KNBR Misfit Mark Willard Still Infused with Mediocrity and Insignificance on Late Night Sports Bleeder; Trouble with Daffy Duck

ONE would think after almost a year, the newest shill for the KNBR zoo in the evening would be more relaxed and sound more adult and slightly tolerable than most of your sub par screamers and venters, or in the case of  Mark Willard, who sounds awfully familiar to Daffy Duck, as I've noted, there's no such pivot.

Willard has decided to take the easy way out both on his own demeanor and show content (where there's a lot of goo and never a seam)

It's as if the guy who already got the gig thinks he still has to impress the boss. In Willard's case it's that and then some to the degree where all you get is a hodgepodge of booster-club verbal jousting and the predictable attempts at going loud and louder when you can't execute any successful feedback; in Willard (a San Mateo native who's worked the ropes at Fox Sports Radio) what you hear is what you get. Lots of shtick based on really nothing and inordinately extra layers of Giants' minutiae and 49ers screaming. I used the word, "predictable" because Willard is the typical late-night, post-game, ole yeller who doesn't go beyond anything more creative than traditional after-game take-the-guy-from-South City who wants to berate Jimmy G for throwing a red-zone interception but had four touchdowns on the day. Not all is bad but that's just because the law of averages comes into play. Johnnie LeMaster was the shits but even he had one good year.

 Willard is nothing special; it's difficult to take someone seriously whose only asset known is that he's far less worse than the guy he replaced. Which means you're stuck with a weird-sounding soul who doesn't move the needle and simply maintains the griddle on the stove. If Willard were any better he'd be far away from the Knibber landscape and somewhere closer to Culver City or Chicago or Philly. We're supposed to be thrilled that he chose his dream gig, KNBR, because he's a Bay Area guy and that sounds all well and good until you decipher that he's (Willard) being compensated a modest (read, cheap) to tonsil a few hours on the Bleeder.

He's beginning to resort to panic mode because when you try to manufacture comedy by challenging the old guy, Larry Krueger, to a thong contest than you know he's feeling the heat; I don't know, maybe Willard's wife went nuts at Macy's and he was presented with the credit card bill and told her, "Honey, I'm new on the gig and have no contract--they're paying me on an 'at-will' basis so please be a little careful.". Something like that because in the real world of radio, even in the beaten path of late nights catering to Roy in Fremont, you have to know the room.

You have to be different. You have to sell creativity and unique difference because after-Giants game bravado and kowtowing to Larry Baer's prescribed isms all-things SFO is a total challenge and Willard can't step to the plate. Not even close. It's all just another contrived performance with silly sound effects and bullshit rap videos applied to cozy up the producer and make him rumble which he can't and blatant ass-kissing to some urban fans in Vallejo.

That demo won't buy you any vacations and long term certainly won't help pay off the wife's impulse shopping at Nordstrom. Willard is a standard-sized Honda Civic with no luxury items other than automatic transmission with air. The stereo is standard with two speakers up front and no extra gizmo in the back. It's basically tantamount to an invoice deal and no special financing. The outside black exterior is indicative of a Fremont apartment near the 880 on-ramp and Willard is infused with a whole lot of Milpitas on the side. He should keep to practicing thong shtick with Krueger, a short story because his time here will never be long term. Bet on it.