- 3 months ago
Marc Summers joins The Kathy Romano Show to chat about 'Double Dare' and more
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00:00Good morning and welcome to the Kathy Romano Show. I'm Kathy Romano, my co-host Bobby Smith.
00:04Today's guest you know as the legendary host of Nickelodeon's Double Dare and more recently from
00:09watching the Food Network and he's a personal friend of mine so I'm happy to welcome him for
00:13the first time ever to the Kathy Romano Show on B101. Good morning Mark Summers. How are you? I
00:18love the coordinated headphones. That's fantastic. White on white there. It's magnificent. I know
00:24everyone has black headphones and I had to be different. I got the white ones. Well congratulations
00:29I am glad you are back where you belong on the radio and hosting your own show which is way cool.
00:34Mark thank you so much and that was one of the reasons I wanted to have you on. I wanted to say
00:37thank you to you because I'm not sure if you know how much you helped me you know throughout my career
00:42you've always been supportive of me. When I lost my job a few months ago I reached out to you and
00:47you know you helped me in any way you can and I don't know if you remember but about 15 years ago
00:51you helped me put together my TV reel. I don't remember that really. So it was like right around
00:56the time when do you remember how we first met when I contacted you? No I don't. So I believe
01:01it was it called Shooters? Was that the production company? I used to produce shows for Food Network
01:06out of Shooters. Okay so you were working at Shooters at the time and we were trying to do
01:11something uh on the radio station on the show that I used to be on and I contact I found you at Shooters
01:17and I contacted you and I was like hey will you come on with us and you said yes and then you know we
01:22we built a friendship and then yeah I came to you with my reel. I was putting it together to do some
01:27TV work and I came I met you at Shooters that was the first time I met you. You went through my reel
01:32and and you helped me create this reel that I used for a long time. I still use a portion of it but
01:38anyway I just wanted to say thank you because you've always been supportive of my career
01:41and I really appreciate that. You know I do that for folks because when I started in the industry
01:46it was hard to have anybody sort of support me in my career and um I was watching an old Merv Griffin
01:54show and Bob Hope was uh the guest and he said that nobody ever helped him and said that at some
02:01point if he makes it he's going to open the door and try and help as many people as possible and I've
02:05tried to do that over the years and look at you I mean you've done great throughout the years but
02:09I was so excited to hear that you landed where you landed. Tell me about the format of B101 because
02:14haven't been in Philly in a long time. Yeah so it's me Bobby we have a producer Laura three weeks
02:19after I started she left on maternity leave so okay so it's me and Bobby um and B101 is a family
02:26friendly station like I I say that we play the music that you're like bobbing around in the car
02:30singing to and Bobby and I are just talking about all things life everything entertainment you know
02:36we'll do whatever's happening in Philadelphia you know across the country whatever it is but yeah just
02:41just a feel-good happy show like we we want to stay positive and we want people to start their
02:46morning off right and if they do it here at B101 we we think that we can send them on their happy day.
02:51You know I'm originally from Indiana but I've lived in California for many many years however
02:55the 12 to 15 years I was in Philly I have this uh affinity for the teams and watching uh the Phillies uh
03:03last week was was painful for me even though uh it was against the Dodgers man I I I just was losing my
03:10mind on that last game especially. It was so bad. It's so bad. It just hurts. It just hurts again
03:15another year that it hurts. We've had a couple years now in a row we've made this run and then
03:19we just can't get finished it. It was so close so close you know. I know I know. Mark so many people
03:26especially here in Philadelphia grew up watching Double Dare. You still talk about Double Dare. You
03:31don't mind right? Oh listen if it wasn't for Double Dare nobody would know who the heck I am. I mean
03:35I was lucky enough to do a bunch of other stuff but it's it's what put me on the map and certainly
03:41I'm grateful for anybody who even remembers what the heck I've ever done you know. Everybody everybody
03:46has a Double Dare story too from watching it. Everyone. Ways wanted to be on that show. I mean
03:50I would watch it and go okay this is what I would do if I was on the show and Bobby actually had a
03:55friend who was a contestant on the show. We found out that yeah my friend Dan and his family were going
04:00to be on and we were like you're kidding me and then when we watched it we just thought it was the
04:03most amazing thing ever that Dan and his family they're on Double Dare and then Dan could not get
04:08up the slide. He just kept falling down. He could not and we were just like what is wrong with you
04:13and I think it was my dad that said yeah that Dan kid's not very athletic is he? Dan has gone on to
04:19be a very powerful lawyer here in the city of Philadelphia. He's doing very well for himself
04:23but he could not get up that slide and I will still remind him of it to this day. It's too bad that
04:29video doesn't exist because you could pop that up every now and then remind him that as
04:33successful as he is back in the day he had a hard time. I used to tell the kids how to get up that
04:37slide that you wanted to use the sides because if you put your foot on the slide it was full of
04:42whipped cream and slime and you never make it up but they wouldn't listen it was amazing and the way
04:46we ended up in Philly initially Nickelodeon was so cheap that they didn't want to shoot it in New
04:50York and we started at WHYY the PBS station there and and the first shows the first 65 episodes
04:57um we shot for about nine thousand dollars an episode when you think about that it's just
05:02totally ridiculous but that was 1986 we just celebrated our 39th anniversary which is hard to
05:08believe and uh yeah next year's a big 4-0 I don't know if Nickelodeon is going to do anything to
05:13celebrate it but people remember that show for some reason why is that? I it was so great and even when
05:19you did that live tour I brought my son to that and he was so into it at the he was not old enough
05:25unfortunately to get on stage otherwise I would have contacted you and been like hey can my son
05:29get on stage with you um but he I mean he keeps asking me he's like are they going to come back
05:33around I want to I want to participate I want to be a contestant in that yeah I think it could still
05:38you know there's modern versions of it now like Mr. Beast and and the stunts that he does that
05:43YouTuber I mean there there are modern versions of Double Dare I don't know why people love it but we
05:48all did and Mark it's because of you as well you're the reason why we remember it so well you
05:52were such a great host you kind of were like a kid at heart you kind of played right to the kid and
05:56the parents so well that that's one of the reasons why we remember it so well well that's kind of you
06:00you know I was 34 and the fact that I'm going to be 74 in a few weeks uh the time has just absolutely
06:06flown by it's so crazy but Kathy didn't you do we used to do a show called Dunkle Dare uh in uh in
06:12Philly at one of the restaurants I forget which one it was and where we had you on and uh various
06:17friends of yours and you got slimed pretty bad as I remember didn't you no you know what I think
06:22that was Marissa God I thought you did it I thought I did you know what I did um at the the camp out for
06:28hunger the the charity event oh yes we did like a version there I had to go up the nose and pull out
06:35the book I remember the nose something you'll never forget as well that's hysterical definitely are
06:41there um contestants or like some a crazy scenario that really sticks in your mind still to this day
06:47well there were so many episodes when we got into family double dare you know when it was kids
06:51they didn't care if they uh won they just wanted to get messy but as soon as we brought the adults
06:58on and did family double dare the parents took it so seriously and um when we were on primetime we
07:04actually launched the Fox network we were on at eight o'clock on Saturday nights and we started to
07:10give away cars which you know in the early days we were giving away you know clarinets and and uh you
07:15know alarm clocks and silly things eventually computers and trips to Disney but one day this
07:21father wanted to win this van that we were giving away and the kid reached for the flag and he just
07:26missed it and the clock went to zero and backstage he took his son by his shirt and was banging him
07:35against the wall screaming at him I can't believe you didn't and we had to separate them and explain to
07:40these people that it was just a game and the fact that your 11 year old son missed the flag with one
07:45second left there's no reason to you know give him the heat that you were giving him so parents often
07:50would get uh a little whacked but the kids never did they just at the end they would just want to
07:55throw slime and get wet and and dunk me into something but uh the kids wanted to have fun it sounded
08:00like the parents ruined it yeah yeah yeah they would do that it's true I always thought the best version
08:05was the original one with with the kids only and and uh it just kind of kind of worked for me but
08:11yeah they all worked we did double dare super sloppy double dare family double dare 700 versions of this
08:17thing we did 525 episodes initially and then nickelodeon brought it back uh we did another I
08:22think 90 or something like that so yeah it's been a big part of my career um and you know some people
08:28get typecast luckily I was at food network for 20 years uh first doing a show called it's a surprise
08:34which was about surprise parties and the surprise was nobody was watching and they were getting ready
08:39to uh fire me and then I had started a show called unwrapped which lasted about 20 years and we shot
08:44a bunch of those and then I exec produced dinner impossible and restaurant impossible so it's been
08:49a crazy career you know as you know Kathy uh we have no control of our lives in this industry other
08:54people make decisions for us and the survivors like yourself and myself are the ones who say I'm not
09:00going to get bogged down by the negativity of other folks I'm just going to move forward and you know
09:05luckily the people who are good such as yourself pull it off and make it look easy well and so do
09:11you you're always up to something what what are you doing these days what's keeping you busy well you
09:15know the only I get the less work and a few of the phone rings but um I just did a um a narration of a
09:22movie called wild rescue about animals in the wild and how uh they get hurt just by nature not by man
09:29necessarily and how these lovely folks in Santa Barbara California uh fix their bodies and put
09:34them back into the wild and so that was kind of a lovely piece and that's globally it's in IMEX
09:40theaters around the world so that's going on and um other than that I'm working on a bunch of projects
09:45uh I I was with Donny Osmond who I've known for 50 years he's doing a show in Las Vegas and I was in
09:51Vegas for a meeting with with Emeril Lagasse the other day and I ran into uh um Donny and we're talking
09:57about potentially doing a project together so you know the first national show I ever did was Donny
10:02and Marie in 1976. Yes and uh I was on with Lucille Ball and Bob Hope and I did a sketch with uh with
10:10Marie and Ruth Buzzy and um you know it's just so weird and all that video somehow exists somebody pulled
10:17something online the other day uh when I was a page at CBS Television City on Price is Right and a woman was
10:24coming on down and she fell and I helped pick her up and somehow that got on you know Facebook and
10:31Instagram and everything and people were sending it to me why does that exist who has that stuff you
10:36know but then when you want to find something it's nowhere to be found yeah you're right a hundred
10:41percent you know you can never find the stuff you really really want so yeah I did a sketch on a show
10:45called the Mac Davis show you guys probably know who Mac Davis is he was a singer and I did sketches
10:49with a comedian by the name of John Biner and I want that stuff so much you know nobody can find it
10:54nobody knows where it is and I did a show called Couch Potatoes which was a TV trivia game show we
10:58brought on everybody from every old show you grew up with and CBS owns the rights to that they won't
11:03let me have any of them and I did that with like every imaginable star you can think of and I just can't
11:08get can't get a piece of that so it's frustrating but you remember it in your head and that's the fun part
11:12as well. Mark you've talked publicly about your cancer treatment and how you uh came to
11:17Philadelphia for treatment first of all how's your health? My health seems to be good I go every
11:21six months to Philly for two reasons one to get my check up and two to have food at the best
11:26restaurants in the country and uh it's always like you know where should I go first but it's going well
11:31I'm on this medication called Imbruvica which I have to take every day um I had chemo like three
11:37times and the last time the chemo didn't work and they said we're going to try something this pill
11:41doesn't work with everybody but it does on some and luckily it does it only cost $18,000 a month
11:47uh so that's a whole other story which we could get into but you know the cost of medication and
11:52all that stuff but luckily that exists and uh keeps me going and uh you know initially when you're in
11:59the doctor's office and they tell you you got cancer you think oh my god the worst and I was
12:03depressed for a year I just couldn't get over it and I finally kind of talked myself out of it and now
12:08I hardly think about it and uh you know life is good the fact that I'm you know it's it's what I think
12:1415 years ago since I was diagnosed and my life is no different now I just keep moving forward
12:18okay good what are the restaurants you go to when you come into Philly well everything that
12:23Mark Vetri does uh I just think he's amazing the pasta is just amazing and um you know certainly
12:31every Stephen Starr restaurant uh it is great there's just so many good places there I've never
12:37understood how can there be so much good food in like you know a six block area but do you have a
12:41favorite spot oh my gosh I I do have a couple of favorite spots but you're you're putting me on
12:46the spot so of course I'm gonna forget um I well so I'm working in the city now right like I really
12:52wasn't a city person to me like going to the city was a little bit of a hassle now I work here every
12:58day so I'm looking forward to exploring more of the restaurants I'm from the Conchahawken area and
13:02we have some great restaurants there I don't know if you're familiar with any of them but there's
13:06a group called the Peary group and he owns a couple of restaurants in Conchahawken and I love his stuff
13:11nice nice where's the office for B101 we're at 24th and Market we're in the Aramark building
13:18oh okay I know exactly where you are very nice yeah and Mark I want to let you know that uh Kathy's
13:22first day she parked in our CEO spot uh coming in early in the morning and she didn't give it up
13:26so she's doing just fine doing fine Mark it's it said Odyssey there was there was uh parking spots
13:32that said Odyssey so reserved Odyssey right reserved I thought I work for Odyssey I can park there
13:38parking in the spot and like the parking attendant kept staring at me and he was like finally he left
13:44a note on my car like you can't park here I'm like why can't I park here I work for Odyssey well
13:49apparently that's for the corporate office and I have to go to like the sixth floor park there and
13:53then walk into the building that's amazing how is downtown Philly things going well down there
13:58you know what I'm I mean we're just here in the morning so I kind of zip in
14:02and um you know I can get home before most of the traffic starts but Bobby has been here a lot
14:07longer than me in the city a lot better a lot better than it used to be which you probably know
14:11if they've cleaned up a lot of areas a lot of construction a lot of nice new looking buildings
14:14so I think it looks good nice yeah I moved there well we first started double there in 86 and uh the
14:21week we got there there was a garbage strike going on in Philly for months and I was staying at the
14:27original four seasons and there was a uh a coke machine across the street for construction workers
14:33and the amount of rats that would be running in and out of that coke machine on a regular basis
14:38and the streets were just you know they owned the streets at the time and we couldn't wait for that
14:43thing to get over with so that was my first impression of Philadelphia back in the day thank
14:47goodness it's much better than it was back then well we actually just had another trash issue was it a
14:52strike yeah we had another strike over the summer yeah yeah crash was piling up and there were rats
14:57running all over it so it's better but still we have rats nothing better uh than garbage wafting
15:03in the middle of a hot summer you know we took a pretty good pivot there talking about everyone's
15:07favorite restaurant to talking about rats on the street there we go when you talk east coast cities
15:12you just kind of have to get to the rat thing listen I used to live in New York City you want
15:15rat stories I got a bazillion of them man trust me you know there's nothing better when you're waiting
15:19for a subway that look down and see all the rats uh you know playing uh hockey back and forth you
15:24know just well Mark listen next time you're in Philadelphia make sure you let me know we'll we'll
15:29go to I'll stay in the city and we can go to a city restaurant or you can come come by the studio and
15:34check out our our new studios here I look forward to that thank you for inviting me and uh I wish you
15:39all the luck in the world because you deserve it Mark thank you so much that's my friend Mark Summers
15:44double dare legend food network star and all around great guy Mark thanks a lot thank you be well
15:49you
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