Mad Dog & Merrill: Fired up for 15th season

Matthew Day

Staff

June 2, 2025

NORTHEAST WISCONSIN – Fresh air, Hawaiian shirts, ragtime piano, a couple of cocktails, at least one grill and guys as interested in making food as they are in making each other laugh – that’s the recipe for “Mad Dog & Merrill’s Midwest Grill’n®.” 

Featuring Mark “Mad Dog” Matthewson and Gary Merrill of New London, along with Fred “Fast Freddy” Beyer of Shawano, “Midwest Grill’n” is sizzlin’ into its 15th season this year. 

Producer Rod Kolash said he met Mad Dog and Merrill in 2009 while working together on a series of videos for a local grocery store. 

The television show the three of them cooked up, Kolash said, began airing locally in 2010. 

Now, he said, “Midwest Grill’n” airs in more than 140 over-the-air television markets throughout the U.S. and Canada, and via more than 160 streaming and on-demand channels throughout the world. 

The trio said they’ve filmed episodes across the Upper Midwest as well as in Florida, and have featured an array of local celebrities, athletes, politicians, mascots and animals. 

Though it’s taken work to grow the audience, Kolash said with Mad Dog & Merrill, the shows rarely feel like work. 

“Throughout our 15 years together, I’ve never had so many laughs and so much fun,” he said. “The laughs are real, and I don’t ever remember a stressful day on a shoot with them. These guys are as genuine as they get.” 

Merrill said 46 years as full-time “grillologists” hasn’t always been easy for him or Mad Dog – particularly in their independent days before collaborating with Kolash – but they’ve earned it through pure persistence. 

“When you work for yourself, you’ve got to go out and get the work – and we did,” he said. “Other people would have given up, you know, 42 years ago, but we stuck with it. We never gave up.” 

They also never had a plan, Mad Dog said. 

“There was no grand vision,” he said. “There was alcohol and (irresponsible behavior).” 

Even now, Mad Dog and Merrill said, entering a 15th season of “Midwest Grill’n” and drawing 18,000 weekly viewers in the Milwaukee market alone, the two are still essentially (chicken) winging it. 

“We don’t rehearse or anything,” Merrill said. “When you see our show, it’s completely live. We don’t take any breaks or (say), ‘Let’s redo this over and over again.’ … That’s the whole fun part of our show, is that it’s completely off the cuff.” 

When Mad Dog met Merrill 

Mad Dog and Merrill said their “vaudevillian” chemistry goes back to when the two were introduced in the late ’70s. 

The future co-hosts first connected at a family reunion, Merrill said, as Mad Dog is his wife’s first cousin. 

“We had a lot of things in common,” Mad Dog said of meeting Merrill. “We had a few libations, and a few other things going on that we like to do together, so we hit it off, as far as not wanting to be employed by anybody.” 

Mad Dog said Merrill, who’s been an actor all his life, had been hired at the time by grilling magnate Weber. 

“I did a lot of demonstrations (for Weber) in Chicago, and I’d take Mad Dog along, and that’s sort of the start of our partnership,” Merrill said. 

The first official Mad Dog & Merrill appearance, he said, took place in Neenah, filming television segments sponsored by Löwenbräu. 

“We did a two-and-a-half-minute vignette on outdoor grilling and tailgate recipes, obviously using Löwenbräu beer,” Merrill said.

From there, Mad Dog said, the pair took “baby steps” to bigger gigs and sponsorships, steadily gaining popularity to where they were flying cross-country to perform. 

“We started doing home and garden shows, sports shows, RV and camping shows around the nation,” he said. “We were actually Gold members on Northwest Airlines, we flew so much.” 

Between public appearances, Mad Dog said, they sought additional television work, some theatre acting and also began catering – a service of Mad Dog & Merrill, which they offered through 2024. 

“You do whatever little thing you can to survive,” Mad Dog said, “and that’s the first 35 years or so, (until) meeting Rod Kolash.” 

Even with their successful track record and the stability since provided by Kolash, Mad Dog said he and Merrill are still incapable of taking their situation for granted. 

“We’re one step away from homelessness,” he said. “(We’ve) got to keep hustling.” 

A brand is born 

Fortunately, Mad Dog and Merrill said in their line of live entertainment, “hustling” plays to their natural strengths: being sociable, dependable and easy to work with. 

“We’re ‘people’ people,” Merrill said. “We get along with everybody. We’ll talk to anybody.” 

“When we’re out with the families at events,” Mad Dog said, “inevitably, no matter where we are, we’ll have two to three to five people stare, then look up and say, ‘Hey, we watch your show all the time.’ And then the family walks away and we say, ‘What’s your name? Where are you from? – Man, that’s great. What do you cook on? – Hey, nice talking with you.’ You know, that’s wherever we go.”  

Being “on” all the time, Mad Dog said, does require some discipline and comes from their commitment to entertain. 

“We’ve never missed an appearance, ever,” Merrill said. “Never one.”

Being easy to work with, Mad Dog said, is “the key to life.” 

“If you’re going to be self-employed and try to do entertainment, you need to be low maintenance,” he said, “and you need to work in any way you possibly can.” 

The two said they are often told “you have the best job ever” – and Mad Dog said he agrees – however, they do take their livelihood seriously. 

Treating Mad Dog & Merrill as an umbrella brand, he said, has helped to broaden their opportunities. 

“When people think of Mad Dog & Merrill as a brand, they think of ‘fun with outdoor grilling,’” Mad Dog said. 

Sponsorships, he said, have always supported their brand and television show. 

Creating a line of Mad Dog & Merrill products, Kolash said, was the next logical step. 

“With built-in marketing and advertising in place, it made sense to invest in a line of (branded) barbecue sauces and seasonings under the (Mad Dog & Merrill) name,” he said. 

However, the sauce and seasoning/spice categories, Kolash said, are among the most competitive for grocers and retailers. 

“Defying the odds and relying on name-brand recognition alone, the first batch of product was delivered to Festival Foods throughout the State of Wisconsin in October of 2010,” he said. “It’s a blessing to be on their shelves as well as many other retailers’ to this day. Most recently, all Fleet Farm stores began carrying the brand throughout the Midwest at the beginning of May.” 

Products and flavors are always being developed, Kolash said, including a new barbecue sauce infused with root beer from Twig’s Beverage out of Shawano. 

Classic or brand-new, Kolash and Mad Dog said all Mad Dog & Merrill products are high in quality. 

“It’s gluten-free, no high fructose corn syrup, no preservatives, no food coloring – it’s almost as healthy as what you can get for a barbecue sauce,” Mad Dog said. “And our spices are all, as a rule, low sodium. Sodium is just a filler that makes the cost of (manufacturing) spices less, so when we have low-sodium or sodium-free spices, it costs us money to create them, but I don’t eat sodium, so why should anybody else?” 

Per maddogandmerrill.com, the whole operation is committed to the 1% for the Planet organization, “donating 1% of our annual revenue to nonprofit organizations that work to protect public lands, restore ecosystems and combat climate change… (to) keep your favorite grilling spots wild and wonderful.” 

When it comes to entertaining, though, Mad Dog said they give “110%.” 

“It’s just like being on stage – if you’re going to go on Broadway and you’re not going to say your lines right, or you’re not going to give it your all… you may as well hang it up,” he said. “We give our 110%, have little pep talks before we start, get each other laughing (and) get each other going.” 

Filming “Midwest Grill’n” in front of a live audience, Mad Dog said, keeps things authentic. 

“When you see laughter on our television show, it’s not fake laughter, it’s not canned laughter, and there’s no fake audience applauding,” he said. “We’ll get 50-400 people at tapings each and every time, if they’re open to the public – they’ll say it’s the best time they’ve had in years.” 

The dynamic trio 

Kolash said since 2018, Fred “Fast Freddy” Beyer has also been adding merriment – and music – to “Midwest Grill’n.” 

“Freddy is truly gifted and a one-of-a-kind, and his humor is just like Mad Dog & Merrill’s,” he said. 

Kolash said Beyer is “the icing on the cake” for the show, whereas Beyer, in the recent 15th anniversary “Midwest Grill’n” special, said he considers himself “the side dish.” 

Mad Dog said “Freddy is the talented one,” and that the retired shop teacher with a strong musical background quickly integrated into their dynamic. 

“Wherever we go, people are disappointed (if Beyer isn’t with us),” he said. “When Merrill and I go do a home and garden show, they ask where the piano man is, and we say, ‘He’s probably on his third drink.’” 

On air, Merrill assists with cooking and plays the part of resident bartender, whereas Mad Dog said he’s in charge of creating recipes and preparing ingredients for the shows. 

“It takes hours to come up with recipes, because you don’t want to repeat things, and we’ve been doing (this for) 15 years, 26 shows every year, (and) each show has about four or five recipes in it,” he said. 

Another way of putting it, Mad Dog laughed, is “I think outside the box and do all the work, and Merrill and Freddy show up.”  

“When we were young, Merrill pulled 80% of the weight, and I was just along for the fun of it, and as things are reversing, I’m pulling 80% of the weight and Merrill’s along for the fun of it,” he said. “It just reversed itself… I don’t mind doing the work. It’s like ‘The Odd Couple’ here, by the way: I’m a perfectionist, and Merrill could give a rat’s manure.” 

“Well, yeah, I give a rat’s manure,” Merrill said. “I do care.” 

“As long as the ribs are tender, he cares,” Mad Dog laughed. 

“That’s right,” Merrill laughed. “Exactly.”

From beer to eternity 

What started with a Löwenbräu sponsorship, Mad Dog said, has no end in sight. 

Since he and Merrill have never had any plans for their brand, he said they similarly have no solid plans to retire. 

“We’re probably 71 as an average age, (so) to be able to create this occupation… entertaining people for another five years would be a lovely thing – six years would be great,” Mad Dog said. “There’s no vision… Our tagline is, ‘It’s all downhill from here.’ Where it ends up, God only knows. As long as Freddy’s liver holds up, we’re okay.” 

Production of the 15th season of “Midwest Grill’n” is well underway, he said. 

“We pretty much have our 26 shoots planned, and we’ve already shot probably eight or 10 of them,” Mad Dog said. 

With the new season, he said viewers can expect “more fun, more entertainment – more of the same.” 

The co-hosts said they’re grateful as ever for their unique careers and ongoing support. 

“It’s just phenomenal for us to be able to do this, but it’s our fans who have made us (who we are),” Merrill said. “There are people we’ve been in contact with for 46 years who are still sticking with it… People who have started watching us and have learned a lot from us, too. That’s really a big pat on the back for us.” 

Even with their longevity and notoriety, he said he doesn’t think of Mad Dog & Merrill as an “institution,” so much as he thinks they should be sent to one. 

Mad Dog said the two do ponder their legacy, citing an interaction they had with a young jewelry store employee while he and Merrill were selling gift boxes at Appleton’s Fox River Mall. 

“A young kid at the jewelry store didn’t know who we were, and one day he said to me, ‘Forty-six years – has it been successful?’” Mad Dog said. “And I said, ‘If you can call making people laugh and entertaining people for 46 years successful, it’s been the most successful life in the world.’”  

Locally, new episodes of “Mad Dog & Merrill Midwest Grill’n” air at 6:30 a.m. Sunday mornings on WCWF, CW14, and repeat at noon on Mondays on WLUK, FOX11.  

Past episodes air at noon on Tuesdays and Wednesdays on WLUK, FOX11.