Mr. KABC
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Marc Germain (born May 28, 1967), known professionally as Mr. KABC (and previously known as Mr. KFI), is a popular evening radio talk show host on KABC AM 790 in Los Angeles.
Mr. KABC's primary format is Ask Mr. KABC, where callers to the program are directed to ask questions of the host. Germain's slogan is "no guests, no topics, no screeners," to contrast his program from the standard talk radio format. A caller must ask a question to the host. In practice, this is loosely enforced, mainly when someone asks "Can I talk about topic?" and the caller is rejected on air. In the Ask Mr. KABC format, Germain does not employ a screener, nor is there a guest or topic. Germain does pick up the line during commercial breaks to talk to callers on hold, and hangs up on callers who are too young to call the show. The practice evolved from Germain's time as a talk show screener. There are a few questions that Mr. KABC will not allow, presumably because they have been asked so many times in the past that Mr. KABC is tired of answering them and fears boring the audience with them; one of the forbidden questions is "what is a Sig Alert?"
While less ideologically driven than most of his talk radio colleagues, he is a registered Democrat with moderate to liberal political views, which also sets him apart from the conservatism of his colleagues on KABC, who include the nationally syndicated hosts Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Larry Elder. Germain has a strong interest in science and technology, and caller frequently ask him about those topics as well as political news.
However, there are hours which have guests. Although in the past these people were merely considered "hanging" with Mr. KABC (to not break the format), nowadays they are guests and callers are expected to discuss whatever issues the guest brings up. Comedienne April Winchell is a frequent guest, appearing on Fridays. He hosted the last interview with Wolfman Jack and one of the last interviews with Milton Berle.
Another feature that Mr. KABC has the Mr. KABC Quiz, which poses three questions to callers in return for on air recognition or a small prize from a sponsor. The quiz is given at the halfway point in the program. Germain has several regular callers who become running gags in the show: Mr. Non-Sequitur, who spouts off disjointed phrases that have nothing at all to do with each other; Mr. Doubletalk, a man who often repeats what he says twice; Ralph, an alleged gym buddy of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and whose accent is often mocked; Aryan, a young man who ends his calls by yelling out "Brrrrruah India de Punjab"; Freddy, a militant who belives that everything is a conspiracy to get rid of African-Americans (Freddy Andersen died October 2, 2005[link]); and Jim Wronski, who occasionally calls to remind Mr. KABC he's his least favorite talk show host.
In the early twenty-first century, Germain devoted considerable airtime to "California's bogus power crisis," and was one of the state's first and leading voices to expose the manipulation of the public sector by energy companies at the great expense of California's taxpayers.
Of note is that Germain, under the previous handle of Mr. KFI, was replaced by Phil Hendrie in 1996. Germain threatened legal action when Hendrie mocked Germain under one of Hendrie's characters, David G. Hall. The threat was settled and Germain took up shop at KABC several months after.
One of Marc Germain's brothers, Paul, is an animation screenwriter and producer. Another brother Dan, is an attorney in Los Angeles.
"MrK" as he is affectionately known encourages (and sometimes tolerates) an excpetional degree of participation by his listening audience. He sometimes invites interesting listeners as guests in his air studio and once had Ernest , his most confused listener sit in and take callers right along with "MrK." "MrK" also maintains a page on his web site of photos of his more active callers.
On May 15, 2006 in the 11:00pm hour, Mr. Kabc made the following comment when the subject of the wikipedia came up:
"Any encyclodedia that anyone can add to has to have good information. It's a lot of fun; I love the Wikipedia... And the Wikipedia entry on me is about 90% correct... It's got a couple of little factual details that are not correct."
Mr. KABC is also a dire lover of cars--on his talk show, he frequently mentions the type of vehicles he owns, as well as his motorcycle.
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