Word: downey
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...dark side of William Buckley may be Morton Downey Jr., a sneering mud wrestler who runs a nightly talk show out of New Jersey. That, of course, is not journalism. But otherwise respectable reporters and commentators come close sometimes to the circus form of opinion slinging. Consider the McLaughlin Group, presided over by the amiably thunder-browed ex-Jesuit John McLaughlin, who once worked as a speechwriter in Richard Nixon's White House. The McLaughlin Group is great fun, but brawly -- alive with spitballs, hoots of derision, melodramatic postures, overshouts...
Welcome to Wrestling from New Jersey -- er, The Morton Downey Jr. Show, TV's wildest talk program. Since its debut two months ago on WWOR, the Secaucus, N.J.-based superstation, Downey's verbal slugfest has made Phil's and Oprah's "lively" discussions look like sherry-sipping college seminars. Critics are appalled ("A disgrace to television," said Kay Gardella of the New York Daily News), but ratings are rising, and blue-collar fans are flocking to the studio for tapings. After just two weeks, all the seats were booked through the end of the year...
...crowd comes partly to hear Downey's right-wing rantings but mainly to cheer on his bullying tactics, as in this typical recent colloquy. Fringe Presidential Candidate Lyndon LaRouche: "Why don't you shut up?" Downey: "Why don't you shut up? All you're doing is spewing garbage." Porn Star Seka walked off one program in disgust; Downey threw Journalist Rich Taylor off another show during an argument about alleged defects in the Audi 5000. Two weeks ago, Downey was arraigned on an assault charge filed by Gay Activist Andrew Humm, a guest who claims Downey slapped him after...
...Downey, 55, seems oddly cast as the pit bull of TV talk-show hosts. The son of an Irish tenor popular with radio audiences during the 1930s and '40s, he worked for a time as a singer and songwriter. His eclectic, not to say bizarre, career has also included stints as co-owner of the New Orleans Buccaneers franchise in the American Basketball Association, an activist for victims of the Biafran war in Nigeria and, briefly, presidential candidate of the American Independent Party in 1980 (he turned down the nod, he says, because the party was too right wing even...
...rude, I'm overbearing," Downey admits. But he insists such tactics are needed to "break away the Madison Avenue veneer that all these experts come on the show with nowadays. You get them angry enough, they'll blow their stack and tell you what they really think." The show's producers say Downey's abrasive style fills a gap left by the departure of Joe Pyne and other strident talk stars of the '60s. Though Downey's audience outside the New York City area is limited to about 14 million cable homes that receive WWOR, there is already talk...