A few weeks back, Tim interviewed four of the ladies from The Broadcast, one of our little spots of heaven over on KTXD. Pat Smith talked about Lamar Odom, Suzie Humphreys revealed that she almost gave birth in a helicopter, Lisa Pineiro told Tim about her two novels, and Courtney Kerr let on about some Most Eligible Dallas secrets.
Today, I get special co-host Midge Hill, who chatted while drinking lemonade from her couch. She invited me to join.
Bradford Pearson: So, we’ve done some other Q&As with some of the other ladies that are hosting The Broadcast, and we thought that you deserved a shot to have one as well.
Midge Hill: Yeah, I know. So I’m like the substitute. Are you the substitute too?
BP: I guess so. Tim’s out doing something else, so I guess we can commiserate in our substitution. That’s a good question to start out with. Will you just be substituting for Suzie or for when any of the hosts can’t come in?
MH: Nobody tells me anything, Brad! I don’t know, but if somebody else gets sick, it may be that the thing will fall on me, or maybe they’ll just do it with three people. Don’t know. Nobody told me.
BP: What have you been up to? What’s been going on in Midge Hill’s world?
MH: I’m just retired, so I sit around and take naps all day, you know, and watch TV, and eat bon-bons. I watch The View, and now the D Magazine shows: D Living and D: The Broadcast, and then the Texas Daily. My new three favorite shows.
BP: That sounds great. So watching The View, it sounds like it’s probably research now for when you have to sub in.
MH: Actually, I misspoke. I didn’t mean The View. They get on my nerves.
BP: So exclusively the D-branded shows, hopefully.
MH: Oh heck yeah. That’s right. I like them. And I think those ladies are doing a great job. And I also think that this is something that is overdue. We were talking about this last summer, when I first got into Texas Daily, about doing a talk show. I think it’s a really great idea.
BP: Do you think it’s something that’s overdue for the Dallas market in general, too?
MH: Sure, yeah. Right.
BP: Why is that?
MH: Well, I think that women like to watch TV, and these women are good. They like to hear issues broken down, and although it’s not heavy, hard-hitting, like, TV news, or like Texas Daily, it is still issues that women like to talk about. And women like to talk. You heard about that extra protein that they have in their brains? It makes women like to talk a lot. So they like to talk, and they like to listen.
BP: I guess that’s a good combination for a talk show.
MH: Yeah, that was last week’s news, the protein in the women’s brains.
BP: I saw that.
MH: It makes them talk a lot more than men. Although, you know, it doesn’t always work out that way. I’m just mad that you’re not here, at the house, to talk about what I’m wearing and how I just curled up on the sofa with a cup of coffee, and we had like tea and scones or whatever.
BP: That sounds perfect. That sounds better than the lunch I just had. So I guess you and Suzie — for lack of a better term — sort-of represent the Baby Boomer generation for this show.
MH: I think that’s right, yeah, because we’re contemporary.
BP: What does that audience need that’s a little bit different than maybe what Courtney would bring?
MH: Oh yeah. Well, I don’t know. They say with age comes wisdom, and I don’t think that’s true in my case. I’m still searching for the wisdom god here, and it ain’t happening to me. But there is experience that we can lend, and there are a lot of boomers out there. 75 million of us, and half of those are women—or a little bit more than half of those are women. That’s in the whole country. We’re only talking about Texas here. North Texas. So I think it’s probably going to appeal to them, because in TV, older women just—they ain’t happening, as a rule. But this, you know I call this geezer news and geezer information, kind of thing—it’s for us codgers and geezers and stuff like that. And I think that’s an important part of it. And we’ll probably be dealing with some of those issues. I don’t know, older skin, the health issues that older women have, or are going to have. We can warn them that like, the first thing to go is the top of your legs. That kind of thing.
BP: I’m sure you don’t have any of those problems.
MH: No. Not me. And social security issues, and retirement issues. So there’ll be finance, and there’ll be health. And there’ll be, I don’t know, maybe jobs after 50, that kind of thing. I’m not sure that D Magazine is gearing this show to the older women. I’m not sure what their demographic is, but I think that they stopped before my age. I mean, they stopped at like 60 or something, for the demographic.
BP: But everyone gets older eventually, no matter what it is.
MH: Really?
BP: I hope not, for my sake.
MH: Well, it’s better than the alternative, as they say.
BP: That is true. So I guess you’re glad to be back on TV again, huh?
MH: Um…
BP: But it sounds like that coffee on the couch is pretty nice though, too.
MH: Actually, it’s lemonade. You could hear the ice clinking. I make the best lemonade you have ever put in your mouth.
BP: What’s the secret?
MH: Well, I’ll let you know. I put an orange into it, because it takes the pucker out of it. You know when you drink lemonade, and if it’s too sweet, it’s blech. So it mellows out. It’s not so strident and so whatever.
BP: So I wanted to shift gears a little bit, and ask — sort of in a roundabout way — whether you’d be wearing pink suits while you’re hosting. For transcription purposes, back in 1996, you were allegedly let go from Channel 11 for wearing a pink suit on election night.
MH: I think they called it a “non-election night suit.” And I want to point out that everything that I wore on Channel 11 had to be approved by the news director, who was in fact color blind. I think that’s hilarious. But anyway, that’s about all I can say about that. I may, from time to time, be wearing a pink suit. Actually, when we started this, they said — I’m speaking of Texas Daily — they said, “Throw away the anchor suits. This is casual.” So yeah, it was a magenta silk suit that I was wearing that caused all of those problems, because it was a non-election night suit. What the heck ever that means.
BP: Well I guess in a world of Democrat blue and Republican red, you sort-of blended right in between.
MH: I thought it was the perfect thing to wear. I did. And since everything was approved, I figured I could not make a — well, I didn’t even think about that. I never thought about making a mistake on the air, because I didn’t wear any low-cut stuff or anything like that. So I was shocked and amazed. But that’s what happens, and it couldn’t have been related to my age.
BP: Ah, probably not. Definitely not in any possible way.
MH: But in this case, it’s good, because they want somebody older. So I’m good.
BP: Yeah, I guess you can wear as many magenta suits as you’d like.
MH: That’s right. And have as many wrinkles as I’d like.
BP: Ah, stop it.
MH: Which is not very many.
BP: So another thing that came to my understanding is that your given name is not Midge, and it is Mountain. Is that correct?
MH: My name is — I grew up as Marilyn Mountain. But if you think Midge is a bad nickname, I have a sister Kinky, and a sister Shoop, and a sister Sporty.
BP: So Midge Mountain, was that your last name?
MH: Mountain was my last name, and then I married this guy named Hill. And then I had two sons, and before they were even born, everybody was joking about what I was going to name them. And the first one, everybody named my belly — my big pregnant belly — Bunker. So he came out Bunker Hill. And he kept that name forever. His school’s mascot was called the Patriots, so when he was running for school president, or class president or whatever it was, his slogan was, “Be a true patriot. Vote for Bunker Hill,” and he got elected. So it’s not a very forgettable name. So that’s Bunker, and I have a son, Zack, who is the Communications Director for the Philadelphia Flyers.
BP: Oh great. I went to school in Philadelphia.
MH: Really, where?
BP: I went to St. Joe’s.
MH: St. Joe’s. Oh wow. Well Zack loves Philly, and he loves his job. He thinks it’s the best job in the world.
BP: It’s a great city to work for a sports team.
MH: Yeah, they love their sports, don’t they?
BP: So I guess you went from Mountain to Hill, and if you were to get married one more time, what would your third last name be? I guess, Knoll or Mound?
MH: Pit. No, I am married actually, except he’s very private. So I am married, yes.
BP: Well it sounds like everything is going great for you, Midge. Is there anything else you want to add before I let you go today?
MH: Well, I just hope that this is the success that I want it to be, and that people know about it, and people will watch and take part in and respond to and react to, and let us know how it’s going. I think it’s important, and I think it’s a nice forum for women to get their concerns known, and it should foster a spirit of camaraderie. And to make it local, and I think it’s cool. I’m just very pleased that they’re doing this show. I’m very proud of them.
BP: Well all right Midge, I won’t keep any more of your time. I’ll let you get back to that lemonade, and I hope we get to meet in person soon.
MH: Yeah! See you, Brad. Thank you.
