Doc's TML: What really happened to Banana Phone
Imagine my heartbreak Monday, when the tarp rolled out and Billy Bob from Burlington was nowhere to be heard. The Banana Phone had been squished. This was an outrage. I plan on making one last appeal, to Bob Castellini or the Supreme Court. I can't decide which. Who's with me?
On behalf of all who appreciate classy radio:
Bring back the Banana Phone. Let it ring-ring-ring once again.
Reds ownership is big on customer service. Wouldn't restoring the BP be a service? Not just to people around here. To all mankind.
A legend of radio has passed into the evermore. We had Marconi. We had Murrow. We had Jim Scott. All, gone. And now the Banana Phone which, for sheer entertainment value, made the rest seem like a day at the smoke factory, inhaling.
For those few, earless folks: The Banana Phone was the preferred means of radio entertainment, when the Reds were in a rain delay. Phone lines would open and sanity would close. Radio, unwashed. It was perfect.
The BP had only a few requests of its audience participants:
If you have brain life, do not call.
If your IQ is higher than a rutabaga's, do not call.
If you think Cincinnati Reds are an amphetamine, here's our number.
All manner of humans would respond. People calling in from the hinterlands, suggesting stupid trades. Troglodytes and crustaceans and extraterrestrials, just wanting some air time with Mardy Brennahan. That included occasionally the Ol' Ball Coach, from Kinston, Naw-clinah, the finest plant in the BP's history who, like Deep Throat, shall remain anonymous until he decides to come clean.
Half the time, I was sure WLW had every ya-hoo from here to Morgantown on speed dial. That would include former Reds closer John Franco. And Adam Dunn. The Big Donkey hisself once called the BP.
I loved everything about the Banana Phone. It was funny in the way scripted comedy never could be. Even the fake callers were so entertaining, I felt let down when they didn't call. The best part, though, was the fawning. I loved the fawning.
"Hey, Mardy. U 'member me?
"I met you once at the UDF in Shurrinville, in 1984. You was getting' some beef jerky and I was in line with a half gallon a butter pecan and some Depends for my mother in law. U 'member that?''
Inevitably, "Mardy'' would say he did.
"Way-ull, I just wanted to say. . . Ah luv yew, Mardy.''
Mardy was not overly fond of the Banana Phone. That's because he's an Old Guy of the Bo Ryan vintage, who suffers no fools, gladly or otherwise. He wasn't unhappy to see it go.
I was unhappy. I appealed to Bob Castellini on bended knee, fighting back tears. I told him that losing the BP would be a ratings catastrophe. I told him the BP made Mardy Brennahan a star.
I knew late last summer the BP was on its last laughs. The yokels and flatliners who called in had seen their last rodeo. Here's why the Banana Phone died:
Late last season, the Reds were playing Pittsburgh at Pretty Good American Ball Park when the heavens opened up. Given the Reds were heavily into the Nowhere phase of their season, the BP offered welcomed levity.
Until one cretin ruined it.
I can't say, exactly, what the cretin asked Marty. Let's just say it was a question involving a certain part of Andrew McCutchen's anatomy, and a familiar clothing accessory.
Marty was dumbfounded. "What did you say?'' he asked.
The BP does come with the obligatory delay. If you say something the FCC doesn't like, the producer has seven seconds to make sure it doesn't air. He caught it the first time.
But Marty asking the guy to repeat himself, well, the delay didn't catch that. And that was it. (Actually, the run-up to that bit of brilliance was a guy asking The Famer if he'd ever had diarrhea during a broadcast. But we digress.)
I made a bottom-of-the-9th pitch to The Big Man, in Arizona in March, pleading across 18 holes of unfortunate golf that he grant executive clemency. I told him that in the lean years, the Banana Phone was the only reason to listen to the games. I sat on my deck on thick August evenings, Reds 15 games out, praying for rain.
When my prayers were answered, probably by Steve Raleigh, I demanded silence. Hell hath no fury like the BP, interrupted.
The Big Man said he'd bring it back. Just to shut me up, it turns out.
We beg you, Mardy, Reds and WLW: Let the BP live on. There will always be a place for Ridiculous in our lives. It looks like a yellow telephone.
TUNE O' THE DAY.Of course.