Along with his humor, Chris will bring trouble and pain. Watch 
this clip
of his previous Oscar commentary. He will embarrass the Academy over the all-white Oscars controversy; he will skewer powerful Hollywood establishment players, and Chris will offend some viewers so badly they’ll flip channels to “Dateline NBC.”
Don’t ridicule physical infirmities and diseases.
Make the joke about your own inability to manage an encounter with that person, like the comic Austin Powers
movie scene
with the spy who has a mole.
When I start coaching a show, talents often say:“Nobody calls anymore.” Or: “Listeners in this market don’t call radio shows.” My response is, “That’s interesting, because several of our shows get more calls than they need.” The difference isn’t necessarily the market. It’s often how the show invites people into the conversation. Airing callers and text […]
Jerry Seinfeld wrote every episode of Seinfeld longhand, on a yellow legal pad, with a blue Bic pen. He still writes that way. He’s said the flashing cursor on a screen makes him anxious, like it’s asking, “So, whaddaya got?” Why Start With Pen and Paper?Writing by hand slows you down just enough for ideas to […]
In the era of loud, fast-talking announcer DJs, my radio mentor, Todd Wallace, asked my fellow DJs and me, “Would you talk to your neighbor over the back fence like a pukey DJ or just in natural conversation?” Of course we all said we’d talk to them conversationally. Todd concluded, “Talk to listeners on air like […]