Hey there loyal listeners and first-time followers, Hipp Nights on the web is back after taking a long sabbatical, but let me reassure you that we’ve been off and gone for good reason – we’ve been making some of the best radio St. Louis has ever heard. Since the last post here on the Joe Hipp blog (what was that? over two months ago!!??), we’ve been tooling around with the show, adding and subtracting, building up and breaking down, cramming and jamming all the best elements that Hipp listeners have come to love over the years, and now, after almost three months of FIVE HOUR shows on SATURDAY NIGHTS (from 6p-11p), we’re hitting our stride. However, that’s not to say that each previous week has been complete crap – quite the contrary. If you’ve been listening, you know that on Saturday nights the hippest place to be is 550 AM, but if you’ve missed anything, let me catch you up on some of the highlights. Let me, Josh Gilbert, Engineer Extraordinaire, the Professor of Pop Culture Studies, the most pretentious person in any given room at any given time, be your tour guide through Hipp Nights, dropping insightful nuggets of truth on you along the way, and pointing out all the joys and pains that go into delivering hour after hour of nonstop hit radio.
Hold on to your hats, kids, and away we go…..
January 23
We were preempted by a basketball game (what!?) so the show was cut down to three hours. To keep with the basketball theme, Joe decided to have a run-up to Valentine’s Day by making a Sweet 16 bracket of the WORST date movies of all time. Take a look at the list and notice that such gems as The Apartment, the 1960 rom-com about extramarital sex and suicide (ha ha) were left off in favor of films from the past 30 years, when the genre really took form. It was a hard fought battle that came down to really awkward man on man love, and just really bad acting from Brad Pitt that was just as awkward (have you ever witnessed a train wreck? That’s not romantic.). The Pitt debacle took top honors, despite my hard fought efforts to remind everyone that Julia Roberts was a HOOKER in Pretty Woman (have you ever seen a hooker? That’s definitely not romantic).
"The Hipp Crew's Netflix Queue"
January 16
Privacy in the bathroom? Overrated.
A show that was chock full of randomness, Joe started out the evening describing how he hit a deer with his car (or should I say, the deer hit him). After calling out the deer in question and putting the entire deer population on watch, we started the actual show. After talking around about the worst movie remakes (Psycho? Godzilla? Planet of the Apes!?), we got into a discussion of bathroom etiquette, which, I’ve got to tell you, every person needs to listen to and take heed. We’ll post audio soon enough for all the bathroom designers in the world to study.
January 9
Joe invited his son Avery to come in on his 10th birthday and host the show with him (what a dad, right?). Surprisingly, there was a level of maturity never before seen on Hipp Nights. The conversation ranged from how awful school was, to the wackness of PC Sesame Street – the “Veggie Monster”? Are you kidding me? A successful birthday present, and this way, Joe got out of buying his son a PlayStation 3.
"The 'Caprese Salad Monster' doesn't have quite the same ring to it."
January 2
We took the week off to celebrate the new year with our close friends and family. Yes, some things are more important than dick jokes and espousing for hours on end about the Beatles.
December 26
The day after Christmas called for a year-end review of 2009. From Kanye going crazy on Taylor Swift, to Christian Bale going crazy on a cinematographer, the year that was was wrapped up in style by the only man in the business who really cares about pop culture – your host, Joe Hipperson.
December 19
The FIRST Sweet 16, we counted down the BEST Christmas movies of all time. A topic that took up nearly the entire five hours, we all had our picks, but one had to take the crown, and I’m disappointed (but not bitter) to announce that Clark Griswald and Christmas Vacation narrowly beat out Kevin McCallister and Home Alone. What happened to It’s A Wonderful Life and why didn’t it even make it to the final four? I consider it a changing of the guard, and the new holiday classics have taken their hold…as witnessed in all-day non-stop showings on the cable channels.
Well, that’s all I’ve got time for now – whew! What a recap! If you listened in to any or all of those past shows, you should know what a great product we’re pushing here, and all I can say is keep listening, because it’s only getting better.
Hipp Nights, five full hours every Saturday night from 6p – 11p, only on the Big 550, KTRS.
