MMD world at WFAN has left Mike with 22 minutes an hour of mostly tedious monologues...

Two years ago, FAN had a seamless connection between Imus and MMD, which was accenuated during their radiothons...it made 3 egomaniacs look humane, and it alloweed the
other hosts to be fed by their high profiles. Then Imus F'd Up...

MMD was moved in to the morning drive like the Mets tried to cover for losing Wagner...so the two egomaniacs that were left now had
both ends of the money train...

When they brought in Boomer and Carton, they created an unhealthy competition. Suddenly, the mid-day show was the only safe haven for the old FAN audience. Both Joe B and Evan had gotten their chops doing the overnights so the audience related to them more...

Boomer & Carton feed the demo that FAN used to leave for all the potty mouths on the FM side. So the 'newsmaking' part of the day
is 6-10am now, not 1:05pm when Mike bellows his daily gospel.

Mike is a pre-internet radio host.
He thrived when more knew less. He dismisses the rumor mongers on the blogs, hates the fantasy sports scence, and ignores the growing number of savyy stat-based
fans who can actually add more nuts and bolts 'game talk' to his excuse for a show. That would involve admitting he doesn't know something and...listening...

So we're stuck with this until or unless the audience is replaced ear by ear with the O & A crowd that care less about sports than they do the side shows it has...

Mike is the last of the three big ego's of the old WFAN to be shown the door...he'll go kicking and screaming, boring us all to death.

Poor Southside, MRF 10.21

Anonymous said...

wow, great posts here, I could agree more about Mike ....

it's so true that with this internet world he's really behind .... like that youtube clip with the s.c. qb ,, that was on deadspin 2 days ago .. it's yesterday's news ...

i'll give mike credit for doing real good interviews with guests, but he does need a sidekick .... i don't like Carlin at all ..... my personal preference would be joe, but i could understand evan .......

personally i listened to tirico and van pelt while they were on today instead of mike & mike jr. ... but the only thing i hate more than the current mike , is michael k .... he's terrible

Whatdoyouhave? said...

Def some good points made here, obviously that Mike's biggest problems are his ego, arrogance, and ignorance.... And now with Dog and Imus gone he thinks of himself as king of the station (prob is and is prob treated that way behind the scenes) and for that reason, he acts like it.

Also thought that Soma Boy said it well with "Mike is a pre-internet radio host. He thrived when more knew less." So true. Mike loves it when old guys who have no idea how to use the internet and sometimes don't even know about ESPNews call him up to ask silly questions that are easy to answer and are known to the rest of the normal world. He HATES it when a younger caller (30 and under) calls up giving HIM the information that he doesn't have. In this case he will usually discredit it or make it seem as if it's not true.

Whatdoyouhave? said...

Woops - forgot point of the original post "Fixing Francesa." Sadly I'm with BigJf in that the only way is to give him a co-host, but he will only approve a yes-man. I love Joe B but he seems to back down to Mike a bit (not even close to as much as others). Evan has been the best so far but Mike just patronizes him all the time because of his age and doesn't give any of his opinions any credence b/c he's not over 40.

The show could be doomed...But we keep listening and the ratings prob haven't suffered much!

Does anyone know how to find the ratings and/or when they come out? I was searching for them yesterday but had no luck. Very interested to see whether or not his "listenership" is floundering

Anonymous said...

1 word:













Retirement.

Anonymous said...

evan is a joke. carlin is a kiss up. ill bang kim. just put erica on there for 5 hours and let mike do a 30 minute monologue.

Anonymous said...

I'd say this Newsday poll is fairly relevant to this website:

http://www.newsday.com/sports/ny-spmedia1021-poll,0,6269698,post.poll

Whatdoyouhave? said...

Evan with a slim lead over Joe B in the newsday poll. Thx for that link ryan t

Does anyone else really care that much about this Brett Favre story? Mike has been trying to explain why this interests him for about 30 minutes now..... Doesn't that mean that its not interesting?

World Series game 1 is tonight!

Peteski said...

have ONLY Mike do interviews.

ps. people really like this Kim? she's a dope.

poll link

Whatdoyouhave? said...

Mike is making fun of people for trying to prove how close they are to Favre? Is that not the pot calling the kettle black or what? How often does Mike mention how he talks to upper mgt at Mets or Giants or name drop anything else, how he did this with Parcells, or was talking with Mr. T off the air, or....I think you know what I mean.

Anonymous said...

soma...Perfect summation/analysis of Mike. I have been trying to express it one way or another and failing so thanks for crystalizing it: Mike is the perfect pre-internet host. Now that knowledge is readily available, not so perfect. Plus, it also clarifies that Mike is not smart, at all. Anyone who dismisses what they don't understand, outright, is a boneheaded moron. Like Mike.