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Hosts of One of NPR’s Most Popular Programs Announce They’re Retiring

Jun 8, 2012  •  Post A Comment

The two men who have co-hosted one of NPR’s mainstay programs for the past 25 years announced today that they’re leaving the show. NPR confirmed in a press release that Tom and Ray Magliozzi — aka Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers — are retiring from “Car Talk.”

The show will continue as a weekly syndicated feature drawing on material in the archives, NPR reported.

The brothers — Tom, 74, and Ray, 63 — have been taping the show for 35 years, starting at WBUR in Boston before the program went national on NPR member stations 25 years ago.

The program features the brothers’ comedic take on all things automotive, with listener call-ins in the spotlight.

Said Ray Magliozzi: “We’ve managed to avoid getting thrown off NPR for 25 years, given tens of thousands of wrong answers and had a hell of a time every week talking to callers. The stuff in our archives still makes us laugh. So we figured, why keep slaving over a hot microphone?”

He added: “My brother has always been ‘work-averse.’ Now, apparently, even the one hour a week is killing him!”

The company noted in its announcement: “NPR will continue to distribute the weekly show, an enormously powerful program in public radio, to stations across the country. Beginning in October, the ‘Car Talk’ production team will actively produce new shows built from the best of its 25 years of material — more than 1,200 shows — with some updates from the brothers. The guys will also still write their twice-weekly ‘Dear Tom and Ray’ column, and put their feet in their mouths in surprising new ways on the Web and Facebook.”

2 Comments

  1. Truly sad news, indeed. I love listening to Tom and Ray. Their shows are great fun to listen to on roadtrips with the family or when lying in bed at night. After 35 years, I can’t really blame them for hanging it up. It was a great run, and theirs was a show that truly brought joy to its listeners.

  2. Truly one of the last bright spots in real, listener engaging radio. True infotainment if there ever was any. I would listen to the callers and try to diagnose the problem before they did. I was only good for about 50%. In the mean time you get to laugh til you cry. These guys are and always have been frickin’ awesome!
    Many thanks for the laughs, brothers.

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