Steven Gold

September 29, 2010

EN 280

A Little Nostalgia Goes A Long Way

For someone to work in the business that they’ve wanted to their whole life, one would

be considered fortunate. Turning a childhood hobby of collecting sound bites and theme songs

on a reel-to-reel tape recorder to becoming a producer of radio programs without formal training

would be considered unlikely. For Neil Midman, the unlikely became a reality.

Neil’s story of becoming a radio producer didn’t happen overnight. While working as a

manager of a 7-Eleven, “a friend called wondering if I had the Speed Racer theme song in my

collection for a trivia show,” he said. “Of course I did, so I called the station (WUNR 1600AM)

the next day, met Morgan (the host), and the job was mine without any formal training.” With

that, Neil began his production training hands-on. The job he held as a producer for Talking

Trivia with host Morgan White, Jr., starting in 1980, lasted for over thirteen years. During those

years, Neil was an on-air personality and also edited and conducted interviews with a variety of

people, some well-known actors, some lesser known character actors and many others who were

famous voice actors in cartoons.

Talking Trivia was a show that was much different from others. The show focused a lot

on “where are they now?” types of celebrities who made an impression on both Neil and Morgan

in their youth. The show dealt with large amounts of nostalgia, mainly 1950s and 1960s TV

shows. The show was on weekends, initially on WUNR 1600AM, then moving to WITS
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1510AM. On 1510, they worked on a much stronger signal, with some interesting results.

“With the type of signal the station had, it was hard for people in Boston to hear us, but we had a

strong signal out of state. We got a lot of calls and listeners in New Jersey,” he said. For a late-

night talk show (usually from 2-4AM), it got a nice following.

As a result, Talking Trivia moved to WHDH 850AM in 1984. After nearly a year at

WHDH, the network wanted to retool the show. Instead Neil and Morgan went back to the old

station. The show got a pretty large audience for the timeslot, and Neil contends the “best

audience is overnight; we had a nice following of crazies. It was a lot of fun for people to

remember their favorite shows with us.”

Talking Trivia also had many guests on over the years. Neil admits he first attempted to

get Michael Jackson as a guest, but he was unavailable. The first guest turned out to be Soupy

Sales, the legendary comic who had a kid’s television show in the 50s and 60s. “I called him up

and expected to get his agent. He actually answered the phone and we had a great conversation.

He was a great guest on the show.” Special guests were usually from old TV shows like: Bob

Denver (Gilligan from Gilligan’s Island), Peter Tork of the Monkees (the one who was a

musician), and June Foray, a long time voice actress most notable for voicing many characters

on Rocky and Bullwinkle, various Looney Tunes characters, The Flinstones, and more recently in

The Simpsons, and Family Guy. June was one of Neil’s favorites, because “anytime a guest

cancelled at the last minute, I’d tell Morgan, let’s calls June! She was really a great guest and

the audience loved her.” For the most part, Talking Trivia had many behind the scenes people or

lesser known actors as guests, because Neil and Morgan were always interested in the characters

from the TV shows in their childhood. Neil found out that, “so many of our listeners ended up

enjoying the conversations with the actors of the old-time shows.” Not all of the guests worked
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smoothly, though. Neil dealt with many guests who were not comfortable talking about their

careers and some didn’t know when to stop talking. “Some people got defensive with us when

we were asking about their careers, they didn’t get that we were interested in their story. Others

took fourteen minutes to answer one question and would always cut off Morgan before he could

get to another question!”

While many of the guests were lesser known actors, Talking Trivia was able to get

celebrities like Ron Howard and Tom Hanks. Neil’s favorite guest star was in fact Hanks. “Tom

was supposed to have a ten minute timeslot. He ends up staying on the line for an hour playing

trivia, chatting with our callers and even singing the theme song to Green Acres.” Talking

Trivia’s was popular for those who remembered their childhood entertainment and enjoyed

listening or calling the show, either with trivia or talking with former actors from the old TV

shows, or reminiscing about old toys. Whatever topic the show covered, it was a perfect fit for

Neil.

After thirteen years, Neil and Morgan both agreed the show had a good run. When the

show went off the air in 1993, Neil continued to work in the radio industry, this time with small

radio stations in a promotional and advertising capacity. In 1995, his life changed drastically.

One day he discovered a rash on his right arm. In 24 hours, the rash had spread throughout his

body, “I called my sister who worked at Mass General Hospital, and got an appointment; I was

eventually diagnosed with mycosis fungoides,” a common form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

There is no cure for the disease. Neil’s treatments started right away, beginning with a long

stretch of three-day-week chemotherapy. The treatment called for 24 hour recovery after each

day of chemo, limiting Neil to one day a week without therapy. “During the recovery time, I

couldn’t go outside or be exposed to ultraviolet light.” The treatments took a toll on him, but the
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cancer went into remission. Mycosis fungoides can be kept in remission for prolonged periods

of time, which gave Neil a chance to get back on his feet.

Even though he has endured many other medical problems, Neil still puts a positive spin

on things. His love of classic TV and radio opened up other avenues as well. For a short time,

he co-taught a Communications class at Massasoit Community College, which he always found

funny since he “never went to college or had formal training in radio production.” More

recently, he still works part time for small radio stations and has also worked part time at a candy

store. Working at the candy store is another way Neil can have fun with customers remembering

candy they loved as kids. Neil never fails to entertain customers coming into the store.

Looking back, his time working on Talking Trivia was very enjoyable. It was a lot of

work, but it’s what he wanted to do. Neil and Morgan have been great friends since the shows

beginning. Morgan White still works in radio as a fill-in host on WBZ Radio. When asked if

Talking Trivia would be successful today Neil says, “It was a unique show. The format we had

involving many promotions and the ‘Where are they now?’ aspect was great for that time period.

With the internet and the easy accessibility to nostalgic items online, we would have had to have

a different format. For instance, you could go on many websites and see a ‘Where are they

now?’ section. To have a radio show now, we would’ve had to have a format to set ourselves

apart from the many mediums that focus on nostalgic stuff.” He mentioned, “most of the theme

songs I recorded as a kid are so easily found today on CD or online… back then it was rare to

find what I had.”

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