Col. Burke (US Army, Ret.) is a tactical weapons expert who discusses military strategy in Europe and the Middle East with Bob. Bob is clearly very knowledgeable, and the Colonel is both a tough guy and a smart one. At 9:00 Reagan makes a speech about Iran-Contra, and afterwards Bob hosts open phones about the speech.
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Bob debates Ed Oliver and Bob Carver, professors of theology at Clearwater Christian College, on the historical and logical merits of the Bible.
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What starts as leisurely talk about Lee Iacocca and his new autobiography turns into a heated discussion of the black community in America. And it does so without a full moon, or even a call from Rocky.
DOWNLOAD - Ripley’s Believe It or Not
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Possibly our shortest clip, but important nonetheless. Lassiter’s in the studio with WPLP General Manager George Joachim, for a round of “Ask the Manager,” and the caller wants to know why Bob gave up his Saturday night show.
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One of Bob Lassiter’s absolute masterpieces. He examines the Bible in-depth, beginning at Genesis 1 and continuing right on through, pointing out the contradictions, absurdities, and sometimes even the history behind the stories as he comes to them. A full 90 minutes is given over to Bob’s monologue. Even if you believe the Bible is the literal word of God, you’ll be impressed.
DOWNLOAD - Bible Contradictions and Absurdities
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You’ve already heard roughly an hour of this show, with Bob “interviewing” Q-Zoo cohost Terence McKeever and waiting for the first call of the night. Here’s more or less the entire four-hour show. Check out Bob’s impersonation of David Fowler at the start of the show. Also new in this extended version are an excellent monologue about Bob’s feelings toward Ronald Reagan, as well as the tragic fate of “Terence”’s exit from the studio. Oh, and some truly bizarre commentary from The General.
DOWNLOAD - “Battle of the Bewildered” Extended
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Bob’s discussing both his own contempt for doing radio at night, and his conviction that talk radio is headed down the crapper by its own hand. The ins and outs of the business are discussed, from management to target audiences. There are also two calls, from “Bruce” and “Marvin,” that are actually made by the caller who will become known as The Liar.
DOWNLOAD - The State of Talk Radio
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One of Bob’s most memorable shows at WPLP, he claimed, was the show with Randy “Macho Man” Savage, and here’s a brief snippet of it. Macho Man is on the phone, as is Miss Elizabeth, and he gabs a little bit with Bob and takes some calls in this clip. Bob clearly enjoys every minute of it.
DOWNLOAD - Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth
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Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a new titleholder for “Oldest Clip on the Site.” The 7th birthday party for WPLP was held at the Bay Area Outlet Mall in Largo, just months after Bob began at the station; the end of David Fowler’s show is first, with Bob hanging out and riffing, then the beginning of Bob’s afternoon drive show.
All kinds of interesting stuff happening here: Bob mentions listening to PLP as he’s driving through Fort Myers; he’s still commuting to Miami to do weekends at WINZ (although he’ll be fired two days after this broadcast). Mention of David Fowler as “the most popular host on WPLP.” Bob bantering with Dateline host Mary “Turner,” whom he’s not even dating yet. And what is perhaps the first one-on-one with Tim Coles, whom Bob claims to have met for the first time “about an hour ago.” For us Lassiter-heads, a real coup, and a historic broadcast.
DOWNLOAD - WPLP 7th Birthday Party
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Bob posits that there’s a serious problem with education in America, and that fixing it should be a national priority - only he doesn’t know how to fix it either. There are some calls from people who want to share their experiences in the schools…none of them are particularly confrontational, but are actually pretty intelligent–even the one from an actual high-school kid.
DOWNLOAD - The State of Education
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Don Richards was WPLP-AM news and program director from 1984 to 1988, when he was one of the seven employees fired by new owners Susquehanna Broadcasting. He joined the newsroom at WFLA not long afterwards, and a few years later became the station’s news director, a position he retains today. Don shared with us his thoughts and memories of working with Bob Lassiter at WPLP and WFLA.
In 1985, Bob was doing weekends on WINZ—I guess he had worked at a couple of smaller stations in Miami—and Dave Hosley was the operations manager down there. I was talking to him on the phone and he said, “I had to fire a talk-show host this week,” and I said, “Why?” He said, “Well, listen to this.” And it was a tape, and the line from the host was “Sir, this may cost me my job but you’re full of (expletive).” And it did cost him his job. And Bob came up to us, and we offered him a job, and eventually he took it.
He was engaging, though my recollection was that he probably wasn’t as controversial in the very beginning as he was later on in his stay with us. Bob was wonderfully receptive; he could pick up an idea and run with it. When he was doing afternoons, he’d walk around going, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, how am I gonna get calls, blah blah blah.” And one day I said, “Look, you’re facing Paul Gonzalez” – Paul’s one of those mellow talk-show hosts, “Some people think abortion is murder, others say it’s a woman’s right, what do you think?” That type, who never took a stand—“he’s so bland you could automate the show.” And we both looked at each other and “Aha!” And the Dalbach 2400 Automated Talk Show Host was born. We had a prod guy do bad production: “Today’s topic is—ABORTION.” Just blurting it in. “Some people say—ABORTION—is good, some people say—ABORTION—is bad. What do you think?” And Bob said, “Management’s making me try out this thing.” And some people bought it.
Another day, “I don’t know how I’m gonna get calls,” and I said, “Well, you can always threaten to drown kittens.” I was sort of joking, and Bob got the production guy to go “Mrrowwww” on tape. And he said, “Unless I get calls, Fluffy—Mrrowwww—meets Mr. Bucket”—his wastebasket. And he was off and running. And some woman even called and said, “I can tell by the sound of that cat that it hasn’t been fed and it’s being mistreated, I’m going to call the ASPCA on you, blah blah blah.” But it was fun and you know, as he got a little more into the audience and what it couldn’t stand, he became a lot more controversial.
Bob was sort of the antithesis of the market: he was a Reagan-hater, he had a book of all the contradictions in the Bible; he’d say that people who went off to fight in wars were stupid. And, of course, the brain-damaged snowbirds. So he quickly made a name for himself in the market. But he was a complex man. He could be very funny, he could be extremely serious when he talked about himself, and his Christmas shows….very serious types of programs. But there were times—once when he was at FLA, and I was there, he was talking about, “Should I buy the Cadillac or the Lincoln Town Car,” or whatever. I really didn’t understand how that could relate to anybody—people like to know that talk-show hosts and people they admire are successful. He was probably just rubbing his success in the audience’s face just to provoke them. Bob certainly could provoke.
Bob was complex. For example, we did some research and found out that people wanted more weather. Why, I don’t know; unless there’s a hurricane coming, or it’s exceedingly cold, down here the weather just doesn’t change that much. But they wanted more weather, and you generally try to give your audience what they want. “Hey, Bob, can you read the weather on the :40 break?” “No.” Pause. “No, can’t do it.” And off he went. Well, as time went on we discovered that Bob was in character and felt that coming out of character to do the weather would destroy the flow of his program so we left it alone.
(Bob did not use that same argument on paid endorsements.…)
He would sometimes would be very blunt and abrupt and he would sometimes open his heart to you. Bob could be very inventive and very creative, and often was. There’s the famous New Year’s Day night show that he did–$10,000 just for listening, $50,000 for calling, and “Hey, you’ve won a trip to Paris!” And the board-op, poor Mike Serio, is every now and then on a recording that says, “He’s lying, don’t believe a word of it.” I thought the disclaimer could have been a little stronger, so I spent most of that evening trying to get in touch with Bob. Somewhere I have that night’s discrepancy sheet from the Board-Op saying, “Tried unsuccessfully to get host to talk to PD.”
The impact of what he did came in—well, example 1, Bob was deadly afraid of personal appearances, at least when he was with us. I mean he did not like them at all. And we did one down at WestShore Mall, you know, at which he was very well received and all, but he insisted on cops being there, and I talked to him before they went on—they just did a host roundtable—and he was sweating bullets. He was really afraid. I mean this was not too long after the murder of Allan Berg, a talk-show host in Denver, and this may have weighed heavily on him because he was controversial and he didn’t stand for what the audience did.
For example 2, Bob did endorsements for a medium-sized restaurant called the Longshoreman, and the restaurant was populated by the VFW and After-Church type crowd, and all of a sudden, Boom! They found their clientele dropping instead of going the other way. He was endorsing it and people were telling the restaurant “Hey, go along with that and forget about me coming back!” He paid a little price for his being outrageous.
Bob did have good ratings, but our sales staff at the time had a very hard time selling him. There’s a line, which did not apply to Bob, but you can be the most popular talk-show host in the unemployment line. FLA had more success in that particular regard.
He was a complex man; I know some things he did for people that other people don’t know about, that were really quite generous on his part. And then there was a time that Sue Treccase, who’s the assistant ops manager at FLA—I guess he wanted some time off for Christmas, and the answer was no. And he came on the air and said, “Management couldn’t tell me ‘no’ to my face; they sent a little girl with a crooked leg to tell me.” Sue had told him, and Sue had multiple sclerosis. He did that on the air, and we met at the coffee pot later, and I said, “Bob, be very glad you don’t work for me anymore. Because if you did, you wouldn’t.” I don’t know if he ever apologized, but I’m told he later regretted that remark. And that was the two sides of Bob Lassiter.
Bob went off, of course, to ‘LS, and then he went to ‘SUN and came to us, but by that time he was a different Bob Lassiter. I’ve heard some stories about his days in Chicago and his professional relationships, and how they weren’t too pleasant. He came back and perhaps he expected things to be the same, but he wasn’t the same and things weren’t the same. I had no part in the decision this time, of course - I was just the morning news anchor - but they decided not to renew his contract. I sort of remember him grumbling over the coffee machine, “They haven’t been talking to me,” but that’s about as in-depth as it got.
I don’t think you can fairly talk about Bob, though, unless you talk about his love for Mary. Mary Toensfeld came to us out of Iowa - I guess Guy Gannett owned some stations there - and she left there and came to us and Bob was there. And it was sort of Bob being a nervous-type suitor, I think, which I don’t think “suitor” was really a Lassiter role, but they hit it off. Mary could run a broadcast company with half her brain tied behind her back, to coin a phrase. She’s an incredibly sharp woman. And she was our bookkeeper, and they hit it off; I was at their wedding. They really had intense love for each other. But she stuck with him through thick, and I guess, toward the end, the thin. But she was just an incredible woman, and in my humble opinion the best thing that ever happened to Bob Lassiter.
Remember the chaotic show where Bob announces he’s leaving WPLP at the end of the week? Well, our recording of it is now 10 full minutes longer. It starts with a call from that beloved crackpot, Tom in Lutz, and has 8 more minutes at the end - the 8 final minutes of the show.
Of course, there are still almost two hours of the show that aren’t part of this clip. Anyone have some of it?
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Early on in Bob’s tenure at WPLP he did Saturday night shows in addition to his regular afternoon-drive slot. This is a clip from one of those shows; it’s open phones, and topics include marriage, Norman Rockwell, profanity, and the New Testament. It concludes with Bob telling the story of how he got his start in talk radio.
DOWNLOAD - Saturday Night at WPLP
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This quick clip features a “Lassiter for Senate” promo made by Gordon Byrd, as well as Bob fielding a few calls about his fake Senate platform (not to mention some automated calls). Again, we can pinpoint this clip to shortly before the 1986 congressional elections.
DOWNLOAD - Lassiter for Senate
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Tim Coles drops into the studio to give Bob an engagement present and to bury the hatchet - he wants to be better friends with Bob. They take calls regarding the Florida gubernatorial debate that happened earlier in the day, and are pretty cordial in their discussions; sometimes they argue but it’s always pretty friendly. Disappointing, perhaps, but interesting nonetheless. (Special thanks to Jeff Irving for helping with the sound on this clip.)
DOWNLOAD - With Tim Coles
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