Stephen Battaglio
Author of From Yesterday to TODAY: Six Decades of America's Favorite Morning Show
Works by Stephen Battaglio
Election Night: 1960 1 copy
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As a teenager, I loved to watch The Joe Pyne Show on Channel 8 here in Tulsa for the weirdos he frequently had as guests.
Joe Pyne functioned as a corrosively skeptical Art Bell, bringing on out-and-out cranks, drawing them out and and poking fun at them in his deadpan way. I remember one guest with a shaved head (not so common in 1968) and wearing a ceremonial robe who would periodically retract his eyelids for a moment. I can't remember if his shtick was being a Messiah or an interstellar visitor.
Joe was such a put-down artist, it was a thrill to see him meet his match. David Susskind, who had his own controversial talk show, cheerfully batted away Pyne's barbs. F. Lee Bailey (well-known then as the attorney of Dr. Sam Sheppard, the real-life model for Dr. Richard Kimble on "The Fugitive") made Pyne look like a monkey, to my delight.
The audience members who stepped into the "Beef Box" were often as freaky as the guests. It seemed difficult to make any points against Pyne from this precarious perch, since Pyne usually wound up telling them to "take a hike".
I must be getting old; I don't enjoy any of today's rabble-rousers as much as I did Joe Pyne.… (more)