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Chris Plante on the interactivity of radio talk shows ~\n"We are the original interactive media. We invented interactive."\n\nChris Plante, Talk Show Host on WMAL radio in Our Town and elsewhere\n\nA Ockershausen:\tThis is Our Town. This is Andy Ockershausen. Our guest today, unlike most of Our Town have been, are native but he's not a native. He's a relative newcomer, but he's not really a newcomer. He's been around. He started out on WMAL here in Our Town with a local broadcast, and now he's being heard all over America. He's on Westwood One, he's a regular on Fox News, but he's not a baby when it comes to Washington politics or holding his own in a room full of liberals.\n\tHe's had a lot of experience growing up in a media family in Chicago, a family of Democrats so I hear. His mother and grandfather were on radio and television, and his stepfather is still in the news business. He's been 20 years at CNN and they've been preparing him for his daily talk show, and the most popular radio show probably on WMAL radio is The Chris Plante Show, and welcome to you, Chris Plante.\nChris Plante:\tThanks. Thanks for having me.\nA Ockershausen:\tOur Town.\nChris Plante:\tYes.\nA Ockershausen:\tYou're a big part of Our Town. You, let's say, copted Our Town because not many people do what you do on radio.\nChris Plante:\tI never wanted to be part of this town, but here I am anyway. [Laughter] I got stuck here somehow.\nA Ockershausen:\tYou wanted to go back to Chicago where your family was so prominent, correct?\nFamily Legacy - Following in Their Footsteps "On Air" Radio and Television\nChris Plante:\tWe moved around a lot truthfully. I spent most of my years, my formative years ... I'm still in my formative years, in Chicago growing up, Glenview and Winnetka on the north shore of Chicago.\nA Ockershausen:\tThe gold coast.\nSanta Barbara, California - College Years\nChris Plante:\tThe Winnetka part certainly anyway. It's very nice. I've been here for the majority of my life now though. I fled Chicago when I was 18 years old and went to Santa Barbara where the sun shines and a whole of lot of other things.\nA Ockershausen:\tYou went to school in Santa Barbara?\nChris Plante:\tI went to school for a very long time. I never finished, but I went to school for a very long time.\nA Ockershausen:\tUC of course?\nChris Plante:\tI went to Santa Barbara City College forever, and then I started at UC Santa Barbara. I was busy and I was married and I had a job and I lost interest, and I figured I already knew it all, so they didn't have much to teach me, so I moved on from there. That's when I went into the news business.\nWinnetka, Illinois - New Trier Schools\nA Ockershausen:\tIn high school you were in Chicago, and then you moved west ...\nChris Plante:\tI did. New Trier West High School and ...\nA Ockershausen:\tWasn't Jack Benny from Winnetka, Illinois? Didn't I hear that name?\nChris Plante:\tThere are a lot of people from Winnetka. Donald Rumsfeld ...\nA Ockershausen:\tFamous name.\nChris Plante:\tThe New Trier school system, Charlton Heston and Ann Margret and Rumsfeld ...\nA Ockershausen:\tNorthwestern.\nChris Plante:\tAll kinds of people. My mother went to college at Northwestern. One of my younger brothers went to college at Northwestern.\nChris Plante's Mother and Grandfather "On-Air"\nA Ockershausen:\tYour mother was in the broadcast business when you were growing up, when you were in school?\nChris Plante:\tMy mother's father Pat Barnes who was not a liberal, he was a good conservative, but I didn't realize that. I didn't learn that until I started doing the radio show here at WMAL. My grandfather, my mother's father, was in the radio business from the time that he came home from World War I. He fought in the army in World War I and France, and when he came home he got into the radio business. \n\tWhen my mother was seven years old, she was already doing radio shows in New York, National Broadcasts. I have a recording of one of them from Christmas Day 193...