Driving home today from the rehearsal of my new play I was scanning Sirius satellite radio and came across a program I hadn’t heard before. The voice, though, was instantly recognizable. “How nice,” I thought, “that they gave Carol Channing a radio show!” There was no mistaking the voice, and she sounded just terrific — every bit as energetic, charming, and daffy as she ever was. I thought, “At 86 years old, maybe having a radio show has given her a new lease on life!”

Then what I thought was a show turned out to be a plug for the show and not the show itself, and it turned out the show and the voice didn’t belong to Carol Channing. It was Richard Simmons.

Find my confusion unconvincing?

Here’s an mp3 of Carol Channing (in an enconium to Modesto!).
Here’s an mp3 of Richard Simmons.

Imagine them without the horns and backup singers. (And please — imagine Simmons with a better song.)

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 20th, 2007 at 8:36 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.