THE CULT OF ROD RODDY

After graduating from Texas Christian University (TCU), Roddy was a disc jockey and talk show host on KLIF and KNUS-FM (Dallas, Texas). He also worked overnights and middays at the Buffalo, New York radio station WKBW AM, a big-signal station covering the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S., and at other high-profile stations. Returning to KLIF and KNUS during the 1970s, Roddy hosted a call-in program, "Rod Roddy's Hotline," whose controversial host and topics made Roddy a frequent target of death threats. He conducted a long-running on-air feud with an elderly woman, dubbed "Granny Hate" by an earlier host, who claimed to represent the local Ku Klux Klan.

Roddy announced the situation comedy Soap from 1977 to 1981 (replacing Casey Kasem^{[citation needed]}), where he provided the opening and closing narration: "Confused? You won't be after this week's episode of Soap!" Roddy's first work as a game show announcer was on Whew!, which aired from 1979 to 1980. From there, he went on to announce several other game shows, including Battlestars (1981–1982), Love Connection (1983–1985, 1986), Hit Man (1983) and the popular Press Your Luck (1983–1986). Roddy also voiced a number of national television commercials, including those for Pennzoil and Public Storage.

The Onion: Let's start with your job.

Rod Roddy: It's the best job in the world. I work three days a week, and I give away new cars. Everybody loves you, and you meet everybody everywhere you go, and it's terrific. Everybody watches the thing. It's an amazing show, because all the age-ranges from five years old forward watch it: We're big in kindergartens and nursing homes. We're number one in hospitals and prisons. And there's a tremendous college audience, you know, which is fortunate because they're the best in the studio. It's just amazing to me how many college people come here on breaks, and in groups. Apparently, they all watch it and love to play. And they're terrific in the audience. That makes my job really easy, because I do warm-up and they're already warm. [Laughs.]

DLIKY: Roddy, what about your thoughts on 4e?

RR: Well, I didn't want to participate in that, because Bob wasn't in it, and our models weren't in it, and they made a lot of changes that I didn't think were appropriate. And I really didn't want to participate in it—they asked me to participate in it, and I declined. I'm glad I did, because it didn't do too well. And the reason, I think, that it didn't do well is that people know this show. It is what it is, and if you're going to play the Range Game, they know how the Range Game is played. If you're going to play Plinko, they know how Plinko is played. You can listen to this show while you're getting ready to go to work, and you know what's going to happen. And all of a sudden, if they change the rules of the game—which they did on the nighttime show—people resist that. And they changed the set, they changed the music, and they changed everything about it, so it really wasn't The Price Is Right. And people responded the way I thought they would; they didn't accept it. So I was glad not to be a part of it. And I don't think it helped us any, because a lot of people probably thought, "Oh, they've canceled The Price Is Right." We heard that for a long time, because of the way it was promoted.