On January 1, 50,000-watt behemoth KTAR dropped a bomb on the Valley radio scene, moving its news division to FM 92.3 and creating an all-sports, all-the-time format on the AM. As part of the aesthetic remodel, newly hired KTAR program director Ryan Hatch made two crucial moves. He snared longtime XTRA-AM 910 sports-talk champs John Gambadoro and Mark Asher for his afternoon-drive slot and yanked the popular ESPN Radio syndicated show Mike & Mike in the Morning in favor of a Phoenix-centric morning-drive show headed by Kansas City transplant Doug Franz and former Arizona Cardinals Pro Bowl fullback Ron Wolfley.

In short, Hatch kicked some major ass. Doug & Wolf is the best way to while away a traffic-snarled commute. Sure, the show's about sports, and sure, there's a lot of airborne testosterone floating around in the ether, but it's also smart and funny and even universal — in its way.

You're as likely to hear a segment about the best way to prepare chicken salad as you are to audit a debate about whether San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginobili intentionally kneed the Suns' Amaré Stoudemire in the groin. Speaking of debate, the show's core appeal is the interplay between Franz — a sometimes-shrill butt-of-all-jokes who's also an underrated interviewer/commentator — and the bassoon-voiced Wolfley, a he-man's he-man who can be surprisingly tender (he often moons about his wife, "the lovely Ms. Stephanie") and erudite (he once quoted John Updike!).

One of the duo's mainstay bits is "The Great Debate." An early version featured the following exchange: Wolf: "Douglas, you ignorant gonad." Doug: "Wolf, you're listening with your mouth." Other great needle exchanges have included the "Lindsay Lohan Hottie Quotient," "Star Wars versus Star Trek" (pro-Trek Wolf: "Luke Skywalker wore tights!"; pro-Wars Doug: "Luke Skywalker did not wear tights!"), a discussion about which character Suns point guard Steve Nash would have played in The Wizard of Oz (Toto), and "The Taseric Formula," in which the two use self-defined "rules of entazement" to determine if various news-making bozos should be zapped.

And oh, yeah, there's also a little bit of sports gab thrown in for good measure.