Reply To: Kenesaw Mountain Landis – And other jokes I didn’t get
The thing is, Kerrin, Soterios Johnson is a news reader on NPR, which is the National Public Radio network. NPR is the place — and pretty much the ONLY place — on US radio where you hear serious, educated voices talking about ideas.
For context, the news readers on NPR tend to sound like David Dimbleby doing commentary during a royal funeral, whereas the typical American radio *personality* sounds more like Terry Wogan, or David Dickenson, or Richard & Judy. Very affable, very polished-friendly, a little regional, leading you into commercial with a practiced *funny comment.*
I don't live in NYC, so I've never actually heard Mr. Johnson on radio, but the idea of an NPR commentator having a secret life as a rave/club/night scene dancer is just inherently a funny one.
Terry Gross does a syndicated NPR show called "Fresh Air," which presents cultural topics in a broad way. Her shows often focus on a recent book about some subject, and add interview spots with the author, with the subject or subjects of the book, and other material designed to illuminate that subject and how it relates to current affairs. Ms. Gross has a short pixie haircut, wire-rim glasses, a puckish, quizzical sort of humor and an educated, intelligent voice. The idea that SHE's at the same rave or club, dancing until dawn, just adds to the surreality of D,SJ,D.
I'm not sure the contrast would make sense to a British audience, since the BBC has traditionally been the anchor of radio and television over the years and therefore the average person has been exposed to so MUCH relatively highbrow material on radio and television. American broadcast radio & TV, by contrast, is pretty much nonstop Eurovision Song Contest punctuated by Big Brother & Who Wants to be a Millionaire and jammed into a constant stream of loud, in-your-face commercial messages. And over on one or two channels perched at the edge of the dial you'll find the noncommercial public radio or TV channels, which are so very different.
Does that make it any clearer?