Early Career
After graduating from Texas Christian University (TCU), Roddy was a disc jockey and talk show host on KLIF and KNUS-FM (Dallas, Texas). He also worked overnights and middays at the Buffalo, New York radio station WKBW AM, a big-signal station covering the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S., and at other high-profile stations. Returning to KLIF and KNUS during the 1970s, Roddy hosted a call-in program, "Rod Roddy's Hotline," whose controversial host and topics made Roddy a frequent target of death threats. He conducted a long-running on-air feud with an elderly woman, dubbed "Granny Hate" by an earlier host, who claimed to represent the local Ku Klux Klan.
Roddy announced the situation comedy Soap from 1977 to 1981, where he provided the opening and closing narration: "Confused? You won't be after this week's episode of Soap!". He replaced Casey Kasem who quit the series after the pilot due to the adult themes the show promoted.
Roddy's first work as a game show announcer was on Whew!, which aired from 1979 to 1980. From there, he went on to announce several other game shows, including Battlestars (1981–1982), Love Connection (1983–1985, 1986), Hit Man (1983) and the popular Press Your Luck (1983–1986). Roddy also voiced a number of national television commercials, including those for Pennzoil and Public Storage.
Between 2001 and 2003, Roddy was also the voice of Mike the microphone on the cartoon Disney's House of Mouse.
Read more about this topic: Rod Roddy
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)