"Cousin" Danny Corsun shares much in common with many of our alumni - a New York kid who liked sports and went to Syracuse. But as you'll hear today, his life's journey is as unique as they come.
Danny started at WJPZ doing sports, and after the station moved to FM, he found his way to the Crazy Morning Crew. There, he and the late Larry Barron teamed up for one of the most prominent AM drive shows in the station's history. He tells a classic story of the moment when they realized the whole town was listening, and some problematic phone calls then-GM Carl Weinstein had to field. He also has a Mike Tirico story to share.
Danny also shares his memories of the Student African American Society sit-in at the station - protesting the musical direction of WJPZ. With the benefit of time and life experience, his views on that event have changed greatly, years late.
Following graduation, Danny and Larry could have pursued radio full time, but eventually headed out to LA. Danny found himself working his way up the ladder at the preeminent TV show in the country in those days - The Cosby Show.
To supplement his writing career, Danny took a substitute teaching job that would change his life. He was brought into a special needs classroom, and found a way to connect with his students through cooking. He broke down barriers with Gen Ed students, and a two-week stint lasted five years.
This inspired Danny to educate the kids of Southern California through his Culinary Kids Academy. Later, he leaned into his faith and started teaching Jewish principles through cooking with the Culinary Judaics Academy. He's shot countless videos in his backyard with his daughter, now at Berkley.
Danny leaves us with two great stories. One involves why he should never have been running the board. And the other is a Rick Wright classic that may have elicited the longest sustained laugh from Jag yet.
Learn more about Danny's latest venture, Culinary Judaics Academy, here: https://www.culinaryjudaicsacademy.com/
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast Series is produced by Jon Gay, Class of 2002, and his podcast production agency, JAG in Detroit Podcasts.
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Jag: Welcome to W JPZ at 50. I am John Jag Gay. Very excited for today's guest who has had an illustrious career after his illustrious time at the radio station. That would be cousin Danny, Danny Corson from the Class of 1987. Welcome to the show.
Danny: Thank you so much. Appreciate it. I don't know about illustrious.
Jag: Well, we'll dig into that and find out. Let me start by asking you what I ask everyone, and that is how you found Syracuse and the radio station.
Danny: So grew up in New York, Queens, New York. It's funny, I had a bunch of friends who, back in the day, Albany was the New York State school that everybody wanted to go to. Albany was like the state school.
Jag: Okay.
Danny: A lot of my friends went there. For me, it was between Syracuse and Maryland. Syracuse was closer to Albany than Maryland was. That was my choice. So they came for concerts. I went there to hang. But it was the best thing for me because I got to Newhouse and then the radio station. I was a freshman living at Sadler Hall. A guy on my floor found out about it. He was into sports. I was into sports. He's like, How'd you like to come to this meeting? I said, sure, went down and I was hooked from the get go.
Jag: What floor were you on at Sadler?
Danny: Started on eight, then did six, and then I left.
Jag: I was on Sadler five. Okay.
Danny: That's the part about Sadler is you overlooked the Dome and any ticket that ever went on sale, you were right in line for at the beginning of the day.
Jag: Oh, absolutely.
Danny: 7th row for Bruce, second row for Genesis, Prince, and that back in the day they had some serious concerts in addition to obviously basketball tickets.
Jag: Absolutely. So I'm going to mark another tick on my wall here for people who are interested in sports that went to Syracuse. Once you got to JPZ because the station was still on Am at that point, or was on carrier current?
Danny: When you first got there, in the dorm, in the center of each of the floors, you had like a common area with a TV that was closed circuit. And if you wanted to hear JPZ, you turned that on and you saw these lines moving. And that was how you got the radio station. It wasn't, quote unquote, on air. It was definitely closed circuit for the campus. And, yeah, I was there when Chris Mossman played the first record and we went on FM.
Jag: Tell me about your involvement at the station and some of the things you did there.
Danny: I mean, everything I do now is informed by what I got back then. So I did a little bit of everything. I started out in sports, but very quickly I gravitated to the morning show, and so I ended up doing what was then called the Crazy Morning Crew. And my predecessors were obviously people I looked up to. Incredible. Mary Mancini, Happy Dave Dwyer. Dano Wokoff. Dan Klass. Tommy G.
Danny: All these were really funny people. And so I was like, that sounds like a lot of fun. So I started doing sports on those shows, and then I started doing a show in the afternoon with another guy, and it just gravitated to like, this is fun. I want to do this and not just do sports, but I actually want to be on air and be part of the Crazy Morning crew.
Jag: So who was on the crew with you when you were on the show?
Danny: So that's a big name. That's a name from Mount Rushmore, because Larry Barron and I probably did, I figured it out once. I don't know, over 200 shows together, I think.
Jag: Okay.
Danny: And back then, you didn't do the show every day, right? You did the show on Mondays, and other people did it on Tuesdays because you had a lot of people. So it started to become something where everybody wanted to do it every day. And it kind of made sense programming wise, too. Obviously, you want some consistency, right? So Larry and I started doing it more than just once a week, like two, three, sometimes even four days a week.
Danny: And other people, like Chris Godsick was doing it, and so we kind of got together. Larry was obviously huge at the station. He was the general manager of the station. The reason the station is what it is today, one of the reasons why. And so we got along. We were good buds and became on air kind of duos and became linked as a result for that time and then beyond that, because we ended up moving out to LA.
Danny: At the same time, ended up being together for probably four or five years. Both Larry and Scotty Bergstein, who also is an icon, JPZ wise.
Jag: Oh, yeah.
Danny: Music director, brilliant guy, and taking that creativity to do what he's doing right now. He's a commercial director. So Larry and I did a lot of really fun stuff on the air.
Jag: Any particular bits or moments come to mind for you? You're already laughing as I'm asking the question.
Danny: Yeah. So Carl Weinstein, when he was inducted at the Hall of Fame, told this story. So it was almost summertime. It was like two weeks before school was ending in Syracuse, and Larry and I were like, well, I think as a high school student, you should celebrate the fact that it's going to be summer soon. So at that point in time, I don't know, those who recall, they were called “Walkmans,” and we told everybody the day before to bring their Walkman to school.
Danny: This was like when you're in a booth and you're a college kid and you have no idea who's listening and you're 100 watts, right? You think you're by yourself, right? You don't think that anything's going to happen. You don't think, who's listening besides the kid down the hall and maybe not even him. And so we said, come to school with your Walkman at 09:00. Turn your Walkmans on and we're going to have a surprise for you. And so we were like, sure, let's go for it. So the next day was Friday.
Danny: It was 09:00. After the ID, we said, okay, it's almost summertime. Do you all remember the song summertime, summertime, sum, sum summertime? So, like, on the count of three, we want you to stand up in your class and sing summertime, summertime, sum sum summertime. One, two, three. And we sang it and we were like, oh, okay, that's fun, that's fun. Everybody have a great break. Well, that day, there were massive suspensions across the Salt City, and Carl Weinstein, who ran the radio station, was on the receiving end of calls from principals across the city because, of course, Larry Barron and Cousin Danny told me to.
Danny: We got dressed down in a big way, but it again showed like, I guess people are listening. And so it was both a funny and very cool moment for us too.
Jag: Have that validation that, yeah, people are listening all over the city. And then that valuable lesson again, world's greatest media classroom. Hey, you know what, you're talking into that microphone in a room, but there's people on the other end hearing every.
Danny: Word you're saying and there are ramifications for everything you say. No doubt. The other thing that was kind of life shaping really is not so much funny as related to what went on in the air and kind of illustrates for me, I wasn't into fraternities. Fraternities weren't my thing.
Jag: Yeah.
Danny: JPZ was my fraternity.
Jag: Me, too. Absolutely.
Danny: I had multiple people from JPZ who were in my wedding, right.
Jag: Ditto.
Danny: These were my people. And this is why this thing exists 50 years later, right. Like, there's a love, there's a passion, we bleed it. And at one point in time, and I don't recall the actual date, maybe 86, there was a group on campus that didn't like the fact that we were playing the songs we were playing.
Jag: Yeah.
Danny: They felt like it should be more representative of what everybody wanted. Essentially, they wanted it to be a jukebox.
Jag: Right. They wanted to be the college block programming. Carl Weinstein talked about that in his episode. Do I have that right?
Danny: Yeah. I mean, they wanted it. Everybody should have a say as to what their block should have and it should be representative of everybody's desires. I'm going to put my quarter in and I want to hear the music. And it's just not that, like we were teaching radio, I don't put myself into that educator aspect in terms of CHR, but I certainly took part in it. And it wasn't the plan, right? The plan was we're going to teach professional radio.
Danny: So this group, I believe, was the SAS organization. They felt like the best way to air their grievances was to literally take over the station. And so they planned to sit in. And they had done this with the Chancellor for other issues as well. And so they felt like that was the best way. And I recall being in my apartment off campus at around midnight and listening to the radio station before I went to sleep. And all of a sudden, I heard the radio station get taken over.
Danny: So literally, they went into the booth and physically moved the DJ and took off the record or the cart that was playing at the time and put on the music they wanted to play. And probably 75 to 100 other students came in and sat down in the area outside the senior staff office. The station was taken over, and then all of a sudden, we went off the air. And so I immediately call, like, what's going on? I, at that point, by the way, I was the assistant sports director.
Jag: Okay.
Danny: So I had moved up from just doing sports to the assistant sports director while I was doing the morning show. And so I got a hold of somebody, and I heard what's going on. So I book out of my apartment because I'm going to go. I'm going to try to do something and help. This is my radio station.
Jag: It's our baby.
Danny: My baby. And I felt like we were under attack. And so I just remember going literally 100 miles an hour down whatever that street is to the radio station outside of Watson. And I got pulled over by a cop, and it was snowy, and I immediately jumped out of my car because I want to tell them what's going on. And I hear, Get the blank back in your car.
Jag: Oh, jeez. So up on Comstock somewhere around there.
Danny: They come over. I'm like, Sorry, this is what's going on. Well, we don't know anything about that, but you're going 100 miles an hour.
Jag: Oh, G-d.
Danny: We're going to issue you a ticket. I got my ticket. I went 35 miles an hour to the station after that. And I get in, and sure enough, there's people everywhere. The senior staff office had been locked, so they couldn't get into the senior staff office.
Jag: The protesters, yes.
Danny: And inside the senior staff office were the senior staff, of which I was a member because I was an assistant sports director. And they were holed up okay. Locked in there.
Jag: Wow.
Danny: And these people would have gone in. So I was able to get into that office, and then it was locked. And then we proceeded to spend the night in that office all night long. As a matter of fact, behind there used to be a place called the Good Food Store just in the opposite wall at the senior staff office. And there was a door that was kind of like not a door anymore because it was quasi wall, but it still operated as a door if you wanted it to. Well, like, around 03:00 in the morning, we got hungry, so we had, like, really yummy Fig Newtons around 03:00, a.m., thanks to the Good Food Store. But it was a circle the wagons moment, and it showed how much you truly cared about this place and the role it played in your life. I spent, like anybody else, 30, 40 hours a week there.
Danny: And so, yeah, that was a really big deal. And then obviously, everything stayed as it should have, which was we were there to teach radio, and the sit in didn't really yield the results that the organization wanted it to, and we kept going full steam ahead.
Jag: I will say you mentioned Scotty Bergstein. By the time this episode publishes, Scotty's will have published as well. And Scotty talks about that night a lot as well, from his perspective and the conflict of, hey, these are my friends that are here protesting, but this is my home. This is why I'm here at Syracuse. This is my life; these are my friends. You talked about everybody being in each other's weddings for 50 years. Now my friends are protesting, but this is my home.
Jag: How do we resolve the situation?
Danny: I knew people who were sitting and I'm like, look, I get why you're doing what you're doing. I hear you, but this is not the way to do it. And B, so much time, effort, love, blood, sweat, tears has gone into this. And by the way, the general manager of the radio station had to resign because he was having death threats and health issues. And it was a tough period of time, but like every other time in JPZ's history, we weathered the storm and got through it and came out better for it.
Jag: What is interesting is how many stories repeat themselves over 50 years, Danny, and how often certain things happen. I've talked in previous episodes about having to rebuild the staff every ten years. 2000, we were in a house. 2010-11, they rebuilt the station. 2021, they had COVID. And for this situation, we had this protest with the SAS students. And then about ten years later, there was receivership. And a lot of these same issues where we're all 19, 20 year old college students, and we're trying to protect this thing, this entity that not just the history, but that we all love. Like you said, blood, sweat and tears. And I think it's a credit to you and your classmates and everybody there at the time that said that stuck to your guns and said, hey, we understand where you're coming from with this protest, but this is a classroom to teach how to do Top 40 radio. This is our mission. And we've got the conviction to stick to it.
Danny: And by the way, to the senior staff credit, who was involved in programming like Scott and Carl and all the other people, there were adjustments made within the programming of the station to hear what SAS was saying. And there were shows that were as a result of those changes that were very popular and fit within the model.
Jag: Were those the Saturday Night Dance Jam and Sunday Night Love Flight?
Danny: Yeah, I believe so, but what's interesting is that in retrospect, as I think about what happened, time has changed how I felt about that siege, that we thought we were experiencing.
JAG: He's using air quotes for siege, by the way, I should point out.
Danny: Exactly. It was what we thought was a circle the wagons moment.
It was a great in terms of creating a bonding, but. We felt like we were wrong, when in fact, over the course of time, and it's been a lot of time since then, I think it was a very good thing that it happened. Almost a necessary thing to have happened.
JAG: How so?
Danny: I taught a class recently, and I was talking about uncomfortable moments, challenges. And I use an analogy that I actually didn't certainly make up. I heard, but I applied to one of the classes. Do you know how a lobster grows?
JAG: No.
Danny: Okay. So a lobster isn't born the beautiful 20 pound Maine lobster. It's born a baby like you and I, and it has a shell. The shell is obviously a protective defense mechanism to predators.
The shell is the size it is, and the lobster grows into that shell until it busts out. It's so uncomfortable that it's in pain. Goes down to the bottom of the ocean, goes into a crevice and sheds the shell and grows a new one.
JAG: Okay.
Danny: And then goes out when it's got the defense mechanism. It does that over the course of its life, five, six, ten times, however many, until it becomes that beautiful Maine 20 pound lobster.
The point is, the analogy is that uncomfortableness, challenges, should yield. growth.
JAG: Got it. Okay.
Danny: And only through those uncomfortable moments can growth occur. And when we were holed up in that senior staff office with Rusty Berrell and Mark Bokoff and Carl Weinstein and all of us going, Oh my gosh, what are we going to do?
It was uncomfortable, but if you look at what it yielded, that uncomfortable, challenging moment yielded those shows and the change that needed to take place. Like I'm listening to Dion talk to you about his experiences. And I feel for him and what he had to go through. And I'm so pleased that he found a place where he found his people and his family so that he was comfortable enough to make the change that he made.
But had that sit-in not happened, I don't know that he would have walked in. And found his people and had a place where he could call home to make the impact he has made. As small as it was, back in 1987, it was the precursor to creating Carl Weinstein, right? And Cole in their podcast with you, Carl talked about needing team and needing diversity, right?
That diversity and Carl was instrumental in creating the change that occurred post that sit-in. To create an environment where people were heard. The same is true. That's happening right now with the Alumni Association with Jeff Wade and Jeanne Schad and Neon Dion creating a more diverse environment within our own organization.
JAG: Absolutely.
Danny: Uncomfortable conversations have to yield growth. And honestly, in retrospect, while it was difficult at the time, I'm just glad it happened.
Jag: So a lot of great stories and a little some harrowing stories as well. From your time at the station, you talk about doing the show with the late, great Larry Barron. You guys ever pursue the radio thing professionally? Ever think about doing that?
Danny: Yeah, we did. I mean, I think everybody kind of fancies themselves as being able to do this beyond Syracuse. And I didn't go into radio ultimately, but we gave it our good shot. We had enough people coming up to us on campus saying, we love what you did this morning. I never forget Mike Tirico, of all people. He came up to me one day, it was like, oh, man, you guys were great this morning. I'm like Mike Tirico is listening to us!
Danny: But yeah, we sent out a tape to a bunch of stations around the country and tried to differentiate ourselves. We sent it in a pizza box.
Jag: Get noticed.
Danny: Yeah. So that was our thing. We didn't just send it in a regular envelope. We had those little tiny pizza boxes made. And the red thing with the chef on the front with the Italian hat, the chef's hat. And on the box it said, Larry Barron and Cousin Danny. We deliver.
Jag: Oh, that's great.
Danny: And we got people listening. We were actually talking to a potential radio station, Modesto, California, who were potentially interested. It ended up not happening. But you got to be in it to win it, to get into that game. You got to be okay with being in Modesto for five years and then moving to 17 different markets and getting to Indianapolis and being like, I've made it, right? Not that anything wrong with Indianapolis. It wasn't in the cards, but we definitely gave it a go because we want to keep the magic going. We were having such a fun time.
Jag: I'm glad you mentioned Tirico specifically, because he was an AER guy. I've never met him, but I've heard nothing but great things about a wonderful guy he is.
Danny: He spoke at a Banquet a bunch of years ago, pre COVID, and it was great to hang out with him. He graduated a year after me. The beauty of Mike Tirico was he the weekend sports guy in Syracuse as a junior. As a junior in Syracuse. Like, that is unheard of. And so pretty proud moment for all of us. AER and JPZ had massive rivalries, especially sports departments, and it's always great when Aer guys can cross over. Not that Tirico did any work on our air, but to actually listen and be an advocate is huge.
Jag: It's proof that as talented and good of a guy as Tirico is, and by all accounts he is, that this has come up in previous episodes. They may have been calling Orangemen basketball and football and having all this stuff going on, but they were jealous of the fun we had at JPZ, weren't they?
Danny: Oh, yeah. Listen, you don't beat like getting on the road to cover Orangewomen basketball. And I ran out of gas in the New York state thruway at 02:00 A.M. coming back from the Big east tournament and it's so much fun. And by the way, unbridled, nobody telling us what to do. We were in charge and so they were corporate and there was a level of creativity that we had license to commit and they didn't. And so definitely a different type of place.
Jag: You mentioned heading out to LA after graduation. Take me through some of the things you've done since.
Danny: So I am a product of everything you do in your life. You bring with you and it forms what you're doing today. I think JPZ is a perfect example of kind of what I've done, which is use what is called experiential learning. And that's what JPZ is, it's experiential learning, right? Like you're going to feel, touch, taste, and this is how you're going to learn. And it's literally been proven that you cognitively process and retain better doing it.
Danny: So I left Syracuse. I was in the entertainment industry for 13 years. I was in New York for probably three or four. I ultimately production coordinated the Cosby Show in New York.
Jag: Let me stop you there for a second because that show was late 80s, early 90s was the….
Danny: Not nearly as sexy to say you were involved in that show now as it was.
Jag:, I was thinking about going there, but I abstained. So I'm glad you did. But at the time, 30 years ago, this was the show on television. Like capital T-H-E the show on television. What's it like? You're not too long out of school at that point. Production coordinator, you're on top of the world on the biggest show out there.
Danny: Yeah. So I literally started and I was very humble, right? Like I got out of Syracuse thinking I was going to be this big producer and I worked for $25 a week for The Cosby Show and started as an intern. And there was another actually JPZ guy named Rod Oceans, wrote and did the morning show. He also worked there, but worked my way up and used everything that I ever learned to be able to say, hey, you're not using me in the way I think you should be using me. Here's what I should be doing. And they bought it and they said, Cool.
Danny: So I essentially created a position for myself at the show as like, another assistant to the associate producer.
Jag: What do you do in that role?
Danny: I was involved in all the contracts for all the people who were called Day Players, which were the guest stars of the show that week. I was the person who made sure that the studio audience was filled and there were people laughing for both the tape show and the air show. They were called that. We did two shows and they were both edited together. And that's what you saw at 08:00 on Thursday nights and pretty much anything else that needed to get done.
Danny: Everything from literally ordering soda to making sure every single one of the stars of the show were happy. And so I dealt with them. All right? Everybody asked. I got trolled by like, 20/20.
Jag: Oh, jeez.
Danny: So 20/20 even looked me up on IMDb and said, hey, what do you know about Bill Cosby? I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't even remember working on that show. Right.
Jag: Smart answer.
Danny: Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, it was hugely formative and really amazing.
Jag: So what was after The Cosby Show, Danny?
Danny: I knew I wanted to be a writer, so I moved to LA. And first this involved Larry Barron. Went down to Atlanta, had a good time with him and all his buddies at CNN, and then drove to LA. And this is where Larry, Scotty Bergstein and I got a place in Marina del Rey and lived a life. And so I spent many years toiling as assistant to producers and I did some mercenary writing and was on a sitcom for a very short period of time through a writer's internship at Paramount. And I even got a guy to pay me to write a short film that had Alec Baldwin at Bill Murray saying my words, which was amazing.
Danny: I thought every single thing that I was going to do was going to be the thing that's going to catapult me. Larry and I actually were writing partners, so we wrote a feature and this was like, be careful what you wish for. It was the first feature we had ever written and it literally made it to the creative directors of every studio. And it didn't get green lit, but we got pretty darn far. And there's a problem with doing that your first time out. Kids.
Jag: You think Tom Brady wins a Super Bowl in his first year as a starter, and it's like, yeah.
Danny: All of a sudden old Jed is a millionaire. And so it didn't happen and so enough to keep me in. But I wasn't accepting Emmys and Oscars. And I thought certainly that was why I moved to LA. And so I did it for about 13 years. And then in 2000, I had been married for four years. I needed to get a gig to augment the writing gig. And a friend of mine who was a teacher said, how'd you like the sub in the school?
Danny: And I'm like, sure, it was other than Santa Monica, the school is ten blocks away. And I started doing that. And then, look, life is you get on the roller coaster, you're strapping, you go for the ride, right?
Jag: Yeah.
Danny: And again, this is part of the JPZ thing, right? Like, you do everything right, and you bring all of that with you. I did sports, I did the on air, I wrote, I produced. So everything informed me. So I started teaching, and I noticed somebody in the back of my classroom one day, and she's like, I’m the school, psych, can you take over this special needs class for two weeks? And I'm like, sure. Okay. I need the pay, right? So I'm going to do it. And at that time, I was also writing something for an actor, so I was still writing, and the class was all high functioning autistic, Asperger's at the time’s classification, bipolar kids, all learning disabled, really huge behavior issues.
Danny: And I had not one day teaching any of those populations, but I was raised by good people, both educators, by the way, and I'm like, all right, I'm going to do this, and so kind of hit reboot on their academics. Long story short, I got asked to take on the class all year.
Jag: Wow.
Danny: Because they said, there's only one thing harder than getting a special needs educator in the beginning of the year. That's getting one in the middle of the year. And we see you have a handle on this, we'll help you. Can you do it?
Danny: And I'm like, sure, let's do it. And so at that point, I'm like, all right, I'm the cavalry. I could do whatever I want. Right? Because they thought they were going to get sued. There's no greater litigation in education than in special education.
Jag: That makes sense. Okay.
Danny: Yeah, and it does. Like, if your kid's not getting the services that they're legally mandated to get, you're going to sue. So they had to get the other teacher out of there and get me in. And so I started doing something that was kind of cool. I taught all the math, the science, history, and for that population, all their occupational therapy, speech therapy, psychological therapy woven into the fabric of a cooking class.
Jag: Okay. And this just translates to where you are now, but I got to hear how you made this, because, look, I got to stop here. I know you're not going to want to toot your own horn here, but you walk into that classroom and deal with all those challenges of educating those kids as starting out as a sub. You weren't an education major at SU to have a full training in this.
Danny: No, I was a television, radio, and film producer, production major, rather, in Syracuse.
Jag: It speaks to not only your ability and your talent to manage that classroom, but also to you as a person to be able to work with those kids. I think you deserve a lot of credit for that.
Danny: Thank you, I appreciate that. And again, part of being a senior staff person is being able to deal with personalities, able to deal with things on the fly. Like, things have to get done, so you get it done by any means necessary. And that's honestly why I created this program, because I knew I needed to reach these kids in a different way than I was taught. Everybody's been taught by fossils that teach out of a book.
Danny: You're going to learn my way. And a good teacher goes to where the student is and teaches how the student learns, not necessarily expect the student to learn how the teacher is teaching.
Jag: Quick aside, that probably tracks because Dana Wolkoff told me that your demo tape was used to play for the incoming students when the station went on FM and you were held up as the example for the new students. So you've been teaching for at least that long.
Danny: Well, that's hilarious, because I'll tell you a story in a little bit about what a horrible DJ I was.
Jag: Okay, teaser, teaser.
Danny: But I appreciate those words. Brilliantly funny guy. Danno Wolkoff. Yeah. So I started doing this with these students, right? And very quickly I saw I tapped into something special. They were starting to be able to coexist when before they couldn't, and their academics started to go up. Then I needed to break down the barriers that existed between my classroom and the rest of the school, because my room was the room you don't go near, and my kids were the ones you make fun of or ostracize.
Jag: Yeah.
Danny: Right. And so I leaned on some colleagues who trusted me. At that point, I invited five what's called neurotypical general ed students into my room. They took part in the class with my students, and we did standard based academics so they weren't on vacation. We catered a snack for 50, brought it back to the classroom those kids came from and had a party at the end of the day from 2:30 to 2:45. Within three weeks of that time, my room went from the room you don't go near to the cool cooking room everybody in the school wanted into.
Danny: And my kids are no longer the kids you ostracize and ridicule, but the cool kids that bring us food.
Jag: Brilliant.
Danny: Yeah. Friendships started to get mad in the yard. And then my kids were able to be what's called fully included or mainstream into those general ed environments when before, it was a pipe dream. So my principal was, like, doing cartwheels. She's like, do this with the rest of the school. And I did. And my two week gig lasted five years.
Jag: So what years were those, Danny?
Danny: Those are 2000 to 2005.
Jag: Okay.
Danny: In 05, I kind of hit a wall teaching that population. I'm like, you know, I had this idea. It's pretty cool. I'm going to actually retire from this one classroom and start my company. And I started what was called Culinary Kids Academy and started doing in schools all over LA. And then in 09, I started a faith based division of the company, which is called Culinary Judaics Academy, basically teaching Jewish studies through the culinary arts.
Danny: And that exploded. Interestingly, because it's very niche, clearly. Prior to the pandemic, we were teaching probably 700 classes a year and about 15,000 kids a year. And I started doing programs at College Hillel, Syracuse's Hillel, and Michigan and Rochester. And so it became a very large part of the core of what I was doing. Pandemic comes and shuts me down. Like everybody, because I was 100% in person.
Danny: So I kind of used it as my ability to get out of the weeds and do what people have been asking me to do for the last 15 years, which is essentially create the Netflix for, in this case, Jewish learning through cooking. So I created Culinaryjudaicsacademy.com, and it's basically like the master class. I turned my backyard into a film set. I hired a production crew. This is where I tapped into and leveraged 13 years in the entertainment industry and created, literally, the Netflix for Jewish learning through cooking. So I have a massive library of which I did, by the way, with my daughter, who is at Berkeley now as a nutritional science major. So that's a proud chip off the old block moment for that.
Danny: And it's what I'm doing now. And so it's experiential learning, it's entertainment. It's again, everything I've ever done rolled up into one beautiful gig, and it's super rewarding. And I'm making a go of it.
Jag: This is amazing. I'm floored listening. So, as someone who is of Jewish faith, or as I tend to sometimes tell the old joke that I'm more Jew-ish because I'm not super observant, can you give me an example of a lesson of how you would tie this education into cooking?
Danny: Sure. So, by the way, it's not Jewish cooking. So I like Gefilte fish as much as the next guy, but it's not, we don't do that. We use any food. Any cooking class doesn't have to be kosher. It's actually vegetarian. So it's pretty darn easy to be kosher.
Jag: Oh, got it. Okay.
Danny: Yeah, because I want to eliminate any barrier to entry. So if you don't eat meat, you could still do it. Right. Whatever. It's inclusive, not exclusive. Important that I'm not judging to whatever degree you do what you do.
Jag: Yeah.
Danny: How do I do it? Right? So I'll give you two examples. One. Let's say I'm doing Jewish values, right? That's one of the series. So I produce six series. Each series has seven workshops. They're all asynchronous videos. I'm literally back making 15 minute Food Network quality TV shows. Okay, so, like, transport me back to 1990. At this point, let's say I'm doing loving kindness, right? And by the way, it's not just Jewish, right? We all live by values. Yeah, that's the beauty of this, right? Like, if you live this, you're going to become your best self and craft the world in which we all want to live, right? Which is the ultimate goal here.
Danny: So let's say I'm doing lovingkindness because we could all use a little bit of that in our lives. More than just a little. And so we make sundried, tomato risotto, right? If you've ever made risotto, you know, you got to put a lot of love and a lot of kindness in to make it correctly. It takes a lot of time and patience. That's my in. That's more abstract, right? To teach loving kindness. We just celebrated the holiday of Passover, right?
Danny: If I'm making what's called Charoset or even some Matzah, something along those lines very specific to the holiday, that's how I'm going to teach the holiday of Passover. So we have different series. Israel is a series. Jewish Values. Holidays, jews around the world. I go Italy, Canada, Shanghai, and talk about the impact that we have had as Jews in those environments. Are we still there? If not, where did we go and what did we bring to those regions and how did those regions embrace us, right? And so it is a really great way of learning about culture, but also getting this incredible life skill of cooking to be able to make so many different really amazingly delicious dishes. And so it's totally accessible. It's online, and we're in the business right now of bringing it to as many eyeballs as humanly possible. So culinaryjudaicacademy.com.
Jag: We'll link it in the show notes.And I've got this just giant ear to ear grin on my face right now because this is amazing stuff.
Danny: It truly is like the embodiment of really high quality production value coupled with a really great mission, as you've been.
Jag: So great about pointing out throughout this episode of the podcast, everything tracing back to JPZ and inclusiveness and learning how to work with different types of people and different personalities. And like you said, inclusive, not exclusive. All these ideas, I appreciate you taking it full circle because normally I ask that question. I don't have to ask it. In this case, you've already answered it. As far as what lessons you learned from JPZ to take with you.
Danny: I mean, I tell you, like, I listened to your podcast with Grace and Maddie and I met them briefly at the last banquet and I was just blown away.
Jag: Agreed.
Danny: And first of all, my first instinct is, thank G-d. Thank you for taking care of our baby.
Jag: Yes.
Danny: And honestly, coming away going, we're in great hands, but like, hearing what they're going through and what they're teaching and adjusting it's 40, 30 years later, the same again. I see all of this, as you said, a recurring theme.
Jag: Yeah. And they are still one of my favorite episodes of this podcast because those two women are just absolutely amazing. So you did tease earlier offline that you had a couple of funny stories from JPZ.
Danny: Two stories, real quick. One actually happened while I was at Syracuse, the other afterwards. And it involves JPZ's icon and Rick Wright.
Jag: Yes. Let's hear them both.
Danny: Yeah. So this goes against the Danno thing of me being the teacher of how to be a DJ. So Larry was the best DJ. There was not a post that stood a chance with Larry. He was masterful in that respect, and very kind, by the way, as a co-host, to try to make whomever is with him look good. And so Larry wasn't there at the end of the summer, and we had spent the summer of 87 there, which was one of the best summers I've ever had in my life, because it was just us and we were literally on every day.
Danny: And it was a skeleton crew, but it was all of my best friends, and we had the best time. And I had never been to Syracuse during the summertime, so that was really, really fun as well. So Larry wasn't there for, like, the last two weeks of the summer, and I still had a week or two left. And so I didn't have my guy operating the board, and so I had to. And there was a reason why I never did. I just remember getting on and I had my headphones plugged in, ready to hit it. And I talk up the first song and hit the cart, and I don't hear anything.
Danny: I'm like, oh, my G-d. And by the way, back in the day, we had cart machines that really didn't work so well, right? These guys put it together with, like, gum and tape. I'm like, okay, that cart machine doesn't work. Hang on. And I press the next button to click the next cart. And I see it going, but I'm not hearing it. I'm like crap. Nothing's happened. I get the next one, right? And all of a sudden, this guy named Morgan, who is the producer of the morning show at the time, makes a mad dash into the studio. He's like, what are you doing?
Danny: And he throws me, literally away from the board and starts throwing buttons. And then he looks at me, he goes, you literally were playing all those songs at the same time.
Jag: I saw where this was going as you were telling the story because we've all been there. Did you not have headphones plugged in? What was going on?
Danny: The headphones were not functioning. They were not really good headphones. And so there was nothing wrong with the cart machines. So my next talk up was” 89. We don't just play seven songs in a row. We play them at the same time.”
Jag: Oh, that's perfect. But that's a great recovery.
Danny: It was the morning show, right? Like, you got to adjust. Right? The other is, part of the reason why I always love banquet is because I had a really special relationship with Rick Wright. And Rick has been a friend and a mentor to people at the station. And I always love going back because I always love reminiscing with Rick.
Jag: Sure.
Danny: But I used to do a quasi okay impression of Rick. I used to do that Banquets a lot, and I actually did one a couple of years ago when he retired, and it was great. And I actually brought a massive, like, literally 3’x5’ lock. That was the illustration of the great Lock story. And so after one particular banquet in the 90s as you're leaving town, and I was still at that point, I think we were on our way to the airport, coming back to LA.
Danny: Rick used to host a show pretty much all night long. He had a slogan that I'll tell you in a second. So I hear Rick doing an interview with at the time, there was a guard by the name of Earl Duncan, and he played for the Orangemen. And so Rick, as you know, it, bleeds orange and is a huge booster of the basketball team, all teams. But anyway, so he's got Earl Duncan as a guest on his show. This is just to show you, right? Like, I'm not the only one who has problems with DJ’ing.
Danny: So Rick, who is a consummate professional, gets Earl Duncan. “We've got Earl Duncan. Earl. Thanks so much for joining.” And Earl says, yeah, thanks so much, Rick. It's really great to be here. Rick's, like, “Earl, are you there?”
Jag: Oh, no.
Danny: Yeah, Rick, I'm right here. Thanks so much. “We're having problems getting Earl on the air. Earl, how are you?”? Yeah, Rick, I'm right here. “Earl must have gone to the refrigerator. We got Earl Duncan from Syracuse”. Rick, I'm here. We're going to get back to Earl in just a little while. In the meantime, here's a little Barry White.
Jag: Oh, my God.
Danny: As you enjoy Rick Wright all through the night. And that was the Earl Duncan story.
Jag: That might be the longest continuous laugh anybody's gotten out of me on this podcast yet. My face hurts. Oh, that's great.
Danny: And I'm so glad that Scottie MacFarlane gets to interview Rick every year at the banquet because it's important that everybody see here Rick Wright for the beauty that the man brings.
Jag: Absolutely. If I can recover here, I think that's a great place to leave it. Cousin Danny Corsun, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. Really appreciate you coming on and sharing some stories and the lessons learned at JPZ
Danny: Thanks for all you're doing. While not as poignant as the Donovan podcast, it was really great to be here, and you're doing fantastic work. And thanks for everything you're doing.
Jag: I appreciate that. Thanks.