Celebrities Reflect on Evenings Spent Listening to the Gentle Humor of Lake Wobegon

“The show is my Saturday evening.”

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky was talking about “A Prairie Home Companion,” the two-hour, nationwide radio program that will air its last live broadcast (tape-delayed for the Pacific Coast) at 6 tonight on KUSC-FM (91.5). After 13 years of the weekly show, “Prairie” creator and host Garrison Keillor has decided to relocate from St. Paul, Minn., to his wife’s native Denmark.

Though Minnesota Public Radio promises to keep the show alive through reruns for an indefinite period, it won’t be the same for the estimated 3 1/2 million listeners who, like Yaroslavsky, have strong emotional ties to the folksy program.

What is the attraction of this curiously low-key two hours of entertainment? It’s partly “Prairie Home Companion’s” eclectic stream of country, jazz and traditional music. But the program’s mainstay is Keillor himself, a gentle humorist/essayist who brings his imaginary hometown of Lake Wobegon alive through wistful “news” reports about local staples such as the Norwegian bachelor farmers and Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Catholic Church, interspersed with commercial spots for products such as Powdermilk Biscuits, “The biscuits that give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done.”

What has Keillor meant to his Saturday night listeners? Calendar asked a number of fans to comment:

STUDS TERKEL

Pulitzer Prize-winning w riter, Chicago historian and radio personality Terkel has been a “Prairie Home Companion” fan “for years.” He has also appeared on the show several times.

“People . . . are hungry for stories. It’s that 20- or 30-minute segment that they listen to. It’s not simply about Lake Wobegon. It’s about all the Lake Wobegons. It’s a certain attitude of people toward one another, a certain kind of humor and a gentleness. We don’t hear stories today thanks to so many things like TV.

One of the keys to literature--all literature--is a story being told. He (Keillor) does it in the tradition of, say, Twain. And he satisfies a certain need on the part of people for story. We did a take-off on a soap opera, another actor and I (when he guested on the program). And I was head of a diet squad, finding all the bootleg high-cholesterol foods and arresting people selling chocolate and pastries.

I enjoyed working with him (Keillor) very much. He has an easy quality, you see. His stuff is not just right of this moment. It lasts. It’s an anti-technology program, and so it’s flesh and blood.

ZEV YAROSLAVSKY

The Los Angeles city councilman has listened to “Prairie Home Companion” since 1982.

“I just tripped over the show by accident. I heard this funny kind of show and at first I didn’t know what it was--I thought it was for real.

“I think the whole ‘Prairie Home Companion’ program is a way of life for a lot of us. Those of us who are ‘PHC’ listeners are in a subculture to ourselves and compare notes on Garrison’s last monologue and that sort of thing.

“In a hustle-and-bustle, urban-environment, high-pressure life that young urban professionals run these days, Lake Wobegon is certainly the antithesis of that. And all of his listeners yearn for, in some measure, the peace, the tranquillity and the genuineness of human relationships that, I think, are in his vignettes.

“Even my kids are ‘PHC’ freaks. It’s great. Last Saturday’s program started off with ‘I’ve Been Working on the Railroad’ and my 9-year-old and 4-year-old are able to participate in that instantly. It sucks them right in.

“I think it’s kind of outrageous that he’s decided to defect in this way. I’m going to miss it. There is just no way I do not listen to that show on Saturday evening, wherever I am. It’s an institution. I hope he’ll come back.”

JEFFREY LEWIS

The co-executive producer of “Hill Street Blues” and the upcoming “Beverly Hills Buntz” has listened to Keillor’s creation “since I moved to Los Angeles (from New York) and had a radio in my car.”

“I think it’s a crime it’s going off. That’s an achievement, that show--first of all, for the massive entertainment it’s provided over the years. ‘PHC’ is the only thing I know that’s kept up the imaginative tradition. His monologues are funny. I also love the music. I think it’s my favorite part of the show. He has great taste in music. I hate most contemporary music.

“Radio . . . is much more conducive to the imagination than television. You could be in any part of the country and tune in and feel you were transported a great distance to a place that was different in spirit--if you didn’t live in the Midwest. I’ve never lived among Norwegian Americans. It’s very refreshing and revitalizing to listen to it.

“Having worked on ‘Hill Street’ for the last six years, though, I can certainly understand why he wouldn’t want to do it anymore. I understand the feeling of wanting to move on to other business.”

WALTER MONDALE

The former vice president and his wife, Joan, have listened to Keillor’s program since it began. One of his favorite episodes told of “the guy who made the duck decoy that was too big to get out of the basement.”

“I’m a shy person from a small town in Southern Minnesota, so I knew what he was talking about. I was born in Ceylon, Minn., which has 400 people. The humor that he uses comes right out of those communities, so I identified with it and loved every minute of it.

“I think that everyone remembers his hometown and his upbringing, and whether they grew up in a small town or a big town, they remember all that inside humor. They like his droll and subtle humor.

“When I was campaigning for president, he was making a swing through the Ivy League colleges and packing them in. The show was sophisticated, so the literature students and the theater students--everyone would show up to see ol’ Garrison. If I could have gotten crowds like that, I would have been president.”

BOBBY McFERRIN

Singer McFerrin has performed on “A Prairie Home Companion” three times and sees a connection between Keillor’s monologues and his own style of vocally emulating musical instruments to tell tales through song.

“This man has fragments of ideas and he’s basically improvising. In a way, that’s akin to what I do--telling stories without words and getting the people involved. I’ve enjoyed the show in that sense because Garrison has created that kind of environment where people become very quiet and listen to stories and . . . lose themselves in time and leave their troubles at the doorstep.

“I don’t listen all that much, because I travel so much. (But) you can become devoted to something just by experiencing it one time, because if it’s something really good and special, the feeling lingers.”

SYDNEY POLLACK

Film director Sydney Pollack got a rare insight into Keillor’s private world on a visit to Minnesota in the fall of 1986 to discuss a possible movie based on the author’s best-seller, “Lake Wobegon Days.

“He’s a 100% original, that’s for sure. From a personal point of view, I had an absolutely fascinating three days with him. We drove up to a kind of monastery that was connected to a Catholic school. That was his idea of the way we should work. We were really, you know, ascetic .

“The show itself was an experience to go through, because it was so laid-back and so little-rehearsed and because he was so damned good.

“That night, we got in a car and drove . . . about an hour or hour-and-a-half to this school, Saint Paul, Saint Joseph, Saint Something--I don’t remember. (He laughed.) It was pretty interesting--this little Jewish boy from Indiana driving up to this monastery.

“Keillor has such a very quiet, shy, introverted personality for a man who’s a public performer the way he is, that I had a wonderful evening asking him questions and talking about how he began and where he got his ideas and how he worked.

“Then we spent the next two days up there just taking long walks and him showing me the country that Lake Wobegon started from--the main streets and the farmhouses.

“We haven’t given up since then--we’re still kicking it (the film project) around.

“I think it’s a wonderful place and a wonderful group of characters and a wonderful metaphor for a lot of today’s problems with all the complexities peeled off of them. It’s like all really good writing--it really transcends the specifics of its locale. Most of the people who listen to it aren’t from little towns--they’re people from all over the place. It’s extraordinary stuff.”

DAVID OGDEN STIERS

The actor first came across “Prairie Home Companion” on a drive to Oregon five years ago, when he started “weeping with laughter” and had to to pull off the road.

“Since I was born in 1942, I grew up as a radio kid. And the pictures you make with your brain, depending on the sound you’re hearing, are infinitely better than sets and costumes.

“Normally, I don’t like popular music at all. But there’s a feeling about this show that must have been prevalent at the turn of the century in this country, when people actually got together in a sort of lower-middle-class salon environment and played songs that they’d heard, swapped stories, told anecdotes about what happened to them that week and had coffee and German coffeecake, and would sit around and do live what Keillor has brought back every Saturday evening. It’s something that we’re a long way away from, and I think that just the idea of it is an extremely healthy premise. It’s refreshing to know that so many people have responded to it.

“He uses the language very precisely and colorfully. The way he chooses them (words) is just terrific. And on his feet! I just think the world of the program.