The Face of The OC
The L.A. Times reports Tuesday on the death of nutty, ultra right-wing talk show host Wally George, who passed away Sunday in Fountain Valley.
You may not know the name, but you know the face -- and the voice. His talk show, "The Hot Seat," continues to air late at night on small time Orange County TV station KDOC/Channel 56. (You know, the station that airs "Saved by the Bell" repeats during the day.)
George's talk show was mesmerizing for how bizarre it was. It would usually consist of Wally, sitting in front of a flag, insulting his guests -- most of whom, you wondered, seemed to be acting. Then there was his audience -- angry white college kids, their heads shaved and foam sometimes dripping from their mouths.
It was the face of Orange County. Not the face of Fox's "The OC," but the face of the so-called "Orange Curtain," the face of the John Birch Society, the face of the OC Reg.
But it was also a hoot. Unlike some of today's scary Bill O'Reilly brand of talk show hosts -- who truly believe that they're educating America -- Wally's brand of shock talk was ultimately harmless. It was so over the top, you got the punch line (even if you weren't quite show whether Wally was in on his own joke).
"The Hot Seat" had already run its course, and most episodes that air on KDOC appear to have been taped in the 1980s, when the show had a rabid following. New episodes were few and far between in the last decade.
George, by the way, was the estranged father of actress Rebecca DeMornay.
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