NewsRadio Lives On 20 Years Later With 'Fort Awesome' Podcast

LOS ANGELES — A television sitcom that went off the air more than 20 years ago, produced zero Emmy awards and was constantly moved from time slot to time slot in just a 5-year run on NBC is alive and well. No, there hasn't been a reboot of "NewsRadio" with the original characters from the 1990's, but a Los Angeles-based podcast about the show has already produced more episodes than the original work itself.

Jason Klamm, Allen Rueckert and Jen (no last name, kind of like NewsRadio's Beth) have for the past three years produced now more than 100 episodes of "Dispatches From Fort Awesome," the podcast based on the highly underrated sitcom that starred the likes of beloved Saturday Night Live alum Phil Hartman and Dave Foley, an actor who made it big on Kids in the Hall and still appears in various sitcom roles to this day.

In fact, Klamm, Rueckert and Jen have produced more podcast episodes (105 as of September, 2019) than NewsRadio did television episodes (97 from 1995-1999). It gets several thousand listeners every week.

Klamm talked to Patch recently about how the successful podcast idea came about.

"Allen and I had already worked on podcasts together, and at the same time did a show in L.A. called 'The Drinking Game,' a stage reading of movies from the 80's and 90's in which we'd get drunk and the audience ended up getting drunk," he said.

And pop culture would always come up at these shows, and Klamm said that "oddly enough, three or four of us would end up quoting NewsRadio pretty regularly."

"So we wanted to talk more about the show, and that's how the podcast came about."
In three years, "Dispatches From Fort Awesome" has featured a number of big name guests, including cast members Foley, Khandi Alexander and Vicki Lewis and director James Burrows, who Klamm calls "the busiest man in Hollywood."

The podcast name, "Fort Awesome," refers to the name of the mansion owned by the character Jimmy James (played by Stephen Root) in NewsRadio. It's only mentioned in one or two episodes, but the name connected with Klamm so much so that he has named his own apartment "Fort Awesome Studios." He had the name even for the recording of his "Comedy on Vinyl" podcast, which he started eight years ago.

"So once we started the podcast I figured we might as well continue the tradition," Klamm said.

While NewsRadio was often overlooked when it comes to the best sitcoms of the 1990's, it shouldn't have been. It was a unique show with a very loyal fanbase, both 20 some years ago and to this day. And when you look at the names who have appeared on the show, it turns out it was a bit of a star-studded cast.

Hartman was the heart and soul of the show. The fifth season that went on after his tragic death was just not the same as the first four with him being involved in almost every good storyline (and there were many, many good ones).

But Hartman was not the whole show. There was also Foley, who played the news director in the show who had a unique connection with every character. Also Khandi Alexander and Maura Tierney, brilliant actresses who later starred in several TV dramas. Add in Root, Andy Dick, Vicki Lewis and Joe Rogan, whose "Fear Factor" reality show and comedy podcasts have perhaps made him the most famous "post-NewsRadio" actor.

Jon Lovitz was also a character on the show in the fifth season after Hartman's death. He and several other big names — including Bob Costas, Bob Odenkirk, Ben Stiller and Lauren Graham —were also guests on NewsRadio.

Klamm, originally from upstate New York and an alum of Columbia College in Chicago says he's been a fan of NewsRadio since it was on the air and discovered an even greater love of it when the reruns began and DVDs were released.

"I'm a massive fan of Phil Hartman," said Klamm, who now does voice-over work himself. "He's the reason I got into voice-overs."

Klamm, who is also an actor, writer and sketch comedian based in Los Angeles for the past 16 years, describes NewsRadio as a show about a family.

"A super dysfunctional family, but with characters who stay consistent. Even when they are insane," he said. "The consistency of the characters in all the different situations they are put in is really amazing."

The average NewsRadio fan is "a massive nerd for the show," which is set around a group of employees who work for the fictional WNYX radio station in New York City. Which means that many of the podcast listeners actually know even more about the show than Klamm does.

A number of "did you know?" aspects of the sitcom have come up on the podcast, including the artwork that the character Dave Nelson (played by Foley) showed the rest of the cast during the "Security Door" episode was actually done by Bill Oakley of The Simpsons fame.

Most recently, the podcast received a number of good responses to their 100th episode, which featured a stage reading of a semi-unproduced episode.

"We re-cast the whole show, I got to play Bill McNeal (Hartman's character) and our audience really dug it," Klamm said. "At the end, one of the producers kindly handed over a bunch of props and stuff from the show, and I got the honor of keeping a program from Phil Hartman's memorial, which took place on my 18th birthday, apparently."

The plan is to continue the podcast through its current fifth season and continue at a "less frequent" pace after that, Klamm said.

"But we don't want to end it until we've interviewed everyone," he said. Meaning hopes for podcast appearances by Rogan, Tierney and the others affiliated with the show could be on the horizon.

New episodes of Dispatches From Fort Awesome come out on Wednesdays and can be found here and here.