Confused memories of Los Angeles and Phoenix in the 1980s


My memories of the 1980s are hazy. And not just because it was so long ago, because I watched TV and listened to the radio in Phoenix and in Los Angeles at that time. So if you ask me if I remember something from the 1980s, I often have no clear memory of whether it was Southern California or Phoenix.

I moved to Phoenix when I was eighteen, eventually got my degree at ASU (after seven years!) and then moved to Los Angeles. Of course I remember Cal Worthington (and his dog spot), and Pete Ellis Dodge. But since these dealerships advertised just as heavily in Los Angeles as in Phoenix at the time, I really can't tell you where I remember it from.

I have to admit it's kind'a disconcerting that I can do the Pete Ellis jingle:

Pete Ellis Dodge, 17 Freeway, Camelback Exit, Phoenix (which is the first way that I heard it) and then the one from So Cal:

Pete Ellis Dodge, Long Beach Freeway, Firestone exit, Southgate.

And of course Cal Worthington (and his dog spot, which as I recall was sometimes a tiger) used the same commercials in Phoenix and Los Angeles. Phoenix had Tex Earnhardt, who looked kind'a the same as Cal Worthington, but I'm pretty sure that he was only in Phoenix. Well, that's what I remember!

I try not to let this kind of stuff worry me, but sometimes it does, and it helps me to write it in this blog. I'm hoping that someone with a better memory than mine will either confirm or deny what I remember.

Bill Andres and John Giese in the 1980s, KDKB radio, Phoenix, Arizona

And, to make it even worse, when I visited Minneapolis (where I grew up) in 1982, I heard a radio station do the distinctive KDKB ROOOOOCCCCKKKKS Arizona (except that it wasn't KDKB and it rocked Minnesota).

Image at the top of this post: downtown Phoenix in the 1980s

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