Jim Pruett.
Great Name. I always liked it. It sounded suave, debonaire, like a cool British MI6 agent, not unlike the name, Brit Hume. Both like their Shirley Temples’ shaken AND stired. No straws, well…..maybe one.
But Jimmy wasn’t with MI6 and I seriously doubt Brit Hume is even half as cool as his name sounds. But Jimmy was.
To me, Jimmy had one genuine personality and about six to tentacled ones. He’d come to work for weeks in s sleek suit; hair slicked back as if ready to do a deal with Trump. Then weeks would go by and he’d grow his hair along and dress like motorcycle gang member. then sometimes he’d come in wearing different kinds of clothes, a little something from all of character types listed above.
Mark and Jimmy were like a married couple, like George Burns and Gracie Allen. For those old enough to remember this famed showbiz couple, he was the straight man and Gracie was his ditzier comedic foil. It was something like that with Mark and Jim thought Jimmy was never ditsy. H was funny and wick witted and smart.
I’ll admit that I was closer to Mark, I knew him better or rather I knew what he allowed me to know. Mark in all his on air bravado could be a shy and quiet man. Some General Managers with whom he deal with (loudly) might argue that point, but that how I knew him. Whether true of not that make Mark the perfect straight man for someone like Jimmy who’s mind had like a tornado; not an surperecell F-6 like the late, great Robin Williams, but a damn strong F-3. Jimmy could impose comedy damage. Spit takes, stomach aches from a line so perfectly delivered. Broken tables from banking them so hard with each guffaw. He knew funny. He knew humor and it it worked and when it didn’t work and even when it didn’t work. he could makes giggles out of what normally would be disappointing groans from anyone if said by anyone else.else.a
Shrinks and an assortment of other white coated clad people say that truly funny people are probably born quick witted, but life either perfects or defects how the humor will be defined. Sad kids, abused kids, neglected kids, lonely kids, kids from dysfunctional homes—the very ones that would have been perfect fodder for a Lifetime channel movie.
Jimmy came from dysfunction and often spoke about it. I remember him telling us on air about this childhood and there was an abusive uncle or father perhaps being involved in an attempt assault. Jimmy was in his early teens around this time. He then told us about working as a kid at a carnival. He must have met some first rate people there. He was in charge of righting the wooden milk bottles from the classic carnival milk bottle game. There were more stories Im sure, but I can’t remember them. All I know is that Jim’s hardened backstory would have made a perfect Lifetime Original movie about a traumatized woman’s who went from helpless weakling to a ballsy walking backbone who find the strength and courage deal with brute in their lives. And in true Hollywood magic of a two hour movie, the victim becomes the survivor, who then becomes the ultimate victor and in the end, clutches the metaphorical Golden Kotex Award for having done so. If it were Jimmy’s movie, t we called him there very things e’d herald John Wayne with in his movies fuss as victor, conquerer, savior, hero, survivor.
Jimmy? Hero? Yes.. Golden Kotex recipient? Not unless it was part of an Uncle Waldo bit. Oh, had Had Jimmy only been born a girl!!
But Jimmy was like John Wayne in that he loved this country. He was a true patriot. Jimmy adored his wife, Joy, radio was his mistress, his sons were his pride and joy, guns were a gift from God, fast cars were stocking stuffers and his country was almost his life’s blood. Jimmy was in Vietnam and I think worked with Armed Forces Radio (my apologies if I have this wrong) but I think it was there were Jim’s love of radio began. and the love of his of country as well.. I imagine he honed his humor there too, considering all he saw in that war torn region, Kmowing Jimmy, to him ABC probably wasn’t a network, it stood for ABLE BAKER CHARLIE.
He then came back to Texas. Was a jock, maybe a Program Director in Brownwood perhaps, and then ultimately made it to Houston where he came one of the original members of “Mother’s Family”, the original DJs,management and staffers of KLOL back inthe early 70’s when FM was considered underground radio and the only commercials you’d hear were about head shops, free clinics and where you could get tickets for an upcoming concern). Again, I may have Jim’s E! True Hollywood Story a little bit of sync and off by a few years but it’s been almost 20 years since Ive heard these stories so get over yourself. I was in in radio, Dammit!) Neural issues and shit!
So, he and Houston’s premier Audio Maven, Pat Fant give birth to Mother’s Family, the name of KLOLs original employees Hippies. Peace. Love. Dope. The FM station along with it’s sister AM news station KTRH were in the original Rice Hotel. In fact, Fant, dropped the needle on the very first records played at KLOL. “I’M Free” by the who. Consequently, it was also the last song played before some corporate idiots changed the KLOL format and killed it.
I think Jimmy was KLOL’s first Program Director.with an on air name of Tony Raven. Then sometime after this and to be honest I don’t know the details, Jimmy and Mark got Together and blame a Houston radio due known as Hudson and Harrigan and at an AM station which I think no longer exists. But it was at this point I think these two brilliant minds realized that comedy could reach much farther advanced than other storied Jocks of the era. The silly Cousin Brucie one liners. Don Imus and whatever his mode of comedy was. Mark and Jim realize the comedy could indeed be one liners and also short stories with defined beginnings, middles and ends and sound effects..Radio Theatre For The Ear and Mind….and to make it work, it must ALWAYS end on the funny.,
The comedy law of three had to apply.
For example: Out of the blue, Jimmy asked me he names of the first three men I had sex with.
I replied with the fictitious names: Bill, Mike and some guy from Poteet.
And then we’d laugh and go to commercial.
The rule of three.
From Jimmy, I also learned a lot about philanthropy. There was the Humane Ranch for Boys and Animals which he established.. He saved many horses which were near death…and many wayward teens on their way to sad, unhappy endings,. Perhaps for Jimmy the was part of his redemption, from a life as a teen carnie to a well paid, well known disco jockey beloved by minions.
Jimmy was loved and Jimmy loved. He loved his God and made no apologies for it. Gave him glory for everything and with Jim, God did a very nice job, Jim was far from perfect, but his intentions to help his fellow man were. The education his life taught him which he NEVER could have learned in a classroom was used in all aspects of his life. And one more similarity to John Wayne, Jimmy was a patriot. He loved this country. We weren’t working together during 9/11, but I knew what happened have to have taken a piece of his heart.
And what a heart. I lost track of the number of actual attacks he had but if having a huge heart,enlarged by so very much love, then I guess I can understand it had to have its limitations.
Jimmy, you were a wonderful enigma to me and everyone who knew you. You trusted me with being funny and I thank you and Mark both for taking a chance on a small town South Texas girl, who saw life just a little differently, but exactly as you both did. I love you, I will always love your life energy I’ll always feel around me and when it’s my time to head skyward, (well, lets assume it’ll be skyward), I hope you’re one of the people there to welcome me, and you’re there dressed like a freak, still deaf as a stump, asking me just “who exactly was this guy from Poteet?”
I’m going to end this homage to now you Jimmy, but I’ll do so in the way you and Mark taught me.
For starters. I knew I’d be in radio or TV or both since I was six. I did everything in my life from taking speech lessons to majoring in Broadcast Journalism in college just to get there. You not only have to want it, you have to do it. When I was in the radio phase of my broadcast degree program at SWTSU (iI refuse to all it TSU), one of the first courses we had to take was about all the different genres of radio that existed at the time….talk, rock…pop and a new form of radio that was quite controversial, called blue radio….adult oriented content and one of the morning shows which was were becoming increasingly well known in blue radio was a Dallas based show called the Stevens and Pruett Show. I’d never heard of them at the time and and Howard Stern could have been a Jewish lawyer for all I know.
So, anyway, we were in a stadium or theater classroom and it was filled with at least 200 students. So the professor is about to play a sample of this controversial form of radio that I’d never heard of either. It starts off with Mark asking Jim about ways to get around FCC rules by calling people offensive names using words that sounded like they were in a another language. So, Mark asked Jim for an example of how he could get away with calling a woman the vulgar “C” word , but in French. And without missing a beat, Jim said, soont.
One hundred and 99 students in the theater classroom were silent. horrified.. I was the only one who laughed and out loud, mind you. I remember thinking that day, with my salacious personality, I could one day work with these guys.
And seven years later, I did.
