Dave Jenett: The Real Mr. Fix It

By: Vince Baarson, Kyle Gutman & Jenhnsen Lopez

Dave Jenett Slideshow

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Dave Jenett has lived an accomplished and fulfilling life, including a taste of stardom as the television personality Mr. Fix It.
He appeared hundreds of times on morning shows such as “Alive and Well” with host Joanne Carson and has even been a guest on the “Late Show” with Dave Letterman. In thirty years of working repair jobs for celebrities, Don Rickles, Raquel Welch and Linda Evans, to name a few, he has remained a humble, honest and joyful man.
Born in 1926 he grew up in Newark, New Jersey. As a shy child he excelled in mechanics and attended a boy’s technical high school in place of a traditional institution. His mother instilled in him the importance of honesty and respect.
Jokingly Dave exclaims, “My mother gave me a curse (honesty and truthfulness), because of that it took me an extra ten years to become financially successful.”
He has sixty-five years of experience repairing machines of all kinds. When he would walk into a hardware store Dave would always hear other repairmen talking about their court dates for that week. Staying true to his ethics has served him well and he has never been taken to small claims court during the entire length of his career.
Dave and his wife moved to Los Angeles in 1969 and a few years later he was offered a two hour spot on KABC radio helping callers with their repair inquiries. His true drive to help and teach others what he knows kept calls coming in requesting to speak with "Mr. Fix It. After his radio show ended for the day he would sit in a back office and advise callers about their fixes. Dave felt it was his responsibility to maintain his ethical stance even more so because he was beginning to receive clients via his radio show.
Later in his career he was invited as a guest on many morning shows including “Alive and Well” with Joanne Carson. He recalls guiding Joanne through a faucet repair in front of a live audience and her excitement in repairing it showcasing his compassion for those not mechanically inclined.
He received his Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) teaching credentials in a record three weeks and began teaching at technical high schools. Dave taught multiple variations of air conditioning and refrigeration repair techniques. Substituting a class, he remembers a student timidly looking over his shoulder while he repaired a furnace. Dave convinced the student to squeeze up inside the furnace with him to explain how the repair was done up-close-and-personally.
His radio and television personality, Mr. Fix It, is reserved only for those venues. Now at age eighty-five Dave lives in Beverly Wood, CA with his wife. He's a kid at heart, playing music with his friends and riding his Harley Davidson motorcycles. He believes his success came through strong ethics, a desire to help others and a hard working attitude. He maintains that he is just a good repairman, and “you have to know your true abilities and if they satisfy you truthfully then make use of them.”