'Wandavision' Star Kathryn Hahn's Northwestern Days

 

It's long been true that Kathryn Hahn makes everything she appears in even better, and that especially includes Disney Plus' "Wandavision." No spoilers, but this week's episode, in particular, reveals Hahn to be so much more — and a pivotal part of the storytelling. I didn't know her at Northwestern, although we both graduated the same year and I'm sure had some mutual friends and acquaintances. (There was a lot of overlap among journalism, radio/TV/film and theater students; my senior year I spent most of my time running WNUR, which was overseen by the School of Speech, even though I was a Medill journalism student.) Above, from our Class of 1995 senior yearbook, is Hahn's entry, while below is from our freshman facebook. (That's right — before Facebook, there were facebooks.)

From Stephen Colbert to Seth Meyers, Northwestern's Late Night Dominance

Thanks to my old pal and colleague Jenny Hontz for including some of my thoughts about late night TV — particularly in the age of Trump — as part of her cover story in the latest edition of Northwestern's alumni magazine. In "NU Rules Late-Night TV," Jenny notes the surprising number of Northwestern alums dominating the space: Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Robin Thede, Jimmy Kimmel producer Jill Leiderman and more. An excerpt:

Historically, late-night broadcast TV has played it safe, not wanting to alienate a segment of the audience by taking sides on serious issues. “Hosts from a different generation were really surface in their comedy,” says Medill grad Michael Schneider ’95, executive editor at IndieWire and editor at large at Variety. “They really focused on the more silly aspects of politicians — how they looked, how they acted. That doesn’t work right now because of what’s going on, because of the real issues we’re facing and what this administration is actually doing.”

“Johnny Carson was edgy, but he certainly never made anyone feel uncomfortable,” says Lou Wallach ’91, a communication studies graduate, independent producer and former programming executive at Comedy Central. “The last thing before you went to bed was sort of nice, not polarizing or provocative. Times are changing. Now there’s an expectation — dare I say an obligation — to be polarizing and provocative, and I think Colbert and Meyers do it brilliantly.”

These may be politically polarizing times, but left-leaning political satire has proved popular with late-night viewers. Once Colbert started taking on Trump, he overtook his more apolitical competitor Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC’s Tonight Show, in total viewers and significantly narrowed the ratings gap among young viewers.

“I think the audience is like me: They’re desperate for some relief,” Colbert says. “If half of the country votes for somebody you feel is the absolute nadir of what it means to be an American, and that person gets the highest job in the land, it can be a lonely feeling — that maybe you do not have a community to belong to … . People seem grateful that there are shows like ours or Seth’s on the air to put the day into some context and make you feel not alone.”

Even the affable and typically apolitical host Jimmy Kimmel, whose ABC show Jimmy Kimmel Live! is executive produced by School of Communication graduate Jill Leiderman ’93, has been unable to stay neutral on the sidelines. Kimmel’s highly personal monologues about his son’s heart condition were credited with helping defeat the initial attempts to repeal “Obamacare.” And after one of the worst mass shootings in American history, the concert shooting in Las Vegas last October, Kimmel’s heartfelt call for commonsense gun reform resonated with Americans frustrated to see no action — other than thoughts and prayers — under Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress.

“It especially resonated because Jimmy generally doesn’t take on these types of issues, so when he does, it means this is real,” Schneider says. “This is something personal. He’s not trying to be political. He’s just speaking from the heart.”

In fact, most of these hosts would bristle at the notion that they’re acting in a partisan manner. “They don’t want to be painted as purely liberal or left wing because that does sort of alienate a chunk of the audience,” Schneider says. “They basically shy away from those labels and say they’re just pointing out what’s going on in Washington and speaking truth to power. And right now, who’s in power? It’s Donald Trump and the Republicans.”

Read more here.

RETRO FRIDAY: From 1991, Dr. Mike and Ton-Def Celebrate Halloween on WNUR

I don't know if this is a trick or a treat... but I've just uploaded our 1991 Halloween-themed radio show (WNUR, Evanston-Chicago). It's Dr. Mike and Ton-Def (above) along with Harlan Quinn... in HELL! Yes, it's exactly the show you'd expect to hear from a bunch of college freshmen on the radio. Enjoy?

Embed Music - Free Audio - Radio Free Halloween 1991

Retro Friday: Dr. Mike and Ton-Def on WNUR in 1994

(I also posted this on Facebook.) From May 1994 (yes, 20 years ago!): Dr. Mike and Ton-Def entertain the Chicagoland masses... at 2 a.m., live from WNUR-FM 89.3 and the basement of Northwestern University's Annie May Swift! (WNUR would move to its new studios a year later.)

Below, the WNUR "Radio Renaissance" shirt that we asked Lynda Barry to design (and she did it for free!) to mark our big move into fancy new studios. (Thanks to Maura for loading on Flickr!)

New "Late Night" Host Seth Meyers As a Northwestern Freshman (UPDATED!)

I save almost everything, and sometimes that comes in handy -- like when I realized that the copy of the Class of 1997 1996 Northwestern freshman facebook must include a pic of Young Seth Meyers. And here it is: Seth Meyers, the freshman from Manchester West High School in Bedford, N.H., whose hobbies include "baseball" and "film."

Meyers will be here at the Television Critics Assn. press tour later today to promote the launch of "Late Night with Seth Meyers," which starts on Monday, Feb. 24.

UPDATE: Thanks to my sister Melanie for combing her Northwestern 1996 Yearbook to find Seth's senior photo. Talk about a change, as Seth was in his long-hair, hippie-ish phase. (Melanie regularly saw him perform as a part of Northwestern's Mee-Ow comedy show; I had already graduated a year earlier.) Here you go:

In a weird way, I think freshman Seth looks a lot more like the Seth we know now!

The Time I Punked Chicago's Q101 (RIP)

Chicago's "alternative" station Q101 (WKQX) debuted at the end of my freshman year at Northwestern in 1992. The whole Nirvana-led modern rock and grunge movement had just taken foot, and the station's owners decided to flip Q101's adult contemporary format to take on a sound that emulated Los Angeles' veteran alternative outfit KROQ.

The station got off to a decent start, but soon got bogged down by a heavily repetitive playlist. By my senior year of college, Q101 was a bit of a joke. They had embraced Pearl Jam so whole heartedly that their station slogan, "This is Not for You," was even a riff on one of the band's songs.

In more recent years, Q101 has struggled in the ratings. The station was never able to maintain listeners for its morning show (other than the period of time when Mancow Muller hosted, but he wasn't a good fit with the station) and was rumored to be dead many times. Q101 was finally scrapped on Thursday, by new owner Randy Michaels -- yes, Tribune folks, that Randy Michaels -- who now plans to launch an FM news/talk format on the frequency.

In memory of Q101, here's a post from 2004, when I recalled the time a couple of us pretended to flip our college station to an insipid Q101-like format on April Fool's Day:

Back when I ran WNUR in college (yeah, I know, another college radio story -- Mike, it's been almost ten years! Move on!), we freaked our listeners out on April Fool's by yanking our regular programming (you know, the usual college fare-- indie rock bands that you've never heard of) and pretended to flip the station's format to mainstream alternative.

We called ourselves "Q89.3" -- a dig at Chicago's big time commercial alternative station, Q101 -- and played nothing but Pearl Jam for an hour (another dig at Q101, which was so obsessed with the band it actually had adopted as its slogan "This Is Not For You," the name of a Pearl Jam song).

A friend and fellow DJ, Maura Johnston, pretended to be Samantha James, the station's hyperactive British DJ -- a staple of alternative stations back then -- while I played the clueless DJ ("Fisher Stevens," a play on Q101 jock Steve Fisher) who thought everything was ooh, soooo alternative while rattling off obvious trivia ("Did you know that Kurt Cobain was the lead singer of Nirvana?!" I pointed out after playing the already-burnt-to-a-crisp "Smells Like Teen Spirit").

Some listeners called in and freaked out, wondering what happpened. Others were wise to the parody and played along: "Hey, you know that Red Hot Chili Peppers song you just played? Could you play it again in about 40 minutes?"

It was a proud moment. Illinois Entertainer magazine called our prank the best of the year.

Q101 will attempt to live on, as a web-only radio station -- but that strategy rarely succeeds for dead radio stations. It's a shame, but a common one, as modern rock stations continue to disappear across the country and the format struggles to figure out what it should be.

Go U Northwestern

So far 5-0 -- the team's best start in 46 years. Ranked #23 in the USA Today poll... but still unranked in the AP. They go up against AP #23 ranked Michigan State next week.

Retro Friday: Lucky Trade School Kids, Lucky Supermarket

Wow, had I seen this commercial as a kid, I might have enrolled in the "Video Technical Institute" instead of Northwestern. After all, their future's so bright, they gotta wear shades, apparently. YouTube user Cubbie72 taped this ad off KTLA in 1987.

Now, a bonus Retro Friday clip:



Oh, if only Stephanie Edwards could still assist us in grocery store selection. Here's a Lucky ad from 1987, referencing several other defunct supermarkets (such as Alpha Beta) as well. Meanwhile, as you remember we wrote last year, Lucky isn't quite dead -- a few stores with the Lucky name have reopened in the past year or two. But the brand as we once knew it is still pretty much gone.