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I'm tv critic David B.
And Cooley.
Today we're starting off by remembering Phil Donahue, the pioneering tv talk show host who died Sunday at age 88.
Well, listen back to a conversation between him and Terry Gross from 1985, and well begin with this appreciation.
The Phil Donahue show began in 1967 as a local series in Dayton, Ohio.
It was syndicated nationally in 1969 and relocated to Chicago in 1974, with the shows title shortened to just Donahue.
That was because by then the talk show host and his unusual format were equally familiar to and embraced by national tv audiences.
Ten years later, another Chicago talk show began outperforming him in the ratings, a show hosted by a young woman named Oprah Winfrey, whose approach to television owed much to her Chicago predecessor.
Donahue moved his program to New York, where he continued his passionate brand of talk show tv until 1996.
Before Phil Donahue, most talk shows were forums for celebrities to plug their latest projects.
Donohue did some of that, too, and he wasn't above pandering for ratings.
In an effort to appeal to his largely female daytime audience, he did several shows featuring strip club male dancers from Chippendales.
But Donahue, like his talk show audience, seemed as interested in listening as in talking, and his conversations were unprecedentedly inclusive and wide ranging.
He took on topics few others would go near.
In 1982, while still broadcasting from Chicago, he addressed a very serious topic that still at that time was unfamiliar to many people.
A significant and serious disease has struck the gay community, and let's see how much sense we can make out of this at the outset.