MPR’s venerable “The Morning Show” is closing the studio doors for good:
MPR’s “The Morning Show,” a home for eclectic, acoustic music and gentle humor for 26 years, is about to go gently into the good night.
Hosts Dale Connelly and Jim Ed Poole (Tom Keith) announced Wednesday that the program will go off the air Dec. 11 with a live celebration at the Fitzgerald Theater, open to the public.
TMS was the kind of morning radio my mother would love if she lived in the Twin Cities. Truth be told, in my 23 years here I’ve listened to the show perhaps enough times to count on one hand, and I’m pretty sure you’d get a finger or two in change, but it seemed like the kind of show where a couple of public radio guys (and their listeners, natch) could have a lot of good clean self-referential fun while their audience sprayed each other with self-righteousness (no, really. Check out the comment section in the Strib piece. Clouds of smug are descending).
But I digress. Like most changes for the worse in radio, it’s the result of some manager’s bright idea:
Keith, who will continue to provide sound effects on “A Prairie Home Companion,” said the show was never really the same after it moved four years ago to the Current (89.3 FM), which leans toward alternative rock and a younger demographic.
“I didn’t care much for a lot of the music on the station,” said Keith, who turns 62 in December. “We tried to mix in some flavor of the rest of the Current lineup, but I didn’t know the names of a lot of the bands or singers.”
Connelly, 53, said he was willing to continue the program solo or with a new partner, but management told him last week that the show was going away. “I think they wanted a fresh start,” said Connelly, who will continue to work at MPR.
And by “fresh start”, I’ll betcha they meant “another show that’s oblivious to Delicious Dish“.
But I do wish Jim Ed and Dale the best.
I listen to that program every morning on the way to work. You never know what’s going to play-Steve Earle, some goofy, funny song, bluegrass, Hendrix. It was great. I just recently told people about it and how they would love it. Crap. It will be sad not to hear “Mr Sports, Mr Action, Mr Jim Ed Poole” ever again.
I’ve been a long-time listener to the Morning Program and I’ll miss it. The show was anything but pretentious as Dale and “Jim Ed” were very down-to-earth with a lot of funny skits and a great rapport with each other and their audience. I don’t go along with Dale’s politics (usually only on display in solo commentaries he wrote for the newspapers) but he’s an excellent and thoughtful writer and the creative engine behind the program, perfectly complemented by Tom/Jim Ed’s acting skills and sound-effects genius.
The program was quirky in a way that simply isn’t allowed any more and the music was simultaneously eclectic and accessible. Even when they were on the “classical” station, most of the music was folk-oriented or things you’d never hear anywhere else, and they always took requests. Over the years tunes such as “Little Potato”, “Waltzing With Bears” and “Lime-Jello-Marshmallow-Cottage Cheese Surprise” have been a big part of our family’s life. You really knew that Dale and Jim Ed were totally being themselves and not products of some Programming Consultant. The move to The Current was about as mis-begotten as it gets, but The Morning Program was also an outlier when it was on the Classical station all those years.
Dale and Jim Ed were definitely 33 1/3 guys while other drive time programs were 45 rpm; in the digital age I suppose they’re completely obsolete, but my mornings will be a lot more frenetic without them.