Odd headlines, dating etiquette and one very menacing cat.
The podcast of Jack and Nikki's weekday morning show on 102 WVAQ trades in odd headlines, relationship squabbles and small personal sagas. A woman who pointed a taser and claimed to be police, property taxes on dogs and a cat that holds a grudge all get the same handling: fast back-and-forth and deadpan exaggeration.
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The Jack and Nikki Show is the podcast of a weekday morning program on 102 WVAQ, and it sounds like one: two voices trading reactions, text lines open, and a list of odd items to get through. The episode titles make the menu plain. They typically name three things, and together they range widely, from 'Faking Your Death, Taxing Dogs and The Sunset Clause' to 'A Trashed House, Restaurant Horrors and The Bigfoot Expedition' to 'Narcissistic Exhibitionists, Off-Putting Eating and Harassing Librarians'. Some of the raw material comes straight from the news. There is a news item about a woman exposing herself to a friend's boyfriend, a discussion of people using AI to win arguments in their personal lives, and audio of a man at a phone store after hours, billed as a rare sighting of a male Karen. The taser story shows how these get handled. A woman who pointed a taser at another woman and her mother, claiming to be police, picks up an invented detail about an oversized get-along shirt, and then comes the admission that all of it is true except maybe the shirt. The exaggeration happens in plain view. Relationships are another thread. Titles mention 'The Suspicious Wife', 'Reasons For Divorce' and 'Marital Flatulence', and one exchange turns into a debate about a date who eats a burger with a knife and fork: one side pleads small hands and oversized burgers, the other wonders what that person does with pizza. Food invites its own suspicion. After a restaurant story that ends with never going back, the talk turns to someone named Jessica, who stopped going to a favorite spot after learning how her sandwich was made, and the riff spirals into meat thrown like a Frisbee and shoved under a tire for traction. Personal stories carry just as much weight. Strangers at a game unburden themselves on one of the pair, who likens the experience to being Dr. Phil. A childhood memory of an assessor on the porch, asking about the family dogs for property taxes, gets topped with the deadpan question of whether any of them are employed. One voice recalls glimpsing something crouched that rose on two legs and went over a guardrail, with a bear offered only as a maybe. And there is Matt Kelly's cat, the subject of a continuing drama about feeding an animal that once attacked one of them. In the retelling, it stares from the corner, sharpens its claws with a file and makes a throat-cut gesture. Listener texts come up too, including one about orders that keep arriving with extra items nobody charged for, which draws a teasing question about answering the door naked. What comes through is sociable, teasing company, more interested in the next reaction than in settling anything.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes the rhythm of local morning radio and wants odd headlines, dating-etiquette arguments and small domestic sagas played for laughs rather than analysed. Less of a fit for anyone expecting serious talk about marriage or communication.
What sets it apart: It keeps the feel of live local radio, with open text lines, a list of odd headlines and a continuing saga about Matt Kelly's cat, rather than the tidier shape of a produced comedy podcast. Its exaggeration is out in the open: in one news story, an invented detail is flagged as invented moments after it lands.
Jack Logar and Nikki Drake are both proud West Virginia natives. Jack's lifelong love for broadcasting began in an abandoned coal mining town on Point Mountain where the elevation allowed him to pick up signals from distant radio stations. Jack's unguarded, homegrown style makes for a "warts and all" approach to radio that keeps him unique among his peers. Nikki returned home to West Virginia after broadcasting on stations in Ohio, Mississippi and New York. Her passion for radio is exceeded only by her love for chocolate, coffee and cookies. Relive your favorite moments or get caught up on all the hilarity from the week with WVAQ's dynamic morning duo.
Jack wonders if the dog being taxed has a job; your inner heckler clocks in.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A closed phone store turns customer entitlement into a brisk comic self-indictment.
The episode starts with a teasing run at questionable parenting, then settles into a sharper comic study of confident bad judgment. Its strongest stretch comes at a closed phone store, where a customer insists that an employee fix his phone because the employee has the skill…
A loose comedy episode about oversharing, fast-food dread, and one deeply suspicious roadside sighting.
The Jack and Nikki Show builds this single episode around the comic fallout of people volunteering far too much, starting with a game-night encounter that turns Jack into an unwilling Dr. Phil figure.
Loose morning-radio comedy about naked revenge, burger etiquette, and strange calls at work.
Jack and Nikki shape the episode around the odd little ways people test social boundaries, moving from a roommate-revenge story involving nudity into a debate over whether eating a burger with a knife and fork could kill the mood on a first date.
A loose comic detour from online embarrassment into the baffling idea of taxing dogs.
The Jack and Nikki Show opens on the everyday comedy of people airing embarrassing stories online, then wanders into a stranger bit of civic absurdity: the idea of paying property taxes on animals.
["The Jack and Nikki Show spends this episode on a father defending his son after a bully stole a cupcake laced with laxatives and the school suspended the boy for three days.", "Jack and Nikki argue that a zero-tolerance fight policy can punish retaliation more than the bullying that led to it, while listeners weigh in on whether the school should have acted earlier.", "They then play audio of a man refusing to leave a closed phone store until a worker fixes his device, after he insults the employee's pay and skill.", "The episode closes with a Study Finds survey on farting and bathroom comfort in relationships, plus a cheating-and-debt dilemma about whether a man should repay the $1,000 he still owes his ex-girlfriend."]
The Jack and Nikki Show moves from a 17-year-old nephew's broken-TV house-sitting mess to a Crumble Cookies foot-in-the-baking-sheets viral video and a West Virginia Bigfoot expedition.
["Jack and Nikki open with a listener story about \"Exposo,\" who sleeps naked on top of the covers so her roommate's boyfriend opens the door and finds her at 7 a.m.", "On the health desk, they cite a review saying office water coolers had 76% bacterial contamination versus 36% in municipal tap water, and they name Pseudomonas aeruginosa and biofilms.", "The show then turns to first-date etiquette after Nikki describes using a fork and knife on a cheeseburger, then debates Five Guys mess, open-mouth chewing, and other eating habits that can change attraction.", "The final stretch moves to librarians describing strange calls that only make sense after other librarians compare notes on Reddit, which Jack and Nikki treat as a pattern of fetish-driven reference questions."]
Jack Loker and Nikki Drake on 102 WBAQ spend the hour on three viral topics: a woman who says her boyfriend faked his death, a New York attorney suing the IRS over her dog Finnegan, and a dating trend called the Sunset Clause.
The Jack and Nikki Show opens with a ChatGPT debate about a wife trying to win a February ski-trip argument against her husband's beach preference.
Jack put on boots, thick clothes, leather gloves, and a full-face helmet before feeding Matt Kelly's cats.
Jack says Matt Kelly's cat once trapped him in a bedroom and garage, so he plans a helmet-and-garbage-can-lid return visit.
Jack and Nikki Drake use food preferences such as vegetables and leafy greens to question whether adults were spoiled or simply sheltered.
Jack says a retail worker in the Clarksburg area told a new hire to scan every bill over a $20 because of fake $50s and $100s, and a Randolph County caller describes an FBI raid on his house after a counterfeit twenty was traced to him.
Hosts Jack and Nikki open with the traveling Museum of Failure, covering the Segway, 1985's New Coke, Crystal Pepsi, Colgate beef lasagna, and the 1965 doll Little Miss No Name.
Jack opens with 'still on the books,' a rundown of odd West Virginia laws, including a ban on whistling underwater and a $500 fine with up to 100 days in jail for hunting with a ferret.
Jack and Nikki discuss a shocking news story about a Danish zoo asking people to donate their live pets as food for zoo animals to replicate natural food chains.
Jack and Nikki discuss a study on depression rates across different jobs, highlighting police officers and food service workers as most affected.