SPECIAL Podcast: We are re-publishing our career spanning interview with the multi-talented Ken Levine - who is featured in Richard's column this week.
The Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters/Hollywood Media Professionals played host to a special “Coffee With …” interview as Master of Ceremonies and interviewer Chuck Street spent two hours talking with Ken Levine.
You may not know the name Ken Levine when it comes to radio, though he did use his real name on KFI (640 AM) in the 1980s. But he was a young, up-and-coming top-40 radio star known as Beaver Cleaver on Ten Q (KTNQ, 1020 AM) here in Los Angeles and on the great B-100 (KFMB-FM — now KFBG, 100.7 FM) in San Diego, among other stations.
Why Beaver Cleaver, the name of the character on the old “Leave It to Beaver” TV series? It was catchy and helped him stand out much more than the name he used previously, Ken Stevens.
Outside of radio, Levine is a highly-respected writer, producer, and director in the television and film industries, an accomplished playwright, and even a play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball. His numerous credits include television programs “M*A*S*H,” “Cheers,” “Frasier,” “Wings,” “The Simpsons,” “Almost Perfect,” “Everybody Loves Raymond” and more; he has co-written feature films, and more recently has written and produced short plays acted live over Zoom.
His baseball work includes stints with the Baltimore Orioles, the Seattle Mariners, and the San Diego Padres, and he spent a few years as co-host of Dodger Talk, the call-in program that followed every Dodger Game on the radio.
And just to show that he can do just about anything, he is also an accomplished cartoonist, with his work appearing in the prestigious New Yorker magazine. In his spare time(?), he writes a blog and produces a thoroughly entertaining podcast … go to kenlevine.blogspot.com and hollywoodandlevine.libsyn.com/
Honestly, I have no idea how he manages to find time for all of his interests, let alone all the differing careers all the while being a loyal husband and family man. But the two-hour coffee interview just wasn’t enough … as many in the audience could attest, it was among the fastest two hours on record.
Levine tends to downplay his accomplishments in radio, stating that his voice is “too squeaky” compared to his many heroes and contemporaries. I disagree, but regardless, he more than made up for any perceived personal deficiency with a quick wit, biting sarcasm, creative double entendres, and much more.
This all came out anew during his interview, with such radio-related stories as:
• Trying to get fired at KMEN/San Bernardino (now KKDD, 1290 AM).
Management wanted him back in the overnight shift; he asked to be fired instead. They refused, so he stopped by the record store to buy a special album to play.
“Radio stations were getting hip and playing album cuts more and more, so this idea was perfect.” The album he purchased to play in its entirety? “Fiddler on the Roof,” he said. “In Yiddish … I was fired before ‘Anatevka’ finished playing.”
• Convincing the General Manager of WLS/Chicago — at the time one of the most popular radio stations in the country — to put him on the air during the overnight shift leading into Thanksgiving Day.
Who was the GM? His father. “My Dad,” Levine explains, “left a memo stating that ‘My son will be doing the all-night show.’ No word on who I was or my experience on the air.”
The guy on the air immediately before Levine’s shift had no idea who he was, so Levine pretended to be entirely clueless. “Wow, what are all these buttons,” he remembers asking the other DJ. By the time his shift was up, the other DJ was convinced this was going to be bad and was scared to leave the station in the hands of an amateur. “He was just freaking out,” Levine says.
Finally, when the time came, the DJ watched as Levine leaned into the microphone, played the top-of-the-hour jingle, and opened his show with “This is Ken Levine; I’ve been on the air in Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, Bakersfield, San Bernardino … but never at the same time! This is W-L-S!”
When Levine shut off the microphone, he remembers, “The DJ says, ‘You’ve done this before!’ I said, ‘Yes, of course; my father’s not going to put someone on the air at a 50,000-watt clear channel station in Chicago who’s never done it before!’”
• The time that a program director at K-100 (now KKLQ, 100.3 FM) worried they might get sued over his on-air name.
Levine told the program director not to worry: “If we get sued, we’ll get a ton of free publicity, and the worst that will happen is they’ll make me change my name.”
The program director called the station co-owner for direction, and Levine describes the response this way: “What’s the problem?” Levine says was the response. “The worst that would happen is that we’d get some free publicity and they’d make him change his name.”
You can hear recordings of some of Levine’s on-air work by searching YouTube.Com using the keywords Beaver Cleaver, Ken Levine, Ten-Q and B-100. Mike Stark and I did a full career-spanning interview with Levine, which can be found at http://la-radiowaves.blogspot.com/2020/08/radio-waves-extra-ken-levine.html
Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist. Email rwagoner@socalradiowaves.com
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