Actor Richard Sanders who played the incompetent but likeable newsman Les Nessman [winner of the Silver Sow Award and five time winner of the Buckeye Newshawk Award.} turns 78 today. I loved that show and last year watched the entire series again on DVD- it holds up well. Some of the highlights in the series involved Les- like the greatest episode in the history of the series- the Turkey’s Away episode-in which the 1937 Hindenburg disaster was evoked. His mispronouncing golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez’s name and when corrected by Johnny Fever- still mispronouncing it. Sanders was the perfect Les Nessman. The radio counterpart to Ted Baxter. Sanders made guest appearances in other shows and movies but he will always be remembered as Les!
Below- the great Thanksgiving Turkey Drop- link.
slicethelife 
The only thing the poor guy wanted was walls around his desk!…. love Les
He was one of the characters that made the show go! Incompetent- but well meaning and lovable.
Yes he was… the Ted Baxter reference was great.
Thanks- The Pirates had an announcer Lanny Frattarre- who a local sports guy said ‘he went to the Ted Baxter School of Broadcasting”- which was about correct in my opinion.
Lol that bad huh…
My favorite was 20 years ago when James Earl Ray died- a game was going on and he was going on about James Earl Jones dying- and his being in the Field Of Dreams… then he had to correct himself- the bulletin was James Earl Ray.. oops.
A big oops… now I will have to look him up…
i am looking forward to the album- and he did play one of the songs from the new album on the expanded carpool show.
Cool I need to see that tonight…
Whew! When the title first came up I thought you were going to tell us he was dead… “As God as my witness I thought turkeys could fly.” Hilarious.
Same thought! So glad he’s not. For me, his highlight is “Chi Chi Rodriguez.” I’m laughing just thinking about it.
That was great- he just looks at Johnny and repeats how he originally pronounced it..
I don’t think he does any acting anymore but he’s still with us… I think Gordon Jump aka The Big Guy -is the only major character from the show who has passed away.
I thought is was dead.
CLASSIC!
I still get a good chuckle watching that show. I get episodes of it on LAFF TV channel.
“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!”
One of my favorite shows. It’s too bad they had to remove all the classic music from the episodes and replace them with generic tunes. I guess it’s because of copyright issues?
In recent years the DVD releases has some of the original music- they couldn’t secure the rights to all the songs but 111 originals they were able to get.