Take two smart, funny and outspoken women who write columns for competing newspapers and put them together behind the radio microphone to host a daily talk show.
While this may sound like ”high concept” for a TV sitcom, it`s actually more of a real-life sitcom: WGN-AM 720`s ”Kathy & Judy Show.”
Tribune ”Inc.” columnist Kathy O`Malley and nationally syndicated Sun-Times columnist Judy Markey are close friends off the air whose natural chemistry combines for what might best be described as a kaffeeklatch of the airwaves.
Their freewheeling show, aired from 9:30 to 11:55 a.m. Mondays and 12:30 to 2 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, brings a welcome female perspective to a testosterone-dominated medium.
They`ll banter about the battle between the sexes with callers and celebrity guests ranging from Brooke Shields to celebrity trainer Jake Steinfeld and tell-all writer Kitty Kelley.
They`ll also tackle serious issues, inviting a prostitute-turned-schoolteac her on the air to talk about her life, or discussing the Pee-wee Herman scandal with parents and children.
”When we go out and meet women, the most common reaction we get is,
`God, it`s so great to hear women say things on the radio that the rest of us are saying,` ” said O`Malley in a post-show conversation in a WGN conference room.
”And really, we aren`t saying anything that women in Schaumburg or LaGrange Park aren`t saying to each other. It`s just that we get to say it on the radio.”
Markey points out that though the ”Kathy & Judy Show” has a large female audience, it`s not aimed only at women. ”We want guys to listen and pick our brains and learn to be smarter about women,” she said. ”We`re not male-bashers.”
”Guys call us and tell us they like listening because it`s like eavesdropping,” O`Malley said.
First paired together at WGN 3 1/2 years ago on a part-time basis, Markey and O`Malley have been regular moonlighters for nearly two years.
They met in the mid-`80s, when both were appearing as celebrity stepmothers in the Chicago City Ballet production of ”Cinderella,” and have been close friends ever since.
”We`re new girlfriends,” Markey said. ”We have a very yin-yang relationship because we both come from very different places from each other. Kathy`s a divorced Catholic who was raised on a farm.
”I`m divorced, Jewish and from Beverly Hills. But what we have in common is that we`re both independent, verbal, curious and are probably above average in intelligence.”
”But we have different tastes in men,” O`Malley joked. ”Which is probably a good thing.”
One of the more refreshing aspects of their show is that even after 3 1/2 years on the air, neither Markey nor O`Malley sounds like a slick radio pro.
WGN-AM program director Lorna Gladstone ”figured that we could learn radio better than two other people could learn friendship,” Markey said.
”And I think the friendship aspect is the thing people respond to.”
Then ”Kathy & Judy Show” producer Randy Eccles walked into the room carrying a huge edible saxophone sent over by a nearby hotel. Said a delighted O`Malley, ”How could you not like a job where they send you a golden saxophone to eat?”
