An Interview with Hooked on Trivia's Mike Cook,

An Interview with Hooked on Trivia's Mike Cook
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LP: I can't think of anyone I know who calls that their favorite ride. That's very interesting.

MC: Yeah, I know. It's just unusual to say that. When you really think of it, it really is an awesome ride.

LP: I agree.

MC: You know, Splash Mountain's cool but let's face it, the real thrill of that ride is the drop. That's pretty much it. Space Mountain is cool but it's a rough ride. It jerks you around a lot. It's just not quite as fun. You know that the Matterhorn was the first steel coaster in the world? That's a question I use about once a year.

LP:So you do reuse questions?

MC: Oh yeah, sure. I'll recycle them - heck yeah. They are great questions. I mean a lot of people - if you air a repeat every one to two years or something, like the chance of the same person hearing that same question again - number one, if they do that's great. Because that means they're a really big fan.(chuckles) And the chances are that they won't hear it because we're on so many hours now that its very unlikely. And I like to recycle really, really good classic questions. And people like to hear it.

LP: Since you're obviously a trivia expert and quite knowledgeable about Disney, why do you think the two are such a natural combination?

MC: Because Disney is part of the American psyche. Disney is part of the American mind. If you look at America as one big huge collective person or mind, it is part of it. It is a part of the mind. And because of that it is a part of the memory bank of each individual. It is so huge that I think Disney - the corporate people - the people who run Disney, lose sight of that from time to time and then they regain sight of it - just how big and important Disney is in the minds of people. It really is - it's part of the soul of a person and America itself. People want to hang on to that. They have very fond memories of that. They like to reorient to those memories. They love to think about it. It is one of the only things in life - I mean Walt Disney's intention was always to remove a person from the work-a-day every day world. You know, to really escape from the everyday world. He did a really good job of it. His intention really stuck in that Disney is good at that. Therefore, the memories we all have relating to Disney - whether it is in a theater or on a ride - really, really are very fond.

LP: Obviously you can be heard on KFMB is there anywhere else around the country that you can be heard?

MC: Not yet. We're shopping for a syndicator. We want to be syndicated. And you can put that there, we are very ripe and ready for syndication.

We're on KFMB Monday through Friday 11:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m.. Saturday night 9:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m.. We've done many 10 hour shows on Saturday night in the past. 5:00 p.m. to 3:00 am. - stuff like that.

LP: And I can tell you from first-hand experience, the show can be heard in Orange County. We listen often on our way home from Disneyland.

MC: A lot of people do just that. In fact we get calls from six states because KFMB is about 50,000 watts and low on the dial and such. In the suburbs we have great reach.

LP: What about the Internet?

MC: A lot of stations are not [on the Internet] right now, and we're not either. We will be returning - I mean the whole station is not due to union and commercial skirmishes over all the stuff you've probably heard about.

LP: Do you have any idea when that will be?

MC: Well a lot of stations are supposed to have come back already. I expect that KFMB will come back, hopefully before the end of summer. But I have no idea.

LP: That's not your department

MC: And I don't even work there. I'm a independent producer.

LP: That's all I have, thank you very much.

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-- Posted June 28, 2001
-- Interview and picture by Doobie Moseley

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