Bob Fass - Response To The Show

Response To The Show

Neil Fabricant, Legislative Director of New York’s ACLU during the 1960s, has said that Fass was “a midwife at the birth of the counter culture.” Ralph Engleman, in his book, Public Radio & TV in America: A Political History, cites Fass as "the father of freeform radio."

He also plays a major role in Marc Fisher’s book, Something In The Air, which covers radio’s impact in the post TV years. The Washington Post columnist describes how the “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!” scene in the film, Network, grew out of an actual incident when WOR’s Jean Shepherd exhorted his listeners to throw open their windows, stick out their heads, and shout, “Excelsior!", then he goes on to write:

“Shepherd took the unseen audience and let them see each other, but it’s Bob Fass who took that to the next level, giving it social and political meaning. Fass really opened the door and summoned the audience into the action. He used the mass media to amass a very real movement.”