Drew and Mike

Drew Lane and Mike Clark host "Drew and Mike", a morning radio show on WRIF, 101.1 FM in Detroit.

WRIF describes the program as running from 5:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on weekdays, but this is variable. Typically, "Best of Drew and Mike" clips will begin at 5:30. On a good day Drew and Mike can be heard live shortly before 6:00. On a bad day Mike 'calls it in.' He's often late, and Drew catches him in his car on the cell phone as he's speeding to work. The program occasionally ends before 10:00 if Drew and Mike have an early appearance to make, but more often the program will run much later. Sometimes they will sign off shortly before noon.

Their morning radio show is highly rated in the Detroit market and is currently rated #6 (Arbitron 2006). The show has evolved and grown up over the years, but the elements of news, a lot of sports, and a love of comedy and farce, has remained. The early years heard the broadcast of an on-air lesbian kiss and a caricature voice called 'Bob Boner'. Janet Jackson's Super Bowl incident and the following FCC clamp-down on morning radio necessitated toning things down. The supporting cast, including Trudi Daniels (news-person), Marc Fellhauer and Mike Wolters (producers) and Delbert Harris (special guest star), have remained constants. From the frequent comedic sound bytes and famous actor interviews, Drew and Mike have forged a loyal fan base in the Detroit area, edging out other popular comedy morning shows such as Howard Stern and Bob and Tom.

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Drew and Mike

Drew and Mike's "Cliffnotes Theater" parodied remakes of popular movies including Titanic and Monster's Ball. Audio CDs of a collection of these parodies went on sale during the Christmas season in 2004. Following a tradition of supporting charities, the proceeds of the sales were donated.

Drew and Mike have interviewed numerous personalities including sports greats, Hollywood greats and not-so-greats, and politicians, including a memorable few moments with Henry Kissinger. They have also interviewed a guy involved in a naked fast food restaurant fight. No issue is too mundane to make light of for the delight of their loyal listening audience.

Possibly one of their most notorious spoofs was "John Madden Gay Per View". In this series of sketches, Drew pitches a fictitious video for sale, interspersed with actual audio clips of football commentator John Madden. Although Madden was giving his normal football play-by-play, the clips are selected to give the impression that he is describing men having sex with men. Many other radio stations have played these sketches.

History

Drew Lane (whose given name is Andrew Aldrich), originally from Chicago, attended Virginia Tech, where he was a member of both the baseball and long-distance rollerblading teams. He still holds many single-season records at Virginia Tech. Drew came to Detroit with his partner, known as Zip, in 1991. The Drew and Zip show had enjoyed small-market success in Phoenix, Arizona before moving the show to Detroit. The Drew and Zip show replaced the Ken Calvert show in Detroit, using many of the same repeat guest contributors Calvert had used. Among them were TC who did humorous fake traffic reports from the Sky Crib traffic helicopter. Mike Clark was another frequent contributor, calling into the show as one of several characters. Among Clark's characters were Bob Boner, a huckster used car salesman who always had a dubious new product to peddle. Boners sales pitches were laden with double entendre and sexual innuendo. Another frequent bit was Cliff and Carl the Cliché' Cousins. The Cliche' Cousins were comedians from Windsor, Ontario, Canada Andrew Ferguson and Bob LaBrecque and spoke entirely in cliche's while interacting with Ken Calvert. Andrew Ferguson and Bob LaBrecque also worked as part of the Ken Calvert show segment "Bob, that Canadian Guy" a character who spoke with a thick Canadian accent. Andrew Ferguson served as a writer for the Ken Calvert show and later the Calvert and Kelly show on WLLZ in Detroit. Another of Clark’s characters is air traffic controller Mr. Stress, who reports on local traffic. During the days of the Calvert show, Mr. Stress would work himself into a stressed-out frenzy until he finally collapsed on the floor dropping the phone, to with Calvert would tell him to "Have a cup of coffee and a Pall Mall and relax".

Zip left the show in 1994 to take a job at a radio station in Chicago. Mike Clark filled Zip's spot and became a full time on-air member of the show, which was now called the Drew and Mike show. Mike continued to do some of his characters on occasion, but as the show began to take shape and its content grew, the Cliché' Cousins were dropped, followed several years later by Bob Boner. Mr. Stress however, still does the traffic reports, but he no longer passes out at the end of each segment. Instead he signs off with the line "...and that's the hell of traffic!"

Mike Clark has had a wide variety of jobs including working for Consumers Energy and Driving an ambulance (he refers to this as his "meat-wagon days"). Mike is also a licensed pilot and certified flight instructor.

Trudi Daniels, the show's news reporter, is from Ohio and attended Bowling Green State University. She reports the news in a distinctively casual manner, often allowing it to seed a conversation with Drew and/or Mike. Daniels usually segues from story to story using a clever pun, which wraps up the last story and leads into the next story.

In the early days, the shows producer Rob Shaffer (whose given name is Robin Dowding) was not heard on the air, but his side jokes were often injected into Drew and Mike’s conversation. Eventually he was given a mic, albeit distant sounding, and became a significant member of the on-air team. Rob was replaced in the 1998 by Marc Fellhauer and Mike Wolters. Marc and Mike were young interns and not heard on the air, but their college antics were frequently joked about. Marc and Mike are now regular contributors to on-air conversations along with their duties as producers of the show.

Drew Lane was chosen to throw out the first pitch at the Detroit Tigers game on September 6, 2007. He threw the pitch despite a wrist injury sustained during a rollerblading accident.

In September of 2007, Drew announced on his radio show, that he has given up a 15 year smoking habit.He has tried to quit in the past without long term success, but says this time he has quit for good.

Also in September 2007, Drew left the show for a so far unknown period of time in order to care for Tess, his common law partner, who is suffering from breast cancer.

External links

• Official WRIF Radio Drew & Mike web site
• Un-official fan web site and message board
• Drew Lane's MySpace page
• Mike Clark's MySpace page