Long John Nebel: Legendary Talk Radio Host

Ah, the 1970s and talk radio.

Wait! Don't think of talk radio today.

No.

Back then the Fairness Doctrine was in place. We didn't have wall-to-wall divisive and disgusting political talk 24/7/365. Talk radio actually had real guests on who did things -- book authors, doctors, lawyers, researchers, activists, people with a story to tell or even just something to shill. And sometimes even a hoax to play on the audience (oh, those April 1st shows!).

Talk radio, in short, used to be fun!

One of the legendary hosts from that time in New York City was Long John Nebel. His show was on overnight, had far fewer ads than we experience today, and it was possible for him to actually interview people in depth for several hours.

I had many sleepless nights.

Following the break are four videos from YouTube. These are documentations of many, many prank calls made to Nebel's show.

I'm of two minds about this.

1) It's a shame the only recordings of Nebel are these.

2) I don't know if the prankster should die a lingering death or be praised for saving this extremely rare material. (If he has non-prank material, he could totally redeem himself by releasing that.)

Since there are four YouTube videos, they'll clog my browser if I put them here, so go to the WordPress post for them. But I'll put the YouTube links here:

Long John Nebel Pranks - Part 01

Long John Nebel Pranks - Part 02

Long John Nebel Pranks - Part 03

Long John Nebel Pranks - Part 04

Can you imagine having nothing better to do with your life than to make all those vandalistic calls? Trolls existed well before the Net.