Chotank Gives YouTube trailer on Mark's Red Laser movie
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BIOGRAPHY -- UNA Radio History in the Making

The M&B duo was introduced in 1986 by a mutual friend who was working at radio station I -95 in Birmingham, Alabama who felt that their personalities "might click". Deciding to heed the friend's advice, Mark and Brian each gathered bags of audio cassettes, locked themselves in a hotel room with coffee, junk food and a tape player and proceeded to sit through an entire evening listening to each other's work. Management at I -95 agreed to give the pair a chance. In no time, the radio team was racking up solid ratings. After a year at the station where they reached number one status, Mark and Brian left Birmingham in September 1987 and ventured west where as they say, "the rest was history!"

See M&B interview on turning Shoney's, Frisch's (and Bob's) Big Boy
into Elvis Stunt for KLOS Anniversary Radio Show during
M&B Celebration at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas

Built on the foundation of friendship, comedic timing and mutual respect, the "Mark and Brian Show" would have been heading into the 26th year on the air from Los Angeles if they had not announced their departure from KLOS. Already two-time winners of Billboard Magazine's "Air Personalities of the Year," Mark and Brian are also credited with achieving the radio industry's highest for on-air stars -- The National Association Broadcasters' Marconi Award.

The former duo won an Emmy Award for hosting an Andy Griffith TV Special which aired on the Fox network. And, they starred in their own NBC television show. Therefore, Eddie Foote predicted long ago that because of Andy Griffith connections and the sagging, shelf-load of Radio and TV awards, they were expected to show up "any year" for the famous University of North Alabama George Lindsey Film Festival. That year finally arrived in April 2004. Mark Thompson attended The 7th annual George Lindsey UNA Film Festival in Florence, and thereby, he promoted a new joint certificate program with UCLA for Dr. Foote's majors. But, Mark came especially to the University of North Alabama hometown to show his own independent film, "Mother Ghost". UNA students, native home media professionals and local Shoals-area fans and friends of Mark converged on the locally-famous and nostalgic Shoals Theatre to see the North Alabama Festival premiere of "Mother Ghost".

Ernest Borgnine on his second trip to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, joined Mark Thompson at the 2004 Festival. Friends Borgnine and Lindsey are long-time "pals" and Ernie had come back to the Festival to put world attention on the Shoals. In 1992, "Current Affair" went to Jasper, Alabama, to give us a lasting video history of the friendship between Goober and Ernie. Borgnine is best known for his talented work in "Marty", "The Dirty Dozen", and "McHale's Navy", but he has starred in hundreds of other films and television shows and won many awards for his work, including a legendary Academy Award for "Marty".

The "MARK AND BRIAN SHOW" had been syndicated live from (95.5) KLOS-FM, a Disney station when Mark and Brian were hired, to Birmingham, Portland, Sacramento, Seattle and many other cities. The Walt Disney Company announced several years ago a merger of ABC Radio with Citadel Broadcasting Corporation of Las Vegas. The former Disney stations have moved more recently into Cumulus Media ownership after its take-over of Citadel. The MARK & BRIAN program's distribution continued to change after the mergers affected station line-up. As Wi-Fi peaked, KLOS on-demand streaming of MARK &  BRIAN expanded. And KLOS personalities held local fundraising events -- such as one given in Pasadena with sister station KABC.

On any given day, the top names in music, sports and entertainment frequently joined Mark and Brian live in the studio or make call-ins to the show. Among those who visited their digs in the early years of the show included Scott Bakula, David Spade, Michael York, and Billy Idol. Such star power as Tim Allen, Billy Crystal, Tom Cruise, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Mel Brooks, Jason Priestley, Stone Temple Pilots, Graham Nash, Dick Van Dyke, Mike Piazza, Walter Payton, Jack Palance, Anne Rice, Martin Landau, Pete Townshend, Charlie Sheen, Tina Turner, Black Crowes, Luc Robitaille, Tony Bennett, Marilu Henner and Chris Isaak to name a few from the early years that signed their guest book in the KLOS studios.

Every morning, the show took on a shape of its own. Often, Mark and Brian's spontaneity lead them to outrageous man-on-the-street skits, episodes of "Freeway Love Connection," remote broadcasts, comic "bits" by the duo and other members of the morning program team, "Miniature Theatre" bits and listener call-ins offering various unique, peculiar and humorous talents. The fellows even allowed for more serious moments including a call from a brother confessing his homosexuality to his sister, a child wanting to reunite with an estranged parent or a nervous young man proposing marriage to his girlfriend. Because Mark and Brian are open with their feelings and personal lives, listeners were made to feel as though they are part of the "Mark and Brian Show" family.

Mark and Brian didn't limit their exposure to the four hours they share with the audience on the air. The duo provided listeners with a myriad of events, including "Mark and Brian Drive-Ins," the "Mark and Brian Day Before Thanksgiving Day Parade," "Mark and Brian's: What Would You Do For Superbowl Tickets?" and their biggest show of the year, "The Mark and Brian Christmas Show," in addition to various advance private film screenings and listener appreciation events, such as "Chic Night" and "Dude Night." They encouraged listener participation and involved themselves in scores of charity benefits including their own "Mark and Brian Pet Adoption Day" and the "Annual KLOS Christmas Tree Drive." The team put together a charity CD of "favorite moments" from the show, titled, "Mark and Brian: All of Me," which benefits the Mark and Brian Scholarship Fund and the KLOS Food Bank.

Their daily encounters with listeners and staff, coupled with their own ambition came in handy during the production of their short-lived, prime-time series for NBC, "The Adventures of Mark & Brian." Juggling both radio and television proved to be very chaotic. However, Mark and Brian still maintained their high radio ratings throughout the experience.

ROAR NEWS -- MARK IS BACK

Flivver with smoking exhaust pauses before turning toward Walker Switch rather than face stalling on grade of Turnpike Mountain? Google Maps, Terrain option, for 2009 show "Turnpike Mountain Road", off "Eastport St.", two blocks north of "Foote St." in Burnsville and west of Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway

Shayne could remember personal "escapades" by Mark during his "OWL Radio" years. Shayne said that Dick Biddle, who had hired Shayne in 1971 right off Sand Mountain, considered Mark's professional attitudes outrageous, but Dick changed his assessment after Mark's great success in Birmingham radio. Mark and his wife Lynda have three grown children in Malibu, Burbank and Pasadena -- Matthew, Amy, and Katie. Joining her dad in his new 2015 Hollywood radio show, Katie is fast developing her own fan base that may be followed in the social media. In Mark's spare time he still enjoys baseball, tennis, and riding his Harley Davidson more than "sulfing" the California-to-Carolina mobile scene. "But Katie" keeps him posted anyway Facebook to Instagram.

[2007 comment from Eddie Foote (born 1937 in Soggy Burnsville Bottom): Rick Biddle, son of Dick, put his family's flagship WOWL Radio on an FCC educational radio FM channel assignment at Burnsville. Biddle's "Fun 91" is on 91.9. Since his commercial stations originate from offices and studios in Iuka, overlooking old Jaybird Park on Front Street, he should be,

Stephen Root at UNA, April 2000 Stars as Radio Station Mgr.

not actor Stephen Root, the real manager of the Tishomingo station in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

As he did later with Rusty Walker, Buddy Bain sparked my interest in radio when he put me on-the-air at WCMA, Corinth, to announce a record he was about to play in 1951. I was 14. Nearly three years later my determination to do radio maxed-out in a hot Iuka summer sun while pressing my ear close to the Hodges Cafe entrance to hear the first Elvis record from Sam Phillips. Standing and leaning into a wooden screen door from the Front Street sidewalk, I heard my jukebox debut of "That's All Right" before continuing a short walk to V. J. Elmore's 5 and 10 (Alabama/Mississippi store chain that was a small community version of Woolworths). By focusing memories on that day, I still see the fading Hardin's Bread sign embossed directly into the metal screen of the rickety frame.

Pirate radio transmissions started within a few months in 1954 - 1955 school year, using mailorder Progressive Radio Edu-Kit gear, ordered from a "Science and Mechanics" magazine advertisement. Power increases for wide-range coverage of several miles in Iuka was the first AM broadcasting in county of Tishomingo. I had tried earlier shorter-range, legal AM transmissions with the Microvox Wireless Microphone from Johnson Smith Company, Detroit, Michigan, before building Edu-Kit circuits and a Realistic regenerative radio from Radio Shack modeled after Lee de Forest's invention. Several improvements and other electronic devices were purchased during college study in Electrical Engineering/Electronic Physics, starting in summer 1955. Knight Kits from Allied Radio, where I bought later that year a second Microvox mic/transmitter for testing in the dorm, had just introduced their own wireless device in May as I prepared for relocation to Starkville.

When I arrived at Mississippi State for classes the following month, I found a fully-equipped radio studio on the top floor of Lee Hall. Even though the huge "Old Main" student dorm was immediately adjacent to the studio, President Ben Hilbun turned down my face-to-face request that he make it available for student radio production, that included planning to distribute the campus radio signal to all of Main Dormitory. He suggested instead that before I meet with Joe Phillips' employees at WSSO and the Bernie Imes team at WCBI, I should go on down the State College Drill Field to survey The Mitchell Memorial Library music listening rooms

Rare Book by   Jim Detterline - Link   Rocky Mountain   National Park Ranger

and music collections as possible resources for radio program recordings. He added encouragement by pointing out that Memphis broadcaster Hoyt Wooten, who had his studios in the Peabody Hotel, had graduated at State with an engineering B.S. degree in the 1920s. I called on Travis Palmer at WSSO but found that Wilbur already had the record librarian's job totally organized for all Starkville commercial radio, and Palmer disappointed me with his own opinion that Wilbur didn't want a student volunteer's help. At WCBI, Columbus, staffers said that WACR, the other station in Columbus, might need me for parttime dj at their Macon station if I could afford to buy a car.

On a visit to Iuka I shared my college blues with Gene Jourdan, one of my very best friends. Gene convinced me that Mississippi Southern College, where he was a student of business and banking, would be a good match for all my radio ambitions. So with the visions of college radio success at Mississippi State blocked and with the encouragement from my Iuka friend, I transferred in January 1956 to "Southern Miss" in Hattiesburg where campus WMSU had pioneered student radio in the state. And, where I would meet Elvis in July in the WBKH old downtown studios just as I started a professional radio dj career with the support of my college roommate, Norm Schneider from Prichard, Alabama, a suburb of Mobile. Amazingly, the Hattiesburg dj beginnings had included a visit from the King of Rock to promote his Hound Dog/Don't Be Cruel RCA 45 rpm record. Classmate Lynda Lee Edmondson from Iuka (who married Charles Kay and lived many years in the Persian Gulf) remained my experimental station's number one fan, giving me infrequent reports on the strength and quality of the Tishomingo home signal. Lynda's Uncle Sam Daniel and family lived just three doors South on Wilmuth Street from my parents. While she claimed to listen to pirate radio from Paul and Inez Edmondson's family home on Highway 72 East, Iuka, I have believed since 2015 that most of her listening came from her Uncle's home on Wilmuth Street, Iuka, only quarter mile away from my bedroom radio studio.

Transmission testing ended forever in 1958 after I became alarmed that the Federal Communications Commission might learn from international students at Florence State College of my on-and-off pirate station. My two Cuban roommates -- Frank de los Reyes and Guillermo "Titi" Rodriguez -- had begun asking technical questions about radio broadcasting in the US after Titi visited in my parent's home on North Wilmuth Street in Iuka and got to know some of my other friends. One of these friends, Judy Holtsford, who later would edit the Corinth paper for The New York Times, was the daughter of the local newspaper publisher. Her father had a long-term interest in radio station development for Tishomingo County. I knew Titi's brother-in-law was with Castro's forces

George Lindsey at UNA, April 2000 with Dr. Garry Warren

in the mountains of Cuba, and I was unsure of his motives for needing to know. I thank Donna Hickman -- Shoals teacher and journalist who has studied Army Public Affairs at Fort Meade, Maryland and in February 2010 is in Iraq -- for asking me how I got into Shoals radio announcing when she interviewed me for an article on Sam Phillip's WJOI and Muscle Shoals music. To see Stephen Root -- the Tishomingo Radio Station Manager at Burnsville Bottom in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", released in 2000 -- CLICK HERE for more University Film Festival Photos by Eddie Foote of Root; Jay KLOS, Huntsville and Florence, Alabama, businessman; Tonya Holly, Cypress Moon Productions; George Lindsey; "Lindsey Junior"; Garry Warren, UNA Dean; and others including Alabama Film Office officials at Film Festival in April 2000. Bobbie Hurt, founder of the George Lindsey UNA Film Festival, is a first cousin of Jud Phillips' wife Dean.