The Point Radio: Steve Wilkos Controls Chaos

We begin our look at TV Talk Shows with the guy who doesn’t fit the picture in any fashion. Steve Wilkos is not your typical host and his show certainly stands out among the competition. Steve tells us how it all started for him, and where he wants to see the show headed. Plus winter just ended and now it’s Tornado Season. The Weather Channel’s Mike Bettes talks about TORNADO WEEK (starting Monday on The Weather Channel) and how he almost died covering a storm last year.

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Transcript

The Point Radio It's Mike Raub. We start our look at daytime television with a guy that certainly has broken the mold. Former comp and security guard Steve Wilkos told us how he got his particular brand of daytime television together. Plus tornadoes are on the way and the Weather Channel has tornado week. And meteorologist Mike Betas tells us what's coming up for the summer.

Plus a whole boatload of bat band variants on the way to the comic shop. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. Syndicated talk show host Steve Wilkos may not have broken the mold when it comes to TV hosts. But he sure abandoned a little bit.

He didn't come from a background of being a newscaster, a model or even a movie star. So how did he manage to wind up on television? Well, after high school, I wasn't the best student in the world. So right after high school, I didn't want to hang around on the block. So I joined the Marine Corps and I spent six and a half years in the Marines.

And when I got out, I had taken the Chicago Policeman test. And so when I got out of the service, I became a Chicago Policeman. And I was doing that for 12 years during that 12 years. I was asked to work security on the Jerry Sprinter show and that was in 1994. And I went for one day with some other cops and we were doing a show on Sprinter.

We were an audience to make sure nothing happened. And they asked me to come back the next week. I came back. They started asking me there all the time. The show took a dramatic turn.

They went, you know, much younger, kind of confrontational. And they asked me to be there all the time. And then next thing I know, they asked me to shave my head and do all kind of things. And my role on the show kept growing. And so we started doing things called Steve to the rescue on Jerry Sprinter show where

I'd go out and help people. And then when Jerry went on Dancing with the Stars, they needed somebody to host the Sprinter show while he was gone because they couldn't really show up the production of the showdown. They came to me and said, we'd like you to host the show while Jerry's gone. I said, of course, but I don't know what I'm doing.

And I said, don't worry, you'll be fine. And so when I hosted the show, we took the show in a little bit of a different direction. We did more serious helping people out, things of that nature. So it worked out really good. Talk shows usually follow one or two models.

They're either issue based or a bunch of celebrities plugging their latest projects. But what made Steve choose the particular path for his show? Well, we had to play to my strengths. My strengths was being a Chicago policeman. Like you said, most people are entertainer celebrities that are given talk shows.

I was a cop and my job was investigation. And that's what I do on my show. I talk to people, I investigate, I get to the bottom of it. And I think that's where the success of my show comes from. I asked Steve, as he put his shows together, what does he look for?

Well, here's the situation that I'm different in than anybody else on TV. My wife is my executive producer and my wife knows me better than anybody. So she's the one who actually puts the shows together and she puts together shows that she knows that I'm going to be interested in or plays to my strengths. So I don't think there's anybody else on TV that they're married to their executive producer.

So I'm in a very unique situation. Steve is a huge sportsman. So I asked him if he ever thought about getting into play by play. Well, I'm a huge baseball fan. So if I got opportunity to do anything in baseball, I certainly would jump at it.

I've done a little bit of play by play back in Chicago when I was invited up to the broadcast booth and things of that nature. But I'm really content doing what I do. I love doing my show. It affords me a lot of time off to be with my kids.

And so I'm really just enjoying doing my show. There's been a lot of wild stuff that's turned up on Steve's show over the past few years. But I asked him what his particular favorite was. Well, I got to tell you one incident that probably most people wouldn't think is one of my favorites. But it certainly is when we had a story of a mother who believed that her teenage daughter was poisoning her.

And the girl was just a sweet young girl. And I actually was shocked when she failed the lie detector test for poisoning her mother. She was pouring bleach in her orange juice. And the mother got really upset when she failed. And she ran to the back of the stage.

And it's funny because I never even noticed on my own stage that there was like a little trunk back there with the metal bowl on it. Well, she picked up that metal bowl and she tried to throw it as hard as she could at her daughter. But she hit me right in the head right above my eye and it knocked me down to the ground. And my wife and everybody came running on stage and I thought that I was bleeding, but I wasn't. And everybody started screaming, you're going to get arrested.

And, you know, everybody was coming to me. And after the show, the lawyers are like, we're going to take that out. Don't worry about. I said, hey, we've got in. This is going to be the highest rated show ever.

And it was. And I said afterwards, I should send that woman a dozen roses because she got me the highest rated show ever. More wild stuff to come. As Steve turns up on TV just about every day. Check your local listings for the Steve Wilco show.

It's all the latest in pop culture. HBO is coming to Amazon. The network is signed a deal to allow part of its programming to appear on Amazon's Prime Service. Include episodes of the Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire, Six Feet Under and others. New shows like Veeb and Girls won't be available on Amazon until three years after they air on HBO.

The new shows turn up on Amazon on May 21st. Once again, VH1 is canceled the pop culture recap show Best Week ever. It started back in 2004. It was canceled in 2010, but then revived on the network in 2012 as well. Don't worry yet on when the last episode will be run.

And by the way, over the years, the show has been a major launching pad for a number of comedians, including Rob Hubel, Jessica St. Claire and many more. Last summer, we gave you news that the image comic Choo was being developed for television. Now it looks like that'll be an animated project and attached to it. Internet darling Felicia Day and Walking Dead actor Steven Yoon both signed on for the voice of

parts in the show, at least according to The Hollywood Reporter. If you've been wondering what's going to happen at Cartoon Network with those unseen episodes of Beware of the Bad Man, well, it looks like they've decided to show them, but in an unusual time. The last 15 episodes that have not been seen so far will be running at 3 a.m. as part of the Adult Swim Toonami block.

The show was pulled from the original schedule on Cartoon Network back in October. Continuing their theme of giving us a month worth of variant covers at all tie into one central theme, in July, DC is dedicating it all to Bad Man, more than likely part of the celebration for Bad Man's 75th anniversary. And there'll be covers on things like Aquaman 33, Batgirl 33, Batman and Robin number 33, Justice League Dark number 33, Earth 2 number 25 and a lot more.

All together, 21 different covers done by artists like Kevin Nolan, Dan Juergens, Walt Simonson and Mike Kaluta, among others. One to look out for would be Jim Staranko doing his first work for DC in quite a while. He'll be doing the variant cover for Detective Comics number 33 and all the variants will be available in stores in July. Perhaps to ride the wake of the upcoming X-Men movie, Marvel has announced a few new X-Men projects, including a new Storm Solo series.

It'll be written by Greg Pak and the artwork will be by Victor Ebenez. No official title yet, but it is on the schedule for release for Marvel in July. After working with the network for their 80s documentary and their Killing Kennedy last fall, Rob Lowe is back on Nat Geo. He's working with National Geographic for a new documentary called The 90s, The Last Great Decade with a question mark at the end. Just to be clear, the sequel will premiere over three nights in July on the National Geographic.

The point, the point. While most of us are still shaking off the effects of that long cold winter, Mother Nature has a new surprise for us. It's tornado season. And on top of all that, of course, the folks at the Weather Channel with Tornado Week running right now and at the center of that meteorologist Mike Betazoo. Talk to me about exactly when tornado season starts.

Well, generally we talk about the sweet spot for tornadoes is April, May and June. Those are historically the months that we look to the most for active weather, especially, you know, in the central plains and up through the Midwest and Southeast. And remarkably, it has been a very quiet tornado season so far. We've had no tornado fatality so far in 2014 knock on wood and we're actually, believe it or not, on page for the record lowest year for tornadoes so far on top of last year, which was a record low year. So get it really be true that the effects we had in the weather patterns for the past winter really tell us what kind of tornadoes we're going to have for the summer.

No, absolutely. They do. I mean, when you have long hole, you know, long cold winters like we've had, I mean, that is not conducive for tornadoes at all. When all your air comes from Canada, that means you're in for a long cold winter, but it means you're not seeing tornadoes as soon as that air turns from Mexico or out of the Gulf of Mexico. Then, you know, you're in for tornadoes, but we just haven't had that pattern so far.

We're starting to see it now as we get closer and closer to May and May is usually the big month for tornadoes, but I don't see a really snapping back. So very active tornado pattern. I think we'll have, you know, about here and there with tornadoes, but I don't see any big, you know, powerful month of tornadoes ahead for us. So let's talk about what's coming up for tornado week. Sure. We've got we have our great live coverage.

So we'll be out there and tornado alley and you can watch this track. The tornadoes live. So we have some great prime time lineups for you. I love this show that we've got coming up called tornado alley. It's really an anthology, if you will, of the two thousand tornadoes that touch down across our planet each year. We get into the minds of these researchers that put themselves in Hans way to study them.

And it's awesome. Just Hollywood, C.D.I. that takes you right inside these vortexes and explains exactly how they work. It's really, you know, for all those people that have that, you know, weather fascination or that engineering mind, they're going to love it. But also some great documentaries on previous tornadoes and how towns like a more Oklahoma are recovering a year later after the tornado they went through. And the day like El Reno, Oklahoma, where storm chasers actually lost their lives that day. What made that day so different from other days?

Admysterically, I think it's an inside book. It's this type of stuff that you won't get anywhere else. It's great stuff. Last year, after Mike and I sat down and talked about tornado week, he had a near fatal experience with a pretty bad storm. I asked him to tell us the story without a question. Scariest day of my life. We knew that central Oklahoma was going to be an active date for tornadoes and we ended up broadcasting this tornado in the town of El Reno, Oklahoma. And it was the biggest, baddest tornado you've ever seen. I've never seen anything like it.

You know, that classic awful marine sky. It was mammoth. And it's all in things I have as a broadcaster. We shut our broadcast down. We had this live tornado and we said, you know what, we have to get into a safer location where it's too dangerous to be here. So we got in our vehicle, our crew, and we tried to hustle away from this tornado. At the same time, it intensified. It accelerated towards us and it widened two and a half miles wide.

I mean, it was the biggest tornado in US history. We're overtaken by the tornado. The vehicle that I was riding in gets hit broadside, lifted about 30 feet into the air, then tossed across the highway and into a field about 200 yards. We tumbled over and over multiple times and then finally came to rest in this field right side up. And truly remarkable that three of us in that vehicle all walked away. Even with incidents like that and of course that tell and hug movie from back in the 90s, a lot of folks still want to become storm chasers and ask Mike if that's a bad thing.

Well, you know, I think there can be a fine art to it. I get asked this question a lot while we're out there in the field. I'd love to chase Mike. How can I do it? How can I become a storm chaser? I would never discourage anyone from doing it, but I always tell them, well, you know, learn about weather. Learn how to read a radar. Take a weather spot or class with your National Weather Service Office.

They're free. Find an experienced storm chaser and tag along with them. Learn the ropes and learn how to be safe while you're out there. And I would never discourage anyone from it. If weather is their hobby or their interest, I would never discourage them from being out there and enjoying it. But just as long as they can do it and do it safely, I'm all for it.

Even though we've all heard him before, I asked Mike to one more time, sit down and tell us the things we need to watch for. Absolutely. You know, the best thing you can do there are two different things to be aware of. A tornado watch and a tornado warning. When a watch is issued, it just means that tornadoes could be coming, you know, in the next several hours. So be prepared. Know where you're going to go in your house.

Is it a basement? Is it a closet? Is it a bathroom? Make sure you get your cell phone with you, your wallet, your purse. Make sure, you know, the family is ready to go into that place as soon as the tornado warning is issued, which means the tornado is happening or it's two minutes and about to hit you. But if you know where to go and you can do it and repeat that process calmly and collectively,

then it's going to become automatic to you. And I've seen it many times. People will survive very violent tornadoes. Even above ground, because they did the right thing, you know, they went to the safest place in their house. The interior rooms in your house are very solid. If you can get there, you're going to do yourself a little bit.

Meteorologist Mike Bettas and company with Tornado Week running all this week on the Weather Channel. And get more, of course, at WeatherChannel.com. That is a wrap for the podcast right now, but we give you a pop culture 24-7 and get the point radio. You can take us along on your Apple or Android mobile device anywhere you want to go, free with the app called iNed Radio.

The podcast we do a couple of times a week is also free on websites like ComicMix.com and MichaelDaviesWorld.com. And in the iTunes podcast directory as well. And you can keep up with all that on social media. Just follow us under the Point Radio. Have a great weekend. See you back here in a few days.

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