December 31, 2021 • 13 mins
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2020/12/23/from-the-remco-caravelle-to-a-household-name-in-all-four-corners-of-the-world/
From the Remco Caravelle to a Household Name in All Four Corners of the World
Dec 23, 2020
RUSH: Greetings and welcome back, my friends. It’s great to have you here. This is Rush Limbaugh, the most-listened-to radio talk show in the country. You made it so. I have eternal, never-ending gratitude for all of you for so much. You have meant so much to me. You’ve meant so much to my family. You have meant so much to the happiness and joy that I have been able to experience.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Readings are Welcome back, my friends. It's great to have
you here. This is Russia Limbaugh, the most listened to
radio talk show in the country. You made it so.
I have eternal, never ending gratitude for all of you
for so much. You have meant so much to me.
You've meant so much to my family. You have meant
so much to the happiness and joy that I have
(00:25):
been able to experience. You have been integral in my
dreams coming true, my wildest dreams. When I was a
young kid pretending to be a DJ on the radio,
when I was eight years old, there was a device
called a Remco Caravelle. It was a brand name. Remco
(00:47):
was the brand name. Caravelle was the name of their product.
Somebody sent me one. We actually have one of these
things back in um in one of the supply clausets here,
and it was the most amazing thing. It it's it's plastic.
It was about three ft long and two feet high,
(01:07):
and it transmitted over a m within the confines of
a I don't know, a small house. The quality was horrible,
but it worked. All you had to do was set
it for a frequency that was open. In other words,
there wasn't a real radio station in your town that
(01:30):
was broadcasting on that frequency, and you could do it.
And so I pretended to be a DJ with this thing.
My parents got it for me for Christmas one year.
I pretended to be a DJ and my mother actually
had a radio that you can you can broadcast on
a real radio. I mean, this is it was an
(01:50):
amazing thing. I can't believe it was licensed to operate.
We're talking here, folks in the in the this this
would have been uh, the late fifties, around the turn
of the century. And my mother would dutifully put a
radio on her lap, and I would go upstairs where
(02:11):
the bedroom was, and I would have my photo and
you had to have an external microphone to put into
the speaker of the phonograph that you were playing records on.
You had to move the microphone to your mouth when
you were doing DJ stuff, and then you'd hold the
microphone near the speaker for the phonograph to play the record.
And my mother would dutifully sit down there and listen
(02:32):
to this and the quality was just was was horrible.
It didn't have a whole lot of power. It wasn't
like listening to a real radio station. But it allowed
me to pretend. It allowed me to get started on
on living out my my dreams, and so many people
(02:52):
have been a part of those dreams coming true. I
knew what I wanted to do when I was eight
years old. How did I know, Well, you know the story.
I hated school. It was prison. I just hated it.
It was it was a room with windows, and I
could see out the windows. I could see where I
would rather be. You know, I'm locked in this place.
(03:15):
I'm having to learn about whatever you learn about in
first grade, you know, how to pace things and stuff
in the last place I wanted to be. I just
looked at it as as a denial of freedom, but
being out there. So every morning, getting ready to go
to this prison, this school, my mother had the radio
(03:35):
on and she's listening to the guy, a local jock.
And this guy sounds like he's having fun doing whatever
he's doing. He's playing records, he's doing commentary and the
weather forecast. It sounds like he's having fun. Said, that's
how I want my day to be. I don't want
to begin my day in drudgery and something I don't
want to do. But I had no choice. You have
to go to school either that of the truant officer
(03:58):
comes and it's even us for you. But that that
was how I decided I wanted to be at a radio.
Had a natural affinity for liking music and wanting to
be the guy on the radio playing it for people
and so forth. But uh, up until that point in
my life, I had I had quit pretty much everything
(04:18):
else that I had tried. Like I was a tenderfoot
boy scout for a year. That's unheard of. You move
on from being a tenderfoot. We have to do anything.
But I was a tender or whatever the whatever, the
least amount you had to do to stay a boy scout.
I did the first camp out, I got the gold
Brick Award. The gold Brick award went to the person
(04:41):
least useful on the camp out. Well, there was nothing
I didn't want to do, and so there you you
gotta go do this. Well, I don't want to do that.
Well you gotta do. You're gonna be the boy Scouts.
We're going to camp out. Was gonna be cold. You
gotta learn about camp fires, you gotta learn about rough
brushing leaves up at the bottom of your tent, so
that keeps a cold there survivalist of stuff. Because back
(05:01):
then Soviet you and your knuking, this was a real possibility.
So I just am not into this. Well, why did
you join the boys? Got well? Because other people thought
I needed to do it anyway, things like that I
had quit everything but radio. I didn't quit. And even
though the family didn't understand it, the fact that I
hadn't quit it was enough for them to encourage me
(05:24):
to stay in it. And I did, and all that
happened happened, and it's it's been so rewarding. It has
been so so meaningful to me. And there have been
so many people that have made it possible. Among them
all of you. And so I take the occasion of
(05:48):
the last day of the year that I'm here are
Christmas Show to try to thank you and to share
with you the depth of gratitude and appreciation I feel
for all of you and what you have. And I,
by the way, this is not um It's not something
(06:08):
that's just perfunctory to do. I genuinely have a deep
appreciation for all of you. I feel that I feel
the bond of connection that exists between all of you
and me. It's why, by the way, I recognized immediately
(06:29):
that Donald Trump could win the presidency if he was
serious about it. When he began his campaign in two
thousand and fifteen, when I saw those first rallies I had,
I had lived that, the Rush to Excellence Tour. The
first two years of this program. I did those things
that Trump was doing, and just somewhat similar crowd sizes
ten thousand, fifteen thousand, I think was the largest I
(06:51):
had had in Sacramento, but they were there, and it
was every weekend for two years, uh forty eight weekends.
I didn't to do holiday weekends, but it was the
way I was building the program and establishing a relationship
with all of the affiliates that were signing on and
carrying the program. And I had lived it, and I
(07:11):
saw the way people were reacting to Trump, and because
I had had the same thing happened to me. I said,
this guy can go although he can win it, and
I expected him too, and he did. And also I
learned that this is something exceedingly important for Donald Trump,
even today, when the media has nothing to do with
(07:38):
making you, when the media has nothing to do for
your success, nothing to do with it. For example, there
are a lot of people that the media for some
reason gloms onto and starts doing puff pieces about and
showering with praise and telling everybody how big they are,
how important they are, when nobody knows who they are.
(07:58):
The media makes these people. And then there are others
like me, who snuck up on everybody because I was
I didn't come from the traditional places that successful establishment
people come from, so I snuck up on everybody. Nobody
knew who I was. And when my program began in
(08:19):
August first, it immediately took off. The media had nothing
to do with it. All they had to do was
report on it. But the important thing about that is
if the media doesn't happening to do with making you,
they can't break you. They can try. But if you
(08:42):
as a personal or a public figure in media or
in anything that you're doing, if you develop a successful
business enterprise, that that involves a significant portion of the
public uh supporting you, and if you've built that yourself
(09:04):
without any media assistance, they can't break that bond. Only
you can. And this is something that Donald Trump has proven.
The media has tried to kill the guy for four years,
and they can't because his support is genuine, it is real,
It isn't fake, it isn't manufactured. It did not end
(09:25):
up being created by the media who were telling people, Hey,
this Trump guy is great. You need to experience Trump,
you need to listen to this guy, you need to
watch this, and they didn't do that. Trump built himself
himself with his Apprentice TV show, with any number of
media efforts that he engaged in. By the time he
ran for the presidency, was already well known, and the
(09:47):
media loved him when he was when he was just
an average guy, uh in media, not oriented towards politics,
not not thought of as running for office. They loved him.
But then he runs for office, and of course we
know what happened. They tried to kill him for four
years and they couldn't. They're still trying to wipe him
(10:07):
out and they can't, so much so that the Republican
Party is now Donald Trump's. The Republican Party may as
well be the Maga Party. And it's been the same
for me in a in a much smaller context. The
media has it's been a combination of things. They have
(10:29):
attempted to destroy me, and they have been amused by
me and They have been supportive at times and they've
been destructive at time. But the point is they have
not broken this bond. They have not been able to
convince you that I'm not worth it, that I shouldn't
be getting your attention. Now. They have been able to
(10:52):
limit the growth by convincing people who don't listen to
the program the things that are not true about but
they have not been able to break them on And
even despite all of that, this audience has grown. The
the ratings we're not supposed to talk about this, but
the ratings that happened in the month before the election
(11:15):
across the country for this program, we're unprecedented. Even during
the high points of this program, we didn't even come
close to the ratings we had in the month before
the election. This year larger than ever, like from noon
to three in New York City, the most listened to
show were always the most listen to talk show, but
(11:38):
this was most listened to period. The most listened to
stations in New York are usually music stations, the top
three or four the here we come, but this we
were the top of the top of the heap. And
it couldn't have happened in a better year, and it
couldn't have happened in a more rewarding period of time.
(12:04):
And so one of the things that I've I've attempted
to use today's program far for is to convey my gratitude,
my appreciation, and my and my thanks for everything that
you've meant. You've enabled my dreams to come true. I'm
not saying that I had nothing to do with it,
(12:25):
don't misunderstand, but it wouldn't have happened without you. If
it if it weren't for any of you, all of
this would just be an academic exercise. And I'm so appreciative,
more appreciative of it than I ever thought I could be,
given the circumstances of my life this year. And so
(12:46):
I I have the the opportunity here of using my
own program to try to convey all of the love
and the gratitude that I have for M. Well, it's over,
it's it's the numbers of millions of people are just astounding,
(13:06):
particularly for largely a M radio. Let me take a
brief time out here, folks, before I start choking up
Readings are Welcome back, my friends. It's great to have
you here. This is Russia Limbaugh, the most listened to
radio talk show in the country. You made it so.
I have eternal, never ending gratitude for all of you
for so much. You have meant so much to me.
You've meant so much to my family. You have meant
so much to the happiness and joy that I have
(00:25):
been able to experience. You have been integral in my
dreams coming true, my wildest dreams. When I was a
young kid pretending to be a DJ on the radio,
when I was eight years old, there was a device
called a Remco Caravelle. It was a brand name. Remco
(00:47):
was the brand name. Caravelle was the name of their product.
Somebody sent me one. We actually have one of these
things back in um in one of the supply clausets here,
and it was the most amazing thing. It it's it's plastic.
It was about three ft long and two feet high,
(01:07):
and it transmitted over a m within the confines of
a I don't know, a small house. The quality was horrible,
but it worked. All you had to do was set
it for a frequency that was open. In other words,
there wasn't a real radio station in your town that
(01:30):
was broadcasting on that frequency, and you could do it.
And so I pretended to be a DJ with this thing.
My parents got it for me for Christmas one year.
I pretended to be a DJ and my mother actually
had a radio that you can you can broadcast on
a real radio. I mean, this is it was an
(01:50):
amazing thing. I can't believe it was licensed to operate.
We're talking here, folks in the in the this this
would have been uh, the late fifties, around the turn
of the century. And my mother would dutifully put a
radio on her lap, and I would go upstairs where
(02:11):
the bedroom was, and I would have my photo and
you had to have an external microphone to put into
the speaker of the phonograph that you were playing records on.
You had to move the microphone to your mouth when
you were doing DJ stuff, and then you'd hold the
microphone near the speaker for the phonograph to play the record.
And my mother would dutifully sit down there and listen
(02:32):
to this and the quality was just was was horrible.
It didn't have a whole lot of power. It wasn't
like listening to a real radio station. But it allowed
me to pretend. It allowed me to get started on
on living out my my dreams, and so many people
(02:52):
have been a part of those dreams coming true. I
knew what I wanted to do when I was eight
years old. How did I know, Well, you know the story.
I hated school. It was prison. I just hated it.
It was it was a room with windows, and I
could see out the windows. I could see where I
would rather be. You know, I'm locked in this place.
(03:15):
I'm having to learn about whatever you learn about in
first grade, you know, how to pace things and stuff
in the last place I wanted to be. I just
looked at it as as a denial of freedom, but
being out there. So every morning, getting ready to go
to this prison, this school, my mother had the radio
(03:35):
on and she's listening to the guy, a local jock.
And this guy sounds like he's having fun doing whatever
he's doing. He's playing records, he's doing commentary and the
weather forecast. It sounds like he's having fun. Said, that's
how I want my day to be. I don't want
to begin my day in drudgery and something I don't
want to do. But I had no choice. You have
to go to school either that of the truant officer
(03:58):
comes and it's even us for you. But that that
was how I decided I wanted to be at a radio.
Had a natural affinity for liking music and wanting to
be the guy on the radio playing it for people
and so forth. But uh, up until that point in
my life, I had I had quit pretty much everything
(04:18):
else that I had tried. Like I was a tenderfoot
boy scout for a year. That's unheard of. You move
on from being a tenderfoot. We have to do anything.
But I was a tender or whatever the whatever, the
least amount you had to do to stay a boy scout.
I did the first camp out, I got the gold
Brick Award. The gold Brick award went to the person
(04:41):
least useful on the camp out. Well, there was nothing
I didn't want to do, and so there you you
gotta go do this. Well, I don't want to do that.
Well you gotta do. You're gonna be the boy Scouts.
We're going to camp out. Was gonna be cold. You
gotta learn about camp fires, you gotta learn about rough
brushing leaves up at the bottom of your tent, so
that keeps a cold there survivalist of stuff. Because back
(05:01):
then Soviet you and your knuking, this was a real possibility.
So I just am not into this. Well, why did
you join the boys? Got well? Because other people thought
I needed to do it anyway, things like that I
had quit everything but radio. I didn't quit. And even
though the family didn't understand it, the fact that I
hadn't quit it was enough for them to encourage me
(05:24):
to stay in it. And I did, and all that
happened happened, and it's it's been so rewarding. It has
been so so meaningful to me. And there have been
so many people that have made it possible. Among them
all of you. And so I take the occasion of
(05:48):
the last day of the year that I'm here are
Christmas Show to try to thank you and to share
with you the depth of gratitude and appreciation I feel
for all of you and what you have. And I,
by the way, this is not um It's not something
(06:08):
that's just perfunctory to do. I genuinely have a deep
appreciation for all of you. I feel that I feel
the bond of connection that exists between all of you
and me. It's why, by the way, I recognized immediately
(06:29):
that Donald Trump could win the presidency if he was
serious about it. When he began his campaign in two
thousand and fifteen, when I saw those first rallies I had,
I had lived that, the Rush to Excellence Tour. The
first two years of this program. I did those things
that Trump was doing, and just somewhat similar crowd sizes
ten thousand, fifteen thousand, I think was the largest I
(06:51):
had had in Sacramento, but they were there, and it
was every weekend for two years, uh forty eight weekends.
I didn't to do holiday weekends, but it was the
way I was building the program and establishing a relationship
with all of the affiliates that were signing on and
carrying the program. And I had lived it, and I
(07:11):
saw the way people were reacting to Trump, and because
I had had the same thing happened to me. I said,
this guy can go although he can win it, and
I expected him too, and he did. And also I
learned that this is something exceedingly important for Donald Trump,
even today, when the media has nothing to do with
(07:38):
making you, when the media has nothing to do for
your success, nothing to do with it. For example, there
are a lot of people that the media for some
reason gloms onto and starts doing puff pieces about and
showering with praise and telling everybody how big they are,
how important they are, when nobody knows who they are.
(07:58):
The media makes these people. And then there are others
like me, who snuck up on everybody because I was
I didn't come from the traditional places that successful establishment
people come from, so I snuck up on everybody. Nobody
knew who I was. And when my program began in
(08:19):
August first, it immediately took off. The media had nothing
to do with it. All they had to do was
report on it. But the important thing about that is
if the media doesn't happening to do with making you,
they can't break you. They can try. But if you
(08:42):
as a personal or a public figure in media or
in anything that you're doing, if you develop a successful
business enterprise, that that involves a significant portion of the
public uh supporting you, and if you've built that yourself
(09:04):
without any media assistance, they can't break that bond. Only
you can. And this is something that Donald Trump has proven.
The media has tried to kill the guy for four years,
and they can't because his support is genuine, it is real,
It isn't fake, it isn't manufactured. It did not end
(09:25):
up being created by the media who were telling people, Hey,
this Trump guy is great. You need to experience Trump,
you need to listen to this guy, you need to
watch this, and they didn't do that. Trump built himself
himself with his Apprentice TV show, with any number of
media efforts that he engaged in. By the time he
ran for the presidency, was already well known, and the
(09:47):
media loved him when he was when he was just
an average guy, uh in media, not oriented towards politics,
not not thought of as running for office. They loved him.
But then he runs for office, and of course we
know what happened. They tried to kill him for four
years and they couldn't. They're still trying to wipe him
(10:07):
out and they can't, so much so that the Republican
Party is now Donald Trump's. The Republican Party may as
well be the Maga Party. And it's been the same
for me in a in a much smaller context. The
media has it's been a combination of things. They have
(10:29):
attempted to destroy me, and they have been amused by
me and They have been supportive at times and they've
been destructive at time. But the point is they have
not broken this bond. They have not been able to
convince you that I'm not worth it, that I shouldn't
be getting your attention. Now. They have been able to
(10:52):
limit the growth by convincing people who don't listen to
the program the things that are not true about but
they have not been able to break them on And
even despite all of that, this audience has grown. The
the ratings we're not supposed to talk about this, but
the ratings that happened in the month before the election
(11:15):
across the country for this program, we're unprecedented. Even during
the high points of this program, we didn't even come
close to the ratings we had in the month before
the election. This year larger than ever, like from noon
to three in New York City, the most listened to
show were always the most listen to talk show, but
(11:38):
this was most listened to period. The most listened to
stations in New York are usually music stations, the top
three or four the here we come, but this we
were the top of the top of the heap. And
it couldn't have happened in a better year, and it
couldn't have happened in a more rewarding period of time.
(12:04):
And so one of the things that I've I've attempted
to use today's program far for is to convey my gratitude,
my appreciation, and my and my thanks for everything that
you've meant. You've enabled my dreams to come true. I'm
not saying that I had nothing to do with it,
(12:25):
don't misunderstand, but it wouldn't have happened without you. If
it if it weren't for any of you, all of
this would just be an academic exercise. And I'm so appreciative,
more appreciative of it than I ever thought I could be,
given the circumstances of my life this year. And so
(12:46):
I I have the the opportunity here of using my
own program to try to convey all of the love
and the gratitude that I have for M. Well, it's over,
it's it's the numbers of millions of people are just astounding,
(13:06):
particularly for largely a M radio. Let me take a
brief time out here, folks, before I start choking up
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