Since 1981 Gary Burbank was a mainstay on 700 WLW, creating memorable characters and bits that are
part of Cincinnati Radio legend. Now you can discover more about the man behind Earl Pitts, Gilbert
Gnarley and countless other characters.
Days before Gary Burbank retired from WLW Radio in December 2007, CET invited Burbank to sit down
with John Kiesewetter, TV/Media writer
for The Cincinnati Enquirer and someone who has followed
Burbank throughout his career. They spent several hours talking about Burbank's career -- everything from his beginning in radio in his hometown of Memphis, Tenn., to his retirement from the airwaves in December of 2007.
For several of the episodes, Gary is joined by former co-worker Kevin "Doc" Wolfe, in particular for the interview in which he discusses how he came up with some of his on-air personalities as well as the funny phone calls and his daily "Sports or Consequences" trivia show.
John Kiesewetter, TV/media writer for The Cincinnati Enquirer, says of Gary: "For 25 years, 700 WLW radio’s Gary Burbank drove us to distraction on our drive home with his crazy cast of characters every afternoon." He sat down with Gary to find out how Burbank "put together arguably the most creative program in Cincinnati's rich radio history." In this first episode of Burbank on Burbank, John elicits a sampling of some of our favorite Burbank characters.
Long-time Burbank sidekick Kevin ''Doc'' Wolfe sits in on Episode 2 of Burbank on Burbank, which centers on Gilbert Gnarley. Gary and Doc tell series host John Kiesewetter about the long-running, hilarious prank calls and about how they were almost busted for violating FCC regulations. They start out discussing which humorists influenced Burbank.
In Episode 3, John Kiesewetter and Gary Burbank discuss how 700WLW sports personalities Bill ''Seg'' Dennison, Cris Collinsworth, Bob Trumpy, Andy MacWilliams and others provided great entertainment on his daily ''Sports or Consequences'' trivia segment.
This last episode of Burbank on Burbank gets sentimental, as Gary harkens back to his childhood and tells the story about a hitchhiking teen and Elvis. He also talks about his work in music and about creating ''Play It Forward,'' an emergency fund for local musicians.