This will primarily be of interest to folks who lived in Los Angeles in the sixties and seventies…
Like all of America back then, we always had at least one radio team trying to be Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding. In every town, two guys at some station would pair up (most of the time, a disc jockey and a news guy) and they'd do a show — usually a morning show — with bogus interviews, recurring characters and (always) a fake ongoing soap opera. Some of these Bob & Ray simulators shamelessly ripped off actual Bob & Ray material. Others just took the idea of two guys being funny between records and ran with it.
We had many such teams in L.A., some of which lasted for weeks, others of which lasted seemingly forever. Hudson & Landry were probably the second longest-running act and the first, inarguably, was Lohman & Barkley. Al Lohman and Roger Barkley were a duo for about 25 years, starting at KLAC and then moving to KFWB and then to KFI. Barkley was the straight man and Lohman did the silly voices and while they sometimes came perilously close to doing Bob & Ray bits, I never heard them actually do one. At times, they were very funny, especially when something would happen to knock them off their semi-prepared material.
I wrote some things for them at KFI, more for fun than money since they paid less than what it cost in gas to drive my little jokes down to the studio. They were nice, genial guys but my lasting impression of them — derived from spending a bit of time there and also following their careers — was a deep frustration that they'd become successful in what they knew was a declining industry…and they were unable to parlay that success into anything else. They tried hosting game shows, acting in movies, doing two-person stand-up, recording comedy albums…and nothing worked out but the radio gig. In the early seventies, the local NBC affiliate had them host a late night comedy talk show that was as hilarious and clever as anything I've ever seen on TV. It was basically a talk show where so many things went wrong that they never got around to asking any of their guests a single question. My friends and I were deeply disappointed when it was cancelled after not-very-many episodes. I wish I had copies of them but I've never heard of anyone having more than a few brief clips. I fear those shows no longer exist.
The partnership ended abruptly in May of 1986. Right in the middle of a broadcast one day, Barkley suddenly decided he'd had enough of it. He got up during a commercial, walked out of the studio and that was the end of the act. They reportedly never spoke again. Barkley became a solo radio personality at another station. Lohman tried a couple of different partners but it wasn't the same. Both men have since passed away.
I recently found this little profile piece on them from, it says, 1980. It gives a little taste of who they were and what they did. And much to my surprise, there's a joke in there about self-deprecating humor that I believe they got from me. Or maybe I got it from them. Anyway, it's a line I've been using since high school and I think I came up with it on my own…but who knows? Maybe I heard it one day listening to Lohman & Barkley. I sure wouldn't have been the only person to steal from them. Or Bob & Ray.