More of this Feature • Part 2: Getting Response From The Internet • Part 3: How Come You Haven't Been Fired?

Related Resources • More Profiles of Radio Personalities

Elsewhere on the Web • Radio Savant • Official April Winchell Website • KFI AM 640, Los Angeles

Corey: So, how does a successful voice actor wind up doing talk radio?

April: I opened a radio advertising agency called Radio Savant in 1992. I was fortunate enough that my work caught on and the company became successful. Apart from doing cartoon voices, that was pretty much my livelihood.

By 2000, I was bored. I like to pretend I'm multi-faceted, but really I just have a short attention span. As luck would have it, the commercial actor's strike happened, and I had to find something else to do. I'd always wanted to do a radio show. I didn't realize that you don't get one in Los Angeles, the number two market in the country, just by asking for it (if ignorance is bliss, I'm the happiest girl in the world). So I called up David G. Hall, who was then the Program Director at KFI.

I told him I thought there was room for a different female voice in talk radio. The only women I was hearing were either bimbo sidekicks or hard ass conservatives. I wanted to hear something else. I wanted to hear something funny.

I pitched him a show that I thought was missing from talk radio. No topics, no issues and most importantly, no callers. I was tired of bloated hosts throwing out inflammatory topics and goading listeners into calling in and doing the show for them. I thought it was lazy. I wanted to put on a show instead of host one. I wanted to write pieces and pre-produce them. I wanted to interview grade Z celebrities and read from the Star while playing yodeling records. I wanted to make people laugh. David asked me to start that Sunday. I still haven't forgiven him.

Next page > Getting Response From The Internet > Page 2