Car Talk hosts, Tom and Ray, to avoid all radio work
Car Talk hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi say they will retire in September. 'My brother has always been 'work-averse,' Ray Magliozzi said. 'Now, apparently, even the one hour a week is killing him.'
Car Talk hosts, the brothers Tom (right) and Ray Magliozzi, in an undated photo. The Magliozzi brothers are retiring, but the show will continue in reruns on NPR.
REUTERS/Richard Howard/Car Talk/Handout
Boston
Tom and Ray Magliozzi, hosts of National Public Radio's popular "Car Talk" program, plan to retire in September after decades of dispensing automotive repair and driving advice laced with a side of wicked humor.
The pair, in their guise as Click and Clack, the Tappett Brothers, have been taping the weekly show at WBUR, Boston's public radio affiliate, for 35 years.
Elder statesman Tom Magliozzi turns 75 this year.
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"My brother has always been 'work-averse," Ray Magliozzi said in a release. "Now, apparently, even the one hour a week is killing him."
NPR will continue to broadcast the show with material curated from the best of the more than 1,200 episodes recorded by the Magliozzis over the years, with occasional updates from the brothers.
Here's how the Car Talk brothers describe the next era of the show on their blog, entitled: "Time to get even lazier."
TOM: The good news is that, despite our general incompetence, we actually remembered to hit the “record” button every week for the last 25 years. So we have more than 1,200 programs we’re going to dig into starting this fall, and the series will continue.
RAY: Every week, starting in October, NPR will broadcast a newly assembled Car Talk show, selected from the best material in our archives.
TOM: Sorry, detractors, we’re still going to be on the air!
RAY: But to our fans, don’t be sad. We’ve managed to avoid getting thrown off NPR for 25 years, given out tens of thousands of wrong answers, generated lawsuit threats from innumerable car companies, and had a hell of a lot of fun talking to you guys"
"Car Talk" was first broadcast in Boston in 1977 and picked up nationally by NPR 10 years later. It is heard weekly by an audience estimated at more than four million listeners.
(Editing by Gunna Dickson)