The Return of Mr. Tony

Now that Tony Kornheiser's Monday Night Football gig is mercifully through for the year, he has returned to AM radio in the Washington, D.C. area as of this morning. It's a local station and a portion of the talk is often geared towards Redskins, Wizards, Nationals, etc., but he still has plenty of national talk and the same cast of characters: Bob Ryan, John "Junior" Feinstein, Wilbon, David Aldridge, Sam Smith, John Riggins, the movie guy, etc.

If you're familiar with Kornheiser's work solely from Monday Night Football and PTI, this may be more than a little shocking but he's quite simply the best in the business on radio. His fatal flaw is that he's always looking for something better on TV. First it was the schtick-heavy PTI, then the ill-advised predictable failure of a sitcom with George Costanza as Mr. Tony and Theo Huxtable as Wilbon. Unfortunately, his schtick ratchets up a notch for each level of national prominence on TV to the point where he's simply odious on Monday Night Football.

His radio show, though, has very little of the affected schtick that he projects on television. His best shows, still, are the ones that concentrate on other topics and render sports to the small niche of life that they should and do occupy. He had a very good show right after Hurricane Katrina, and sports played a small part in that. The show he did the day after Mark Felt came out as Deepthroat was absolutely phenomenal. Far and away the best radio I've ever heard.

Here is a link to the Mr. Tony radio show podcasts and his official website.

Redzone Mr. Tony thread.

Footballguys Mr. Tony thread.