The Giz Wiz
Hosts: Dick DeBartolo Topic: Gadgets Debut: February 20th, 2006 Recorded: Wed 4:30pm Pacific Released: within 24hrs Duration: ~ 60 minutes Set: Radio Corner |
The Giz Wiz is a weekly gadget show hosted by Dick DeBartolo and Chad Johnson (originally co-hosted by Leo Laporte). Each episode is recorded live every Wednesday at 5:00pm Pacific. Originally it was a daily show and each episode was recorded on Tuesday and released throughout the week and was called the Daily Giz Wiz. Later the show was changed to a weekly format and renamed the Weekly Daily Giz Wiz and recorded on Saturday. In July 2012 the show was moved back to Tuesday and was renamed "The Giz Wiz". In January 2014, Chad Johnson took over for Leo Laporte as co-host. Leo's last regular episode was on December 31, 2013. After April 2015, the show left TWiT and went independent. The final TWiT episode was on April 30, 2015 with Leo doing one last hosting appearance.
The first episode (Docupen) was released on 20 February 2006.
Contents
Themes and jingles
The show has several jingles and songs it uses to indicate different sections or events, including (first aired in brackets):
- Original (transitional) Opening Theme by Mark Blasco at PodcastThemes.com (Episode 1 on February 20th 2006)
- Opening Theme (current) The Giz Wiz Theory by Paul Minshall, George Wood, Dan Lueders
- Closing (transitional) Jingle by Mark Blasco at PodcastThemes.com (Episode 116 on July 31st 2006)
- Closing Jingle (current) A Very Brady Weekly Giz Wiz by Dan Lueders
- Monday Theme by Dan Lueders
- Turn the Tables Tuesday by George Wood
- Theme Free Wednesday by Dan Lueders
- Rock Out Thursday Theme (aka, Another Crappy Theme) by Dan Lueders
- Gadget Warehouse Friday by George Wood and Paul Minshall
- Show Free Saturday (Not used in actual episodes) by Dan Lueders
- Sleepin' in Sunday (Not used in actual episodes)
- Giz Wiz Letters (original) (Episode 166 on October 9th 2006) George Wood
- Festive Letters Jingle (starts the first Monday of November, ends at new year) by George Wood
- Wait for Dick by Paul Minshall
- Audible Jingle, first appearance on episode 696 by Paul Minshall
- The Titamium Spork by Dan Lueders
- DGW-The Disclamer by Dan Lueders
- The DGW "Celebrity" Letters Jingles by Dan Lueders
The current theme for The Giz Wiz can be downloaded here.
Listeners' Favorite Episodes 2009
There is no TWiT show with more episodes than The Daily Giz Wiz. In January 2009 the Giz Wiz Search site held a voting for listeners' favorite episodes. After counting all 666 votes the results were published:
- UroClub (episode 598)
- Toothpick Bird (episode 282)
- Titanium Spork (episode 182)
- Zelco PurseGuard Ultra (episode 406)
- A Tribute to William M. Gaines (episode 76)
- Vat19's Talking Photo Album (episode 463)
- Keybuoy (episode 149)
- A Visit To The Gadget Warehouse (episode 246)
- GFX-100 Indoor Dish Antenna (episode 670)
- Cruzin' Cooler (episode 101)
Downloading old episodes
To download a specific archival episode one can find it using the search tool and then download it manually. For automatic download there is a special unofficial "Download Old Shows" podcast feed containing every single episode ever released. After subscribing to it in a podcast client one can choose episodes for download, or use the "get all" option to automatically download all episodes.
Jokes
There are a number of long running jokes associated with the Daily Giz Wiz which Dick and Leo frequently refer to during the podcast. These jokes include:
- The Spork, Leo's 'gadget' for Turn the Table Tuesday in episode 182.
- The Toothpick Bird, another awful Turn the Table Tuesday gadget from episode 282.
Trivia
As of December 30th, 2009 (based on GizWizSearch.com statistics page):
- If one listened to all the Daily Giz Wiz episodes one after another it would take 11 days, 7 hours, 14 minutes, and 16 seconds.
- Average length of the Daily Giz Wiz episode is 16 minutes and 23 seconds.
- Episode 967 "Verizon's Droid" from November 2009 is the longest episode ever recorded. It's over 36 minutes.
- Episode 36 "Logitech Wireless Headphones" from April 2006 is the shortest episode ever recorded. It's only 5 minutes and 3 seconds.
Contributors
Contact
- You can contact Dick from his site at gizwiz.biz
External links
- Official Giz Wiz podcast site
- TWiT's Giz Wiz site
- DeBartolo's site
- The Daily Giz Wiz search tool
- InsideDGW blog (previously http://insidedgw.vox.com, and not updated since vox ceased to exist)
- The Daily Giz Wiz Book Picks
- Dan Lueders
- Paul Minshall's site
- George Wood
