WE accomplished another "first" in the varied history of Honolulu Lite by going on radio on Friday morning and the results were spectacularly ambiguous. McGarrett role
tough coif to fillIt was fun for those of us involved. And it seemed fun for the people who called in, especially as they suggested people who could should be cast in the key roles of the upcoming "Hawaii Five-0" television pilot. But I got a nasty e-mail immediately from some guy who thought that our show was amateurish, which kind of shows you the downside of all this advance technology. Nothing like immediate rejection, eh?
I was filling in for Rick Hamada on KHVH radio (AM 830) for two hours and thought it would be fun to try an audio version of Honolulu Lite. Luckily, radio regulars Steve Stinefelt and Barry Villamil were there to keep things running as smoothly as can be expected when you let a bull into a china shop. It's been said I have the perfect face for radio, but listeners soon learned that I have the perfect voice for mime. Where they dig up all these radio guys with deep voices, I don't know. But next to theirs, mine sounds like a radial tire with a slow leak.
The question of the morning was what people or actors should be cast in the upcoming "Hawaii Five-0" pilot, which begins filming soon. There's a possibility that there will not even be a Steve McGarrett, seeing as how he has become a fictional crime-fighting icon, along the lines of Colombo. But you can't let little details like that get in the way of live morning radio, so we pressed the listeners to give us their candidates for McGarrett and other cast members. There results ranged from bizarre to really bizarre. Here's the way the choices broke down:
Political figures and media types. Lots of people saw this as a chance for satire and social commentary. George Ariyoshi, John Waihee, Ben Cayetano, Jeremy Harris - in other words, the usual political cattle call. Also suggested were people like Joe Moore and Tim Tindall. Moore was picked for his past acting ability and Tindall for his perfectly coiffed hair. Or maybe it was the other way around.
This just barely touches the names called in. And as you can see, suggestions were all over the board. (We had an unusually large number of people wanted Danny DeVito and, peculiarly, a few wanting Dave Letterman. Can you see McGarrett saying "Here's the Top 10 Reasons Why You're Getting Busted! Number 10, you're a scumbag ...")
Anyway, it was fun trying Honolulu Lite on radio. But I don't want you loyal readers left out of the fun. So fax or e-mail me your casting ideas for the "Hawaii Five-0" pilot. And, of course, if they actually use them, I get a cut of the commission.
