06/07/2017
Mark From Anaheim Political Sarcasm 101
KTLA - Los Angeles, California (1949)
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“THE FIRST SHOCK JOCK”
“……Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1924, Joseph Edward Pyne was the son of a bricklayer. For years, he stuttered. He was the kind of kid schoolmates mocked. In 1942 the newly minted Chester High School graduate joined the Marines. Shipped to Okinawa, Private Pyne won three battle stars for valor in combat, plus a Purple Heart for a shrapnel wound to his left knee. After the war he cured his stutter by enrolling in a drama school…….Nearly forgotten today, Joe Pyne ran roughshod over America’s airwaves in the 1950s and ’60s. A charismatic bully in a jacket and tie, he grilled hippies, Black Panthers, 'pinkos,' 'fairies' and 'women’s libbers,' practically inventing the attack interview. The New York Times called him 'the ranking nuisance of broadcasting...hitting a jackpot by making a virtue of bad manners and wallowing in the cheap sensationalism of an electronic peepshow.' To Time magazine he was 'Killer Joe, host of a tasteless electronic peepshow.' By 1968 Pyne had more than ten million viewers a week—comparable to the audience Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Megyn Kelly combined to reach last year...... His first TV talk show flopped, but a stint on Philadelphia’s WVUE-TV made him locally notorious. KTLA-TV lured him to Los Angeles with an offer of $1,000 a week—more money per year than the Yankees paid Mickey Mantle. Soon Pyne was a top-rated talk show host in the nation’s second-biggest market. ……” ~ Smithsonian Magazine (June 2017)
