April 18, 2024 • 39 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 160: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is an idiot. Trump is an idiot who employs other idiots. Trump is an idiot who employs other idiots and who thinks Jimmy Kimmel and Al Pacino are the same guy. And he'll probably come back later with some nonsensical and irrational explanation that he was joking or being metaphorical or to him they might as well be the same or that Kimmel is the palindrome of Pacino or it's like when he wittily called Nikki Haley "Nancy Pelosi."
He. Is. An. Idiot.
And more substantively, Trump publicly admitted that he believed his lawyers had "unlimited" jury strikes; that they could disqualify an infinite number of potential jurors in his trial for Election Interference in New York. Think about the implication here: it never occurred to Trump (or doesn't matter to him) that to have "unlimited" jury strikes would mean any defendant could literally stall the start of his trial FOREVER and no one would ever be tried for - let alone convicted OF - ANYTHING.
It just gets worse from there. We learn his Bodega stunt Tuesday was astroturfed because the New York Young Republicans who staged it couldn't resist taking a team picture at it, so they can be identified in the crowd.
Trump is an idiot who employs other idiots.
B-Block (24:24) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I don't know what made me think of him but think of him I did. The mandarin of Los Angeles news was Jerry Dunphy and even he acknowledged it: On the air, he was simply a teleprompter-reading machine. More than once, it came with hilarious consequences.
C-Block (41:30) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump
is an idiot. Trump is an idiot who employs other idiots.
(00:28):
Trump is an idiot who thinks Jimmy Kimmel and Al
Pacino are the same guy. Stupid Jimmy Kimmel. That really
should be read as if you're Homer Simpson, stupid Jimmy Kimmel,
who still hasn't recovered from his horrendous performance and big
ratings drop as host of the Academy Awards, especially when
(00:50):
he showed he suffered from TDS commonly known as Trump
Derangement syndrome to the entire world by reading on air
my truth about how bad a job he was doing
that night, right before he stumbled through announcing the biggest
award of all Mature of the Year. It was a
classic choke, one of the biggest ever in show business.
And to top it off, he forgot to say the
(01:11):
famous and mandatory line, and the winner is instead he
stammered around as he opened the envelope. Uh defendant, Jay Trump,
that was al Pacino. Al Pacino was the one with
the envelope and the Movie of the Year award. Of course,
(01:34):
everybody mistakes Jimmy Kimmel for Al Pacino. You know everybody
whose brain does not work right. I am now waiting
for his explanation. Trump was testing you, didn't you know that?
Stupid libs. I mean, they're both Jimmy Kimmel and and
al Pacino. They're both liberals. So he's being metaphorical. It's like,
(01:57):
you know Nancy Pelosi and Nancy Culp from from the
Beverly Hillbillies. Well, he did it to enrage Trump derangement
syndrome victims. It's a pun. That's the explanation. It's a pun.
He was just checking to see if you were reading
(02:19):
all the way through his posts. It's a palindrome. Kimmel
and Pacino are spelled the same way backwards as forwards.
Kimme l spells Kimmel and L e Mmik spell's Pacino.
This also happened on March tenth, twenty twenty four, and
(02:42):
Trump posted about it because he heard about Kimmel making
jokes about his trial. Everybody's making jokes about his trial.
Trump should plead guilty. It would be far less damaging
to him than two more days of this. As the
trial resumes today, He's fallen asleep at least three times,
and it's being reported now in right wing media. But
(03:07):
he's going to go after Jimmy Kimmel for something that
happened March tenth, and he's complaining about it on April seventeenth.
Trump is an idiot, and Trump moreover is an idiot
who employs idiots. Yes day three of jury's selection at
(03:54):
the trial in New York. And this is the more
important part about Trump being an idiot who does not
know the difference between Al Pacino and Jimmy Kimmel. I mean,
if you say you don't know the difference between Al
Pacino and Robert Dennie, Okay, Jimmy Kimmel. When you spend
nearly seventy eight years as Trump has spent avoiding reality,
(04:16):
you miss stuff like this that in a jury trial,
each side can only remove, disqualify void so many juror
candidates just because you only have so many strikes. They
call them strikes. There's a finite number, it's agreed to
in advance by both sides, or there are laws depending
(04:38):
on which kind of court you're in. I thought strikes
were supposed to be unlimited when we were picking our jury,
Trump wrote, I was then told we only had ten,
not nearly enough. Well, wait, I thought strikes were supposed
to be unlimited. So, in other words, every juror who
came up Trump thought either they would say I love
(05:01):
Donald Trump because I have the brains of a sandwich,
or they would have been stricken, every one of them.
The first twenty, the first two thousand, the first million,
the first billion. No trial in history has ever had
unlimited jury strikes, because what the defense could do would
(05:23):
be to then strike every potential juror, to go through
literally everybody on earth, and then the trial would never happen.
And if you could bore down into Trump's brain, I
wouldn't recommend it. But if you could do that, I
wonder if you would find him actually believing that that
was the case, that he was entitled to vet and
(05:47):
strike three or four billion potential jurors. And of course
he would have no idea that it would be that money,
because he does not know how many people there are
on the earth, he doesn't know how many countries there are.
He's already shown that he has no idea whether a
crowd of twenty thousand people represents a measure portion of
the earth's population or it's you know, twenty thousand people.
(06:12):
And it's of course made worse by the fact that
Trump employs idiots, legal idiots. Alena Habba, who has been
busted from the lead lawyer on some of the Jack
Smith's prosecutions of Trump to described on Fox News the
other night as Trump legal spokesperson. Aleena Habba, who is
(06:36):
the world's leading authority in that vast area known as
parking lot law, went on Fox and said, we are
seeing a painful selection, referring to the jury selection which
was supposed to go on for six or eight million
years while we go through everybody on the earth. Because
(06:58):
Trump believed he had unlimited strikes rather than ten, We're
seeing a painful sele election. Alena Habbas said, because we're
in the state of New York, which is definitely by design.
There is no question that brag bringing this in New York,
and then she wandered off to talk about Atlanta and
the District of Columbia. These venues are selected exactly for
(07:19):
this reason. I'm hoping that she is only so stupid
that she was trying to convince Trump's morons, Trump's cult members,
Trump's brain damaged supporters. I'm hoping she's only stupid enough
that she was trying to convince them that this is true,
that these were chosen venues in which to prosecute, Because
(07:43):
to everybody else, it should be obvious that if a crime,
or even just an alleged crime takes place in New York,
the trial is going to be in New York. There
are certain extreme circumstances in which a city or state
trial will be relocated elsewhere, usually within the same state,
but it's been known to happen in smaller states to
(08:06):
move the trial elsewhere. Federal trials are moved out of
state all the time. But the prosecution of Donald Trump
for crimes committed in New York, the trial is being
conducted in New York because he was in New York
when he did what they say is illegal or what
they allege he did. Oh, for God's sake, please tell
(08:31):
me this woman doesn't really believe what she said. I mean,
she also went on Newsmax and said the same thing. Also,
the visit to the bodega Tuesday, the stunt, the traditional
Trump exploitation of somebody dying, where he went to the
bodega in Harlem, and probably thought, so, this is Harlem.
(08:55):
I thought about coming here once before. In nineteen fifty three,
oh he went to a bodega in Harlem where a
bodega owner shot a robber and was briefly charged for
any legal possession of a firearm. And then the charges
were dropped by Alvin Bragg and they did a stunt.
(09:16):
There were cheering crowds at the bodega in Harlem, and
you know who arranged them and who The cheering crowds
consisted of members of the New York Young Republicans Club.
How do we know that? Because Trump is an idiot
and he employs idiots. These kids could not keep their
(09:38):
effing mouths shut. The chief of the New York Young
Republicans Club, also known as We Have No Education or
Hope Club, Gavin Wax, not Wachs, but Wax, as in yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Doc, I can't hear out of this ear. I feel
like there's some Gavin Wax in my ear. He could
not help himself. He boasted on social media that he
changed it. He and the heads of the Hispanic subgroup
that belongs to the New York Young Republicans Club. They
took a team photo of themselves at the bodega, and
(10:16):
never thought for a second that if there were a
teen photo of them at the bodega, that then wide
eyed people who don't like Trump happened to have the
resources to look at the picture of all of these
basically Trump employees and then look at the pictures of
the crowds cheering Trump and notice they're the same people.
(10:39):
Never thought for a second, hey, wait, don't take the
picture or put out the tweet. That way they can
identify us and find out that we're astro turf, young Republicans.
A life already lost. A brain is a mind that
is a terrible I'm just doing the Trump version of
(11:01):
a mind is a terrible thing to waste. On the
other hand, if you have no mind, remember the old saying,
no pain, no gain, but no brain no pain. In short,
looking at the trial, Trump should have stayed in bed
or at least taken another nap. They resume today the
(11:25):
trial of the Trump charges in New York, as opposed
to holding the trial in Alaska. They have already selected
seven of the eighteen jurors needed. There are only ten strikes,
not infinity. There's not a line of one billion potential
jurors unlimited strikes, and I don't like that four person.
(11:50):
Jimmy Kimmel clarifying the issue of the fourth person. I
heard this all day yesterday. I asked it myself in
a couple of occasions, and was asked it several times,
and then the light bulb went off over my head.
Duror B four hundred Bingo, Juror B four hundred is
the fourth person. He's the one who lives in West
Harlem now but was originally from Ireland.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
He was a waiter. He now works in sales. He
has some college education, did not get a degree. He
is married, his spouse is in school. There are no
children in his spare time. He's outdoorsy. And then here's
the line that confused people gets news from the New
York Times, the Daily Mail, some Fox and some MSNBC.
(12:33):
And on the right and on the left that combination
some Fox and some MSNBC for his news. The man
must be an idiot. The man must be fabricated. There's
no such person. He just lied. Why didn't they use
one of their infinity strikes to keep him off there?
Nobody watches Fox at MSNBC. I know exactly what it is,
and I don't know why it didn't dawn on me
(12:54):
the moment that I read this when he said some
Fox and some MSNBC in New York. It's very simple.
Fox is Channel five. They carry the Fox Broadcast network,
The Simpsons, which I was on, once, Family Guy, which
I was on, once, Fox Football, which I used to
(13:14):
be on Fox Baseball, which I used to anchor. It's
the Fox station. There's a newscast two or three times
a day on the Fox station. One of them is
at ten o'clock. And it's been on so long that
I was an intern on the show in nineteen seventy eight,
long before there was a Fox, the Fox News at ten.
Then it was the Channel five News at ten. So
(13:36):
when the guy says he watches his news some Fox
and some MSNBC, he's, you know, going back and forth
between Rosanna Scato and uh and Katie Turr. Oh God,
why did I have to bring up that name?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Oh God, my right king.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So much for the Trump legal news. If you thought
Bill Barr, Trump's former attorney general, was dead only ethically,
the man who supported Jack Smith's prosecutions of Trump, the
man who actually resigned more than a month before the
end of the Trump presidency because he saw how it
was going to end. He now told Fox News, I've
(14:25):
said all along, given two bad choices, I think it's
my duty to pick the person I think would do
the least harm to the country, and in my mind,
I will vote the Republican ticket. I'll support the Republican ticket.
I have described previously the fact that Bill Barr's father,
(14:46):
the former headmaster at the Dalton School, who was somehow
involved in the hiring of Jeffrey Epstein there at the
start of his quote teaching quote, career quote. It's not
clear if he actually hired him, because Bill Barr's father,
Donald Barr, changed jobs between the interview of Epstein at
(15:11):
the Dalton School in Manhattan and his next job, where
he became the headmaster in nineteen seventy five of the
Hackley School in suburban New York Terrytown, New York. Hackley
School Chris Berman class of seventy three, Keith Alderman class
of seventy five nearly ran the place into the ground. Incompetent,
(15:35):
a liar, a bad headmaster, and clearly an even worse father.
Let me run A couple of other headlines impeachment. They
brought two charges against the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Majorcas.
They brought them over to the Senate, and the Senate
promptly dismissed them by Felicia. It happened so fast that
(15:59):
Marjorie Bittergreen never knew what hit her. Back in the
House where they're still talking about And that is the
point of it. The point of talking about impeachment is
to talk about impeachment, not to actually impeach anybody. Jamie
Raskin disassembled Jamie Comer in the ongoing saga of when
(16:22):
on Earth are the Republicans going to have a vote
about impeaching the president of the United States. The answer
is they're not. They're using their infinity strikes. Raskin pressed
Comer to impeach Biden now. Raskin at one point said,
what is the crime that you want to impeach Joe Biden?
(16:44):
For Tell America right now, and Comer said, you're about
to find out very soon, as somebody wrote on Twitter,
the crime you don't know her. She goes to a
different school. I'm not sure what the hidden tree here is.
(17:06):
The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson may have done
something that the Russians will be mad at him about.
He may have done something to help Ukraine and to
help our allies doujour in the Middle East, to help
America's standing as trying to be for something internationally and
(17:31):
against something, namely Russian aggression. Mike Johnson's package is now visible. Yes,
I'm sixty five years old and I still think like
I did when I was twelve or thirteen. Separate aid
bills to be voted on Saturday night unless Marjorie Taylor
(17:53):
Green and Chip Roy and the rest of them make
him disappear, that is Johnson by Saturday night. Mike Gallagher,
the retiring, resigning congressman, is delaying his resignation so he
can stay in the House through Saturday, so he can
vote on it in favor. It will be carried if
(18:15):
it is carried if it is appropriate by Democrats. And
then next week we can all watch two things go
on simultaneously, the actual start of opening statements and presumably
testimony in the Trump trial and Mike Johnson getting his
package cut off by Republicans. Remember the NPR guy Uri Berliner,
(18:40):
the editor who turned himself into a right wing hero
by claiming that there are no right wingers working at NPR,
like that wasn't the result of excellent management and natural selection.
Then they suspended him because he wrote this article about
NPR vivisecting NPR from the inside, and guess what, NPR
(19:02):
employees need permission to do outside media work. So they
suspended him for five days. Because almost everybody who works
anywhere in media knows you can't go work for somebody else,
particularly if you have a contract or a union deal,
without the permission of your boss. Nothing I have ever
written anywhere for a company that was not my primary
(19:25):
employer did not occur without the consent of my primary employer.
In fact, one of the last things that ever happened
to me at ESPN, I wrote a piece for Baseball America,
a publication about surprisingly enough baseball in America, and ESPN
got all honked off about it and threatened to suspend
me because I'd done outside media work. And then I
did some public service announcements against chewing tobacco and the
(19:48):
cancer risk of them, and I had not gotten these
things preapproved. And I said, you want to come out
that you've suspended me because I was fighting cancer and
donating my work to these announcements being played at the ballparks.
You want to be seen as pro cancer, and ESPN
did and they were seen as pro cancer. In any event,
this guy, Uri Berliner violates his own contract or his
(20:12):
union deal, writes negatively about his own employers. They suspend
him for five days. Trust me, I know my suspensions.
Five days is nothing. Five days. You should be able
to do standing on your head five days. Come on,
NBC wanted to suspend me for the rest of the
twenty first century five days? So what does Uri Berlinner do?
(20:35):
He issues this statement, I am resigning from NPR, a
great American institution where I have worked for twenty five years.
I don't support calls to defund NPR. I respect the
integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive
and do important journalism. Thought Bubble, except all those bastards
I talked about and wrote about in my piece. But
(20:57):
I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged
by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very
problems at NPR site. In my free press essay Goodbye
Cruel World by Felicia I recognize this immediately. This is
what actually happened here. Mister Berliner, I believe was going
(21:18):
to quit anyway. He wanted to take the place down
with him, so he pulled this stunt. I tried this
once at NBC when I was much younger, and let
me tell you, it doesn't work. It's a nice idea
until when you leave, they don't go out of business,
and then what happens. You're the one who goes out
(21:39):
of business, Uri Berliner, It mean I'm jelly donut and
a sports headline. Remember that obscure Toronto Raptors basketball player,
the boutique bets on whom were the biggest payoffs in
legal gambling, like on two nights in all the sports books,
(22:00):
in the ubiquitous world of sports gambling, in which sooner
rather than later, some of these sports gambling houses will
own NBA and Major League Baseball and maybe NFL teams.
There was this guy, John tay Porter. People made fortunes
because John tay Porter missed the only shot he took
(22:21):
in his four minutes of game action, and they made
hundreds or thousands of dollars on that fact. And then
people began to wonder if perhaps Jontay Porter was involved
in this in some way. Well, yesterday the commissioner of
the National Basketball Association, Adam Silver, suspended Johntay Porter for life.
All I can say is I hope mister Porter bet
(22:46):
the over. Okay, if the show sounded a little different,
this is because I had lived nearly all of it.
Just now, everything's fine. Don't get alarmed. But as you know,
I have four dogs, two of whom are rescues, one
of whom is nearly seven ten years old, and the
last couple of days have been very busy. When you
(23:08):
are a nearly seventeen year old dog, when you were
a dog who was born in the year two thousand
and seven, life is somewhat lived on the edge. And
for a period of time this week it did not
look like mine was in good shape. It turns out
he just had a bad reaction to some medication. But
this has taken up a lot of time this week,
(23:29):
and I kind of ran into a little bit of
a crunch time wise. So I had a choice of
giving you an ad LIBBD kind of breezy addition of
countdown today, or none whatsoever. So I gave you this.
If it sucked, I apologize. The good news is Menee
is fine. He greeted me at the door and Mine
(23:51):
had a stroke several years ago. Menee greeted me at
the door when I came home in the afternoon after
he was seen by the vet. Mine greeted me at
the door and I picked him up and I said,
you're going to give me a kiss, and he gave me,
which usually tells me he's okay. That and the fact
that he peed on the pad. These are the two
signs of happy, resourceful life when you're a seventeen year
(24:16):
old or nearly dog. So the day was devoted to me. Nay,
you got this, and an addition of things I promised
not to tell, which I will select during the commercial
and play for you after this. I don't know what's next.
That's next. This is countdown to the number one story
(24:40):
on the countdown and my favorite topic, me and things
I promised not to tell. And somebody sent me a
video of him the other day and I laughed again,
and I flashed back again, and now you get to
hear about him too. From the desert to the sea
to all of southern California. Good evening, you may or
may not have ever heard of Jerry Dunfi. That statement
(25:01):
that you may or may not have ever heard of
Jerry dunfeye Jes sent anybody from southern California who was
more than thirty five years old into a deep, stunned silence.
Because Jerry Dunfe was ubiquitous on TV news in Los
Angeles from nineteen sixty until two thousand and two. He
died a week after his last newscast, and there are
some in the business who have seriously believed he may
(25:24):
show up again sooner or later on TV, even though
he's dead. He worked for Channel two, and he and
his team won all the ratings wars for fifteen years,
and then one year the station finished only tied for
first in the Spring LA ratings of nineteen seventy five,
So the CBS corporate geniuses in New York fired him
(25:46):
and he went to Channel seven like thirty six hours later,
and then Channel seven won nearly all the ratings periods
there over fourteen years, and then after six years at
Channel nine, he was hired back at Channel two, where
he started where they fired him. Hired back at Channel
two for a couple million more than he was making
when they fired him twenty years earlier, and then he
went back to Channel nine and he was still on
(26:08):
every night at the age of eighty and oh, by
the way, he worked for twenty nine years after He
came out of the KABC studios on the night of
October twenty fourth, nineteen eighty three, hopped into his Rolls
Royce with the station makeup lady by his side, and
was ambushed and shot in the neck by four assailants,
(26:29):
leading him to issue the memorable statements They said, don't move,
and I didn't, but they shot anyway, unquote, And they
never figured out who shot him or why. But Jerry
Dunfey was back on the air three weeks later anyway,
And you cannot imagine how many different guesses there were
about that in the LA news industry when I was
(26:52):
on the air there from nineteen eighty five through nineteen
ninety one. There is no question that in creating the
fictional newscasters Ted Baxter and Kent Brockman, and maybe even
Ron Burgundy, much was stolen from Jerry dunfi Jerry Dunfee
had a huge shock of white hair, a craggy face,
and a rich baritone voice. He was in twenty one
(27:15):
different movies, including Oh God and the Amazing and Margaret
Flick Kitten with a Whip. Now, really, there is an
Ann Margaret film called Kitten with a Whip. Anyway, I
knew Jerry Dunfe. He was a smart man, and a
nice and a welcoming man, and obviously quite a business man.
But he did have a tendency on the air to become,
(27:36):
in his own words, a teleprompter reading machine. He said,
you put it up there, and I'm going to say
it down here. And that's what this story is about.
When I got to Los Angeles at the age of
twenty six in nineteen eighty five hour newscast Channel five
News at ten was like something out of the nineteen sixties.
(27:56):
The studio had carpeting on the walls. There were no
graphics to speak of, just a big rear screen projection device.
Our best reporter, the lovely stand Chambers, had literally worked
there since the station had signed on the air for
the first time thirty eight years before, and he would
keep working there for another twenty five years. Our inimitable anchorman,
(28:21):
Hal Fishman would not wear an IFB and earpiece because
he thought viewers might think that if he did, it
was because he needed a hearing aid. He did, however,
wear one of a series of two pays of different
length to simulate the need for a haircut. Until the
first commercial break was over on News at ten, only
(28:43):
Hal spoke. His female co anchor just sat there adoringly.
And the producer was a marvelously frantic character named Jerry Rubin,
who every night at nine PM, an hour to airtime,
would run around the newsroom screaming battle stations, battle stations,
and who took me seriously only when I could figure
out what his as Jerry phrased it, invisible thread was
(29:08):
running through his nightly ordering of the stories, the rundown.
He would ask me to come into the newsroom and
look at the rundown and say, all right, Olderman, you're
so smart, what's the invisible thread? And he only began
to like me when I could recite to him from
memory the starting lineup of his beloved nineteen forty five
Chicago Cubs. But he stayed liking me. We remained friends
(29:31):
for thirty years. Anyway. Jerry had come to Los Angeles
in nineteen sixty nine, hired away from WGN in Chicago
to become the lead writer for this is where the
story comes together. You guessed it. The Jerry Dunfee newscasts
on KNXT, the CBS station in Los Angeles. In fact,
(29:51):
after winning every sweeps period for nine years, the newscast
had rightly become the Big News with Jerry Dunfee. And
it began with an unseen announcer intoning the Big News
with Jerry Dunfee. Now here is Jerry Dunfie, And then
Jerry Dunvee said his catchphrase, the catchphrase of all catchphrases.
(30:13):
Unlike the guy I worked with in New York when
I was an intern, Bill Jorgenson, thank you for your
time this time until next time, Jerry Dunfey said, from
the desert to the Sea to all of Southern California,
the good evening. Nonsense, of course, but boy, it sounded good.
From the desert to the sea to all of Southern California,
(30:35):
Good evening. He said this so often that it is
still used in some promotional announcements by Channel nine News
in Los Angeles and Channel seven News in Los Angeles
and Channel two in Los Angeles. From the desert to
the Sea to all of Southern California. Good evening, I'm dead. Well, No,
they don't actually say that, but that's pretty much what
(30:57):
it means. The only joke about the night he got
shot outside the parking lot that I can tell is
that when the cops arrived, Dunfey said to them, from
the desert to the sea to all of southern California,
good evening, I've been shot in the neck. The first night,
my friend Jerry Rubin sat down to write The Big
(31:18):
News with Jerry Dunfie. Jerry Rubin was a little nervous.
He got there early, he said. He wrote some stories
a dozen times each trying to get it perfect. Finally,
for the lead story, which if memory serves, was about
a bank robbery in Pasadena, Jerry got it just right.
And on that nineteen sixty nine evening at six pm,
viewers of The Big News on Channel two in Los Angeles,
(31:41):
those for whom from the desert to the sea to
all of southern California was not a cliche but mantra.
They heard the familiar Channel two screeching theme music, and
then the Big News with Jerry dunfee now Here is
Jerry Dunfie and up popped Jerry Dunfey's face, and he said,
three armed and very dangerous modern day desperadoes are still
(32:01):
loose in Pasadena tonight. After blah blah blah, blah blah.
The newscast ended an hour later. Jerry Rubin was very relieved.
Jerry Dunfee strode back to his desk before presumably going
out to warm up the rolls Royce and avoid the
gunmen who would finally get him fourteen years later, and
not even slow him down. And that's when the station's
(32:22):
news director leaned out of his office and waved the
two Jerry's inside. What the hell happened, Dunfee? Did you
retire it? You can't retire it. It's in the contract.
You have to stay it. According to Jerry Rubin, Dunfey
looked blankly at his boss. Jerry Rubin said he was
even more confused himself. From the desert to the sea.
(32:43):
He didn't say from the desert to the sea. At
the start of the big news, you say from the
desert to the sea to all of southern California, good evening,
only to you. You didn't say, from the desert to
the sea to all of Southern California, Good evening. You
said something about a bank. What the hell, Jerry, we
got two hundred and fifty phone calls. Jerry Dunfey now
(33:04):
pursed his life and turned to the new writer. What
the hell, Ruben, didn't you put it in the script?
Jerry Rubin kept this part to himself, but frankly, he
said he couldn't believe what he was hearing. For nine years,
this man Dunfee had signed on virtually every one of
his news broadcasts every night at six and then again
every night at eleven by saying from the desert and
(33:24):
sy to wall, Southern California, cood evening. But apparently, if
you did not write it in the script and did
not put it on the teleprompter for him, he would
forget it. Before Jerry Rubin could say anything, Jerry Dunfee
barked at him with some understanding. Don't you understand when
I'm out there, I'm a teleprompter reading machine. You put
(33:44):
it up there, I'm going to say it down here.
You don't put it up there. I'm not going to
say it down here. The news director looked sternly at
Jerry Rubin. Jerry Rubin did not burst into uncontrollable laughter,
race from the building KNXT was in on Sunset Boulevard,
and get on the first plane back to Chicago. He
(34:06):
just said yes, sir, and the news director said good
and everybody left. And from that night, at eleven o'clock onwards,
Jerry Rubin always started his script for the lead story
by typing out, from the desert to the sea to
all of southern California, good evening, there's a twenty six
car pile up on the Santa Monica Freeway after another
mattress has been dumped in the left lane. Or from
(34:27):
the desert to the Sea to all of southern California,
good evening, burbank, bank burgled or whatever. Over the next
few weeks, the lead story on the Big News with
Jerry Dunfey would change, as lead stories do. At five
VM or five thirty or five fifty, something big er
would happen and it was the Big News. So Jerry
(34:48):
Rubin would often have to rewrite page one of the script,
and every time he rewrote it, and every time he
re rewrote it, and the one time he told me
that he re re rewrote it, Jerry remembered to start
page one with from the desert to the sea to
all southern calif Good evening. All was well, the teleprompter
(35:09):
reading machine was happy, the news director was happy. Jerry
Rubin was happy. And then calamity struck. At about five
point fifty eight one night, Jerry Rubin was told there
is a refinery fire in Torrance. It is the new
lead story. Just say, we're rushing a crew, get it written.
He started to type our top story, breaking news a refinery,
(35:31):
and then he tore the page from his machine. He
started anew His fingers danced across the keyboard, from the
desert to the sea to all of southern California. Good evening.
Our top story tonight, breaking news. Our refinery fire is
just erupted in Torrents. A Channel two Big News Live
crew is rushing to the scene at this hour, and
we will have a big News live report from Rick
Davis before this newscast is over. Rubin knew he did
(35:55):
not have time to get a production assistant to take
the new lead script into dunfe nor to tape it
into the script about to pass through the teleprompter, so
he did both things himself. New lead. He screamed, at Dunfie,
throwing the page at him, and the unseen announcer was
already at mid introduction when Jerry Rubin taped that new
piece of script into the prompter without remembering to remove
(36:18):
the old lead script from the prompter. And this is
what Los Angeles heard the Big News with Jerry dunfee
Now here's Jerry Dunfie. From the desert to the Sea
to all of Southern California. Good evening, Our top story tonight.
Breaking news or refinery fire has just erupted in Torrents
(36:39):
at Channel two. Big News Live crew is rushing to
the scene at this hour, and we will have a
Big News Live report from Rick Davis before this newscast
is over. Jerry Dunfey dramatically turned over page one and
began to read page two. From a desert to the
sea to all of Southern California. Good evening, Our top
story tonight. Mayor Sam, you're he said, Jerry Rubin said.
(37:01):
My head dropped to my desk with a thud. I've
(37:25):
done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip
Schanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister
Ray was on guitars, bass, and drums, and mister Shanelle
handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
I saw Tom Hanks about two years after the incident
(37:47):
at the Oscars, having lunch in he walked and on
the way out he came by a side door and
leaned in the window and talked to me and my
friend Hank appropriately enough, lovely guy, Tom Hanks. Other music,
including some of the Beethoven oppositions, arranged and performed by
the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the
(38:09):
Olberman theme from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch
Warren Davis and appears courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our pithy
and satirical musical comments are by Nancy Fauss. The best
baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend,
the actor Jonathan Banks. Everything else is pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this, the two hundred and third
(38:31):
day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the one
and ninety eight day since defendant Jay Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States,
use the Fourteenth Amendment and the not regularly given elector
(38:55):
objection provided by the Supreme Court, use the Insurrection Act,
use the justice system, use the mental health system to
stop him from doing it again while we still can.
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news
warrants till then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon,
(39:15):
good night, and I was gonna ask one. Oh that's right.
Good Luck. Countdown with Keith Olberman is a production of iHeartRadio.
(39:36):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump
is an idiot. Trump is an idiot who employs other idiots.
(00:28):
Trump is an idiot who thinks Jimmy Kimmel and Al
Pacino are the same guy. Stupid Jimmy Kimmel. That really
should be read as if you're Homer Simpson, stupid Jimmy Kimmel,
who still hasn't recovered from his horrendous performance and big
ratings drop as host of the Academy Awards, especially when
(00:50):
he showed he suffered from TDS commonly known as Trump
Derangement syndrome to the entire world by reading on air
my truth about how bad a job he was doing
that night, right before he stumbled through announcing the biggest
award of all Mature of the Year. It was a
classic choke, one of the biggest ever in show business.
And to top it off, he forgot to say the
(01:11):
famous and mandatory line, and the winner is instead he
stammered around as he opened the envelope. Uh defendant, Jay Trump,
that was al Pacino. Al Pacino was the one with
the envelope and the Movie of the Year award. Of course,
(01:34):
everybody mistakes Jimmy Kimmel for Al Pacino. You know everybody
whose brain does not work right. I am now waiting
for his explanation. Trump was testing you, didn't you know that?
Stupid libs. I mean, they're both Jimmy Kimmel and and
al Pacino. They're both liberals. So he's being metaphorical. It's like,
(01:57):
you know Nancy Pelosi and Nancy Culp from from the
Beverly Hillbillies. Well, he did it to enrage Trump derangement
syndrome victims. It's a pun. That's the explanation. It's a pun.
He was just checking to see if you were reading
(02:19):
all the way through his posts. It's a palindrome. Kimmel
and Pacino are spelled the same way backwards as forwards.
Kimme l spells Kimmel and L e Mmik spell's Pacino.
This also happened on March tenth, twenty twenty four, and
(02:42):
Trump posted about it because he heard about Kimmel making
jokes about his trial. Everybody's making jokes about his trial.
Trump should plead guilty. It would be far less damaging
to him than two more days of this. As the
trial resumes today, He's fallen asleep at least three times,
and it's being reported now in right wing media. But
(03:07):
he's going to go after Jimmy Kimmel for something that
happened March tenth, and he's complaining about it on April seventeenth.
Trump is an idiot, and Trump moreover is an idiot
who employs idiots. Yes day three of jury's selection at
(03:54):
the trial in New York. And this is the more
important part about Trump being an idiot who does not
know the difference between Al Pacino and Jimmy Kimmel. I mean,
if you say you don't know the difference between Al
Pacino and Robert Dennie, Okay, Jimmy Kimmel. When you spend
nearly seventy eight years as Trump has spent avoiding reality,
(04:16):
you miss stuff like this that in a jury trial,
each side can only remove, disqualify void so many juror
candidates just because you only have so many strikes. They
call them strikes. There's a finite number, it's agreed to
in advance by both sides, or there are laws depending
(04:38):
on which kind of court you're in. I thought strikes
were supposed to be unlimited when we were picking our jury,
Trump wrote, I was then told we only had ten,
not nearly enough. Well, wait, I thought strikes were supposed
to be unlimited. So, in other words, every juror who
came up Trump thought either they would say I love
(05:01):
Donald Trump because I have the brains of a sandwich,
or they would have been stricken, every one of them.
The first twenty, the first two thousand, the first million,
the first billion. No trial in history has ever had
unlimited jury strikes, because what the defense could do would
(05:23):
be to then strike every potential juror, to go through
literally everybody on earth, and then the trial would never happen.
And if you could bore down into Trump's brain, I
wouldn't recommend it. But if you could do that, I
wonder if you would find him actually believing that that
was the case, that he was entitled to vet and
(05:47):
strike three or four billion potential jurors. And of course
he would have no idea that it would be that money,
because he does not know how many people there are
on the earth, he doesn't know how many countries there are.
He's already shown that he has no idea whether a
crowd of twenty thousand people represents a measure portion of
the earth's population or it's you know, twenty thousand people.
(06:12):
And it's of course made worse by the fact that
Trump employs idiots, legal idiots. Alena Habba, who has been
busted from the lead lawyer on some of the Jack
Smith's prosecutions of Trump to described on Fox News the
other night as Trump legal spokesperson. Aleena Habba, who is
(06:36):
the world's leading authority in that vast area known as
parking lot law, went on Fox and said, we are
seeing a painful selection, referring to the jury selection which
was supposed to go on for six or eight million
years while we go through everybody on the earth. Because
(06:58):
Trump believed he had unlimited strikes rather than ten, We're
seeing a painful sele election. Alena Habbas said, because we're
in the state of New York, which is definitely by design.
There is no question that brag bringing this in New York,
and then she wandered off to talk about Atlanta and
the District of Columbia. These venues are selected exactly for
(07:19):
this reason. I'm hoping that she is only so stupid
that she was trying to convince Trump's morons, Trump's cult members,
Trump's brain damaged supporters. I'm hoping she's only stupid enough
that she was trying to convince them that this is true,
that these were chosen venues in which to prosecute, Because
(07:43):
to everybody else, it should be obvious that if a crime,
or even just an alleged crime takes place in New York,
the trial is going to be in New York. There
are certain extreme circumstances in which a city or state
trial will be relocated elsewhere, usually within the same state,
but it's been known to happen in smaller states to
(08:06):
move the trial elsewhere. Federal trials are moved out of
state all the time. But the prosecution of Donald Trump
for crimes committed in New York, the trial is being
conducted in New York because he was in New York
when he did what they say is illegal or what
they allege he did. Oh, for God's sake, please tell
(08:31):
me this woman doesn't really believe what she said. I mean,
she also went on Newsmax and said the same thing. Also,
the visit to the bodega Tuesday, the stunt, the traditional
Trump exploitation of somebody dying, where he went to the
bodega in Harlem, and probably thought, so, this is Harlem.
(08:55):
I thought about coming here once before. In nineteen fifty three,
oh he went to a bodega in Harlem where a
bodega owner shot a robber and was briefly charged for
any legal possession of a firearm. And then the charges
were dropped by Alvin Bragg and they did a stunt.
(09:16):
There were cheering crowds at the bodega in Harlem, and
you know who arranged them and who The cheering crowds
consisted of members of the New York Young Republicans Club.
How do we know that? Because Trump is an idiot
and he employs idiots. These kids could not keep their
(09:38):
effing mouths shut. The chief of the New York Young
Republicans Club, also known as We Have No Education or
Hope Club, Gavin Wax, not Wachs, but Wax, as in yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Doc, I can't hear out of this ear. I feel
like there's some Gavin Wax in my ear. He could
not help himself. He boasted on social media that he
changed it. He and the heads of the Hispanic subgroup
that belongs to the New York Young Republicans Club. They
took a team photo of themselves at the bodega, and
(10:16):
never thought for a second that if there were a
teen photo of them at the bodega, that then wide
eyed people who don't like Trump happened to have the
resources to look at the picture of all of these
basically Trump employees and then look at the pictures of
the crowds cheering Trump and notice they're the same people.
(10:39):
Never thought for a second, hey, wait, don't take the
picture or put out the tweet. That way they can
identify us and find out that we're astro turf, young Republicans.
A life already lost. A brain is a mind that
is a terrible I'm just doing the Trump version of
(11:01):
a mind is a terrible thing to waste. On the
other hand, if you have no mind, remember the old saying,
no pain, no gain, but no brain no pain. In short,
looking at the trial, Trump should have stayed in bed
or at least taken another nap. They resume today the
(11:25):
trial of the Trump charges in New York, as opposed
to holding the trial in Alaska. They have already selected
seven of the eighteen jurors needed. There are only ten strikes,
not infinity. There's not a line of one billion potential
jurors unlimited strikes, and I don't like that four person.
(11:50):
Jimmy Kimmel clarifying the issue of the fourth person. I
heard this all day yesterday. I asked it myself in
a couple of occasions, and was asked it several times,
and then the light bulb went off over my head.
Duror B four hundred Bingo, Juror B four hundred is
the fourth person. He's the one who lives in West
Harlem now but was originally from Ireland.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
He was a waiter. He now works in sales. He
has some college education, did not get a degree. He
is married, his spouse is in school. There are no
children in his spare time. He's outdoorsy. And then here's
the line that confused people gets news from the New
York Times, the Daily Mail, some Fox and some MSNBC.
(12:33):
And on the right and on the left that combination
some Fox and some MSNBC for his news. The man
must be an idiot. The man must be fabricated. There's
no such person. He just lied. Why didn't they use
one of their infinity strikes to keep him off there?
Nobody watches Fox at MSNBC. I know exactly what it is,
and I don't know why it didn't dawn on me
(12:54):
the moment that I read this when he said some
Fox and some MSNBC in New York. It's very simple.
Fox is Channel five. They carry the Fox Broadcast network,
The Simpsons, which I was on, once, Family Guy, which
I was on, once, Fox Football, which I used to
(13:14):
be on Fox Baseball, which I used to anchor. It's
the Fox station. There's a newscast two or three times
a day on the Fox station. One of them is
at ten o'clock. And it's been on so long that
I was an intern on the show in nineteen seventy eight,
long before there was a Fox, the Fox News at ten.
Then it was the Channel five News at ten. So
(13:36):
when the guy says he watches his news some Fox
and some MSNBC, he's, you know, going back and forth
between Rosanna Scato and uh and Katie Turr. Oh God,
why did I have to bring up that name?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Oh God, my right king.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So much for the Trump legal news. If you thought
Bill Barr, Trump's former attorney general, was dead only ethically,
the man who supported Jack Smith's prosecutions of Trump, the
man who actually resigned more than a month before the
end of the Trump presidency because he saw how it
was going to end. He now told Fox News, I've
(14:25):
said all along, given two bad choices, I think it's
my duty to pick the person I think would do
the least harm to the country, and in my mind,
I will vote the Republican ticket. I'll support the Republican ticket.
I have described previously the fact that Bill Barr's father,
(14:46):
the former headmaster at the Dalton School, who was somehow
involved in the hiring of Jeffrey Epstein there at the
start of his quote teaching quote, career quote. It's not
clear if he actually hired him, because Bill Barr's father,
Donald Barr, changed jobs between the interview of Epstein at
(15:11):
the Dalton School in Manhattan and his next job, where
he became the headmaster in nineteen seventy five of the
Hackley School in suburban New York Terrytown, New York. Hackley
School Chris Berman class of seventy three, Keith Alderman class
of seventy five nearly ran the place into the ground. Incompetent,
(15:35):
a liar, a bad headmaster, and clearly an even worse father.
Let me run A couple of other headlines impeachment. They
brought two charges against the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Majorcas.
They brought them over to the Senate, and the Senate
promptly dismissed them by Felicia. It happened so fast that
(15:59):
Marjorie Bittergreen never knew what hit her. Back in the
House where they're still talking about And that is the
point of it. The point of talking about impeachment is
to talk about impeachment, not to actually impeach anybody. Jamie
Raskin disassembled Jamie Comer in the ongoing saga of when
(16:22):
on Earth are the Republicans going to have a vote
about impeaching the president of the United States. The answer
is they're not. They're using their infinity strikes. Raskin pressed
Comer to impeach Biden now. Raskin at one point said,
what is the crime that you want to impeach Joe Biden?
(16:44):
For Tell America right now, and Comer said, you're about
to find out very soon, as somebody wrote on Twitter,
the crime you don't know her. She goes to a
different school. I'm not sure what the hidden tree here is.
(17:06):
The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson may have done
something that the Russians will be mad at him about.
He may have done something to help Ukraine and to
help our allies doujour in the Middle East, to help
America's standing as trying to be for something internationally and
(17:31):
against something, namely Russian aggression. Mike Johnson's package is now visible. Yes,
I'm sixty five years old and I still think like
I did when I was twelve or thirteen. Separate aid
bills to be voted on Saturday night unless Marjorie Taylor
(17:53):
Green and Chip Roy and the rest of them make
him disappear, that is Johnson by Saturday night. Mike Gallagher,
the retiring, resigning congressman, is delaying his resignation so he
can stay in the House through Saturday, so he can
vote on it in favor. It will be carried if
(18:15):
it is carried if it is appropriate by Democrats. And
then next week we can all watch two things go
on simultaneously, the actual start of opening statements and presumably
testimony in the Trump trial and Mike Johnson getting his
package cut off by Republicans. Remember the NPR guy Uri Berliner,
(18:40):
the editor who turned himself into a right wing hero
by claiming that there are no right wingers working at NPR,
like that wasn't the result of excellent management and natural selection.
Then they suspended him because he wrote this article about
NPR vivisecting NPR from the inside, and guess what, NPR
(19:02):
employees need permission to do outside media work. So they
suspended him for five days. Because almost everybody who works
anywhere in media knows you can't go work for somebody else,
particularly if you have a contract or a union deal,
without the permission of your boss. Nothing I have ever
written anywhere for a company that was not my primary
(19:25):
employer did not occur without the consent of my primary employer.
In fact, one of the last things that ever happened
to me at ESPN, I wrote a piece for Baseball America,
a publication about surprisingly enough baseball in America, and ESPN
got all honked off about it and threatened to suspend
me because I'd done outside media work. And then I
did some public service announcements against chewing tobacco and the
(19:48):
cancer risk of them, and I had not gotten these
things preapproved. And I said, you want to come out
that you've suspended me because I was fighting cancer and
donating my work to these announcements being played at the ballparks.
You want to be seen as pro cancer, and ESPN
did and they were seen as pro cancer. In any event,
this guy, Uri Berliner violates his own contract or his
(20:12):
union deal, writes negatively about his own employers. They suspend
him for five days. Trust me, I know my suspensions.
Five days is nothing. Five days. You should be able
to do standing on your head five days. Come on,
NBC wanted to suspend me for the rest of the
twenty first century five days? So what does Uri Berlinner do?
(20:35):
He issues this statement, I am resigning from NPR, a
great American institution where I have worked for twenty five years.
I don't support calls to defund NPR. I respect the
integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive
and do important journalism. Thought Bubble, except all those bastards
I talked about and wrote about in my piece. But
(20:57):
I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged
by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very
problems at NPR site. In my free press essay Goodbye
Cruel World by Felicia I recognize this immediately. This is
what actually happened here. Mister Berliner, I believe was going
(21:18):
to quit anyway. He wanted to take the place down
with him, so he pulled this stunt. I tried this
once at NBC when I was much younger, and let
me tell you, it doesn't work. It's a nice idea
until when you leave, they don't go out of business,
and then what happens. You're the one who goes out
(21:39):
of business, Uri Berliner, It mean I'm jelly donut and
a sports headline. Remember that obscure Toronto Raptors basketball player,
the boutique bets on whom were the biggest payoffs in
legal gambling, like on two nights in all the sports books,
(22:00):
in the ubiquitous world of sports gambling, in which sooner
rather than later, some of these sports gambling houses will
own NBA and Major League Baseball and maybe NFL teams.
There was this guy, John tay Porter. People made fortunes
because John tay Porter missed the only shot he took
(22:21):
in his four minutes of game action, and they made
hundreds or thousands of dollars on that fact. And then
people began to wonder if perhaps Jontay Porter was involved
in this in some way. Well, yesterday the commissioner of
the National Basketball Association, Adam Silver, suspended Johntay Porter for life.
All I can say is I hope mister Porter bet
(22:46):
the over. Okay, if the show sounded a little different,
this is because I had lived nearly all of it.
Just now, everything's fine. Don't get alarmed. But as you know,
I have four dogs, two of whom are rescues, one
of whom is nearly seven ten years old, and the
last couple of days have been very busy. When you
(23:08):
are a nearly seventeen year old dog, when you were
a dog who was born in the year two thousand
and seven, life is somewhat lived on the edge. And
for a period of time this week it did not
look like mine was in good shape. It turns out
he just had a bad reaction to some medication. But
this has taken up a lot of time this week,
(23:29):
and I kind of ran into a little bit of
a crunch time wise. So I had a choice of
giving you an ad LIBBD kind of breezy addition of
countdown today, or none whatsoever. So I gave you this.
If it sucked, I apologize. The good news is Menee
is fine. He greeted me at the door and Mine
(23:51):
had a stroke several years ago. Menee greeted me at
the door when I came home in the afternoon after
he was seen by the vet. Mine greeted me at
the door and I picked him up and I said,
you're going to give me a kiss, and he gave me,
which usually tells me he's okay. That and the fact
that he peed on the pad. These are the two
signs of happy, resourceful life when you're a seventeen year
(24:16):
old or nearly dog. So the day was devoted to me. Nay,
you got this, and an addition of things I promised
not to tell, which I will select during the commercial
and play for you after this. I don't know what's next.
That's next. This is countdown to the number one story
(24:40):
on the countdown and my favorite topic, me and things
I promised not to tell. And somebody sent me a
video of him the other day and I laughed again,
and I flashed back again, and now you get to
hear about him too. From the desert to the sea
to all of southern California. Good evening, you may or
may not have ever heard of Jerry Dunfi. That statement
(25:01):
that you may or may not have ever heard of
Jerry dunfeye Jes sent anybody from southern California who was
more than thirty five years old into a deep, stunned silence.
Because Jerry Dunfe was ubiquitous on TV news in Los
Angeles from nineteen sixty until two thousand and two. He
died a week after his last newscast, and there are
some in the business who have seriously believed he may
(25:24):
show up again sooner or later on TV, even though
he's dead. He worked for Channel two, and he and
his team won all the ratings wars for fifteen years,
and then one year the station finished only tied for
first in the Spring LA ratings of nineteen seventy five,
So the CBS corporate geniuses in New York fired him
(25:46):
and he went to Channel seven like thirty six hours later,
and then Channel seven won nearly all the ratings periods
there over fourteen years, and then after six years at
Channel nine, he was hired back at Channel two, where
he started where they fired him. Hired back at Channel
two for a couple million more than he was making
when they fired him twenty years earlier, and then he
went back to Channel nine and he was still on
(26:08):
every night at the age of eighty and oh, by
the way, he worked for twenty nine years after He
came out of the KABC studios on the night of
October twenty fourth, nineteen eighty three, hopped into his Rolls
Royce with the station makeup lady by his side, and
was ambushed and shot in the neck by four assailants,
(26:29):
leading him to issue the memorable statements They said, don't move,
and I didn't, but they shot anyway, unquote, And they
never figured out who shot him or why. But Jerry
Dunfey was back on the air three weeks later anyway,
And you cannot imagine how many different guesses there were
about that in the LA news industry when I was
(26:52):
on the air there from nineteen eighty five through nineteen
ninety one. There is no question that in creating the
fictional newscasters Ted Baxter and Kent Brockman, and maybe even
Ron Burgundy, much was stolen from Jerry dunfi Jerry Dunfee
had a huge shock of white hair, a craggy face,
and a rich baritone voice. He was in twenty one
(27:15):
different movies, including Oh God and the Amazing and Margaret
Flick Kitten with a Whip. Now, really, there is an
Ann Margaret film called Kitten with a Whip. Anyway, I
knew Jerry Dunfe. He was a smart man, and a
nice and a welcoming man, and obviously quite a business man.
But he did have a tendency on the air to become,
(27:36):
in his own words, a teleprompter reading machine. He said,
you put it up there, and I'm going to say
it down here. And that's what this story is about.
When I got to Los Angeles at the age of
twenty six in nineteen eighty five hour newscast Channel five
News at ten was like something out of the nineteen sixties.
(27:56):
The studio had carpeting on the walls. There were no
graphics to speak of, just a big rear screen projection device.
Our best reporter, the lovely stand Chambers, had literally worked
there since the station had signed on the air for
the first time thirty eight years before, and he would
keep working there for another twenty five years. Our inimitable anchorman,
(28:21):
Hal Fishman would not wear an IFB and earpiece because
he thought viewers might think that if he did, it
was because he needed a hearing aid. He did, however,
wear one of a series of two pays of different
length to simulate the need for a haircut. Until the
first commercial break was over on News at ten, only
(28:43):
Hal spoke. His female co anchor just sat there adoringly.
And the producer was a marvelously frantic character named Jerry Rubin,
who every night at nine PM, an hour to airtime,
would run around the newsroom screaming battle stations, battle stations,
and who took me seriously only when I could figure
out what his as Jerry phrased it, invisible thread was
(29:08):
running through his nightly ordering of the stories, the rundown.
He would ask me to come into the newsroom and
look at the rundown and say, all right, Olderman, you're
so smart, what's the invisible thread? And he only began
to like me when I could recite to him from
memory the starting lineup of his beloved nineteen forty five
Chicago Cubs. But he stayed liking me. We remained friends
(29:31):
for thirty years. Anyway. Jerry had come to Los Angeles
in nineteen sixty nine, hired away from WGN in Chicago
to become the lead writer for this is where the
story comes together. You guessed it. The Jerry Dunfee newscasts
on KNXT, the CBS station in Los Angeles. In fact,
(29:51):
after winning every sweeps period for nine years, the newscast
had rightly become the Big News with Jerry Dunfee. And
it began with an unseen announcer intoning the Big News
with Jerry Dunfee. Now here is Jerry Dunfie, And then
Jerry Dunvee said his catchphrase, the catchphrase of all catchphrases.
(30:13):
Unlike the guy I worked with in New York when
I was an intern, Bill Jorgenson, thank you for your
time this time until next time, Jerry Dunfey said, from
the desert to the Sea to all of Southern California,
the good evening. Nonsense, of course, but boy, it sounded good.
From the desert to the sea to all of Southern California,
(30:35):
Good evening. He said this so often that it is
still used in some promotional announcements by Channel nine News
in Los Angeles and Channel seven News in Los Angeles
and Channel two in Los Angeles. From the desert to
the Sea to all of Southern California. Good evening, I'm dead. Well, No,
they don't actually say that, but that's pretty much what
(30:57):
it means. The only joke about the night he got
shot outside the parking lot that I can tell is
that when the cops arrived, Dunfey said to them, from
the desert to the sea to all of southern California,
good evening, I've been shot in the neck. The first night,
my friend Jerry Rubin sat down to write The Big
(31:18):
News with Jerry Dunfie. Jerry Rubin was a little nervous.
He got there early, he said. He wrote some stories
a dozen times each trying to get it perfect. Finally,
for the lead story, which if memory serves, was about
a bank robbery in Pasadena, Jerry got it just right.
And on that nineteen sixty nine evening at six pm,
viewers of The Big News on Channel two in Los Angeles,
(31:41):
those for whom from the desert to the sea to
all of southern California was not a cliche but mantra.
They heard the familiar Channel two screeching theme music, and
then the Big News with Jerry dunfee now Here is
Jerry Dunfie and up popped Jerry Dunfey's face, and he said,
three armed and very dangerous modern day desperadoes are still
(32:01):
loose in Pasadena tonight. After blah blah blah, blah blah.
The newscast ended an hour later. Jerry Rubin was very relieved.
Jerry Dunfee strode back to his desk before presumably going
out to warm up the rolls Royce and avoid the
gunmen who would finally get him fourteen years later, and
not even slow him down. And that's when the station's
(32:22):
news director leaned out of his office and waved the
two Jerry's inside. What the hell happened, Dunfee? Did you
retire it? You can't retire it. It's in the contract.
You have to stay it. According to Jerry Rubin, Dunfey
looked blankly at his boss. Jerry Rubin said he was
even more confused himself. From the desert to the sea.
(32:43):
He didn't say from the desert to the sea. At
the start of the big news, you say from the
desert to the sea to all of southern California, good evening,
only to you. You didn't say, from the desert to
the sea to all of Southern California, Good evening. You
said something about a bank. What the hell, Jerry, we
got two hundred and fifty phone calls. Jerry Dunfey now
(33:04):
pursed his life and turned to the new writer. What
the hell, Ruben, didn't you put it in the script?
Jerry Rubin kept this part to himself, but frankly, he
said he couldn't believe what he was hearing. For nine years,
this man Dunfee had signed on virtually every one of
his news broadcasts every night at six and then again
every night at eleven by saying from the desert and
(33:24):
sy to wall, Southern California, cood evening. But apparently, if
you did not write it in the script and did
not put it on the teleprompter for him, he would
forget it. Before Jerry Rubin could say anything, Jerry Dunfee
barked at him with some understanding. Don't you understand when
I'm out there, I'm a teleprompter reading machine. You put
(33:44):
it up there, I'm going to say it down here.
You don't put it up there. I'm not going to
say it down here. The news director looked sternly at
Jerry Rubin. Jerry Rubin did not burst into uncontrollable laughter,
race from the building KNXT was in on Sunset Boulevard,
and get on the first plane back to Chicago. He
(34:06):
just said yes, sir, and the news director said good
and everybody left. And from that night, at eleven o'clock onwards,
Jerry Rubin always started his script for the lead story
by typing out, from the desert to the sea to
all of southern California, good evening, there's a twenty six
car pile up on the Santa Monica Freeway after another
mattress has been dumped in the left lane. Or from
(34:27):
the desert to the Sea to all of southern California,
good evening, burbank, bank burgled or whatever. Over the next
few weeks, the lead story on the Big News with
Jerry Dunfey would change, as lead stories do. At five
VM or five thirty or five fifty, something big er
would happen and it was the Big News. So Jerry
(34:48):
Rubin would often have to rewrite page one of the script,
and every time he rewrote it, and every time he
re rewrote it, and the one time he told me
that he re re rewrote it, Jerry remembered to start
page one with from the desert to the sea to
all southern calif Good evening. All was well, the teleprompter
(35:09):
reading machine was happy, the news director was happy. Jerry
Rubin was happy. And then calamity struck. At about five
point fifty eight one night, Jerry Rubin was told there
is a refinery fire in Torrance. It is the new
lead story. Just say, we're rushing a crew, get it written.
He started to type our top story, breaking news a refinery,
(35:31):
and then he tore the page from his machine. He
started anew His fingers danced across the keyboard, from the
desert to the sea to all of southern California. Good evening.
Our top story tonight, breaking news. Our refinery fire is
just erupted in Torrents. A Channel two Big News Live
crew is rushing to the scene at this hour, and
we will have a big News live report from Rick
Davis before this newscast is over. Rubin knew he did
(35:55):
not have time to get a production assistant to take
the new lead script into dunfe nor to tape it
into the script about to pass through the teleprompter, so
he did both things himself. New lead. He screamed, at Dunfie,
throwing the page at him, and the unseen announcer was
already at mid introduction when Jerry Rubin taped that new
piece of script into the prompter without remembering to remove
(36:18):
the old lead script from the prompter. And this is
what Los Angeles heard the Big News with Jerry dunfee
Now here's Jerry Dunfie. From the desert to the Sea
to all of Southern California. Good evening, Our top story tonight.
Breaking news or refinery fire has just erupted in Torrents
(36:39):
at Channel two. Big News Live crew is rushing to
the scene at this hour, and we will have a
Big News Live report from Rick Davis before this newscast
is over. Jerry Dunfey dramatically turned over page one and
began to read page two. From a desert to the
sea to all of Southern California. Good evening, Our top
story tonight. Mayor Sam, you're he said, Jerry Rubin said.
(37:01):
My head dropped to my desk with a thud. I've
(37:25):
done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip
Schanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister
Ray was on guitars, bass, and drums, and mister Shanelle
handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
I saw Tom Hanks about two years after the incident
(37:47):
at the Oscars, having lunch in he walked and on
the way out he came by a side door and
leaned in the window and talked to me and my
friend Hank appropriately enough, lovely guy, Tom Hanks. Other music,
including some of the Beethoven oppositions, arranged and performed by
the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the
(38:09):
Olberman theme from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch
Warren Davis and appears courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our pithy
and satirical musical comments are by Nancy Fauss. The best
baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend,
the actor Jonathan Banks. Everything else is pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this, the two hundred and third
(38:31):
day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the one
and ninety eight day since defendant Jay Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States,
use the Fourteenth Amendment and the not regularly given elector
(38:55):
objection provided by the Supreme Court, use the Insurrection Act,
use the justice system, use the mental health system to
stop him from doing it again while we still can.
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news
warrants till then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon,
(39:15):
good night, and I was gonna ask one. Oh that's right.
Good Luck. Countdown with Keith Olberman is a production of iHeartRadio.
(39:36):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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