Ordway and Felger are really cut from the same cloth. The difference is, Felger's act is more current whereas Ordway's schtick presumably jumped the shark to the point where he's now trying to "reinvent" himself in an uncomfortable hosting hole doing reads over hip-hop music and engaging in awkward "pop culture" arguments with Michael Holley.
Ordway's background is in acting, and he always described the old "Big Show" as a daily soap opera featuring a different mix of characters...basically the Boston sport fan's version of "Seinfeld." There were inside jokes between the hosts, "bits" replaying the most memorable segments from previous shows, and everybody played a role with Ordway acting as the ring-leader. The listener felt they were sitting in at a lunch table, listening to the unabashed homer jock (Smerlas) threaten to "beat the snot out of it" the preppy, snobby, whiney contrarian (Felger), or the dorky well-read historian (Buckley) try to make sense of the "typical middle-aged sports fan who also happens to be on TV" (Stearns).
Felger and Mazz were both regulars on Glenn's show for many years. They then jumped to different stations (Mazz-1510, Felger-890), tried to simmer down their acts a little bit, and wound up crawling back to EEI to return to their old gimmicks. Now granted, obviously the lack of a signal possessed by 1510 and 890 likely contributed more to those station's downfalls than anything. But when the opportunity came to take part in another sports radio station, I'm sure that Felger and Mazz made a pact to not repeat their mistakes. Since last time they tried to drop a lot of their histrionic schtick, they decided to try something different this time around (amplify it).
The "Evil Tony" character has risen to new heights. Mazz was always pessimistic, but now he's acquired a penchant for doing mocking interpretations of the Boston accent, criticizing statistical analysis, blogs, computers, text messaging, video games (basically anything that people under the age of 35 do), and he's a "Yankees' fan" to boot! Plus, he just can't stop thinking about how the Red Sox lost out on Mark Teixeira...
Felger's simple contrarianism has had several layers added to it. He's an obsessive-compulsive, miserable, and negative prick who's married to a hot wife, makes a lot of money, and gets paid to talk about sports for a living (even though he repeatedly claims that he hates people and hates talking to people). He'll never be happy, and will always have something to rant and rave about. Maybe one day it's that Shaq is taking too long to return from injury, or one day it's the Bruins dropping a 3-0 series lead to the Flyers, or on a slow news day, maybe it's panicking about the probability of an asteroid striking the Earth.
Felger and Mazz's characters may get old eventually, but they're not their yet. "The Big Show" had a decade-plus long run of ratings' dominance. Felger and Mazz know the formula works here, and so far they've been proven right.
*That's not to say that I believe it's 100% schtick. I actually think that Felger genuinely expresses his opinions, it's just that he exaggerates them on the air. Like Ordway used to say, "nobody's ever just fat...they're ENORMOUS."
Ordway's background is in acting, and he always described the old "Big Show" as a daily soap opera featuring a different mix of characters...basically the Boston sport fan's version of "Seinfeld." There were inside jokes between the hosts, "bits" replaying the most memorable segments from previous shows, and everybody played a role with Ordway acting as the ring-leader. The listener felt they were sitting in at a lunch table, listening to the unabashed homer jock (Smerlas) threaten to "beat the snot out of it" the preppy, snobby, whiney contrarian (Felger), or the dorky well-read historian (Buckley) try to make sense of the "typical middle-aged sports fan who also happens to be on TV" (Stearns).
Felger and Mazz were both regulars on Glenn's show for many years. They then jumped to different stations (Mazz-1510, Felger-890), tried to simmer down their acts a little bit, and wound up crawling back to EEI to return to their old gimmicks. Now granted, obviously the lack of a signal possessed by 1510 and 890 likely contributed more to those station's downfalls than anything. But when the opportunity came to take part in another sports radio station, I'm sure that Felger and Mazz made a pact to not repeat their mistakes. Since last time they tried to drop a lot of their histrionic schtick, they decided to try something different this time around (amplify it).
The "Evil Tony" character has risen to new heights. Mazz was always pessimistic, but now he's acquired a penchant for doing mocking interpretations of the Boston accent, criticizing statistical analysis, blogs, computers, text messaging, video games (basically anything that people under the age of 35 do), and he's a "Yankees' fan" to boot! Plus, he just can't stop thinking about how the Red Sox lost out on Mark Teixeira...
Felger's simple contrarianism has had several layers added to it. He's an obsessive-compulsive, miserable, and negative prick who's married to a hot wife, makes a lot of money, and gets paid to talk about sports for a living (even though he repeatedly claims that he hates people and hates talking to people). He'll never be happy, and will always have something to rant and rave about. Maybe one day it's that Shaq is taking too long to return from injury, or one day it's the Bruins dropping a 3-0 series lead to the Flyers, or on a slow news day, maybe it's panicking about the probability of an asteroid striking the Earth.
Felger and Mazz's characters may get old eventually, but they're not their yet. "The Big Show" had a decade-plus long run of ratings' dominance. Felger and Mazz know the formula works here, and so far they've been proven right.
*That's not to say that I believe it's 100% schtick. I actually think that Felger genuinely expresses his opinions, it's just that he exaggerates them on the air. Like Ordway used to say, "nobody's ever just fat...they're ENORMOUS."
