Transcript
Exploring Wisconsin’s Hidden Gems and Pop Culture Mysteries (Hour 2)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Mon Aug 25, 2025
Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay, this is Night Light with Pete Chwaba.
Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.
And now a guy who prefers to travel by catapult, Pete Chwaba.
I hear there are rough landings.
Yeah, I know.
Those catapults can be dangerous.
Well, yeah, not a lot of fun unless it's, you know.
Well, anyway, she got
a trampoline
or something to land on
or
a net.
This is John and Gordy filling in for Pete Schwabba today.
That's right.
John Peterson, Gordy Young, live from our studio here in Madison, the WMDX headquarters, the global headquarters of Civic Media.
That's right.
But Conrad is with us.
Good afternoon.
Good evening Conrad.
Yes.
How's it going guys?
So far so good, but it's early yet.
We just
started.
We started down the hill here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Pete's gone tonight
and
tomorrow night and then he'll be back Wednesday.
Nobody knows where he is.
It seems to be a mystery.
I have a feeling
by tomorrow night I will be the
new Godfather of Green Bay.
Oh wow.
Is that right?
Really, you're taking over.
By tomorrow
night, yes.
I'm gonna have to practice the pack arena.
Okay.
Oh good,
good to know.
Thanks
for the warning.
You know, you don't know until tomorrow night.
So we'll find out.
We got a lot of stuff to get to, a lot of media stuff and some great interviews.
We've got some great guests coming up a little bit later on.
That's right.
Well, our very own Todd Alba,
he'll be here.
We're gonna talk to him a little bit about, you know, the big celebration of life for Bob Uker over the weekend that took place at MFAM.
and some other things about late night television.
Sure.
Things like that.
Well, we work out of the
same studio, but we never ever get to talk to him or even get him on our show.
Well, we work different hours,
you know.
Right?
I hope so.
We're here really early in the morning.
We work at the same time it would.
That would be crowded in here.
Yeah, we're here from six to eight a.m.
He's
here from what two to four?
I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we're going to talk to Todd in a little while and also Tom and Christie Mannis.
There's some great travel writers and they've got a couple of books that are really good.
We've had them on a couple of times now on our morning show and they'll be in a little bit later.
Yeah.
They've got a terrific book called Secrets of Wisconsin or Secret Wisconsin.
I guess it is a guide to the weird and wonderful and obscure.
And then they have this, uh, their original book, historic Wisconsin road sides, great little places to go all over the state.
So that'll be fun.
Uh, we'll get into it with them.
Yeah.
Well, let's talk about, uh, the movie theaters.
Okay.
I mean, we have the greatest movie theaters in the Midwest.
You see a lot more movies than I do.
Yes, I do.
So
you've been, what did you just went
to see?
I just went to
see the Fantastic Four.
Yeah.
Big thumbs up.
Conrad, you like superhero movies,
right?
I love that film.
It was fantastic.
Yeah, you and I agree on that film.
One of the great things about the Fantastic Four, this particular version of it, was just like a comic book.
I read those comics.
I had the original comics.
I just sold those damn comics for a lot of money.
But it was just like reading the comic book.
It was it was that good.
It didn't go into a lot of theatrics.
It was just typical Fantastic Four fighting a villain.
and winning, you know?
But Galactus is, you know, pretty big.
Pretty big
villain.
So, you know, I was wondering how they're going to beat Galactus.
I mean, he is like, you know, 300 feet tall and eats worlds, consumes them.
Now, was this a remake of an earlier movie or is this the?
Well, there are a number of different fantastic forces throughout the decades.
But this is the best one.
I like this one a lot.
But, you know, it's centered on a baby of all things.
I never thought Galactus would be the fatherly type, but in this movie, that's what he was after.
Don't give away any spoilers to
those of us that haven't seen it yet.
You know, my son, my oldest son, it's Gen Z. He hates any kind of spoiler at all.
Even the previews, even the trailers, he won't watch them.
Really?
Yeah.
Doesn't like that.
Yeah.
Conrad,
you
liked
it, huh?
Oh, I loved it.
Like John was saying, it's just like the comics.
That's why I loved it so much.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It is really great stuff.
And by the way, the thing looked like the thing that Jack Kirby used to draw in the old days.
I mean, it was just the way he looked.
And a lot of those scenes in the movie were right out of the comic strip.
I mean, the colors, the loneliness that you could feel, Ben Grimm feeling as he was walking down the streets.
It was just really, really cool.
You know, I got goosebumps.
My kids didn't care that much about it.
You know, they wanted more of a spectacular superhero movie.
I just liked the way it was.
I mean, they were a stable.
I mean, they were just, you know, you could count on them being who they were, every single issue.
And that's what this movie was like.
Okay.
Have you seen any other movies lately?
You're gonna preview for us here or review?
Well, I'll say that I watched Wednesday, the second season of Wednesday, The Addams Family.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
And that was fantastic.
Really?
Yeah, I haven't checked out any
of that.
Where do you find that?
That's on Netflix.
Okay.
Yeah.
Conrad, is it time to do the question of the night?
Is this
where you do that?
Is this where we do it?
I think so.
Here we go.
Let's talk about the question.
Okay, question.
Question.
Question.
Question.
Question.
Okay, I have a question.
Questions.
This question.
Question.
Questions.
All right.
Conrad, take it away.
What's the question of the night?
You've got the question.
Yeah, in honor of Banana Split Day, what is your favorite sweet treat?
It
can
be anything you want, you know?
All right.
Boy, I like a good hot fudge sundae.
I'll go with that anytime.
You know, I'd go for a banana split.
I haven't had banana split in years.
Decades maybe 40 50 Wait, I'm not that old.
I think they still make those a Dairy Queen.
I know
I
ordered I just never think about getting one Conrad.
What's your favorite?
I gotta say it's you know one of those cookie sandwiches where there's ice cream in the middle.
Oh,
yeah
Yeah, and Eminem is in that cookie too on top and bottom.
Oh, so good.
So
good.
Yeah
So we can take calls and texts, right?
If people want to pipe up about what their favorite sweet treat is,
right?
Well, thanks.
Thanks for stopping me.
I almost kept going with this and I'm going to give everybody's answer in my answers.
I'm just going to keep talking about my favorite.
Okay.
Well, look, I'll tell you what, you know, banana splits is a cartoon.
All right.
And do we have that song?
Do you have the song anyplace?
Anybody have the song?
Do you have it?
Tom, do you have it?
But you can't play it.
Do you have it?
I can
play
it
here.
Conrad?
Yeah, I can play it.
Oh, OK.
Give it a twirl.
Yeah, let's do it.
There you go.
This is the one without the
lyrics apparently.
Here they come.
There we go.
The banana splits were on Saturday mornings,
right?
Yeah, they were on Saturday
mornings.
You know, again, you know, the banana splits were in these costumes, mascot costumes.
And I hated it.
It was just so fake looking.
It was stupid.
I would have much preferred animation, but all the guys in the classes in high school love banana splits.
Are you kidding me?
I was on the outside
looking
and
again.
That was a dumb show.
It was kind of based like, it was like the monkey's TV show.
They tried to be.
They tried to be.
But they were running around in these
costumes.
And it was really aimed at little kids.
It wasn't aimed at teenagers.
Don't you think?
Well, tell the high schoolers I was going to school with.
Really?
They loved it.
They liked it.
They liked it.
They talked about it all the time.
They talked about the episodes.
And maybe they just did that so they didn't have to talk to me.
You know, I'm beginning to think that's it.
We've got a text here, John, from Catherine Lake.
Our station manager, and she says, my teenage child loves Wednesday.
You have two Gen Z boys.
What gives?
They like Wednesday?
What demo
is this meant for?
That's the
question.
I don't know.
I think
it's meant for everybody.
I
mean, if you
watch the old Annem's family in the 60s,
then you'll probably wanna watch this.
And if you're not familiar with Adam's family at all, then this is a great introduction to it.
I think Netflix did a great job with this.
And I'm spacing the director of this.
Do you remember?
For Wednesday?
Conrad, do you know?
You don't know, do you?
No.
Okay.
We got another
text.
He did Nightmare Before Christmas.
Oh, oh.
Tim Burton Tim Burton.
Okay.
Yeah, Tim Burton writes and directs there.
So it's great.
We got
another text in here from Pennsylvania.
Yeah creme brulee.
Can't
beat it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Creme
brulee.
Is that the right way to say it?
I don't
know.
And okay, also yay, Sid and Marty Croft.
And that's right.
Sid and Marty Croft did the
banana splits.
They did
that.
Yes.
And they had done what else they had done?
Oh, I was like them.
It wasn't
the Muppets, but it was something
similar.
It was very similar to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Well, anyway, you
know, give us a call
855-752-4842.
That's 855-752-4842.
What?
I think we have time for just one story here.
All right.
And I want to get to the one inch TV again.
We played this on our show.
People couldn't believe it.
It was just amazing.
A one inch TV cut 14 if you can queue that up.
And we could all enjoy listening to what it's like to have a one inch tiny TV.
Let's hear it.
Today I'm towing with a tiny TV that lets you change the channel where the channels are your saved video.
But it doesn't just play each file from the beginning like a media player, they start in the middle like you're watching a live broadcast.
The Tiny TV 2 keeps track of how much time you've been watching, and whenever you change the channel, it starts the next video at the same time stamp so you can channel surf like a pro.
It even comes with its own Tiny IR remote, a tiny 2 hour battery, and 8 gigs of storage for about 10 hours of video.
You charge and upload videos over USB-C that you'll have to shrink them first on a desktop.
It's quick, but the app sadly doesn't let you queue up multiple videos at a time.
Oh, and you might want to remove the tiny remote's button battery as it tends to drain even if not in use.
Oops.
Hmm.
Okay.
Remember when we had these old, tiny TVs?
I do.
Yeah.
They were like transistor radios.
Yeah.
With a long antenna that didn't get any TV stations.
Right.
They were crappy.
They
didn't work at all.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was awful.
It was.
And the picture was terrible.
Yes.
When it did receive a picture at all.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You really still couldn't see it.
Yeah.
The screen didn't.
It was not.
Did you have a color one?
I had a color
one.
No.
Mine was just black and white.
Oh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, Jim's been on the porch of the town.
Okay.
Hey,
you
know what, come on, we're gonna talk about the commercials that you see at the movie theaters.
Oh, yes.
All right.
That's a big controversy now, right?
Yeah, there's a good side and a bad side to all of this.
We'll get to it in just a few moments right here.
Yeah, and a little bit later on, we're gonna talk to Todd Alba about Bob Uker and everything else that the Milwaukee Brewers are up to.
Man, they're hot this year.
And Tom and Christie Manus will join us a little bit later on on Nightlight.
with Pete Schwabba, but Pete's not here.
It's John and Gordy from Madison.
We'll be back with more after these fine words from our beloved sponsors.
The Civic Media Radio Network, John and Gordy filling in for Pete Schwabba tonight.
Yes, it's night light.
Listening to a little bit of Frankie Valley in the four seasons there.
It's been a long time since I've heard that.
I didn't see that at the end of the Broadway play.
Oh, the Jersey boys?
Jersey boys.
Yeah, it's a
great play.
I've seen it.
It'd be great.
Oh, you have?
Oh, yeah.
It's
like the greatest hits of the...
It's four seasons.
Yeah,
kind of their backstory.
And, you know, they came up in a rough way.
Yeah, there were some gangster
involvement.
Yeah.
Anyway, yeah, I saw it up at the Palace Theater in Wisconsin Dolls a few years ago.
They were there destroying the clean cut vision I had of them.
Four seasons.
That's the end of that story.
You know, we asked the question of the night earlier, what's your
favorite sweet treat?
Yeah, let's get to some of
them.
Getting a bunch of them here.
Susan from McFarlane says, guys, good to hear you in the evening.
And hello to Conrad.
It's always nice to hear you on the air.
Anyway, love the banana splits with hot fudge that cracks when you hit it with a spoon.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's a good taste.
And also a little caramel on there for just the right creaminess.
Tom in New Berlin says chocolate of any kind.
Steve from Florida, checking in from Florida.
My favorite sweet treat is anything chocolate, especially hot chocolate chip cookies out of the oven.
Oh yeah.
Oh man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Doesn't get much better
than that.
Or chocolate of any kind, I guess covers it.
Yeah.
And John from Madison says, welcome to the show, John and Gordy.
Love your morning show and never miss French.
French soak pie is my number two favorite, but Hershey bar with almonds is my go to.
Yeah.
I have to have something sweet before bed.
Well, that's not good.
Is it?
Eat my dessert late night.
Usually a Hershey
bar.
Yeah.
Okay.
A little story here, my younger, Jen Zier, has always been a very giving kid.
And he was always just giving stuff out to his older brother.
And he would do that to me.
And he knew that I liked a certain candy bar.
And it's the almond joy.
I love coconut and almonds on dark chocolate.
Man, that is the die for.
So every time now,
He lives in the apartment above our ours.
He comes home shopping and it gives me a big bag of almond joys.
Does he really?
Yeah.
Oh, that's nice.
He gets me, he's still
that kind of kid.
He's thinking of, thinking of his old man.
That's
nice
of him.
Okay.
That's why I have the good I have today
now.
He's just kissing up to you because you don't, you know,
he doesn't want
you to raise the rent.
Right.
What's, what's me to fix the mirror in the bathroom or something like that?
Maybe so.
All right.
Let's get, let's get to this.
This is a big issue now.
AMC theaters decided to put more advertising in before the movie.
Okay.
Yeah.
More commercials.
They cut a deal with an advertising group and they were going to put more ads in.
Okay.
And they even had a disclaimer saying that don't worry, the movie will start 25 to 30 minutes after.
the ads begin.
That was really they said that 25 to
30 minutes of commercials.
Not a
lot of people liked the whole idea.
No.
So AMC is walking that back a little bit, especially get this after the executives at major movie studios quickly became angry.
On top of the extra ads, AMC would also still be showing its branded pre show stuff.
and it caused a delay in starting the film and leading theater goers, get this, to avoid showing up at all early to the movie theaters to see the theater trailers.
You know, that's where you see the next movie coming up.
That's where you get excited about seeing your favorite characters.
You know, their movie is about to be released.
So yeah.
Yeah, I like the trailers, but
not the commercials.
The major studio said, wait a minute.
blowing these people away.
Right.
And moviegoers, uh, you know, hit X and A complained about it.
And they said, uh, that they would simply begin showing up at the theater half an hour later and miss all the trailers and all the great ads.
Uh, they, one person said, they want me to pay to sit and watch 30 minutes of advertisements.
That's dumb.
Yeah.
And plus everybody shows up then much later and it's harder to find a seat.
I
mean, it's very confused, you know,
Well,
that's a lot
of confusion.
Here's the positive side to the story.
Okay.
I've got Gen Zers and they're not real quick.
They're not real fast.
You know, they're very relaxed.
They play games all night, wake up late in the morning, if in the morning, maybe in the afternoon.
But here's the thing.
They always wait till the very last second to leave for the movie.
I mean, when the start time of that movie is in the paper, you know that that's the time we should be there.
Right.
But they look at it as the time to leave.
Leave the house?
Yeah, leave the house at that time.
And it or even a little later.
So they're freaking me out.
You know, I don't want to miss the beginning of the movie.
Right.
Right.
So,
uh, you take separate cars, you and
your
wife go in one car and they go in another.
Yeah.
No, no, that doesn't work.
But here's the thing.
That's, that's the positive side for me with these ads and even more ads for far as I'm concerned, I can get there and probably even get some popcorn.
You know, we're always running into the theater and we get free popcorn because we're part of the, uh, the club at the Marcus theaters.
Sure.
And, uh, I never get free popcorn.
And I love popcorn, it's the only reason I go to the movie theaters most of the time.
Not for the movie, just for the popcorn.
No, who knows what the movie's gonna be like.
Wow, okay.
So have they responded, the movie theater chain that said?
The chain said they're backtracking on that.
They're not gonna add all those ads now.
Oh good.
It was a bad move.
The movie studios did not like it.
The fans did not like it and everybody's going to show up late.
That's no good.
No, it's not.
We got a couple more texts here of people that still love their sweet treats.
Okay.
Oh, I mentioned that.
Sure.
And love the Dairy Queen Blizzard says Paula from Florida again, peanut butter cups.
Dairy Queen Blizzard with peanut butter cups.
Oh man.
Make him be hungry, just thinking about it.
Okay, when we come back, we're going to talk to our buddy Todd Alba.
We'll get his dessert.
Yeah, we'll find out what he likes.
What kind of ice cream treat or whatever he likes.
And we'll talk a little Brewer's baseball and Bob Uker.
It's all coming up on Nightlight with Pete Schwabba with John and Gordy sitting in on the Civic Media Radio Network.
The Trava is taking a restful night off a couple of nights off.
John and Gordy in the morning, filling in in the evening.
We work at the WMDX, the mothership, along with Todd Alba, who is in our studio right now.
We never get a chance to really talk.
So it's good to see you here, Todd.
It's
great to be here, guys.
I'm excited.
It's always fun to be a nightlight with the love of Conrad, as
Pete's fond of saying.
Up there in beautiful, beautiful WGBW studios
up
there.
And now I can, yeah, we see each other.
I've been on your show once or twice.
I called in once from the street
one
time.
That was
fun.
And normally when I'm on Nightlight, as Conrad knows,
I
try to find an interesting location to appear from.
But my travel budget has been greatly curtailed.
So the choices,
I thought, well, what can I do as funny?
I thought I could come in via my phone from the crapper.
That might
be kind of
funny, but I thought, no, probably not.
And so all you get is me here at the desk.
But I have, and I didn't even hear the question of the night.
What
is it?
What's your favorite sweet?
Well, yeah, what's your favorite sweet treat, basically?
Right.
I had,
I heard the guys at the beginning of the show
and I
thought.
Well, I guess it'd be kind of, you know, fun to go down to the popcorn store a block away and bring popcorn for everybody.
I went there, but he was closed.
So I
heard I heard John talking about his love for popcorn.
But without even knowing here, great minds think alike.
I went to the little candy store down the street.
Kill kiwi is kill one
kill wins.
That's it.
Yeah, it's kill wins.
Yes.
That's good
stuff.
Yeah.
So I brought you all a little dark chocolate.
Oh, I
love talking about my last date.
I'm talking about
Look
at that,
what a catch
by Dom.
And
Conrad, I'm sorry, we'll have to send some up there to Green Bay.
So
yeah, I'm a big dark chocolate guy.
How about you guys?
Same here.
Love dark chocolate.
Well, you know, I like the almond joys with the dark chocolate on it.
Sometimes you feel like a
nut.
Yeah.
Sometimes you don't.
And dark chocolate's really good for you, actually.
A lot of antioxidants.
So thank you.
So I enjoy,
yeah, you're welcome.
I enjoy watching a movie theater.
I too enjoy popcorn.
But a little bit of sweet with the salty.
I think that's good.
That's
a
good idea.
That's a nice balance.
I've never tried that before.
I mean, way back in the 60s, I used to get the slow pokes because they took a long time
to eat.
Do
they make those anymore?
I don't think so.
I don't know if they do.
I don't think they make slow pokes anymore.
So, we wanted to have you on to talk a little bit about Milwaukee Brewer Baseball because they're hot and, you know, they're having a wonderful season, although they lost yesterday, didn't
they?
Yeah, they lost yesterday, but, you know, my four years playing high school baseball, my D1 scholarship baseball in college, I'm quite the authority on baseball.
You know what it was?
I was the manager for high school baseball.
Which high school?
Richland Center High School,
South West with RCHS.
Okay, the fighting what?
The Hornets.
The Hornets, that's right.
I love Richland Center.
I know I have a lot of people.
I know your ears don't make up there.
I've been to WRCO a few times when it was in the old place.
The old place that got flooded, right?
Remember that?
Oh, yeah.
That's why I got my start.
I was in high school, 17 years old.
I was stupid enough to say, I'm not going to work at Hardee's.
And a kid with a speech impediment walks into the WRCO and Ron Fruit gives me a job.
My first job of radio was engineering and folks that was actually a thing back in the day where you had to pot down or turn down
the network feed from
WTMJ.
Because if you, that went out over the air, you got a call from the boss saying, what the heck are you doing?
So you had to pot, you had
to
turn it down and you played the local, you know, WRCO.
And then you had to actually hit the commercials.
They were on what people would know as an eight track tape, a cart as they used to.
And then you had to play the local commercials and then turn it back up.
And so hearing Uker and at the time Pat Hughes,
that was my first job in radio.
Yeah.
And so you watched all the festivities over the weekends.
The Bob Costas hosted a thing there at Amfam Field.
And they had Robin Yacht there and a number of other celebrities.
And that was great.
I've only seen the highlights.
I didn't see it live.
So it
was still cool.
I broke down a couple of months ago and bought my $19.99 subscription to FanDuel so I could watch the games.
And so what I'll do is I'll have a home.
I'll watch on FanDuel and then I'll turn on
the Brewer's radio broadcast.
It doesn't
always quite sync up, but I like Levering and Grindel and Josh Mauer on the radio.
And yeah, I watched it and it was particularly, well, it was just done so well.
Yeah.
But it was really cool.
I know the Conrad and Pete last week talked to our mutual friend, Sean Hannish, the director, one of the producers of Just A Bit Outside, the story of the 1980 Milwaukee Brewers movie, along with Kelly Call, one of the producers.
And those two, Sean Hannish and Kelly Call, did all of the video work.
So all the video that you saw, if you were watching it on FanDuel, and I think Zommer's our producer this afternoon said, for those of you that might
have missed what Gordy was talking about, you can go to the Major League Baseball YouTube channel and they've decided to put it up there for free and you can watch the entire our plus ceremony for
free on the MLP YouTube channel.
We didn't see it, but I'd love to see that.
Go back
and look because Kelly and Sean, and they talked about this off the air a little bit with us last time they were on, they caught the family and the brewers when you could pass away.
There was a private ceremony.
I think in April, if I'm not mistaken, and they asked Kelly and Sean to put together a 15 minute compilation for this very, for this private service.
It was the family, it was the Brewer's organization, and kind of the who's who broadcasting, like Al Michaels was there, Bob Costas, and they did a 15 minute version of this.
And so the Brewer's, when they were gonna do this, a celebration of life, came back and said,
Well, you guys put together a compilation for this day.
And so they, I know they were there yesterday at ampam field and, and they said it was really surreal to see their work up there.
It was quite an honor to be asked.
And I thought it was just, it was a plus
stuff.
Yeah.
Where can people see that movie now?
Just a bit outside.
Well, thank
you
so very much for asking.
I get no wealthies
off
the field.
I love talking about it.
because it captured, I mean, I was alive in 82, I don't know,
you guys
were.
And it did something to this state to bring people together and robbing you out and Paul Mauler, Paul Mauler, all those guys.
Anyway, to answer your question, you can see it for free on Roku and the Roku channel.
Or if you have Apple Plus TV, you can find it on there.
You can either just watch it or you could buy it.
Or also on Amazon Prime.
So you could buy the DVD as well.
I own the DVD.
Talk to Todd Alba here and John Gordy filling in for Pete Schwab.
Do we have that Euker clip that we played earlier this
morning?
We have it.
Conrad has it.
Conrad, why don't you go ahead and play
that?
We cut 22.
All right.
That sends one to right.
Sutter indeed!
Get up!
Get up!
To me Bob Euker just symbolizes the joy of summer.
Sitting on our front porch and bringing up a little transistor radio and dialing up the old AM station.
83 beautiful degrees of game time going.
Here it is.
Strike called.
And we are underway.
Cooking out brots and hamburgers with family and friends just always on in the background and became a familiar part of the
family.
Summer's out fishing and there's my dad and there's Bob on the radio calling
the game.
His
old side stories that he would go on, that's where the magic was.
If you didn't enjoy baseball, then you didn't like sliced bread either.
Brewer's head for Arizona on their up and coming trip.
Out there you can hold a hot dog out your car when doing cooking.
Can't hit a curve ball with four baseball bats and a tennis racket too.
All you got to do is turn the die on.
Q-Curve was always there.
Through the radio, I felt like I was literally there.
Throwed out motion, the passion, excitement, and the cold.
We're going to smash up the metal base!
Thanks for listening, everybody.
Thanks for being Brewer fans and we'll get
together again.
It's hard to even imagine anyone liking any other team except for the Brewer's.
Yeah.
Right,
Gordy?
Yeah.
Well, Cubs long suffering Cubs fan here, but, uh, but, uh, what I loved about Pat Hughes, you know, he spent all those years with Euker and you can still hear some of that with Pat Hughes.
I mean, completely different style, but he still has the same kind of sense of humor, a little bit of a lot, a lot of inside stories.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's been play by play with the Cubs for, I don't know, 20 years or at least Terry Kerry passed away.
Yes.
Yes.
That's right.
Well,
I remember Merle Harmon, I just throw that in.
And you guys probably remember, well, I'll be maybe, maybe Gordy didn't listen to a lot of Brewer's broadcasts back in the day.
Well, I moved to Wisconsin in the mid-70s, so yeah.
I
mean, even when the Brewer's were not great, I was thinking about this this morning to get Ray Farr show.
I think one of the starkest memories for me of Yooker was at my grandparents' house on East Hazeltine in Richland Center in the summer.
And my grandparents didn't have air condition in the house at the time.
The windows would be open, that summer breeze would be blowing in, and grandma would be fixing, you know, freezing strawberries or freezing corn.
And my grandpa would be doing quote unquote book work at the kitchen table.
And on their kitchen radio, there was Yooker.
And calling these games,
And it's just something that immediately takes me back to my childhood and this sense of comfort.
And even when the brewers were not great, that's usually when Yooker was at his best, telling all these great stories and being the entertainer that he was.
But to Bob Costas's point yesterday at this celebration at Ampham Field, I thought this was really good and important.
He said, yes, everybody knows what an entertainer and comedian Yooker was, but take all of that away and just his abilities
as a sports broadcaster should put him into a Hall of Fame
alone.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He knew the game really well.
Yeah.
It was
just a ton of his voice.
Right.
Just how easily he called those plays.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
And just.
He
was
an everyday guy.
And as far as being a comedian, I mean, his appearances on the Carson show were just legendary.
I mean, I think he was on there more than anybody else.
He was like the number one guest, right?
Incredible.
And you can still find all that stuff on YouTube.
They're just as funny now.
I mean, they, they, they're, you know, timeless.
For those that, you know, go to Google or whatever, dial it up, Norm MacDonald and, and already,
I can't think of the last name.
Artie Lang?
Yes, Artie Lang.
They were at Howard Stern, but Norm MacDonald came on Letterman and told these great stories and he cleaned them up for broadcast.
But just how Euker would just be hilarious alone.
And I think it was John Fogarty or somebody was playing, was in Milwaukee and Norm goes up to the booth and Euker's like,
Yo, you know, uh, you know, uh, John Fogarty is and it was, and just back and forth was hilarious.
Yeah.
Good stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well,
the one thing you have to do watch the Johnny Carson Euker clips.
Yeah.
Look at the deadpan.
The deadpan face of
Euker.
I mean, he was just a Mr. Straight guy all the way.
Yeah.
That's
great.
Yeah.
Only one of
them.
That's it.
Well, Todd, thanks for joining us.
Oh, it's
a pleasure, guys.
Yeah.
Always good to see you.
All right.
Hey, Conrad.
Yeah.
Conrad, I think fell asleep.
All right,
thanks, Tom.
We appreciate you guys.
Well, it's great having you here.
Yeah, it really is.
And when we're coming back, we've got guests coming up in our next hour, Tom and Christy Manus.
We'll tell us their Wisconsin road.
Stories and a whole lot more.
They've got some great secrets to reveal
him.
Stay with us.
Yes.
It's night light in a civic media radio network.
This
is
Night Lights with Pete Schwabba.
Only Pete's not here.
Yeah.
It's John Peterson, Gordy Young, and Todd Alba has stuck around here.
We asked him to, we convinced him.
We twisted his arm.
We twisted his
arm.
He wanted to leave.
He couldn't wait to leave, but we made him stay.
Already a guy with an open microphone.
Oh, can you please stay?
Phone
lines are open, by the way, if you want to jump in on a conversation, 855-752-4842.
And we wanted to talk to you a little bit about late night television because there's some changes happening since CBS announced that they're parting ways with Stephen Colbert.
Is that just the beginning of late night television changing?
It seems like everybody's... What do you think?
You've got it
inside.
I don't know.
I don't know.
You know some of these hedgehog shows.
No, not
really.
I don't know.
Inside, we had a guy from Cracked.com on the show.
I was
going to tell
you.
Last week, who does follow this and kind of knows some people in the industry.
And, you know, I think he had an interesting take, which was, his take basically was, was it was Colbert canceled on CBS just because
Trump wanted that as a part of the quid pro quo for his FCC to approve the Paramount Skydance merger that was waiting, maybe, maybe, but he thinks it's really a larger shift in late night.
Now CBS claimed that they were losing $40 million a year on Colbert.
They
find that hard to believe.
I just don't think that.
I didn't either to Keegan.
But I think that if you look at Colbert,
kind of a goofy, long time nerdy steward or student of late night television.
I grew up on Carson and and then Letterman.
Same here.
And, you know, that sort of thing.
And so I think that if you look at modern late night, right.
You guys were watching James Corden, when he was
in the Late Late Show.
He actually warmed up to that show eventually.
Me
too.
Because I was a big Craig Ferguson fan.
And well, back in the day, you guys remember Milwaukee native Tom Snyder
was the
first host of
that
show.
I just saw a clip on YouTube of him handing the reins over to Craig Kilbourne, who took over.
And I love Tom Snyder because it was just two chairs and conversation, which I love, which
I'm not sure.
smoke.
Right,
cigarette smoke.
Right.
But James Corden, most recently, with the carpool karaoke, it all became very YouTube-ish.
And so they were clips, video clips, that could be put out on YouTube or Insta or TikTok.
And he had this huge social media following.
As I understand it, I think it makes sense.
The current iteration of late night hosts out there, you've got Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyer and Jimmy Kimmel that Colbert is probably the least of that type of show.
There's not a lot of Instagrammable stuff that's put out there.
And that may have hurt him to some degree.
I think, you know, I heard just now on, not now, but a couple of days over the weekend.
I'm not sure if it was awful announced either a cost cutter or a court cutter I follow some of these sites entertainment
Yeah,
and they're saying that Paramount the insiders is saying now that Paramount is gonna cut two to three thousand jobs Coming in late October first part of November.
How can they do that?
It's just you know it
becomes all that really counts is the dollar sign and not so much the quality of what they put out.
So that's a really long way to answer your question.
I hope it's not the end of late night.
I don't think it's going to disappear overnight, but I think it's certainly changing.
You saw Seth Meyers got his band cut over there late night and
now he doesn't have a regular band.
You think that maybe a lot of this late night stuff will be on streaming channels?
I
think that's the way it's
going.
I mean, there's a lot less whether it's radio or television.
there's a lot less appointment viewing like when we grew up and everybody said, oh, I watch, you know, ER or, or, or Grey's Anatomy or MASH or whatever, uh, that, or Dallas.
I mean, that, that Cosby show, uh, friend, that appointment television, cause everybody just wants to watch it on demand, their convenience on their, on their device.
So I think that late night, some of that's going to move to.
Yeah.
to stream it eventually.
We'll see.
Well, I'm kind of on pins and needles here worried about the daily show.
I want to keep seeing the daily show.
It's it's a regular and they've got some the best comedians out there right now doing the show.
So
it really
is
horrible
to see
that
go.
There's rumors that Colbert may go to MSNBC possibly do that.
Really?
Yeah.
Or you mean MSNOW?
Yeah, MSNOW, the new name.
It's the
most ridiculous rebrand
I've ever heard.
I don't get that.
I can't
somebody was calling it PMS now.
Miss now.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, it's a changing landscape and you're right.
Yeah.
There are very few appointment television shows anymore.
It's sad.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In a way, I
guess just I'm getting older, but I like the idea of being able to talk to my friends and family and we all watch the same thing.
I mean, now it's all about live sports.
I mean, those are the things that kind of communal appointment television or radio, but yeah.
It's all moving to the stream, guys.
And I've got a physical on Friday to check my stream, so we'll see if I survive.
Well, yeah.
We'll let us
know.
Keep us updated on
that, will you?
I hope everything comes out
OK.
Thank you very much.
Where are we looking for?
It takes so long in the restrooms here.
OK.
And
they're
like, why did we ask all of all to stay around for a long
time?
Yeah, well.
How do you not that?
I don't know.
Looking for something.
So we're just about out of time.
I gotta say
that, you know, I thought that Colbert was much better doing his character that he did with the Colbert report.
I thought he lost a lot of edge.
And I don't know why he got rid of it.
I just, I don't know.
Network executives said, we want you to be yourself.
We just want you.
Maybe, maybe, maybe he wanted to do it himself.
Yeah, could be.
Maybe he'll bring it
back
on
stream.
That would be fantastic.
Could be fine.
That would.
Well, Todd, thanks again for sticking around.
Our pleasure.
Thanks for the talk.
Whether it's live in
the morning or on the stream, John and Gordy is the place to be.
Appointment listening.
Wow.
Thank you.
Thank you.
There'll be a little something extra in your check this week.
Oh, God bless you.
Save that.
Pink slip.
That's Todd Alba.
It's John O'Gordy filling in for Pete Schwabba and Night Lights.
In our next hour, we'll talk to Tom and Christy Manus about their travels all over the state.
And a whole lot more on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Stay with
us.
Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay, this is Night Light with P. Chwaba.
Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.
And now a guy who loves the sin but hates the sinner, P. Chwaba.
He's not here.
right now.
He's somewhere, but he's not here
tonight.
Well, he's off tonight and tomorrow night and we'll be here for him
instead.
That's John Peterson.
I'm Gordy Young, filling in from our Madison Studios here.
Beautiful state street right outside the window.
It's been gorgeous all day long, I guess all across the state.
Yeah, it's just a beautiful day.
Some good weather.
It feels like fall is in the air.
It's
great to be out in the yard, you know,
feeling that.
Breeze and we've got Conrad, Pete's producer with us.
Everything going okay back at headquarters there.
Oh, it's going fantastic.
We've got a couple of texts here.
Why don't we get to those?
Yeah, let's see.
We've
got this is our big question tonight.
Yeah, your favorite sweet treat.
Right.
And you can call us or text us at 855-75 Civic.
That's 855-7524842.
We got a text from Monica in Mount Horrib.
says I also stop at Killwinds.
Oh, she's talking about, well,
that's where Todd Alba
stopped.
And he says, she says, uh, every time I'm on state street, I go to the overture and get a caramel covered Oreo or chocolate dipped Oreo.
If they don't have the caramel, that's Monica and Mount Horup.
Uh, Mike from cottage girl.
My favorite is two scoops of vanilla and a waffle cone, simple and pure.
And a second vote for the cream brulee.
Yes.
Cream brulee.
And
yeah,
so you can call us or text us and put in your vote or whatever you'd like as a sweet treat.
You know, if you feel like a little bit of an adventure, you can head out to Aldi, the grocery store, and check out the frozen food section because they have actual German desserts in there.
They don't
have them.
They don't have them there all the time.
So you just.
get in there, check it out, because they have, you know, the German chocolates and the German cakes, they're not really, they're not full of sugar.
Right, they're not as sweet.
Yeah, and they're, yeah, they're, they're cakey and they're just wonderful, just great stuff.
So check it out.
You'll find a great dessert there and one of them will become your favorite, I assume.
You're making me hungry
again.
This is usually I've had dinner by now.
Yeah.
You know, this is so weird because we do the morning show here in Madison on WMDX.
You know, you can tune in on the Civic Media app if you'd like.
We're on from six to eight AM.
And so this is really weird being up this late at night and we'll be back here tomorrow morning for our morning show.
A little bit later on, we'll be talking with Tom and Christie.
Manus, they've got a couple of books out
all
about Wisconsin and they've taken many road trips to many unusual places.
Oh, yeah, and we'll have them in in a
little
while.
So, yeah,
that's all I got.
That's fine.
That's great.
But let's let's again talk about the movie theaters.
Okay.
Yeah, you know the commercials and the trailers, right?
Yeah.
Well, if you've gone to a Marcus theater, you've probably seen the president of
Marcus organization corporation and that's Greg Marcus.
He does these little trailers of his own he
does
intros to the it's very entertaining I gotta say it's
pretty wild and I and I have to say that he his appearance with Spinal tab was something else
Well, they've got their new movie out soon,
right soon.
Yes, and that's coming out on September 12th
Uh, but he, he was right there with spinal tap standing there.
All, all of them were standing there and he would throw a few sentences in and they would respond to him and it was just, uh, it was, it was kind of funny.
You know,
I'm going to have to check that out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I'm looking forward
to that movie.
It's a, it's spinal, spinal tap to the end continues.
Of
course,
it's final tap.
You know, that's what I'm thinking.
You should have been John and Gordy.
The end continues.
Oh,
that's what we should have named the show.
Yeah.
See?
I mean, we've been doing this for like 50 years.
It seems
like it.
All right.
I think Paul McCartney's in this, in
this
movie, and Elton John and a few other notables are making cameo appearances in it.
It should be very entertaining.
So
it's even going to be an IMAX.
Can you imagine watching it in IMAX?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Um, but of course, you know, this is one of the longest pre promotions I have ever seen in my entire life.
How long have they promoting the fact that this is coming out of September 12th?
Come on guys.
Well,
they had to re-release the original Spinal Tap and, you know, I guess they
spruced
that up, right?
They cleaned it all
up.
It's all digitized.
So everybody had to go to the movie theater and see it for 20 bucks.
Right.
So, you know, catch the first one if you hadn't seen it before.
It's like going to a concert.
That's what it
was about.
They've been promoting it forever.
For at least a year.
Yeah.
Right?
Right.
Well, that's kind of, you know, it's going to be a lot of fun to see that and see how these guys aged.
Of course.
Well, I've seen, I've seen a couple of trailers on TV at this point.
Yes.
And, uh, Oh, I,
you know, I have a
Harry Schurer, you know, he does a great radio show at his show has been a
show.
I have a clip.
Do you?
I do.
All right.
It's cut 19.
Why don't we play that?
Okay.
Here's Harry Schurer.
All right.
Well, no, it's
it.
We now say formally of the band, formally known as Spinal Tap for legal
reasons.
Well, what happened?
You can't use the word Spinal Tap and talk about
it.
You can't use
anything.
You can't even say formally of.
Spinal tap formerly of the band formerly known as
formally of the band
formerly known
as Spinal tap will all make sure and the piece would jump in correctly if I Well, you can you know
if I got it
wrong fix it in post now.
Okay.
No, no, we leave it in I think we just leave it in always is are we live?
I think we're not live, but we're alive to tape.
I have
to tape
you know
tape never was yeah
No,
we're not.
There's no
live and there's no tape but we're live
to tape.
But we're live to tape.
Big
of the yeses isn't exactly what I'm trying to say.
Big part of driving out of my mind.
How could I leave this behind?
Ladies
and gentlemen, Rob Ryder was doing this special called the TV show.
It was a satire of everything on television.
And one of the things we did was a late night rock and roll show.
And we introduced this band, England's loudest
band.
It was a live performance that then segued into a very pretentious mini-video with a pig-faced judge and smoke and devils and all that crap.
We started talking about what else we could do with these characters and that's what
pushed us forward.
Library of Congress put it in the National Film Registry.
This goes to 11.
It's in the Oxford English Dictionary.
It became part of our culture.
This goes to 11.
Is in the dictionary?
Is it really?
Yes.
Okay.
Wow.
All right.
Can't wait to see it.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's gonna
be good.
That's
good.
Harry Shearer being interviewed there by Paul Schaefer, who
also is in the
original movie, and I think he's in this one too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rob Reiner.
Yeah, they brought the whole band back together again.
Good for them.
It's crazy stuff.
Yeah.
All right, now let's talk to, let's talk about another series that's gonna come out.
This you wouldn't have thought would be a series because it's Blade Runner.
Oh, yeah.
And this time it's called Blade Runner.
2099.
Yes, 2099.
Do you remember Blade Runner, the original Blade Runner?
Yes.
And it took place in 2019.
Oh, is that right?
That was the future that they
portrayed in LA.
Okay.
2019.
Wow.
The very first Blade Runner, which was out in 1982.
So
now, of course, there was one in between now.
It was Blade Runner 2049 with Ryan Gosling.
Okay.
You didn't see that, right?
I didn't see that one.
Well, lucky you didn't.
Really?
Not a big one?
Maybe they'll have an edited version of that.
A little long?
Well, there's something about movies nowadays where they just don't want to edit anything anymore.
You know, they want to
leave it all in, right?
Because they've done away with the director's cut thing.
Now they just leave all the stuff in.
It's already director's cut or an uncut.
So there it is.
Okay.
So this is going to be a big deal.
It's going to be a series on Prime and and it stars Michelle Yeo.
No kidding.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She seems like was that almost seems like she's in everything.
Well, that's a good question.
I don't actually have a time that this will debut.
But you know, the thing here is, you know, with these long
Movies now you a lot of people on all these streaming services all these shows are much longer than they need to be because and and the streaming thing like Disney plus right and and then HBO Max They they weren't ready for streaming
They thought they'd do it because Netflix was doing so well, so they thought, let's do it.
And it became very difficult for them to produce the shows and make the money.
They were losing money hand over fist.
Now Disney Plus has decided not to do any more series, because it's just too expensive.
didn't work out.
And my tip to everybody who might want to have, you know, a binge night or two, check out Disney shows, the superheroes, the Marvel Universe, check those out back to back, binge them, do not wait in a day or two days, just see them all together because they make sense and they flow and it doesn't seem long or tedious.
Okay.
All right.
And skip over the end credits if you can.
Yeah.
Now at Disney plus is also putting out.
Yes, the new Beatles anthology series Oh, they are now the video I've been I've been monitoring this
this
development.
Okay, and I want to tell you as a lifelong beetle fan, okay?
All my life.
I've loved everything that the Beatles have come out with
I and everything I believe you
You have to convince the audience.
Okay.
Well, just, you know, take my word for it.
Okay.
But from what I'm hearing on this anthology thing, we've officially reached Elvis country with the Beatles now, where they are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Some stuff because I've
heard a few, you know, bootleg cuts and, you know, and there's some stuff that they still have in the archives that would be worth.
putting through the AI generators and cleaning up, like some of their stuff from their years in Hamburg that got recorded.
It's never really been officially released, but because of the quality, the audio and the screaming and all of that.
And some of that, that's what they should be putting out.
Yeah, the live recordings.
They've got a lot of other stuff that is just snippets of, and it's just, so I'm not...
I'm not really on the edge of my chair waiting for this new anthology series to come out.
I mean, I'll give it a shot and check it out.
Sure.
You sure you're not looking forward to the Christmas greetings from the Beatles?
I've heard those.
The collection.
It ain't that great.
Oh, no.
I just say it.
I remember them too.
Yeah.
And I, you know, I mean, I feel bad saying that, but.
Because usually all their stuff is top shelf.
And they did clean up free as a bird and real, real love.
And
I've heard those.
I've
heard one of those.
It's okay.
You know, the voices are a little bit better.
It's not great.
What was the song
they just released?
They put the video now and then.
Now on that.
Yeah.
It's a good song.
Yeah.
Now that got released on the real, on the red and blue releases that they put out last
year, I
think they put
that on
there, which was really kind of odd because it had nothing to do with the red series or the blue series, but they just threw it on there as a bonus cut.
Like, what do we do
with this?
You know,
let's
throw it out there.
Maybe it'll increase the
sales,
but.
Yeah, but they are going to do something on Disney plus with the and you remember the anthology series
that was on
ABC Yes, and it was a point that was appointment television because we hadn't seen you know the
remaining recording sessions and where they were interacting with each other Paul and Ringo and George
everybody a little
Little tense
of
course because that's what he did Yeah, and those were good.
Yeah, and that was that was a great series was
a good series But yeah, apparently there's some stuff that's coming out from that series that Disney plus and the Beatles
Wow,
meaning
Beatles
are you to say that that I know I
feel bad even talking about it
I
feel
sick.
Sick to my stomach.
When you want some Tums or
some Pepto, I think
we
got
some
in
the first
aid kit.
Okay, 19 minutes past the hour.
Phone Lens are open 855-752-4842.
When we come back in just a little
while here.
We've got a guest, Tom, and Christy Manus.
Yes, we'll be back on the Civic Media Radio Network.
It's night light.
Pete Schwabba, John and Gordy, sitting in.
Stay with
us.
with Petraba, he's on vacation.
John and Gordy in the morning, sitting in for
him.
That's right.
We're going to be here, uh, rest of this evening and tomorrow night as well.
In eight, he'll be back on Wednesday.
And, uh, Tom and Christie Manas are back in the studio with us.
Good morning or good afternoon.
Good evening.
What, uh, what time is it?
I forgot.
Yeah.
We had you in early this morning.
Now we're having you in the evening.
It
seems like late night.
Yeah.
To you.
Yeah.
Oh, hey, let me do it.
Here we go.
We
got your mic on.
Okay.
All right.
Yes.
So you were out.
So we had you in the morning and then you went out and took pictures.
Is that what you did?
We did.
Yeah.
Did you get some good shots?
Well, it's hard finding things that aren't here anymore.
So we
thought maybe we would
find things that represented things that we wrote about.
So we went to an antique store today in
Madison.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, we found a few things that might
work.
Which antique store?
On Cottage Grove Road.
Oh, OK.
OK.
I thought maybe you went to Atomic Antiques.
Oh, what's that?
Oh, it's a real kitschy antique store near where Nakoma Plaza used to be.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
I should
have recommended it.
If
I'd known you were going, I would have recommended that one.
Yeah.
Well, I did find
a swatch today, though.
Oh, really?
Which
I was really excited about
because we have
this nice collection.
And I found one and I got it for $12.
It's not real old, it's only 2005, but it's still
unique.
I have a few of those.
I love
them.
I collect watches.
Well, now I don't because now I have a digital watch.
I have a smart watch and I've got 80,000 faces on this darn thing.
Well, that's
kind of cool
too.
Yes, it's very
cool.
So
the two of you have two books here.
We do.
And one of them is Secret Wisconsin and the other one is Wisconsin Roadside Attractions.
John, there you've got it.
And which book came out first?
The Secrets.
Secret Wisconsin.
So that's our first baby.
Yeah.
When did this come out?
Just a couple of years ago, right?
Two years ago.
Yeah.
I was looking through this a little while ago and a couple of things caught my eye.
First of all, for all the bowlers out there, Turkey's in the basement in Milwaukee, right?
The Holler House.
Tell us about this place.
That's a
pretty special place.
This is in Milwaukee, right?
It is.
That is a, it's well, first of all, it's the nation's oldest sanctioned bowling alley.
And when you pull up in the neighborhood, you know, it's just a, it's a bar.
And when you go downstairs though, there's two lanes.
And it has
the
original wood floors.
And the owner was joking every year when they get inspected, he's holding his breath hoping they pass to keep their recognition.
But it's also known because a lot of famous bowlers or a lot of people in the music business like to come and bowl there and they'll rent the place just to themselves.
I think there's only two lanes in
it.
Yeah,
that's what
the picture looks
like.
Yeah, there's only two lanes in it.
And Glen Fry from the Eagles is one and Jack White from Jack
White and the White
Stripes.
Yeah, they love to bowl there.
And also another fun fact about Jack White is he's a mad upholsterer.
He loves to upholster.
Furniture.
What?
Yeah, it feels strange.
He's even got a little business in Nashville
that he does
that on the side.
Apparently it's peaceful and he enjoys it.
Well, you know, maybe Trump would like him more now that he knows he's, uh, you know, an upholsterer.
Because he said some nasty things about him and Jack was responding to him.
That's right.
Yeah.
Oh, I didn't know
that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And now another one you have in here is the hideout Al Capone's Northwoods hideout complex.
Oh my gosh.
He had a few, didn't he?
Yes.
This
one, he nobody really knows where this is.
A lot of people have written about it and they've written about the wrong place.
Oh,
really?
And
I'm the type of person, if I'm going to do something, I want to research it and I want to know that it's factual and that's what's going on.
So
we fact-checked.
We found it and we drove up there because it's not too far from Eau Claire.
A beautiful day in February.
We went up there and we found it.
We're so excited.
We got stuck in a snow drift
and no salt
service, no anything, but there's turrets out front.
It's really cool.
I mean, he used to land his planes on his private lake.
His float plane.
Now, I didn't know Al Capone had a brother.
Oh,
up in Mercer.
Ralph Capone.
Yeah,
he... Yeah.
Doesn't ever got the... He didn't get the publicity.
But he owned and operated the Rex Hotel in Billy's Bar in Mercer.
In Mercer.
Until the 70s when he died.
Yeah,
he tried to hang kind of low.
You know,
I mean, with a brother like that,
you kind of want to change his name.
No,
really.
But
he was
a friendly guy.
People, locals, they loved
him.
Oh,
yeah.
Sure.
Now, a couple more here before we need to take a little break here, but then we'll come back.
But Dretsk, Dretsk is department store.
Oh, yeah, that's an old department store and
cut cut of
hay.
Yeah.
Oh, this is the store with the original, the original clothes.
Yeah, she could
still buy a leisure suit there.
I don't know
if
they just didn't sell out their stock or they have a warehouse left over, but
there's
still a ton of old stuff in there.
And they're the original owner is still working behind the counter.
Not
the friendliest person, but it's okay.
How did you find is it all new new clothing or is there some retro clothing in it?
Nope, it's all new stuff.
Yeah.
But it's old stock.
Okay.
No, also, they have the old cash system.
where it has, you know, if you go to the bank now, you know, that shoots your tube up.
This is the old system, this old metal wiring goes throughout the whole store.
When somebody checks out, they give their money to the register, she takes it, sends it up to the second floor, they make change, send it back down to
the
cashier because they didn't trust the people.
The cashiers, yeah, which is a little weird.
Isn't that
something?
Yeah,
that's what they
used
to do.
That is a place, if you
ever get down there, go.
I think she's
only
opened now from like 10 to three, three
days a week or something, yeah.
12 to three, yeah, okay.
Well, there's a whole lot more in this book and we're going to talk about the other book.
I imagine she doesn't want to sell a lot of product.
There wouldn't be a store at that point.
Yeah.
Right.
I think they just like hanging out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
We're going to continue our conversation with Tom and
Christy Mannus.
Secret places.
Secret places in Wisconsin and some roadside attractions as well.
If you want to get in on this and maybe you have a roadside attraction or a secret place, you want to tell us about 855-752-4842 is our number of that.
855-75 Civic.
We'll be back with more.
It's Nightlight with Pete Schwabba, John and Gordy sitting in on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Coming right back.
Beach Wabba, John and Gordy in the morning, filling in tonight and tomorrow night as well.
Our special guest, Tom and Christie Menace.
They've been all over the state.
They've been all over the world.
And as you heard, Christie is incredibly curious.
In fact, checks everything.
Yes.
Well,
you know.
Well,
Tom is also very curious.
Well, no, Tom is.
Yeah, he's just along for the ride.
Well,
that's what Christie told me.
I
just I
just drive.
You've revealed a whole lot of stuff.
Let's get a little background on you guys.
How
did you get started in all of this?
Well, we met and that started it.
Yeah.
30 years ago.
You both
had the same interests
to
travel like this and visit all these unusual or different places.
You know, Tom didn't really he always wanted to travel.
But until he met me, he didn't really travel.
I traveled through books.
Yeah.
Because we, as my family, whenever went anywhere.
Yeah.
And we went all the time.
So, um, I showed him the ropes and we've been doing it ever since.
Well,
I have started out as travel
writers.
So for what, for what newspaper?
What, uh,
yeah, we've been freelance for almost the whole time.
No kidding.
But we write for Newsweek.
We write for international food and wine.
Okay.
Different places.
A
lot of different places.
Yeah.
And
a publisher caught us and the books came out.
So which is your favorite
way to
travel
and discover all of this?
We take two lanes and back roads as much as we possibly can through small towns because that's how you find unique things.
So that's our favorite.
And we like to stop at grocery stores and talk to people.
You
find out a lot, right?
Yeah, people love to talk about their
towns.
So you have two books secret, Wisconsin and historic, Wisconsin
roadside.
Yeah, which one was first?
Okay, let's get back to that.
What's the what's the coolest one you ever went to them?
I mean the one that you you found and you thought man, nobody else knows about this.
I know there's a lot of those.
It's probably a lot like that.
There
are a lot.
Well, we've talked about it before, but I think JFK's urinal was
Pretty
cool.
We talked about that a little bit this morning.
Where was that?
That's in Spooner.
Spooner.
This is statewide.
Let's tell them
about this urinal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, in Spooner, it's Big Dick's Buckhorn N. Downtown.
And JFK, he was campaigning back in the, you know, back in the day and he needed to take care of business.
So he went in there and he, he
you can stand and pee where JFK peed.
Wow.
And I don't think they've updated it.
I think it's the exact same year at all.
And like I said this morning, I think they've maybe cleaned it once or twice since then.
It's a real dive bar, but they also have a plaque on the bathroom door stating that and the date.
And they kept some, someone bought him a beer while he was there.
They kept his glass and they have, you know, that in a case on the wall.
I mean, it's not fancy by any means, but you know.
Yeah.
Tell
us about this place in Sparta, the fast fiberglass place.
Oh, where they have all the molds.
Yes, I've been
to Sparta a number of times, so I didn't know about this place.
Oh, so you didn't go there?
No.
So this is where those big molds
are.
Yeah.
Look at
this
picture, John.
Big boy,
they got a big boy mold.
All
the big badgers and...
You know Wisconsin Dallas all those huge
The huge musky yeah,
and you can walk through it's just a graveyard You can walk through there and look at them all these mold.
Oh
my
gosh.
Now.
Here's a tip for everybody listening Okay, when you see a big boy you can tell if it's the original if if he's holding a plate under the burger if he's if his hand is Holding the burger without a plate.
It's not an original
Oh, really?
Just a little tip.
Keep an eye out.
Can
you work at a big boy's now?
I did.
I was a big boy cook.
Oh, wow.
Oh, yeah.
That's the sign
of the grill.
I was going to say in Milwaukee.
Yes.
Because that's kind of where they got the start in the area.
Oh, yeah.
Marcus.
Marcus.
Yeah.
I love their
chocolate fudge
cakes with the ice
cream in it.
I worked on Wisconsin Avenue.
Okay.
Yeah.
Right across from their hotel.
So, I know I loved it there.
I learned how to do dishes and cook really fast.
And the kids
appreciate that now.
Our phone lines are open 855-752-4842 talking to Tom and Kristie Manus.
Tell us about Gravity Hill.
Where is this?
Oh, that's in Schulsberg.
What is Gravity Hill all
about?
That is an experience.
Have you tried it?
Numerous times.
We're skeptical.
We try everything.
Well, it's
an anti-gravity hill is what it is.
So just, yeah, just a mile outside of Schuelsberg is, you know, a little road that goes through a cornfield, a little highway, and they have a blue sign that gives you instructions.
So you put your car in neutral and you roll uphill.
And we're not talking just a little creeping.
We were up to five miles an hour.
And skeptics that we are, we went back a second time with a six foot level.
And
our son, we took him with his drone because we wanted footage from every angle.
Really?
Yeah.
I mean, it was something.
Are you
going to release a video of all your investigations?
We should.
We should.
We really should.
That's a good idea.
Yeah.
Now you've traveled all around the world.
What are some of the oddest things that you found
overseas?
Oh, yeah.
The Penis Museum.
Excuse me?
Yeah.
Exactly.
In Iceland.
So
it's an Iceland,
so they're all little
tiny
ones?
Well, they have whales.
Whale penises in there too.
They have a good variety.
It's in Husevik, right?
Well,
it was,
but it moved.
Tell us the reason why they have a penis museum.
I really don't know.
Because somebody is obsessed with
size.
Yeah.
Because it's a small town and they didn't have anything else to highlight.
Now is this one of the places you just discovered on your own?
We drove
by.
And we turned around.
Another
thing in Iceland that is kind of cool is there was a country radio station in the middle of nowhere and the guy was Icelandic.
and he loved old-fashioned country
music.
So he made this radio station and we decided we had to go and meet this guy and we went to his little radio station and it was kind of
cool.
He wasn't there when we got there but somebody phoned him and they had to hunt him down around town and he came right away because at the time we were living right outside of Nashville.
But that was a
unique thing.
So you kind of swapped stories and talked about the old
country
song.
His English wasn't very good.
No, it was just a unique thing that in the middle of Iceland there's this country.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Okay, here's another one from your secret Wisconsin.
A Japanese tea room for your automobile.
Oh, yeah.
The Pagoda gas station
in Cedarburg.
Yeah, there's only two left in Wisconsin.
I think one's in West Dallas, too.
Yeah, those are
very cool.
I've seen those all over
in
Milwaukee when I was a kid.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, the guy, they had an architect that wanted to do something different than just the little gas stations at the
time.
Well, and part of the reason, too, was as the automobile got more popular, they needed to put gas stations closer, you know, obviously, to make money.
And so people were complaining so bad because these big, ugly, or small square stations.
So to get those into the neighborhoods, they had to make it more aesthetic.
So Wadham's Oil and Grease Company came up with the Bogota style, and that's what they were known for.
But the architect actually found out about this style from associates of Frank Lloyd Wright at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893.
So Wright was
into this kind of style?
He was into the Japanese stuff.
It came out right at that Chicago World's Fair, and he went there, and he was so inspired by that.
His
prairie style was influenced by the Japanese architecture.
It
was on display at the World's Fair.
Here's one.
What's That Smell is the title of this little part of the book.
Oh, you can talk about that because I have no interest in that at
all.
OK, Tom,
over to you now.
OK.
So what's the matter?
OK.
So Limburger cheese, we all know, it used to be very popular, almost like cheddar across the country.
But now there's only one place that makes it in Monroe.
But there was there was a actual battle between Iowa and Wisconsin.
Oh, really?
Yes.
because somebody bought it from one of the Limburger factories and they shipped it to Iowa and the Iowa delivery, postmaster delivery guy refused to ship it or refused to touch anymore because it smelled his, you know, car vehicle so much.
And so the postmaster from Iowa, the small town of Iowa and the postmaster from here kind of got into it and they had a big debate and they actually brought in the feds to settle it and wow.
and they actually, they had a duel, and it was a friendly duel though, and I believe Wisconsin won.
So, but the other thing too, to go along with that, if you go to New Glaris, Limburger is still considered legal tender.
What?
tender.
Yes.
So you
can pay for something with Limburger cheese.
Legally, you can pull it out of your pockets and throw it on a counter.
And I've been I'm dying to do that.
I want to go buy something to pull it out and say, Well, you can't turn me down.
And I wouldn't like change, please.
Wow.
I think the people would run from you.
Yeah, they
probably you
wouldn't have to pay.
You just just leave.
Another another fun thing in that book is up in Sean.
Yeah, I
know.
Is the Sundrop Museum.
Yeah, I've been there.
Have you?
Yes.
And what's that
about?
My parents were just outside of Sean.
You know what amazes us is you go there on a Saturday?
I am overwhelmed at the amount of people that still buy it in bottles and bring the bottles back on Saturday.
It's a constant, you know, back and forth.
It's the best soda ever.
That's all we drink is diet Sundrop.
We don't really
drink coffee, but our morning caffeine is diet Sundrop.
I mean, it has all that, those particles in it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But they were better as a kid growing up.
That was my favorite drink.
And I had, it had more of the citrus pieces, bigger citrus pieces floating around in us now.
Here's another one in Milwaukee.
Feel like a kid again at the Milwaukee swing park.
Yeah.
Under, like it's under a, I guess a freeway.
And it's all sand and they hung swings from the freeway above.
Wow.
Right by the river.
That looks
cool.
Yeah.
It's all kinds of swings.
Yeah.
And they even have handicapped swings in there, so it's all inclusive.
That's actually a
good idea, good
use of space.
Yeah.
Okay, just a couple of minutes left here.
The world's largest talking
cow.
Oh, and
Neilsville.
So another World's Fair tie-in.
The pavilion was in the 63-64 New York World's Fair.
It represented Wisconsin.
And it looks like something out of the Jetsons.
And part of that was they had Chadibelle, the world's
largest talking cow.
Right.
And it's still there.
So they moved it all to Neilsville.
But you have to put a quarter in it.
Oh,
it's not free.
Oh,
well.
Is that the display or is that the actual?
That's the
actual
talking cow.
There's a little box right in front under the sign.
I
mean, there's bushes and stuff
like that.
And it changes.
They change it what it says.
Oh, well, really?
Periodically.
Yeah.
Well, that sounds like a great
idea.
And if you ever go there, go to the bathrooms in the basement of the pavilion.
Oh, boy.
because they're awesome.
They're like from 1963.
They haven't changed a thing.
The women's is pink.
But you also
have to go to the bottom floor because they have all kinds of worlds for memorabilia from 63-64.
Okay.
All right, we're going to take a short break here, but I want to ask you some places that you haven't been yet that you really want to check out.
Maybe,
you know,
all right.
So think about that one.
We will continue here with Tom and Christie Manis and find out more about maybe what they're working on for their next book too.
We'll continue this on the Civic Media Radio Network.
It's John and Gordy in for Pete Schwabba on Night Lights.
Stay with us.
So tired just want to close your eyes
Some
night light with Pete Schwabba, Pete's off for a couple of days and a couple of nights and John Peterson, Gordy Young, filling in on the Civic Media Radio Network.
We're back with Tom and Christy Manus.
They've got a couple of books we've been mainly dipping into secret.
Wisconsin, Secrets of Wisconsin,
and
also they have a great book called Historic Wisconsin Road Sides.
You can send us a text on the Civic Media app or call us at 855-752-4842.
We've got a few more minutes here.
What
are you looking at there, John?
I thought what was interesting is the elevator to hell.
And I didn't realize that this is something you could check out at Epic.
Yes.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
A
couple of buildings out there, and this is in one of the buildings, right?
Right.
It is.
Why
do they call it that?
It's literally an elevator.
Yes.
And if you see in the book, you can see the picture, but you have to choose if you want to go to heaven or hell.
And if you want to, you can take a handbasket with you.
Yes.
You have a lot of choices.
Telling a
handbasket.
Oh, no.
All right.
did you which way did you go where did you check it out what only
goes
one
way yeah
and we don't
we don't know if it comes back so okay
that's a pretty unique place out there though there's a lot of stuff to see in there yeah and i think they do tours a couple times a week
yeah they do yeah you mentioned that they have a wizards academy
campus.
They have a storybook campus, the Central Park campus, the Prairie campus.
It's gorgeous out there.
I mean, they have like a farmland or
a
barn campus.
They also have Ellis Deli's carousel out there.
Which
is an old CW Parker carousel.
Oh, okay.
Wow.
Brian from Green Bay says Red Owl grocery store in Green Bay.
I don't know what he's referring to here.
Is it Red Owl was a franchise,
right?
Yeah, it was a franchise.
Did they shut it down?
Franchizer chain or...
Yeah.
There's a grocery store.
They're
not around.
I think they're all shut down.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
I don't know what the... Was there something weird about them?
I don't know why he mentioned that one.
No, but
they've been long out of business as far as I
know.
Yeah, at least the ones I know of.
If
there's still one, then this would be the one he's talking about.
Yeah, if there's still one out there, that would be pretty exciting.
Yeah,
I'd like to see it.
No, I
imagine you get suggestions from time to time from people that you meet about, oh, you got to check out this place or that place.
Anything that you're working on for your next book, your next book of secrets of Wisconsin?
Oh, um,
you want to
share any of those secrets?
No.
Yeah, we like sharing.
Just
wait
for the
book.
Okay.
No, no, because
people steal your ideas.
You'll have to wait till it comes out in print.
But
I'm thinking of places I want to go to that I don't mind talking about.
Tell
us about that.
There's so many places.
Just in Wisconsin or?
Anywhere.
Anywhere in the world.
Anywhere in the world.
Well, we're in talks to go to Peru next year on the town next to the Amazon, which is totally out of our comfort zone.
And that's probably why we're looking into it.
We
haven't committed yet.
Because
it's something
different.
Does it look a little scary maybe?
Yeah, we have to have like armed guards
to get around.
I don't know.
I think it would be a really interesting story though.
I think it would be good for us to do something a little out of our comfort zone and try
it.
Well, if you need armed guards, I'm not sure that this is the thing you want to do.
And that's really why we're kind of like tossing it around.
Yeah.
Yeah, because I mean, we do like to be safe.
You're exactly.
I can see going to something that you both may disagree on.
But if you need armed guards, that would be like, that would be the bottom line for me.
Yeah.
Well, and they eat weird, weird stuff there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you know, a lot of people have heard of guinea pigs.
And also, what's the other funky animal?
Well, they eat piranhas.
I can't remember what it's called.
Yeah.
Instead of the prawns eating you, you can eat
them.
Yeah.
Nice
getting them back.
Tell me about the haunted bridge, the bloody bride bridge.
What's that all about?
Yeah.
Steven's Point?
Yeah, that's kind of scary.
It's going to get dark soon.
I
love scary stories.
Lay it on us.
As far as I can remember, I haven't read that for a while.
Here, you want to look
at it.
I got a book here.
She was okay, so something happened on her wedding day and she was standing on a bridge and a police officer thought he hit her and Got out and didn't see anything and then she was behind him in the seat.
She appeared
in the back of his
car.
Yeah, it's scary.
Yeah, it's just
It's
scary.
Now people still see
this
bride along the stretch of the road.
They do.
That's what it says here.
Thank you for looking at
the
book.
Do you want
to know
the rest of the story?
You wrote
it.
I know.
Come on.
That's great.
We're going to have two books.
coming out next year.
So there's a lot of stuff floating around in their heads that.
Can I kind of imagine
that
maybe Door County is just filled with this kind
of stuff?
Oh, that's a fun one.
I like that one.
Shrine built from whatever.
And literally it is.
They have like a car shifter in there and all kinds of
beads.
So there's like, I can't remember the number, but there's like six or eight shifter knobs.
It's
old, old cars.
Yeah.
And so it's kind of, you have to go find them.
Yeah.
The Dickie Volbrado.
Fountain sounds good.
Okay.
Well, Tom and Christie, thanks for coming in again.
It's good to see you.
I'm sure we'll see you down the road somewhere.
Well, I hope so.
Yeah.
Come on back sometime.
And again, the books are Secret Wisconsin and Wisconsin Roadside Attractions.
If people want to get ahold of you, how do they do that?
You got a website, a Facebook page.
Oh, you can Instagram is Tom and Christie Manus.
Okay.
Facebook is a small town plus size our website is smalltownplussize.com I mean you can we're out there just yeah Google our names and you can get a hold of
us watch for us on WTMG Okay, WTMJ NBC out of Milwaukee.
Okay, we're
doing segments for we're doing a TV show called what's brewing
Excellent.
Okay,
great.
Well, thanks for joining us tonight.
Well, you live an interesting life.
And we also want to thank Todd Albaugh for stopping by tomorrow.
And we're filling in for Pete.
We'll have UFO expert Greg Sisko.
There's a lot of weird stuff happening out there in space.
Some weird object in the solar system that everybody's talking about.
And Mitch Goth hunted ghost hunter.
That's right.
Yes.
That's all tomorrow night.
Thanks to Conrad for helping us get through the night here and for Pete Schwabba.
It's John Peterson, Gordy Young.
Have a good evening.
Talk to you tomorrow evening right here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Good night.
