This radio ad was Glenn Beck's first television appearance, in 1986.

The ad summarizes in 30 seconds most of what you need to know about the first 15 years of Beck's radio career.

But if you're interested, there's lots more. Salon has a three-part series on the origins of Glenn Beck, which can also be called his biography. I was fascinated for two reasons: I had never heard of Glenn Beck before he started ranting about how awful the health insurance industry was when he was hospitalized a couple of years ago, and the story hits home as I was a "radio personality" from 1982 to 2006 and can picture the story as if I were there. In fact, in some parts of the story I feel like I was married to Beck! But no, that was another deejay of the same age going through the same things. Even he didn't stoop so low as to talk about a crosstown rival's personal life.

"A couple days after Kelly's wife, Terry, had a miscarriage, Beck called her live on the air and says, 'We hear you had a miscarriage,' " remembers Brad Miller, a former Y95 DJ and Clear Channel programmer. "When Terry said, 'Yes,' Beck proceeded to joke about how Bruce [Kelly] apparently can't do anything right -- about he can't even have a baby."

The series follows Beck up to his first full-time political talk radio show.