September 12, 2026 • 29 mins
Benny returns for your Saturday audio needs—because apparently you have nothing better to do. He breaks down the must-see college football games and recklessly tosses in a couple bonus picks against the spread.
Then, A Penny for Your Thoughts: Why is Benny vs. The Penny back on radio? Ben takes you behind the curtain for the TV negotiations, Hollywood nonsense and attempted resurrection.
Plus, what happens when the late great Barry Melrose and the Mandela Effect meet The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Sure, why not?
Normal price: $999. P1 price: FREE. Frankly, still overpriced.
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Ben Maller has a fun Saturday podcast for you! ...Follow, rate & review "The Fifth Hour!" https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fifth-hour-with-ben-maller/id1478163837
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kaboom if you thought four hours a day 1200 minutes
a week was enough think again he's the last remnants
of the old republic a sole bastion of fairness he
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse wow the clearinghouse of
hot takes break free for something special the fifth hour
(00:23):
with ben maller starts right.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Now In the air everywhere, the fifth hour with me,
Ben Maller, and you.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
We are united again.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
No days off, even here on a Saturday, because that's
what we do. So it is the 12th day of September,
the 255th day of the year. That means my computer-like
brain tells me there are 110 days left.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
That's it. That's all.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
110 days left. And then we move on to 2027.
It is a massive college football day today. We'll get
to that in a minute. On this Saturday edition, we
have a penny for your thoughts. And when the Mandela
effect and the man who shot Liberty Valance have.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
A baby, how does that go?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
However, we begin in honor of our friend Terry in England,
who is such a big fan. of Benny's Big Board,
which is not a list. It's Benny's Big Board. So
here's my plan of attack today. The two biggest games
in college football, and I'm never wrong about this, the
early game in the noon television window, which is 9 a.m., where.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I happen to be, Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Boomer Sooner, number 11 in the country, I believe, at Michigan.
Oklahoma is a five-and-a-half-point favorite in that game.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
It's on Fox, so you better watch.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
And everyone wondering what the Wolverines do after being given
a gift by the corrupt Big Ten, it would appear,
getting an extra second to.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Beat Western Michigan, the clock Hail Mary game.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And they fell out, Michigan, of the AP Top 25,
which is the way the media said, hey, you guys
are a little corrupt over there. And Bryce Underwood gets
another chance to show that he doesn't stink.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
The line movement on this game was insane.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Michigan originally opened up about a two-and-a-half point favorite, I believe,
on the look-ahead line. The market completely flipped. Oklahoma, a
five-and-a-half-point favorite. That is an eight-point swing. Eight-point swing in
this game. Now, the game that I'm planning my snacks
(02:57):
around is Ohio State.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
At Texas. The Longhorns are a one-and-a-half-point.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Favorite in that game. I will be giving out— you know,
I'll do it right now. I'll give out a couple
bonus picks. I'm going to take Ohio.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
State— In this game, I don't trust Arch Manning.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I'm going to take the Buckeyes, more talented team, and
Ohio State will win this. They're the number one team.
I'm also taking Oklahoma. I agree with the wise guys here.
Michigan's not very good, and they'll play better, I would imagine,
than they did against Western Michigan, but how much better
(03:35):
are they?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
So there's that.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Some of the other games that I don't know how
many I'm going to actually watch today Alabama is a
10.5-point favorite at Kentucky. That'll be in the 3.30 Eastern
TV window. Tennessee at Georgia Tech. I don't know if
that's coming out of my radar.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
You have the.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Iowa rivalry game, Iowa State versus Iowa. The Hawkeyes, a
14.5-point favorite in that game. Two touchdowns feels gigantic in.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
A rivalry game.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
And Iowa, I can't wrap my head around them actually
having a good offense this year. So we'll see about that.
There's a bit of a trap game is the right way.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
To say it.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
But Utah, a top 20 team playing Arkansas, a big
bad SEC team.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
That is a late game.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
And I believe that is the top late night game.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
SEC team playing in altitude.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Utah's got that voodoo boogaloo at home. So that should
be a pretty good game. Now, as for a penny
for your thoughts, so you're probably asking, what happened to
Benny versus the penny?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
And I have saved this for today.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
And I'm willing to spill the tea, if you will.
So this is a story about television. big television which
means it's mostly a story about waiting waiting for a
phone call waiting for emails waiting for somebody to give
the green light and just green light what we got
(05:21):
going on say the magic word yes what a magical
word that is yes waiting for somebody to even say
no And occasionally waiting so long that you begin wondering
whether the people you're waiting for have decided to leave
the country and start a new identity in the witness
(05:42):
protection program. So for the past couple of months, just
to give you the inside skinny here, for the past
couple of months, I have not talked about this on
the radio or here on the Fifth Hour Podcast because.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
There was actually... Nothing to update.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
There was something going on behind the scenes, but yet nothing.
We were in standby mode waiting for a runway to
open up. And standby mode sounds kind of exciting. If
you had asked me when I was starting out my career,
I said, oh, you're going to be on standby with TV. Oh,
my God, that's so exciting.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
But standby....
Speaker 2 (06:23):
It's like you're launching a SpaceX rocket standby. No, it's
considerably less exciting when you're a middle-aged, I guess slightly
older than that now, mostly bald radio gas bag checking
his phone every 17 minutes. We have had conversations over
(06:45):
the last handful of months with the good people over
there at NBC about bringing back Benny versus the Penny
for another season. As you know, last year, it didn't
work out. We got the kick in the nuts right
before the season. So my good friend Bill, who's a
great dude, I have nothing bad to say about him.
He made all this happen. And Bill was interested in
(07:07):
putting something together and And it wasn't just Benny versus
the Penny. There were conversations about other shows. There were
elevator pitches that were made about other opportunities, different concepts,
not just Benny versus the Penny. There were non-gambling concepts.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
That were talked about. So naturally, I started.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Imagining a television empire. You start daydreaming. And of course,
I daydream because I sleep during the day. Benny versus
the Penny. That was possible.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
There were other things.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Benny After Dark, The Bald and the Beautiful. Yeah, the
B & T show, Ben and Tom. NBC, though, ultimately
went another direction. We were in the running. We came
up a few votes short. That's television. Television is the
only business where people can tell you how much they
(08:01):
love your show while simultaneously making sure nobody ever sees
it again. It's fascinating. In radio, people are just assholes.
We can say that on the podcast. They're just schmucks.
They'll tell you your show sucks. In TV, everything's great.
Everything's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And what inevitably happens and what happened here is somebody
enters a conference room carrying a spreadsheet and the spreadsheet
always wins.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
The spreadsheet always wins. We were trying to.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Sell a cable television show at roughly the same moment
America is trying to remember what does a cable box
look like?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
We were a couple votes short. That's the story of
my career. Always a bridesmaid.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Occasionally I do get to be the pallbearer, which I
don't like, but that happens. And the larger problem is
television itself. The landscape has changed dramatically. Cable television isn't
exactly living high on the hog these days. It's more
like the last helicopter leaving Saigon.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I think I have to update that reference.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Wasn't there a thing with Biden back in 2021 or
something like that, where everyone was trying to leave Afghanistan? Anyway,
I feel like the Saigon thing still works. Anyway, everybody's trying.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
To climb a board, right?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
And there's some executive there hanging from the landing gear yelling.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
We don't have the budget.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Now, that's particularly frustrating because we originally had the blueprint.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
To do Benny vs.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
The Penny on NBC way back in 2020. Somewhere there
is an alternative universe in the multiverse where Benny vs.
the Penny was launched in 2020, and there was no
pandemic anywhere. and it became a television institution and at
this moment in that dimension I am insufferably wealthy unfortunately
(10:10):
I am currently stuck in the universe that you're in
and yeah Excellent timing by me, unless that's not the case.
We planned to launch a TV show right before a
global pandemic. Some people went out and bought Amazon stock
in 2020. Some people bought some Bitcoin. My friend Sports
(10:32):
with Coleman, I tried launching a television show. Again, excellent
broadcasting instincts. Now, had we gotten Benny versus the Penny
on TV way back then, I'm convinced that And some
of my friends at NBC believe this, too, that it
would have caught on and we would have still been
doing the show today. Cable TV was healthier then, and
(10:56):
we would have become one of those legacy shows that
continues to get renewed year after year, even though they're
not that good.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
But timing is everything. I've said a few times over.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
The years, I think of Paul Molitor when I think
of this great player, Hall of Famer, Baseball player, by
the way. Hall of Famer, but for those that don't know.
But imagine if he'd spent his prime years with the New.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
York Yankees instead of Milwaukee.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Same player, different spotlight, different environment, completely different level of celebrity.
So sometimes you get Yankee Stadium. Sometimes you get County Stadium.
Sometimes you get COVID. And so COVID shut down the world,
took Benny versus the Penny with it, Of all the
casualties of the pandemic, people got sick, kids couldn't go
(11:50):
to school, adults couldn't.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Go to work. There was a lot of bad stuff
that happened.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So admittedly, during the pandemic, we were pretty far down
the list, pretty far down the list. Now, I have
spent much of my broadcasting career arriving at the train station,
the depot, just to watch the caboose disappear. So why
is Benny versus the Penny suddenly showing up on the
radio again, again, again? Well, we'll answer that. Also, where
(12:24):
the hell's Tom Looney? So we had discussed bringing the
show back.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Here on the Fifth Hour podcast.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
We had also talked about doing another YouTube season of
Benny versus the Penny.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
The problem was....
Speaker 2 (12:38):
That NBC's final decision, the kill shot, the suicide shot, came.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Very late in the game.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
And by that point, we simply did not have enough runway.
That's a cool broadcasting term, runway. We didn't have enough
time to put together the advertising needed to make the
proper digital version of Benny versus the penny walk, you know,
work there, there are some production costs involved in all that.
And Benny versus the penny. The main problem is we needed,
(13:08):
and we still do a signature sponsor. We need a
sugar daddy. I need a sugar daddy, a wealthy benefactor,
preferably someone who owns several oil wells, possibly has access
to the Saudi wellness fund makes terrible financial decisions.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I'm kidding.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Uh, without that sponsor producing the full show does not
make any financial sense. Uh, the time is one thing.
And then also the quality. We want that to be
as good as possible. That means you got to add
some bells and whistles. Those things cost money. So it
just didn't make sense. And now if somebody listening that
I'm talking about you, uh, and you're a fan and
(13:51):
you want to become part of the thing, um, business partner,
whatever it might be. The door isn't locked. We can
certainly bring back Benny versus the Penny and bring the
band back together on YouTube or another platform. I'm not
difficult to find. Make sure the headline on the email
(14:13):
is good. Otherwise, I might not open it, but I'm
not that difficult to find. I'm the tall dude kind
of bald, but I wear a hat to cover it up,
wearing glasses, holding... a giant souvenir penny. Now, as for
Tom Looney, Looney Tunes, he is stepping back from his
broadcasting gigs right now. I guess he's still doing something
(14:35):
with JT the Brick, but that's about it. And he's
got some non-media opportunities that.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
He is pursuing. So that's his story to tell.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
That is not my story to tell.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
He has been a friend of mine for 30-plus years.
I wish him well. Hopefully we'll do something together.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Meanwhile, again, but meanwhile, I'm still here in the pod
studio talking into a microphone during the week in the
overnight hours like a man. I'm yelling at the microphone
and like somebody arguing with the drive-through speaker at Jack
in the Box. However, Looney has told me this off
(15:15):
the record. Of course, I'm saying it on the podcast.
Looney has let me know. that while he has other
opportunities that are non-media related, he has informed me if
we land the right sponsor and the money makes sense,
he'd be more than happy to resume his role as
the penny to make a comeback. It's funny how quickly
(15:36):
broadcasting retirement disappears when someone backs up a big rig
filled with gold bullion. Now, I still believe strongly in
Benny versus the penny. It is my intellectual property, so
I control the rights, the penny versus the penny, and
I can do what I want with it. And I
have some freedom that I don't have with other things
(15:57):
in my broadcasting world. So I know there is a
platform where this thing can be bigger, better, and more profitable.
But until that happens, I have something television executives don't control,
a microphone, which is jumbo-sized, and a bully pulpit, a
(16:18):
big stage that happens to be broadcast in more than
600 different radio stations. I have a global reach, and
it's pretty cool. So we're going to rise again. We're
going to rise up again, but we— We don't have.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Guess we don't have enough radio time, is the way
I would describe it, to handicap every NFL game. So
certainly not the time we would have here on the
podcast or on YouTube, television also.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
We don't have a lot of time. But instead, we're
going to cherry-pick the marquee matchups, the island games, the
island life.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
The biggest games of the week, and give them the
full car wash, Benny versus the Penny treatment.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Now that said.
I will still pick every.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
NFL game against the spread, and I'll post them on
social media platforms. The penny is not dead. It has
just been relocated yet again. Television put it in storage.
Radio found the key, and somewhere sitting quietly in the corner,
off to the left, the giant penny is staring at
(17:28):
me right now like it knows something, and I'm not
sure what it knows, which I got to tell you,
a little disturbing. Little disturbing because historically, at least recently,
the penny has been right more often than I have
picking these NFL games. There's something poetic about a TV
show involving a penny being undone by economics.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
It's just perfect. Not for my finances. It's just perfect
for everything else.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
So turning the page on that, I did want to mention–
Barry Melrose died this week at the age of 70,
which means hockey has lost one of those people who
seemed less like an actual person and more like a
recurring character that the sport had hired way before anybody remembers,
(18:21):
like way back and just simply forgot about. There was
the mullet, the goatee, The suits, which occasionally looked as
though they had been selected by a colorblind riverboat gambler.
And then there was the resume. Barry Melrose played 300
(18:43):
NHL games as a defenseman.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
And he scored how many goals? Not one, not two,
not three, not four. How about 10? 10 goals in
300 games. 10! 10!
Speaker 2 (18:56):
In fact, Barry Melrose had 728 penalty minutes, which means
he spent considerably more time on the naughty list being
punished for playing hockey than being rewarded for playing hockey.
He was what in that era was known as a goon,
an enforcer, a tough guy.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
That's what Barry Melrose was.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Now, naturally, this qualified him to eventually coach Wayne Gretzky,
number 99, the greatest hockey player who ever lived.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
It's life with a sense of humor.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Now, way back in the 90s, early 90s, 92, 93,
Barry Melrose took over the Los Angeles Kings. He was
a no-name for people in L.A., and he took over
and coached them up all the way to the Stanley Cup.
Cup final. Gretzky was Gretzky. It was at the tail
(19:54):
end of his prime. Melrose became a coaching star, and
the Kings lost to Patrick Waugh in Montreal, which is
still the last Canadian championship all these years later in
five games.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
That's all five games. Now, that postseason became the foundation
of the Barry Melrose coaching mythology. And this is the
intersection where the man who shot Liberty Valance and the
Mandela Effect get together.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
And they have a little baby.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So when the Mandela Effect and the man who shot
Liberty Valance get together, that would be this part of
the story.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Let me explain why.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
When the legend becomes the fact, you print the legend,
and eventually everyone remembers the legend as a fact. People
remember Barry Melrose as a very successful NHL coach. His
actual record was 84-108-29-4.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
The man had a 447 winning percentage.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
And that's the wonderful Melrose contradictions. Because he really had
one spectacular spring, and that became more powerful than all
of the arithmetic that followed.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
I was blown away by that record. In sports, this
actually does happen all the time.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
We claim numbers never lie, and then immediately ignore the
numbers we don't particularly care for. Now, I have my
own Barry Melrose connection, and I thought, I wanted to
share this for a couple of reasons, but the main
reason is I, I don't want.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
To forget it someday.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
And I feel like if I, I share it with
you and I'll have it on the podcast and then
somebody down the line can say, Oh, let's hear the
Barry Melrose thing. I don't even know how good a
story it is, but Melrose only coached the Kings for
like two and a half years. His final season coaching
the Kings was 94, the 94, 95 season. He lasted
(22:06):
41 games. It was like half the season before.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Being excommunicated Barry Melrose.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
At that time, I was a teenage reporter who occasionally
didn't do it all the time, occasionally was assigned to
the Fabulous Forum, wandering around with a microphone and enough confidence,
which I don't have anymore, to compensate for the fact
(22:33):
that I absolutely had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
The fake it till you make it situation belonged there.
I wasn't a hockey guy, but yet I was out there.
And I.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Remember that year, because it was kind of a big deal,
because I'd watched the Kings and the Stanley Cup a
couple years earlier than that. And so I stuck that
microphone in Barry Melrose's face when I was out covering
the Kings.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
I didn't really know if I was allowed to do that.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
And I'm sure this was a major moment, a major
moment for Barry Melrose, unless it was not. And might
I add our life journey, the life journey together. crossed
pass again like a couple of ships out in the
ocean there 5 207 days ago june 11 2012 not
(23:26):
that i'm counting june 11th of 2020 12 the kings
were going to be the kings they were about to
win their first stanley cup beating the devils in game
six at staples center Now, I happened to be covering
that game. I was downstairs in the bowels of the
(23:48):
building with the media herd watching the final moments.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
In this case, I was watching on.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
A small monitor while waiting to stampede onto the ice, ice, ice, baby,
for those riveting post-game interviews. And who happened to be
standing there with me While we watched the final seconds
on the clock as the Devils won that game, I
think the final was like 4-2 or something like that,
(24:18):
5,207 days ago.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Well, none other than Barry Melrose. That's right.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
There was something wonderfully symmetrical about that moment. Almost two
decades earlier, I had been an annoying teenager sticking a
microphone down the throat of Barry Melrose. And this not
that long after he had taken the Gretzky Kings closer
(24:46):
to the Stanley.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Cup than they had ever been in their history.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
And now we were standing together watching the Kings finally
win the damn thing.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
And I remember thinking how cool that was. I still do,
by the way. I still do. That I happened to
just be there.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
It was me, Barry Melrose, and one of his ESPN
TV people. And over time, Barry Melrose became something even
more valuable than a coach or a hockey enforcer. He
became one of the signature voices of hockey. The mullet,
the goatee, the wonderfully ridiculous clown costumes.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
That he would wear as suits. He helped make hockey
seem like it mattered. He was entertaining. He was someone
who People just saw Barry Melrose on the street. They're like,
that's Barry Melrose. They knew who he was. And they
weren't even like hockey people. They weren't even really hockey people.
(25:48):
But they knew Barry Melrose. And they didn't change the channel. Unfortunately,
life got in the way.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Barry Melrose was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2023.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
And now here he is gone at age 70. So
the Statistics will tell you that Barry Melrose was.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
A below 500 NHL coach who had one magical playoff run.
But memory doesn't keep standings. It keeps moments. And that's
what all of this crap is about. It's about moments.
And whatever happens in an athletic career, one moment can either.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Define it Or one moment can blow it up. And
it's across the board. It's across the board. I'll give
a random example.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Nelson Cruz, baseball player for the Texas Rangers, a bunch
of other teams. Nelson Cruz was a really good player. Now,
there are a couple things that defined him.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
He was a steroid guy, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
And the Texas Rangers were in position to win the
World Series against the Cardinals. And Nelson Cruz did not
make a play in the outfield that would have, could have,
should have wrapped things up for the Rangers. Now, they
eventually won the World Series. But at that time, I
was like, oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
And whenever I think of Barry Melrose, I will remember
a little television monitor in the underbelly of Staples Center.
the Kings about to become real Kings of hockey. And
somehow after all of those years, the kid with the microphone.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Standing next to the, the man with the mullet. And
it's a, it's a nice memory.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
So rest in peace to Barry Melrose, leaving this world
too soon at the age of 70, but what a,
what a wonderful time he had. impacting people's lives, that matters.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
That matters. So a sad tale there.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
If you would like to be part of this podcast,
we have the fifth hour mailbag. We had a round
robin last week. As of early on Saturday, I don't
know who's going to be part of the mailbag. I
have no idea. We're going to find out who is
going to be part of it later on at some
point here. So if you want to send a question in,
(28:28):
You can send it, Kara, realfifthour at gmail.com. That's all letters,
no numbers, realfifthour at gmail.com. We thank you in advance
and enjoy the college football today. So again, I got
the Buckeyes and Oklahoma. So I'm taking the road teams
in those two big college football matchups today. We'll see
(28:50):
how that works out for me. These are not officially
sanctioned Benny versus the Penny picks, but that's who I'm
going with. Anyway, have a wonderful, glorious rest of your
Saturday here. We thank you for supporting the Fifth Hour Podcast.
And if you're listening to this on Sunday or Monday
or Tuesday or Wednesday, just have a really nice day.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
As Dick and Dayton would say, bye-bye, bye-bye.
Kaboom if you thought four hours a day 1200 minutes
a week was enough think again he's the last remnants
of the old republic a sole bastion of fairness he
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse wow the clearinghouse of
hot takes break free for something special the fifth hour
(00:23):
with ben maller starts right.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Now In the air everywhere, the fifth hour with me,
Ben Maller, and you.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
We are united again.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
No days off, even here on a Saturday, because that's
what we do. So it is the 12th day of September,
the 255th day of the year. That means my computer-like
brain tells me there are 110 days left.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
That's it. That's all.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
110 days left. And then we move on to 2027.
It is a massive college football day today. We'll get
to that in a minute. On this Saturday edition, we
have a penny for your thoughts. And when the Mandela
effect and the man who shot Liberty Valance have.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
A baby, how does that go?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
However, we begin in honor of our friend Terry in England,
who is such a big fan. of Benny's Big Board,
which is not a list. It's Benny's Big Board. So
here's my plan of attack today. The two biggest games
in college football, and I'm never wrong about this, the
early game in the noon television window, which is 9 a.m., where.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I happen to be, Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Boomer Sooner, number 11 in the country, I believe, at Michigan.
Oklahoma is a five-and-a-half-point favorite in that game.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
It's on Fox, so you better watch.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
And everyone wondering what the Wolverines do after being given
a gift by the corrupt Big Ten, it would appear,
getting an extra second to.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Beat Western Michigan, the clock Hail Mary game.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And they fell out, Michigan, of the AP Top 25,
which is the way the media said, hey, you guys
are a little corrupt over there. And Bryce Underwood gets
another chance to show that he doesn't stink.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
The line movement on this game was insane.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Michigan originally opened up about a two-and-a-half point favorite, I believe,
on the look-ahead line. The market completely flipped. Oklahoma, a
five-and-a-half-point favorite. That is an eight-point swing. Eight-point swing in
this game. Now, the game that I'm planning my snacks
(02:57):
around is Ohio State.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
At Texas. The Longhorns are a one-and-a-half-point.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Favorite in that game. I will be giving out— you know,
I'll do it right now. I'll give out a couple
bonus picks. I'm going to take Ohio.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
State— In this game, I don't trust Arch Manning.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I'm going to take the Buckeyes, more talented team, and
Ohio State will win this. They're the number one team.
I'm also taking Oklahoma. I agree with the wise guys here.
Michigan's not very good, and they'll play better, I would imagine,
than they did against Western Michigan, but how much better
(03:35):
are they?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
So there's that.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Some of the other games that I don't know how
many I'm going to actually watch today Alabama is a
10.5-point favorite at Kentucky. That'll be in the 3.30 Eastern
TV window. Tennessee at Georgia Tech. I don't know if
that's coming out of my radar.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
You have the.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Iowa rivalry game, Iowa State versus Iowa. The Hawkeyes, a
14.5-point favorite in that game. Two touchdowns feels gigantic in.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
A rivalry game.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
And Iowa, I can't wrap my head around them actually
having a good offense this year. So we'll see about that.
There's a bit of a trap game is the right way.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
To say it.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
But Utah, a top 20 team playing Arkansas, a big
bad SEC team.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
That is a late game.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
And I believe that is the top late night game.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
SEC team playing in altitude.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Utah's got that voodoo boogaloo at home. So that should
be a pretty good game. Now, as for a penny
for your thoughts, so you're probably asking, what happened to
Benny versus the penny?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
And I have saved this for today.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
And I'm willing to spill the tea, if you will.
So this is a story about television. big television which
means it's mostly a story about waiting waiting for a
phone call waiting for emails waiting for somebody to give
the green light and just green light what we got
(05:21):
going on say the magic word yes what a magical
word that is yes waiting for somebody to even say
no And occasionally waiting so long that you begin wondering
whether the people you're waiting for have decided to leave
the country and start a new identity in the witness
(05:42):
protection program. So for the past couple of months, just
to give you the inside skinny here, for the past
couple of months, I have not talked about this on
the radio or here on the Fifth Hour Podcast because.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
There was actually... Nothing to update.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
There was something going on behind the scenes, but yet nothing.
We were in standby mode waiting for a runway to
open up. And standby mode sounds kind of exciting. If
you had asked me when I was starting out my career,
I said, oh, you're going to be on standby with TV. Oh,
my God, that's so exciting.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
But standby....
Speaker 2 (06:23):
It's like you're launching a SpaceX rocket standby. No, it's
considerably less exciting when you're a middle-aged, I guess slightly
older than that now, mostly bald radio gas bag checking
his phone every 17 minutes. We have had conversations over
(06:45):
the last handful of months with the good people over
there at NBC about bringing back Benny versus the Penny
for another season. As you know, last year, it didn't
work out. We got the kick in the nuts right
before the season. So my good friend Bill, who's a
great dude, I have nothing bad to say about him.
He made all this happen. And Bill was interested in
(07:07):
putting something together and And it wasn't just Benny versus
the Penny. There were conversations about other shows. There were
elevator pitches that were made about other opportunities, different concepts,
not just Benny versus the Penny. There were non-gambling concepts.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
That were talked about. So naturally, I started.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Imagining a television empire. You start daydreaming. And of course,
I daydream because I sleep during the day. Benny versus
the Penny. That was possible.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
There were other things.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Benny After Dark, The Bald and the Beautiful. Yeah, the
B & T show, Ben and Tom. NBC, though, ultimately
went another direction. We were in the running. We came
up a few votes short. That's television. Television is the
only business where people can tell you how much they
(08:01):
love your show while simultaneously making sure nobody ever sees
it again. It's fascinating. In radio, people are just assholes.
We can say that on the podcast. They're just schmucks.
They'll tell you your show sucks. In TV, everything's great.
Everything's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And what inevitably happens and what happened here is somebody
enters a conference room carrying a spreadsheet and the spreadsheet
always wins.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
The spreadsheet always wins. We were trying to.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Sell a cable television show at roughly the same moment
America is trying to remember what does a cable box
look like?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
We were a couple votes short. That's the story of
my career. Always a bridesmaid.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Occasionally I do get to be the pallbearer, which I
don't like, but that happens. And the larger problem is
television itself. The landscape has changed dramatically. Cable television isn't
exactly living high on the hog these days. It's more
like the last helicopter leaving Saigon.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I think I have to update that reference.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Wasn't there a thing with Biden back in 2021 or
something like that, where everyone was trying to leave Afghanistan? Anyway,
I feel like the Saigon thing still works. Anyway, everybody's trying.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
To climb a board, right?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
And there's some executive there hanging from the landing gear yelling.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
We don't have the budget.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Now, that's particularly frustrating because we originally had the blueprint.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
To do Benny vs.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
The Penny on NBC way back in 2020. Somewhere there
is an alternative universe in the multiverse where Benny vs.
the Penny was launched in 2020, and there was no
pandemic anywhere. and it became a television institution and at
this moment in that dimension I am insufferably wealthy unfortunately
(10:10):
I am currently stuck in the universe that you're in
and yeah Excellent timing by me, unless that's not the case.
We planned to launch a TV show right before a
global pandemic. Some people went out and bought Amazon stock
in 2020. Some people bought some Bitcoin. My friend Sports
(10:32):
with Coleman, I tried launching a television show. Again, excellent
broadcasting instincts. Now, had we gotten Benny versus the Penny
on TV way back then, I'm convinced that And some
of my friends at NBC believe this, too, that it
would have caught on and we would have still been
doing the show today. Cable TV was healthier then, and
(10:56):
we would have become one of those legacy shows that
continues to get renewed year after year, even though they're
not that good.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
But timing is everything. I've said a few times over.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
The years, I think of Paul Molitor when I think
of this great player, Hall of Famer, Baseball player, by
the way. Hall of Famer, but for those that don't know.
But imagine if he'd spent his prime years with the New.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
York Yankees instead of Milwaukee.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Same player, different spotlight, different environment, completely different level of celebrity.
So sometimes you get Yankee Stadium. Sometimes you get County Stadium.
Sometimes you get COVID. And so COVID shut down the world,
took Benny versus the Penny with it, Of all the
casualties of the pandemic, people got sick, kids couldn't go
(11:50):
to school, adults couldn't.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Go to work. There was a lot of bad stuff
that happened.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So admittedly, during the pandemic, we were pretty far down
the list, pretty far down the list. Now, I have
spent much of my broadcasting career arriving at the train station,
the depot, just to watch the caboose disappear. So why
is Benny versus the Penny suddenly showing up on the
radio again, again, again? Well, we'll answer that. Also, where
(12:24):
the hell's Tom Looney? So we had discussed bringing the
show back.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Here on the Fifth Hour podcast.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
We had also talked about doing another YouTube season of
Benny versus the Penny.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
The problem was....
Speaker 2 (12:38):
That NBC's final decision, the kill shot, the suicide shot, came.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Very late in the game.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
And by that point, we simply did not have enough runway.
That's a cool broadcasting term, runway. We didn't have enough
time to put together the advertising needed to make the
proper digital version of Benny versus the penny walk, you know,
work there, there are some production costs involved in all that.
And Benny versus the penny. The main problem is we needed,
(13:08):
and we still do a signature sponsor. We need a
sugar daddy. I need a sugar daddy, a wealthy benefactor,
preferably someone who owns several oil wells, possibly has access
to the Saudi wellness fund makes terrible financial decisions.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I'm kidding.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Uh, without that sponsor producing the full show does not
make any financial sense. Uh, the time is one thing.
And then also the quality. We want that to be
as good as possible. That means you got to add
some bells and whistles. Those things cost money. So it
just didn't make sense. And now if somebody listening that
I'm talking about you, uh, and you're a fan and
(13:51):
you want to become part of the thing, um, business partner,
whatever it might be. The door isn't locked. We can
certainly bring back Benny versus the Penny and bring the
band back together on YouTube or another platform. I'm not
difficult to find. Make sure the headline on the email
(14:13):
is good. Otherwise, I might not open it, but I'm
not that difficult to find. I'm the tall dude kind
of bald, but I wear a hat to cover it up,
wearing glasses, holding... a giant souvenir penny. Now, as for
Tom Looney, Looney Tunes, he is stepping back from his
broadcasting gigs right now. I guess he's still doing something
(14:35):
with JT the Brick, but that's about it. And he's
got some non-media opportunities that.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
He is pursuing. So that's his story to tell.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
That is not my story to tell.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
He has been a friend of mine for 30-plus years.
I wish him well. Hopefully we'll do something together.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Meanwhile, again, but meanwhile, I'm still here in the pod
studio talking into a microphone during the week in the
overnight hours like a man. I'm yelling at the microphone
and like somebody arguing with the drive-through speaker at Jack
in the Box. However, Looney has told me this off
(15:15):
the record. Of course, I'm saying it on the podcast.
Looney has let me know. that while he has other
opportunities that are non-media related, he has informed me if
we land the right sponsor and the money makes sense,
he'd be more than happy to resume his role as
the penny to make a comeback. It's funny how quickly
(15:36):
broadcasting retirement disappears when someone backs up a big rig
filled with gold bullion. Now, I still believe strongly in
Benny versus the penny. It is my intellectual property, so
I control the rights, the penny versus the penny, and
I can do what I want with it. And I
have some freedom that I don't have with other things
(15:57):
in my broadcasting world. So I know there is a
platform where this thing can be bigger, better, and more profitable.
But until that happens, I have something television executives don't control,
a microphone, which is jumbo-sized, and a bully pulpit, a
(16:18):
big stage that happens to be broadcast in more than
600 different radio stations. I have a global reach, and
it's pretty cool. So we're going to rise again. We're
going to rise up again, but we— We don't have.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Guess we don't have enough radio time, is the way
I would describe it, to handicap every NFL game. So
certainly not the time we would have here on the
podcast or on YouTube, television also.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
We don't have a lot of time. But instead, we're
going to cherry-pick the marquee matchups, the island games, the
island life.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
The biggest games of the week, and give them the
full car wash, Benny versus the Penny treatment.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Now that said.
I will still pick every.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
NFL game against the spread, and I'll post them on
social media platforms. The penny is not dead. It has
just been relocated yet again. Television put it in storage.
Radio found the key, and somewhere sitting quietly in the corner,
off to the left, the giant penny is staring at
(17:28):
me right now like it knows something, and I'm not
sure what it knows, which I got to tell you,
a little disturbing. Little disturbing because historically, at least recently,
the penny has been right more often than I have
picking these NFL games. There's something poetic about a TV
show involving a penny being undone by economics.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
It's just perfect. Not for my finances. It's just perfect
for everything else.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
So turning the page on that, I did want to mention–
Barry Melrose died this week at the age of 70,
which means hockey has lost one of those people who
seemed less like an actual person and more like a
recurring character that the sport had hired way before anybody remembers,
(18:21):
like way back and just simply forgot about. There was
the mullet, the goatee, The suits, which occasionally looked as
though they had been selected by a colorblind riverboat gambler.
And then there was the resume. Barry Melrose played 300
(18:43):
NHL games as a defenseman.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
And he scored how many goals? Not one, not two,
not three, not four. How about 10? 10 goals in
300 games. 10! 10!
Speaker 2 (18:56):
In fact, Barry Melrose had 728 penalty minutes, which means
he spent considerably more time on the naughty list being
punished for playing hockey than being rewarded for playing hockey.
He was what in that era was known as a goon,
an enforcer, a tough guy.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
That's what Barry Melrose was.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Now, naturally, this qualified him to eventually coach Wayne Gretzky,
number 99, the greatest hockey player who ever lived.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
It's life with a sense of humor.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Now, way back in the 90s, early 90s, 92, 93,
Barry Melrose took over the Los Angeles Kings. He was
a no-name for people in L.A., and he took over
and coached them up all the way to the Stanley Cup.
Cup final. Gretzky was Gretzky. It was at the tail
(19:54):
end of his prime. Melrose became a coaching star, and
the Kings lost to Patrick Waugh in Montreal, which is
still the last Canadian championship all these years later in
five games.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
That's all five games. Now, that postseason became the foundation
of the Barry Melrose coaching mythology. And this is the
intersection where the man who shot Liberty Valance and the
Mandela Effect get together.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
And they have a little baby.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So when the Mandela Effect and the man who shot
Liberty Valance get together, that would be this part of
the story.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Let me explain why.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
When the legend becomes the fact, you print the legend,
and eventually everyone remembers the legend as a fact. People
remember Barry Melrose as a very successful NHL coach. His
actual record was 84-108-29-4.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
The man had a 447 winning percentage.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
And that's the wonderful Melrose contradictions. Because he really had
one spectacular spring, and that became more powerful than all
of the arithmetic that followed.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
I was blown away by that record. In sports, this
actually does happen all the time.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
We claim numbers never lie, and then immediately ignore the
numbers we don't particularly care for. Now, I have my
own Barry Melrose connection, and I thought, I wanted to
share this for a couple of reasons, but the main
reason is I, I don't want.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
To forget it someday.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
And I feel like if I, I share it with
you and I'll have it on the podcast and then
somebody down the line can say, Oh, let's hear the
Barry Melrose thing. I don't even know how good a
story it is, but Melrose only coached the Kings for
like two and a half years. His final season coaching
the Kings was 94, the 94, 95 season. He lasted
(22:06):
41 games. It was like half the season before.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Being excommunicated Barry Melrose.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
At that time, I was a teenage reporter who occasionally
didn't do it all the time, occasionally was assigned to
the Fabulous Forum, wandering around with a microphone and enough confidence,
which I don't have anymore, to compensate for the fact
(22:33):
that I absolutely had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
The fake it till you make it situation belonged there.
I wasn't a hockey guy, but yet I was out there.
And I.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Remember that year, because it was kind of a big deal,
because I'd watched the Kings and the Stanley Cup a
couple years earlier than that. And so I stuck that
microphone in Barry Melrose's face when I was out covering
the Kings.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
I didn't really know if I was allowed to do that.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
And I'm sure this was a major moment, a major
moment for Barry Melrose, unless it was not. And might
I add our life journey, the life journey together. crossed
pass again like a couple of ships out in the
ocean there 5 207 days ago june 11 2012 not
(23:26):
that i'm counting june 11th of 2020 12 the kings
were going to be the kings they were about to
win their first stanley cup beating the devils in game
six at staples center Now, I happened to be covering
that game. I was downstairs in the bowels of the
(23:48):
building with the media herd watching the final moments.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
In this case, I was watching on.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
A small monitor while waiting to stampede onto the ice, ice, ice, baby,
for those riveting post-game interviews. And who happened to be
standing there with me While we watched the final seconds
on the clock as the Devils won that game, I
think the final was like 4-2 or something like that,
(24:18):
5,207 days ago.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Well, none other than Barry Melrose. That's right.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
There was something wonderfully symmetrical about that moment. Almost two
decades earlier, I had been an annoying teenager sticking a
microphone down the throat of Barry Melrose. And this not
that long after he had taken the Gretzky Kings closer
(24:46):
to the Stanley.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Cup than they had ever been in their history.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
And now we were standing together watching the Kings finally
win the damn thing.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
And I remember thinking how cool that was. I still do,
by the way. I still do. That I happened to
just be there.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
It was me, Barry Melrose, and one of his ESPN
TV people. And over time, Barry Melrose became something even
more valuable than a coach or a hockey enforcer. He
became one of the signature voices of hockey. The mullet,
the goatee, the wonderfully ridiculous clown costumes.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
That he would wear as suits. He helped make hockey
seem like it mattered. He was entertaining. He was someone
who People just saw Barry Melrose on the street. They're like,
that's Barry Melrose. They knew who he was. And they
weren't even like hockey people. They weren't even really hockey people.
(25:48):
But they knew Barry Melrose. And they didn't change the channel. Unfortunately,
life got in the way.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Barry Melrose was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2023.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
And now here he is gone at age 70. So
the Statistics will tell you that Barry Melrose was.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
A below 500 NHL coach who had one magical playoff run.
But memory doesn't keep standings. It keeps moments. And that's
what all of this crap is about. It's about moments.
And whatever happens in an athletic career, one moment can either.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Define it Or one moment can blow it up. And
it's across the board. It's across the board. I'll give
a random example.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Nelson Cruz, baseball player for the Texas Rangers, a bunch
of other teams. Nelson Cruz was a really good player. Now,
there are a couple things that defined him.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
He was a steroid guy, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
And the Texas Rangers were in position to win the
World Series against the Cardinals. And Nelson Cruz did not
make a play in the outfield that would have, could have,
should have wrapped things up for the Rangers. Now, they
eventually won the World Series. But at that time, I
was like, oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
And whenever I think of Barry Melrose, I will remember
a little television monitor in the underbelly of Staples Center.
the Kings about to become real Kings of hockey. And
somehow after all of those years, the kid with the microphone.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Standing next to the, the man with the mullet. And
it's a, it's a nice memory.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
So rest in peace to Barry Melrose, leaving this world
too soon at the age of 70, but what a,
what a wonderful time he had. impacting people's lives, that matters.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
That matters. So a sad tale there.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
If you would like to be part of this podcast,
we have the fifth hour mailbag. We had a round
robin last week. As of early on Saturday, I don't
know who's going to be part of the mailbag. I
have no idea. We're going to find out who is
going to be part of it later on at some
point here. So if you want to send a question in,
(28:28):
You can send it, Kara, realfifthour at gmail.com. That's all letters,
no numbers, realfifthour at gmail.com. We thank you in advance
and enjoy the college football today. So again, I got
the Buckeyes and Oklahoma. So I'm taking the road teams
in those two big college football matchups today. We'll see
(28:50):
how that works out for me. These are not officially
sanctioned Benny versus the Penny picks, but that's who I'm
going with. Anyway, have a wonderful, glorious rest of your
Saturday here. We thank you for supporting the Fifth Hour Podcast.
And if you're listening to this on Sunday or Monday
or Tuesday or Wednesday, just have a really nice day.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
As Dick and Dayton would say, bye-bye, bye-bye.
Host
Ben Maller
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