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Last Sunday’s episode of The Simpsons was a take off on the ESPN sports documentary series "30 For 30," and featured the voice of a narrator who turned out to be bully Nelson Muntz’s dad.
But if he sounded familiar, that’s no surprise – many of us first heard him way back in 1972 when he was doing a DJ shift at the brand new Top 40 format at CFTR. His name: Earl Mann.
When I first heard that voice on Sunday, it sounded very familiar. And it didn’t take long to figure out it was the guy who used to call himself “The Mann and The Music” during his brief tenure at 680.
Earl Mann is a well known and in demand voice talent these days, with pipes I can only compare to another Toronto class act, the late great Mark Dailey. He’s since gone on to an amazing career including at one time or another being the voice of NFL Films, the station voice for many of the CBS-FM music stations and appearing in countless TV and radio spots. He even did some promos a few years back for David Letterman (see below.)
I hear he’s also very giving when it comes to lending his talents to charity, but for all his past efforts, perhaps nothing cements you in fame (or infamy) than lending your voice to a Simpsons character.
He's not the only TR jock to make the big time. Some here may remember when Rick Allen was on the air in the station's early rock days. And although he's been relatively absent for a while, he made a big splash on SCTV and in movies under his real name, Rick Moranis.
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Earl Mann was on 'beautiful music' 680 CHFI just before it transitioned to CFTR... it wasn't a hard switch to hits radio, they gradually introduced tunes before the official changeover. I remember almost driving off the road when the "Mann with the music" awkwardly introduced "Bang A Gong and Get it on". A few days later they went full time top 40 as CFTR
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I remember the transition from "CFTR Sounds Familiar" to the full Top 40 onslaught. I also recall the gradual introduction of pop hits into the mix, and was listening the day before they officially went full rock and roll (which I define as breaking out some new jocks and the shotgun jingle, completely abandoning all pretence to any MOR trappings.)
By that point, I was disillusioned with CHUM, and TR was a breath of fresh air.
They had a strange line-up at the very beginning, including Mann, Sandy Hoyt, R.O. Horning Jr. (who passed away in 2005) and more. But the weirdest of all may have been Todd Russell, who if memory serves worked the overnight shift back when stations still had one.
He was a very experienced broadcaster but he was absolutely terrible doing Top 40 radio. All I can ever remember him saying after every single record was "We just keep them coming, one after another on CFTR." He didn't stay there long after the format flip and great talents like Doc Harris (on air as Doc Holiday) and the equally wonderful Keith Elshaw (known as "Steve Young") soon followed.
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As a Top 40 jock he had difficulty but as a voice guy he did stints at a few rockers...CFNY in the 80's and Q-107 in the 90's. Around that time I was living in southwestern Ontario and for a while he was the voice of WRIF, the big rock station in Detroit.