R.I.P. Phil Donahue.

[Taltarzac725]

I used to watch his talk show.

[PugMom]

i did, too. i sometimes skipped school to watch certain episodes

[ThirdOfFive]

I used to watch his talk show.
Phil was talented, and his show had substance; unlike most of which followed which were all too often sleaze-based screamfests.

I used to enjoy watching it when he had Vladimir Posner as a guest: great conversation between the two and no attempts at one-upping each other. Posner was fascinating: he was officially a spokesperson for the USSR, not so much on Donahue but with his own show, Moscow Meridian, which was based in the USSR but broadcast in English and available as I recall on Cable TV. He and Donahue had some great in-depth conversations.

[Taltarzac725]

i did, too. i sometimes skipped school to watch certain episodes

Me too.

[Caymus]

Me too.

I would record them on my Betamax.

[Boomer]

Awww. Time sure goes by…….

He lived in Centerville, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton, in the same neighborhood as Erma Bombeck. They both went big-time at the same time.

I was young and living in Dayton when his first network show hit. If I am remembering correctly, it was about childbirth, and the topic was considered by some as being a bit unseemly to talk about, in detail — and on television. (gasp) It got a lot of advertising and anticipation. I could not wait to watch it. (Does anybody else remember this? I don’t think I am making it up. That first network show was a very big deal in Dayton.)

Erma Bombeck’s column “At Wit’s End” had been running in the local Dayton paper before she burst into syndication with wonderful success. I had the fun of seeing her speak at a conference. She was just as delightful in-person as she was in print. She left us long ago after kidney transplant complications.

R.I.P., my fellow Ohioans, Centerville’s own, Phil and Erma.

Boomer

[Normal]

I thought his show was much better than Merv Griffin’s

[dewilson58]

He did a nice job.

R I P

[blueash]

Sadly Phil gave air time to some dangerously misinformed people. He regularly had on anti-vaccine group especially one calling itself DPT named for the shot but as Disatisfied Parents Together. They pushed their pet theory that the DPT caused Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It didn't. But he had them on repeatedly and never presented the truth or challenged them.

He also loved having on Dr Doris Rapp who claimed that people were allergic to all kinds of common things and only she and her other "clinical ecologists" had the skill to diagnose and treat these allergies. She was a huge pusher of food allergies as causing behavior problems and treated all her patients with allergy drops which she concocted.

As a resident at the hospital in the city in which she practiced I had the pleasure of being paged stat to the lab where they were doing a glucose tolerance test on a young teenager. Dr Rapp had told the family, per their relating to me, that the teen was allergic to glucose and that is why she was doing poorly in school. So of course to prove this she needed a glucose tolerance test. Makes no sense, don't ask me.

Anyway, the family was told she might react to the glucose in the test and she would get dizzy or sweaty or short of breath and to have the house staff resident called and give the doctor a paper with instructions to handle this emergency. The instructions were to immediately inject a specified amount of sodium bicarbonate from the crash cart to reverse the acidity. That would stop her anaphylaxis.

So I got a tube of sterile saline from the crash cart and pushed it into her IV line after drawing a couple tubes of blood for testing. Within seconds the teen felt great. Except I hadn't given her bicarb, just more saline just like was running in her IV already. Her blood work came back normal, no acidity.

I called Dr Rapp to tell her that her patient had exactly the reaction she predicted would occur during the glucose tolerance test and she happily informed me that the doctors in the hospital never believed in her methods and she was so glad I had gotten to see she knew what she was doing. I then told her I didn't follow her orders and instead gave saline and it "reversed" the problem, which her blood tests said never existed anyway. And that I had informed the family what I did and that they might have questions when they saw her again.

When Dr Rapp accused me of not following her orders I told her that I had the bicarb in hand had the saline failed but I was not willing to give a drug which has known risks unless I was sure it was needed. She was welcome to report me. She did and I was thanked by the department chief for my actions.

[Stu from NYC]

Sadly Phil gave air time to some dangerously misinformed people. He regularly had on anti-vaccine group especially one calling itself DPT named for the shot but as Disatisfied Parents Together. They pushed their pet theory that the DPT caused Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It didn't. But he had them on repeatedly and never presented the truth or challenged them.

He also loved having on Dr Doris Rapp who claimed that people were allergic to all kinds of common things and only she and her other "clinical ecologists" had the skill to diagnose and treat these allergies. She was a huge pusher of food allergies as causing behavior problems and treated all her patients with allergy drops which she concocted.

As a resident at the hospital in the city in which she practiced I had the pleasure of being paged stat to the lab where they were doing a glucose tolerance test on a young teenager. Dr Rapp had told the family, per their relating to me, that the teen was allergic to glucose and that is why she was doing poorly in school. So of course to prove this she needed a glucose tolerance test. Makes no sense, don't ask me.

Anyway, the family was told she might react to the glucose in the test and she would get dizzy or sweaty or short of breath and to have the house staff resident called and give the doctor a paper with instructions to handle this emergency. The instructions were to immediately inject a specified amount of sodium bicarbonate from the crash cart to reverse the acidity. That would stop her anaphylaxis.

So I got a tube of sterile saline from the crash cart and pushed it into her IV line after drawing a couple tubes of blood for testing. Within seconds the teen felt great. Except I hadn't given her bicarb, just more saline just like was running in her IV already. Her blood work came back normal, no acidity.

I called Dr Rapp to tell her that her patient had exactly the reaction she predicted would occur during the glucose tolerance test and she happily informed me that the doctors in the hospital never believed in her methods and she was so glad I had gotten to see she knew what she was doing. I then told her I didn't follow her orders and instead gave saline and it "reversed" the problem, which her blood tests said never existed anyway. And that I had informed the family what I did and that they might have questions when they saw her again.

When Dr Rapp accused me of not following her orders I told her that I had the bicarb in hand had the saline failed but I was not willing to give a drug which has known risks unless I was sure it was needed. She was welcome to report me. She did and I was thanked by the department chief for my actions.

Very interesting

[Boomer]

I just read the NYT obituary. (It was not behind a paywall. I was surprised. Maybe they give us one.)

It reads as a history of television talk in the last part of the 20th Century. His ratings dropped in the 90s, but he had a long run through those changing times. The obit includes some telling quotes, some from him and one from Nora Ephron's book Heartburn.

Boomer

[Shipping up to Boston]

Sadly Phil gave air time to some dangerously misinformed people. He regularly had on anti-vaccine group especially one calling itself DPT named for the shot but as Disatisfied Parents Together. They pushed their pet theory that the DPT caused Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It didn't. But he had them on repeatedly and never presented the truth or challenged them.

He also loved having on Dr Doris Rapp who claimed that people were allergic to all kinds of common things and only she and her other "clinical ecologists" had the skill to diagnose and treat these allergies. She was a huge pusher of food allergies as causing behavior problems and treated all her patients with allergy drops which she concocted.

As a resident at the hospital in the city in which she practiced I had the pleasure of being paged stat to the lab where they were doing a glucose tolerance test on a young teenager. Dr Rapp had told the family, per their relating to me, that the teen was allergic to glucose and that is why she was doing poorly in school. So of course to prove this she needed a glucose tolerance test. Makes no sense, don't ask me.

Anyway, the family was told she might react to the glucose in the test and she would get dizzy or sweaty or short of breath and to have the house staff resident called and give the doctor a paper with instructions to handle this emergency. The instructions were to immediately inject a specified amount of sodium bicarbonate from the crash cart to reverse the acidity. That would stop her anaphylaxis.

So I got a tube of sterile saline from the crash cart and pushed it into her IV line after drawing a couple tubes of blood for testing. Within seconds the teen felt great. Except I hadn't given her bicarb, just more saline just like was running in her IV already. Her blood work came back normal, no acidity.

I called Dr Rapp to tell her that her patient had exactly the reaction she predicted would occur during the glucose tolerance test and she happily informed me that the doctors in the hospital never believed in her methods and she was so glad I had gotten to see she knew what she was doing. I then told her I didn't follow her orders and instead gave saline and it "reversed" the problem, which her blood tests said never existed anyway. And that I had informed the family what I did and that they might have questions when they saw her again.

When Dr Rapp accused me of not following her orders I told her that I had the bicarb in hand had the saline failed but I was not willing to give a drug which has known risks unless I was sure it was needed. She was welcome to report me. She did and I was thanked by the department chief for my actions.

“....gave airtime to some dangerously misinformed people”

Oh....Phil Donahue. I thought you were talking about ToTV! :1rotfl:

I agree with the other poster...an interesting interaction with Dr Rapp. Happy that you’re supervisors supported your decision making. Definitely a bygone era!

[judebarsto]

Sadly Phil gave air time to some dangerously misinformed people. He regularly had on anti-vaccine group especially one calling itself DPT named for the shot but as Disatisfied Parents Together. They pushed their pet theory that the DPT caused Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It didn't. But he had them on repeatedly and never presented the truth or challenged them.

He also loved having on Dr Doris Rapp who claimed that people were allergic to all kinds of common things and only she and her other "clinical ecologists" had the skill to diagnose and treat these allergies. She was a huge pusher of food allergies as causing behavior problems and treated all her patients with allergy drops which she concocted.

As a resident at the hospital in the city in which she practiced I had the pleasure of being paged stat to the lab where they were doing a glucose tolerance test on a young teenager. Dr Rapp had told the family, per their relating to me, that the teen was allergic to glucose and that is why she was doing poorly in school. So of course to prove this she needed a glucose tolerance test. Makes no sense, don't ask me.

Anyway, the family was told she might react to the glucose in the test and she would get dizzy or sweaty or short of breath and to have the house staff resident called and give the doctor a paper with instructions to handle this emergency. The instructions were to immediately inject a specified amount of sodium bicarbonate from the crash cart to reverse the acidity. That would stop her anaphylaxis.

So I got a tube of sterile saline from the crash cart and pushed it into her IV line after drawing a couple tubes of blood for testing. Within seconds the teen felt great. Except I hadn't given her bicarb, just more saline just like was running in her IV already. Her blood work came back normal, no acidity.

I called Dr Rapp to tell her that her patient had exactly the reaction she predicted would occur during the glucose tolerance test and she happily informed me that the doctors in the hospital never believed in her methods and she was so glad I had gotten to see she knew what she was doing. I then told her I didn't follow her orders and instead gave saline and it "reversed" the problem, which her blood tests said never existed anyway. And that I had informed the family what I did and that they might have questions when they saw her again.

When Dr Rapp accused me of not following her orders I told her that I had the bicarb in hand had the saline failed but I was not willing to give a drug which has known risks unless I was sure it was needed. She was welcome to report me. She did and I was thanked by the department chief for my actions.

Maybe off topic, but…..
So yeah, I was a resident and then pediatrician in Buffalo back in the day. We all rolled our eyes at Dr. Rapp’s “theories.” Quack. Unfortunate that Phil promoted her and don’t get me started on the anti-vaxxers!
Luckily, there were other great “real” allergists there, like Dr. Elliot Ellis. Wonderful man and teacher, eventually ended up in Jacksonville

[UpNorth]

Liked the time when Phil was trying to pin down Madeline Murry O'Hare, a known atheist who was in the news at the time. Phil asked, "What do you think happens when you die?" O'Hare paused, looked him straight in the eye, and said "You rot!". :)

[blueash]

Maybe off topic, but…..
So yeah, I was a resident and then pediatrician in Buffalo back in the day. We all rolled our eyes at Dr. Rapp’s “theories.” Quack. Unfortunate that Phil promoted her and don’t get me started on the anti-vaxxers!
Luckily, there were other great “real” allergists there, like Dr. Elliot Ellis. Wonderful man and teacher, eventually ended up in Jacksonville

Just to follow-up, Dr Ellis was the chief in my story.

[JC and John]

Awww. Time sure goes by…….

He lived in Centerville, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton, in the same neighborhood as Erma Bombeck. They both went big-time at the same time.

I was young and living in Dayton when his first network show hit. If I am remembering correctly, it was about childbirth, and the topic was considered by some as being a bit unseemly to talk about, in detail — and on television. (gasp) It got a lot of advertising and anticipation. I could not wait to watch it. (Does anybody else remember this? I don’t think I am making it up. That first network show was a very big deal in Dayton.)

Erma Bombeck’s column “At Wit’s End” had been running in the local Dayton paper before she burst into syndication with wonderful success. I had the fun of seeing her speak at a conference. She was just as delightful in-person as she was in print. She left us long ago after kidney transplant complications.

R.I.P., my fellow Ohioans, Centerville’s own, Phil and Erma.

Boomer
I agree time has sure gone by. I remember both Phil and Erma as two great personalities. When I was in high school, one of my classes (don’t remember which one) went to one of his shows in 1967 or 68 at a local Dayton TV station before his show became syndicated. All I remember is he interviewed a negro political activist. It was interesting and fun to watch the show from a live audience.

[xcaligirl]

I used to watch his talk show.
I did too!! Always liked him and his show

[Shipping up to Boston]

i did, too. i sometimes skipped school to watch certain episodes

I used to skip school and practice...to watch General Hospital (Luke and Laura) to appease my then girlfriend! But I digress!