BOSTON — “Car Talk” co-host Tom Magliozzi won’t be dispensing automotive advice from the grave after all. Magliozzi, who hosted the hugely popular public radio show with his brother, died Nov. 3. After his death, New York-based King Features Syndicate said the brothers’ newspaper column would continue to be bylined by both Tom and Ray Magliozzi.
Newspaper editors nationwide promptly threatened to cancel the “Click and Clack” column. Providence Journal executive editor Karen Bordeleau said she worried about the ethics of having it appear as though Tom Magliozzi was still answering readers’ questions.
“We were very concerned about the ethical implications of printing a column that purported to have two people chatting about cars — when one of them was clearly dead. Our brand is accuracy — and that didn’t sit well with us,” Bordeleau said.
King Features manaaging editor Glenn Mott said Thursday the syndicate rethought the plan, and the column will carry only Ray Magliozzi’s byline.
Susan King, Associated Press
“It was really a creative dilemma,” he told The Associated Press. “You’ve got an iconographic format [—] the fast badinage of the duo. You have to think carefully of how to go forward with that.”
Tom Magliozzi, a Boston-area mechanic and MIT graduate, was 77 when he died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. “Car Talk,” which dispensed advice about repairing cars mixed generously with sharp one-liners, self-deprecating humor and off-topic digressions on philosophy and the mysteries of life, reached more than 4 million listeners a week at its peak.
The duo, who called themselves “Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers,” always ended their shows with the catchphrase, “Don’t drive like my brother,” delivered in their signature Boston accents. Their nationally syndicated newspaper column debuted in 1989.
When Tom died, King Features said it conferred with Ray, who intended to keep the column in the same format as a tribute to his brother. “Ray has told us that he is sure his brother would want him to continue helping people with their car problems and making them laugh,” the syndicate said earlier this month.
Editors found the concept creepy. Kim Christ, senior features editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, said her paper planned to drop the column if it were written as though the late Magliozzi was still contributing answers.
King Features relented, Mott said, because “the editors we heard from wanted to keep it in the paper.”
“The place in the culture of ‘Car Talk’ is huge,” he said. “The brothers are irreplaceable. There’s no doubt about that.”
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