Rambling with Gambling | Tom Clifford Guest Appearance

Family Tradition Ends

It was announced that John Gambling would be doing his last radio show on Friday, December 20, after 27 years... ending a family tradition that has lasted since the 1930s & '40s. And according to the Guinness Book of World Records; "Rambling with Gambling" is the longest running radio show in history.

In 1997, I had the good fortune to sit-in with John as his Traffic Reporter For-a-Day on his early morning WOR radio Show. Ah, it was a chilly December 10th morning as I recall... and dark too. 5:15 AM was the call time at WOR Studios - 1440 Broadway. We did the traffic at 6:40 AM and that's when the fun would begin with celebrity characters detailing the roadways of New York.

John was a pretty good sport and great foil straight-man. We had something in common of a theatrical nature, in that he and I were both on the soap 'Loving'. He played a Fire-Chief in an episode and I had the Doorman gig as Sturgeon for about 2 1/2 years. I did a lot of voices on that show...including King Kong!

Here's John in the studio at WOR. For a highlight of the December 10th, 1997 show: Click to hear show

 

Here’s how it all got started.

Minding my business in Nov of ’97, I got a call from Anita Tapia, a pal of my apartment days in Queens.

She told me that WOR was running this contest for a stand-in traffic reporter on the John Gambling Show.  She thought I’d be a shoe-in if I did some imitations reporting the traffic as my audition.

The rest is history. You can hear part of the audition at the opening of the program.
By:  +Tom Clifford, VoiceOver & Creative Services