Nick Digilio

Nick Digilio
Born	July 6, 1965(1965-07-06) Chicago, IL
Show	The Nick Digilio Show
Station(s)	720 AM
Network	WGN Radio
Time slot	Friday 10pm-2am, Saturday 6pm-11pm,(Central Time)
Spouse(s)	Heather Digilio (5/16/09 - present, (separated))

Nick Digilio (born July 6, 1965) is a movie critic and radio personality. He is the host of an award-winning radio program^[1] on WGN Radio in Chicago, and is a frequent fill-in host for WGN.

Life

Digilio grew up about five blocks away from Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Luther North High School and graduated in 1983.^[2] He also attended Columbia College where he studied film.^[2] He recently moved from the Andersonville and Albany Park neighborhoods to the Old Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago. Digilio is a theater director and actor, and a former member of The Factory Theater. He is separated from his wife, Heather.

Radio career

Early history at WGN

Digilio began reviewing movies on the WGN Roy Leonard Show in 1985.^[3] His contributions to Roy's program led WGN Radio management to decide that he'd be a good permanent addition to the station. He soon became a regular on other WGN Radio programs including Steve King and Johnnie Putman's program. He gained a reputation for his alternative and controversial play and movie reviews. For instance, he applauds the movies Critters, Friday the 13th Part 5, Joe Dirt, and Freddy Got Fingered, while he dislikes Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Dark Knight.^[4] Digilio reviews all the new films on his own show.

Nick D. and Garry Lee and The Nick Digilio Show

For several years, Digilio co-hosted a weekend late-night radio program on WGN with Garry Lee Wright and on May 31, 1998,^[2] he began hosting his own program called Nick at Night - joined by Wright on Fridays. On February 10, 2006, Digilio's program's name was changed to 'The Nick Digilio Show' to correspond with a move from late-nights to prime time on Saturday night and not-so-late nights on Friday and Sunday nights. The Nick Digilio Show can currently be heard on WGN Radio in Chicago (720 AM) where Digilio discusses popular culture, current events, all things Chicago, and other hot topics including why the Flavor Bowl from KFC is the best fast food item ever produced, and the fact that there actually once was vegetable flavored Jell-O.

The current producer of The Nick Digilio Show is Craig, replacing Andy "The Count" Hermann.^[5] Mike "Broham" Stephen used to produce Digilio's Sunday night program. Craig currently manages the Nick D. Show Producer's Blog^[6] on the WGN Radio website.

Aspects of the show

Listeners who have viewed some of Nick's photos on his WGN web page have compared his face to the late pitchmen, Billy Mays; this analogy saddens Nick.

Nick is a fan of McDonald's "Mac Wrap"

He enjoys doing celebrity impressions when appropriate, such as :

• Redd Foxx's character from Sanford and Son
• Bill Cosby
• Jerry Lewis
• Harry Caray
• Ron Santo
• Former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley

Current and former radio segments

(Alphabetically)

• "Anti-Valentine's Day"
• "Celebrity News/Gossip"
• "Drunks in the News" - Nick reads stories about drunks doing stupid, but funny things. Each week, there is one guest listener that reads one story.
• "Free For All" - callers talk about topic of their choice
• "Halloween Spooktacular Spectacular"
• "The John and Troy Highlight Reel" - a review of clips of the wacky things said during the radio coverage of Chicago Blackhawks hockey games.
• "Nick D. Show Songs"
• "Nick D. Show Spies" - listeners submit clips of other shows on the station when they mention Nick's show.
• "The Pat and Keith Highlight Reel", previously known as "The Pat and Ron Show Highlight Reel" before Ron Santo's death - a review of clips of the wacky things said during the radio coverage of Chicago Cubs baseball games.
• "Paula Cooper's Rock Alert"
• "Straight Out of Context" - listeners submit clips of things that people on the station say that may sound dirty if taken out of context.
• "The Secret History of Chicago Music"
• "The Three's Company Throwdown" - a trivia contest that featured former show producer Andy Hermann whose obsession with and encyclopedic knowledge of Three's Company is, frankly, frightening.
• "The Wisdom of Keith Richards" - funny excerpts from Richards' book, Stone Me: The Wit and Wisdom of Keith Richards
• "The Wisdom of Ted Nugent" - funny excerpts from Nugent's book, Ted, White, and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto
• "The Wisdom of Gene Simmons" - funny excerpts from Simmons's mouth.
• "The Wisdom of Paul Stanley" - funny excerpts from Stanley at concerts.
• "The Wisdom of Gary Busey" - funny and odd comments from the mouth of Gary Busey.
• "Twitter Topic" - Fans post a topic on the social networking site Twitter and Digilio will pick one and talk about it the first half hour of his Friday night show
• "Unnecessary Censorship" Listener generated submissions which involve Nick's clean conversations and are turned into dirty conversations by using the *bleep* sound.
• Yahoo! Trending Now and Google Hot Searches - Nick reads the top 10 on those lists and gets help from listeners on who some people are and/or why they are on the list. He formerly read the Yahoo! Buzz Search listings until it was discontinued in 2011.

Frequent callers and contributors

• Larry from Aurora - Larry, a former professional wrestler, has an uncanny ability of calling Digilio whenever he is on the air
• Phil from Stickney
• Natural Mike and his male nurse
• Steve Krakow - frequently calls in for his "Secret History of Chicago Music" segment
• Lazer - a frequent contributor to the "Pat and Ron Show Highlight Reel"
• Ryan from Lakeview - occasional contributor to the Nick D. Show Songs and the Pat & Ron Highlight Reel Songs
• Mike from Portage Park
• Gov from the South Side of Chicago
• Nick Jr. - young fan of the show, showed up in front of the showcase studio as Nick Digilio for Halloween
• Lemont from Park Forest
• TFCreate - Chicago Area Multimedia consultant and commercial photographer (semi-retired)
• Doug the Nutjob from Minnesota
• Dirty Dave

Running jokes

• Digilio frequently plays a recording of Keri Russell, who was on Spike O'Dell's show, saying "Hi, I'm Keri Russell and I LOOOOOOOOVE Nick's radio show!"
• Digilio frequently mentions Liam Neeson needing to throat punch someone.
• In response to things Digilio or the staff might like, radio-appropriate clips of Christian Bale's on-set Terminator: Salvation rant against the director of photography on the film are played, especially the quote "Ooooh, good for you!!".
• Digilio frequently asserts that every segment of his show will "make your pants fall off", which annoys some listeners^{[citation needed]}.
• Incredibly frequent use of reverb while broadcasting.
• Digilio constantly plays back McDonald's "Filet-O-Fish" commercial and is obsessed with it.
• Purposely calling Jewel-Osco "The Jewels" which annoys some listeners.
• Purposely mispronouncing the names of celebrities, such as:

• M. Night Shamalamadingdong
• Hayden Pantatoopy
• Shia LaBoof

References

1. ^ The Nick Digilio Show podcast wins a Silver Dome Award from the Illinois Broadcasters Association
2. ^ ^{a b c} Digilio, Nick. "Nick Digilio Facebook Page". pp. Info tab. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506018870&ref=ts#/profile.php?id=506018870&v=info&viewas=573525989. Retrieved 2009-04-11. 
3. ^ "Nick Digilio". http://www.wgnradio.com/shows/nickd/wgnam-nick-digilio-info,0,7487566.story. Retrieved 2009-04-05. 
4. ^ "WGN's Nick Digilio HATES 'The Dark Knight?!'". mjleshock. July 18, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Br_wc8mNc. Retrieved 2009-04-05. 
5. ^ "Andy Hermann (aka "The Count")". http://www.wgnradio.com/shows/nickd/wgnam-nickd-crew-andy,0,2959768.story. 
6. ^ "Nick D. Show Producer's Blog". http://www.wgnradio.com/shows/nickd/blog/. 

External links

• The Nick Digilio Show
• The Nick Digilio Show Weekly Podcast
• The Nick Digilio Show Uncut Podcast
• The Factory Theater
• Outside the Loop RADIO
• The Nick Digilio Show Facebook page
• The Nick Digilio Show Twitter page

Persondata
Name	Digilio, Nick
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	July 6, 1965
Place of birth	Chicago, IL
Date of death
Place of death