Elliot Mintz’s Saturday Night Irregulars
Comments(3) In the way way past, I was one of Elliot Mintz’s Saturday Night Irregulars when he hosted his talk show on KABC in Los Angeles. I was “Jim with the Phone Report”. My friend Richard Ozer was “Richard with the Phone Report (we often gave the weekly report together thanks to our rigged-up conferencing (this was years before 3-Way Calling)). My elementary school buddy Michael Roth would give his Sports Report.
It is interesting to see that one’s future career can often be foretold in primary school. I don’t know what happened to Richard Ozer, but Michael Roth works in sports and I work in telecommunications.
I was reminded of all this when I was cleaning up my apartment recently and came across my 1974 membership card for the American Irregular Guild, a loose-knit club of fellow Saturday Night Irregulars. Elliot would never let us give out contact information over the air, so callers would devise clever ways to give out their contact info. The one that I first heard was something like “Hay is worth 12.49 in Los Angeles, and that’s 90028.” Not in the habit of writing letters, I had my dad look up the address in a reverse phone directory and I called her. Was it the Latvian Radical Bunny Rabbit? I’m not sure now, 30 years later. I searched the web for other mentions of the Irregulars and didn’t find any, so I’m putting up this little mention and wondering if other former Irregulars might be out there somewhere. I should get some of my old airchecks up on the web.
UPDATE:
As a result of this post, I have been contacted by some former Irregulars (Mike with the Chicken Report) and I got back in touch with Richard Ozer.
I also heard from the sister of the Latvian Radical Bunny Rabbit, but she has lost touch with her sister and presumably found this post while looking for her.
Hi,Jim. I’m Howard the Reporter with the Reporter’s Reporr! Email me. I’m having a hard time communicating this way.
“Jim with the phone report” — I remember you!
I wasn’t an Irregular participant myself, but I listened to Elliot’s program religiously on Saturday nights (I was all of 13 years old and didn’t have a lot else going on).
On a whim, I just searched the Web to see if there were any old Irregular listeners out there … so, lo and behold, it’s kind of heart-warming (in a peculiar and nostalgic sort of way) to stumble across your post.
I think I do remember you. Weren’t you one of those guys who was using audio tone-generating devices to trick Ma Bell into letting you make free phone calls to various places all over the world?
In any case, good memories of Elliot’s Sat night show for those of us who were home-bound and hooked on radio. I called into Elliot’s show exactly once, to “interview” him on the air with several questions I had for a middle school writing assignment.
… and yes, I did sort of end up becoming a writer. At least, that’s a central part of the work I do working in natural resources law & policy.
Thanks for your post (of 11 years ago!). It made my day to find it.
I used to listen to Elliot’s show on KABC as a kid growing up in LA. I loved the Saturday Night Irregulars, who came on at 9 after the first two hours of the regular show. Mintz would always give a tongue and cheek sigh, saying, “And now it’s time for…them…” I don’t actually remember any of the callers or the content, just that it was fun and and way better than Ray Briem, the overnight guy back then, who was the pre-pre-precurser to the conservative nutcases who took over talk radio in the decades that followed. Thanks to all you SNIs out there. A great memory.