Car Talk Part 2
Getting Started on Radio
Glenn M.: I understand you’ve been in radio for 30 years. How did the radio show get started?
Ray: It’s been 31 years, actually.
Glenn M.: Who's counting?
Ray: I am. Thirty-one and six days.
Tom: We got a phone call from someone from radio station WBUR. We were doing the do-it-yourself thing. We were spending a lot of money on advertising, because who had ever heard of a do-it-yourself garage? No one!
Anyway, who ever called said, "We're doing a show next Saturday about cars. We're going to invite six mechanics to come and talk about cars. Can one of you guys come?" So, I jumped right on that, because that was an opportunity to not go to work! My stupid brother said, "I don't want to go." I said, "Hee, hee, hee." So he worked, and I went to the radio station.
Of the six mechanics they had invited, the only one who showed up was me. So I was a panel of one. We talked about cars for 10 or 15 minutes, and there was a guy from the station with me. What was his name?
Ray: I think Vic Wheatman. We'll tell you about Vic in a minute.
Tom: After 15 minutes, I said to Vic, "I've said everything I can say. Is there any chance we can take phone calls? Maybe I can answer some questions." He said, "I think we can do it. Here's the number." We gave out the number, and the phone rang off the hook. For the next hour and 15 minutes, I answered questions. He said, "That was great. Can you come back next week?" I said, "Can I bring my dipshit brother?"
Ray: I didn't know he had another brother! What a surprise.
Tom: And that's it.
Ray: So Tom invites me to go back to the station the following week. I said, "Ehhh, I don't want to do it. I don't know anything about radio."
We thought this Vic Wheatman fellow was going to be the host -
Tom: Ohhh, yeah.
Ray: You forgot this part.
Tom: I forgot that part.
Ray: Because neither one of us had any experience in ...
Tom: ... in anything.
Ray: ... in anything, let alone radio. So, we figured Vic Wheatman was going to do all the intros and out-tros and all that radio stuff, you know. It turned out that Vic Wheatman, in the intervening six days, had gotten fired. He was gracious enough to leave a note encouraging us to do a good job - and to try to watch our language ...
Tom: ... which I guess, I didn't do the week before!
Ray: We didn't know what to call the show. There was a show that was on just before us called Shop Talk. That show was about stereos and whatnot, a couple of very knowledgeable guys. So, we figured we'd call our show, what? Car Talk.
We started doing the show, and thank God, people called in. Without those phone calls, I think we would have lasted about another week, and that would have been it. So Tom has done one more show than me. So he started it off, and we've done 31 years of it.
Glenn M.: Did you get paid?
Ray: For most of the early years we did not get paid. We figured it would drum up business for the shop, which was at an all-time low.
Getting Paid at NPR
Glenn M.: Twenty years on NPR, and how many listeners do you have?
Ray: Well, probably a fewer now, after that physics mess-up, but somewhere around 4½, 5 million.
Glenn M.: Five million people each week!
Tom: You wouldn't think there were that many stupid people!
Ray: The first few years that we were on we didn't get paid. That was the secret to our success. If they aren't paying you, there's no incentive to get rid of you, really. Then we were on long enough so that we were like the senior members at WBUR ...
Tom: ... and we still weren't gettin' paid!
Ray: We still weren't getting paid, but as new people joined the station, they'd say, "We can't get rid of Tom and Ray. They've been here longer than the furniture."
Tom: About 15 years ago I moved from one house to another. In moving, I found all kinds of stuff. I found a cigar box with a check from WBUR.
Ray: A paycheck?
Tom: It was a paycheck for the radio show. You know how much it was worth? Ten bucks. They were paying us ten dollars ...
Ray: I was only getting five!
Tom: Oops!
Ray: You were getting ten bucks a week?
Tom: Ten dollars a week. We're making 50 dollars a week now.
Ray: So we did manage to survive. Nobody really knew what to do with us. People would come and go, and we'd survive one station manager after another -
Glenn M.: By the way, the current station manager, Cory Lewis, went to UMass.
Ray: You UMass guys are everywhere!
Forming Dewey, Cheetham and Howe
Glenn M.: Do you produce the show?
Ray: Yes, we own a production company.
Glenn M.: What's the name of that company?
Ray: Dewey, Cheetham and Howe.
Tom: It's a law firm.
Ray: Does everybody know where the name Dewey, Cheetham and Howe comes from? We stole that name from the Three Stooges. And, of course, we didn't know that. Sometimes you hear things, and they're rattling around in there. Then they come out, and you think that they're yours. And so, we decided on the name when we opened up our office, which is right in Harvard Square.
We decided to hire someone to put the gold-leaf lettering on the glass window, because that looks really professional. So we hired this old guy, and he painstakingly applied the letters. On move-in day Tom, Doug Berman, our producer, and I were waiting for our office furniture to arrive. All we had was a card table and three folding chairs. We were having our weekly meeting when there was a knock on the door. The place is bare empty, the letters are on the window; ... the table ... the three chairs. There's a knock on the door, it's a young guy and a girl.
The fellow sticks his head in and says, "Excuse me. I saw your sign from down the street. What do you all do here?"
And Tom says, "We're attorneys." I said, "I'm Mr. Dewey, this is Mr. Cheetham," and I pointed to Doug and said, "That's Mr. Howe."
And the guy says, "Oh, really, you're attorneys. What kind of law do you do?"
"We do everything - accidents, divorces, real-estate, you name it; acquisitions and mergers; we do everything."
He says, "Oh really? Do you know there's a joke in your name? You don't get it? Dewey, Cheetham and Howe. You don't get the joke?"
We look at each other, quizzically, "Nope, nope."
"Yeah, Dewey, Cheetham and Howe. You don't get it?"
"No, we were gonna call it Howe, Cheetham and Dewey, but Dewey, Cheetham and Howe seemed to flow better."
He says, "Ohhh." And as he's closing the door, we could here him say to his girlfriend, "What a bunch of dopes!" True story!
The This Old Car Idea
Glenn M.: Ray, I remember a conversation we had year ago about a potential TV show called This Old Car.
Ray: That was our original idea.
Glenn M.: What happened to that idea?
Ray: This Old House had already been established, and we went to them and thought that we would do This Old Car, which seemed like a great idea. We would take an old car, a different one every week, we would show people how to do a brake job, etcetera, etcetera. We thought we’d have some fun; just what we do on our radio show. We actually did a screen test, and that's what did us in. They saw these faces, they said, "No. Not happening."
Tom: Faces made for radio!
Ray: So we knew where we should be, and that's where we stayed. We've been very fortunate to be on National Public Radio. They've really stood behind us through thick and thin. It's something that probably wouldn't have happened had we been on a commercial station. When you have commercial sponsors and say something bad about their product, that's pretty much the end of your career. We have said bad things - not to hurt any of the manufacturers, but in fact, to goad them into doing a better job.
Tom: They've all threatened to sue us.
Ray: Oh, oh yeah, many times.
Tom: And we tell them to get lost.
Glenn M.: But you get new cars each week.
Ray: Yeah. For a while, some of the companies withheld the cars, because they thought that would be punishment. We said, "Well, you can withhold the cars if you want, but I don’t think you want us to tell our listeners that a certain manufacturer didn't want us to drive their cars because they're angry at us."
So now we drive everything, and the chips fall where they may. The truth is, I think the American manufacturers have done a much better job with quality. They've got a ways to go. They just have to get that economy thing figured out. We need to get our cars to get 40 miles a gallon. We're very supportive of all the legislation trying to move that up. The faster we can move that up, the better off we'll be.
(Applause)
On Becoming a Rock Star
Glenn M.: Years back I remember seeing you on The Tonight Show. How did that all come about?
Ray: I think that was 1988, the first time we were on. I believe Johnny Carson was still hosting. We were dying to be on the show. I loved Johnny Carson. As it turned out, it was one of those weeks that Carson took off and Jay Leno was filling in. We actually did The Tonight Show twice with Jay Leno. Jay is just a wonderful, warm and generous guy.
When we went back the second time, he insisted our families come. We had a big entourage join us. Jay got front-row seats for everybody. It was fun.
Glenn M.: Then you were eventually on Letterman and all these other --
Ray: We did Letterman, 60 Minutes, 20/20
Glenn M.: You're rock stars.
Glenn M.: And, you’ve written a couple of books. You even sell hats and other Car Talk merchandise on your Web site.
Ray: We do. We're cleanin' up Glenn!
The Cartoon Series
Glenn M.: You've got a cartoon series debuting in a prime time on PBS, is that right?
Ray: Yes. That's the network that no one watches, PBS.
Glenn M.: What is the name of this cartoon series?
Ray: As the Wrench Turns.
Glenn M: What's the story line going to be about?
Ray: Each episode is a half hour. When they air these things, they're going to air two in a row. So starting at 8:00 on July 9, they will show one episode, and it will quickly be followed by another. That's how the thing is going to work.
All of the episodes start with our taking a telephone call in the studio. We come up with some kind of hair-brained idea, which we then carry in to the shop.
For example, we develop a car that runs on pasta. You use pasta for fuel, and we call it the Fuzilli 500. And, of course, it gets like 38 miles to the pound of pasta. But we don't have enough pasta in this country, so what do we do? We contact our relatives in Italy.
We said, "Gino, Mario, we are your cousins from America. We need help, we need pasta."
They say, (Italian accent), "Boys, a-for you, we do anythin' you wan'. We senda you all the pasta you wan' because-a we love you."
So, they're sending pasta, and the Fuzilli 500 is achieving unbelievable success. Sales are skyrocketing and it's the talk of the town. Suddenly, the pasta shipments stop. The cousins from Italy call us.
"Boys, you 5 percent of the world's population, but-a you usin' 25-a percent of the world's pasta! We gotta riots in Italy. People go to the stores and there's a no pasta."
So that's one of episodes. They're all little allegories; they're all little moral lessons.
Tom: And we thought this would be a good idea, because we could still be making money, be home and not have to work.
The Car Talk Song
Glenn M: For each of these interviews, I have a general sense of where I want to start the conversation, where I want to end it, but not what's going to happen in between. So I'm trying to think, What question do I want to ask as the last question.
Ray: That could have been it!
Glenn M.: No, no. I decided I wasn't going to ask you a question.
Tom: Good.
Glenn M.: I'm going to ask you to sing a song.
Ray: Really?
Glenn M.: Yeah. Here's the song I want you to sing. I'm going to give you just a few minutes. This is completely unrehearsed.
Ray: Do we have musical accompaniment, or is this a cappella?
Glenn M.: We'll have some musical accompaniment.
Glenn M.: Are you guys ready?
Tom: How the hell do we know?
Glenn M.: Let me say … you guys aren't dressed for this. Wait, wait, wait. I have a costume for each of you.
Ray: This is the “embarrass the guest” portion of the program.
Ray and Tom:
(Sung to the tune of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”)
Take me out for some car talk,
Take me out for some laughs,
I need a Lexus or Cadillac
They don't care if we ever get back
It's toot, toot, toot right down Mass Ave.
Dewey, Cheetham and Howe
For it's Tom, Ray, all of the guys
Cheering Go U Mass
Glenn M.: Thank you all for being here.