{"id":412200,"date":"2026-07-25T19:01:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T19:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/412200\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T19:01:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T19:01:31","slug":"comic-con-welcomes-local-icons-wisdom-kelly-who-share-tales-from-their-decades-in-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/412200\/","title":{"rendered":"Comic-Con welcomes local icons Wisdom, Kelly who share tales from their decades in radio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/8B7A4559-scaled.jpg?ssl=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/8B7A4559.jpg\" alt=\"street full of people\" class=\"wp-image-393578\"  \/><\/a>Crowds fill the Gaslamp at night for Comic-Con. (Photo by Adrian Childress\/Times of San Diego) <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They\u2019re not actors playing superheroes or cosplayers in costumes, but two longtime San Diegans who achieved success in entertainment shared the spotlight at Comic-Con.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cA Converstation with San Diego Celebrities Gabriel Wisdom and \u201cShotgun\u201d Tom Kelly\u201d featured the radio personalities at a Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina <a href=\"https:\/\/comiccon2026.sched.com\/event\/2QZrh\/a-conversation-with-san-diego-celebrities-gabriel-wisdom-and-shotgun-tom-kelly\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">panel<\/a> on Friday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For Wisdom, the Comic-Con appearance was a return engagement, decades later. During its early days, he helped promote Comic-Con on the radio and emceed the 1976 Masquerade contest, dressed as Thor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHere it is 50 years later and I\u2019m back,\u201d he said to an adoring crowd.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of those early editions of Comic-Con, he said, \u201cWe had no idea we were making history in those days.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wisdom, who appeared on KPRI and KGB, had started working in advertising at KPRI when he got his opportunity to go on air. He got his big break when a disc jockey on the overnight shift fell asleep and he was called in as a replacement. He was 18 at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of his career, he joked, \u201cI was fired more times than a Civil War cannon. But that\u2019s the nature of radio.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A character in the film \u201cAlmost Famous\u201d was based partly on him, although in the movie it was played by a woman.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt was a fun time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He later went on to become an investment adviser and a writer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kelly is being inducted into the national Radio Hall of Fame in October.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He built a big following, first in San Diego, and later nationally. He worked at KCBQ, KRTH and KGB and currently has a program on Sirius XM. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and hosted a nationally syndicated television game show called \u201cWords-A-Poppin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of his radio work, especially on KCBQ, Kelly said, \u201cThat was a great time \u2026 That\u2019s where I really made my name.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet Friday was the first time he had attended Comic-Con.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019ve talked about it on my radio show for years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crowds fill the Gaslamp at night for Comic-Con. (Photo by Adrian Childress\/Times of San Diego) They\u2019re not actors&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[71831,74,27970,11928,76,75],"class_list":["post-412200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-comic-con","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-comic-con","tag-san-diego-convention-center","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}