James Patrick Healy was a longtime Los Angeles, California, sports commentator, whose daily solo radio show featured a number of sound effects and audio clips of famous sports personalities, which he played repeatedly to affect an acerbically humorous tone. Healy wrote for KMPC sportcaster Bob Kelley for 11 years, and hosted "Here's Healy" on KBIG and also worked at KFWB, KABC-TV and KLAC. Healy's shows took the form of him reading headlines, with the clicking sound effect of a teleprinter in the background. In response to his own headlines or comments, Healy would then play one of his many favorite audio clips, such as "That's a bunch of bull," "That's just plain poppycock", or "Jim Healy, you've got a weak show", followed by the genuine Cosell drop "Who Goofed I've got to know." and "Jim Healy that's your lowest shot ever!" Among his sound effects was a high pitched smirking laughtrack, sounding like, "Mee-hee-hee-hee...". Perhaps the most notorious—and among the most frequently played—clip in Healy's collection was a post-game tirade by then-Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, after Dave Kingman, playing for the Chicago Cubs, hit three home runs to beat the Dodgers. Lasorda's rant started out: "What's my opinion of Kingman's performance!? What the &@*$% do you think is my opinion of it?" Among other Healy-isms:
Ever dismissive of his arch-rivals, UCLA alum Healy referred to the USC Trojans as the "Brain Surgeons." He also flashed a distorted recording of the Trojan Fight Song with the fanfare melting down into a slow sludge prefacing USC news "datelines"...
Chris Schenkel, who actually died in 2005, eleven years after Healy, was always "the late Chris Schenkel".
His KMPC show was famous for going over its 30-minute time limit. Healy would stay on the air as the top of the hour approached, then warn his listeners about the impending "dreaded six o'clock tone", and continue his program. During his late career, one of Healy's favorite clips came from then-University of Miami defensive endJerome Brown, captured on tape when Brown led his fellow Hurricanes out of a pre-1987 Fiesta Bowl dinner with opponent Penn State, saying: Did the Japanese go and sit down and have dinner with Pearl Harbor before they bombed 'em? Any reference to Japan or the Japanese on Healy's show would result in a replay of Brown's remark. When Brown died in a car accident on June 25, 1992, Healy announced Brown's death during his 5:30 p.m. PDT broadcast — and never played the "Pearl Harbor" clip again.
Death
Healy died July 22, 1994, at age 70 from complications of liver cancer. He was survived by his wife and son, Patrick, a newscaster on KNBC-TV in Los Angeles.
