98.5 The Sports Hub hosts Fred Toucher and Rich Shertenlieb finally got their opportunity to be guests on The Paul Finebaum Show last week.
Finebaum’s program, in particular the callers, has been a source of inspiration for Toucher & Rich. Paul asked why they love to pull from the show. Toucher said part of it is the fact that Finebaum makes it a safe haven for fans to speak openly and uninterrupted.
“You’re famous, man and you have an extremely unique show that is a testament to your talent because you allow your callers to speak when anyone else would feel the need to jump in,” he said. “You’re like a good psychiatrist you give space for your patients to speak and let out their inner thoughts. It’s great.”
Shertenlieb said what makes the callers so great is often how the greeting between Finebaum and the callers usually go. It almost always involves the caller saying “Hey Paul,” followed by a short delay, then the conversation.
“It’s like they have to jolt themselves awake,” Rich said. “It’s like the Bama fan gerbil wheel in their head needs a shock, and the only way they can do it is by saying, ‘Hey!’ and waking themselves back up.”
Paul asked what in particular makes for a call that they want to use on their show, and Rich said the names of the callers are what typically piqued their interest.
“I turn it on and the first call I hear I go, ‘That’s the one,'” Shertenlieb said. “Just the names of the callers that you have like, Cat Daddy, Squirrel, I think I just heard you talk to a guy named Expired which like, what is the story behind that?”
“There’s no like, here’s Arnold or here’s like Archibald. It’s always like, a guy who’s got some name that’s probably attributed to a dog of theirs that died or something like that,” he added.
Finebaum said making fun of their show and callers seems to be the only other thing Toucher & Rich do aside from talking about the Red Sox and Patriots.
“We talk about you more than the Red Sox,” Toucher said. “That’s fair. That’s fair.”
“I think it’s just when there’s no real sports to talk about, we don’t talk about sports. I think that’s kind of the thing,” Shertenlieb added. “I can’t make up controversies. I’m not smart enough to come up with takes I don’t believe in. So when the callers call Finebaum, let’s have some fun and let’s examine those things like the Zapruder film.”
