The gent seen above at left is the late Johnny Olson, the great announcer and the man who brought the concept of the audience warm-up to the status of Fine Art. The gent at right is the current great announcer, Randy West, who has mucho experience at doing audience warm-ups…and you know who else does? Stu Shostak, the host of Stu's Show does! Randy and Stu and producer Bob Illes (who's done a few in his day) will be discussing the art and their experiences today on Stu's Show. At times, it's a thankless job. If the audience doesn't laugh, some producers blame the warm-up guy instead of the program itself…but it's a vital part of any TV show that has live human beings in to watch the performance. As you'll hear if you tune in.
Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there. Webcasts start at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM Eastern and other times in other climes. They run a minimum of two hours and sometimes go to three or beyond. Shortly after a show ends, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a paltry 99 cents each and you can get four for the price of three. Just see if you can get a deal like that when you go shopping for new cars!