comedy conundrum

If the world's worst comedian makes me laugh every single time I hear him, shouldn't that make him the world's best comedian? Not in the case of Sam Meneshian, the Armenian Comedian. I laugh at him but not for the reasons he wants. His jokes are consistently off-target. I find his failed efforts, many of which are chronicled at KROQ.com, to be hysterical. Sam was a fixture on the Kevin & Bean show before I worked there and continues to be to this day. Jimmy Kimmel has put him on "The Man Show" and his late-night talk show.

Brilliant comics like Andy Kaufman, Sacha Baron Cohen and Robin Williams have created characters that attempt to be what Sam Meneshian is in real life. He tries very hard to become famous without putting any effort into improving his jokes, his singing, his ventriloquism, or his balloon animals. I'm not too sure about his hair-cutting skills either.

The Armenian Comedian's familiar face flashed on my TV screen yesterday while I was watching the previous night's episode of "Last Comic Standing." They ran a quick montage of terrible auditionees and promised to count down their ten worst. I knew that Sam deserved a place in the top three but didn't think they would show him since he had not yet turned up in any audition footage. Numbers 10 through 2 were gradually revealed during the course of the two hour program. They were all comics whose auditions had been shown in the first three episodes of this season. At the very end of the show, they revealed that the number 1 worst audition was, in fact, by Sam Meneshian.



He tried to make something under a bandanna disappear but loudly dropped the object. He took off his shirt and pretended to inflate his stomach by blowing into his finger. Finally, he dropped his ventriloquism dummy while trying to put a live microphone in front of the dummy. Yes, in front of the dummy! In typical fashion, Sam had told the KROQ crew that his audition would be shown next week. As a result, they all missed it on Thursday. My friend Bean asked if I could send him the audio clip for them to play on Monday morning.

Sam is utterly clueless. When he returned from the Miami audition, he said that his audition had gone great. He probably misconstrued the reaction of that week's talent scouts (two guys from "30 Rock"), who stood and applauded the failure of the ventriloquism part of his act. Maybe there's something wrong with the part of his brain that detects sarcasm.

hi-yo

The news about Ed McMahon's financial troubles has him and his family in my thoughts. I once went to his house with a digital tape recorder for him to voice the intro to a Kevin & Bean Christmas album. We recorded his segment in the same den that was shown on "Access Hollywood" last night. I loved seeing all his photographs and memorabilia. Ed is especially fond of the toy trains that ride on tracks suspended from the ceiling.

I moved to Burbank just before Johnny Carson's retirement. I wish I could have seen a taping of the "real" Tonight Show with Johnny and Ed but all the tickets were long gone. Because of his other projects, Ed was always accessible to the local media. Just as you would expect, he is a great sport. We had several interactions with him while I was at KROQ. He let us dress him up in the grunge attire of the day so he could introduce Henry Rollins' performance on stage at the Weenie Roast. Another time he wore his suit and tie so we could videotape him on the beach with Jenny McCarthy. My wife and I ended up sitting at the same table as Ed and his wife Pam at Kevin Ryder's wedding reception. Best of all was the time Ed flew several of us and our wives to Orlando for a remote broadcast from Walt Disney World. Kevin & Bean were there to make a guest appearance on "Star Search." I've always regretted the time I had the flu and was too sick to attend Ed's birthday party. Especially since I had already bought a gift.

"Access Hollywood" had an update tonight. I didn't get home in time to see Ed and his wife on "Larry King Live." Did you?

where do I send my dollar?

How is it possible that Adam West, TV's Batman, doesn't already have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? KROQ's Kevin & Bean talked to Adam on Friday. They hope to right this wrong, as you can hear in their interview. They had previously gotten behind the efforts to get a star for James Doohan, who played Scotty on "Star Trek."

How do you get a star? The nomination process is detailed online. There are certainly enough "Batman" fans out there to help raise the $25,000 fee. It would make a great birthday gift for Adam, who turns 80 on September 19. If they can make the May 31 deadline, Adam could get his recognition in 2009.

how 'bout a monster for breakfast

The rain today made it feel right to stay in my pajamas and plop down in front of the TV with a bowl of cereal. The only difference from childhood was that my bowl now contained exactly ¾ cup of Kashi GOLEAN instead of something with marbits. And that I was watching EWTN instead of Saturday morning cartoons. I had another childhood flashback last week when I saw a box of Quisp at Dollar General.

After finishing breakfast, I clicked around the Internet for a while. Coincidentally I found more cereal reminders. First I saw a funny movie poster that wonders what it would be like if they made a live-action film about Count Chocula. Then I saw an older Count at an imaginary cereal mascot reunion.

Last Halloween Jimmy Kimmel dressed as the Count while the rest of his on-camera staff dressed as other cereal icons. Together they looked like Chris Burney's arm. A couple of years earlier my friend Bean wore a Count Chocula costume to the KROQ Halloween party.

Before last Tuesday's Einstein Simplified show, Dave Snow and I thought of a new twist for the "Race for Coffee" game. Instead of sending someone across the street for coffee during a guessing game, we can send them to the Knoxville Pearl for a bowl of cereal and milk. I visited the place when it first opened and saw the images of the General Mills cereal monsters painted on the wall.

ballroom brawl

Adam Carolla got some good news last night. He wasn't the first celebrity booted from the current season of "Dancing With the Stars." Although the judges gave him a low score, enough viewers voted to keep him on for another week. I suspect that more than a few of those votes came from fans of his dancing partner Julianne Hough, but it still counts.

I have some remorse about the way Adam and I first met. He was trying to get his foot in the door at KROQ while it was my job to try and keep the door shut. KROQ is constantly bombarded with people who want to get on the air. Every day the music director is asked to consider dozens of songs by both new and established artists. The Kevin & Bean show hears from people wanting airtime for their movie, TV show, book, restaurant or any type of event you can imagine. As one of the gatekeepers, I had to help keep the show from getting overrun.

Jimmy Kimmel and I were both up for the morning show producer job at KROQ. I got the job and Jimmy was hired a couple of months later as our comedy writer. He developed an on-air character as Jimmy the Sports Guy and eventually got into a comedic dispute with another morning show regular. Michael the Maintenance Man and a KROQ van driver would go out to a different neighborhood each morning to give away prizes to listeners. Somehow Jimmy and Michael had a disagreement that they decided to settle with a boxing match. After it was announced, I got several messages from a guy named Ace offering to coach one of the fighters. Ace is Adam Carolla's nickname. I kept having to put him off until we could have a morning show meeting and figure out how we were going to proceed. Adam had experience as a boxer and as a carpenter and as a cast member at the Acme Comedy Theatre. Thanks to his talent and persistence, Adam became Jimmy's boxing coach. It was the beginning of their beautiful friendship.

The fight between Jimmy and Michael came to be known as the "Bleeda in Reseda." I booked some celebrity judges including Pat O'Brien and John Wayne Bobbitt. At the time, O'Brien refused to pose in a group photo with Bobbitt so as not to harm his reputation. Bobbitt shocked me by knowing who I was from my days at WAVA and from his days in Manassas before he became famous as a news story.

Boxing and Adam are back together again in his new movie, "The Hammer." it was recommended by both Not Siskel and Not Ebert on a recent edition of "At the Movies." I hope it plays at the Downtown West, otherwise I'll have to wait for the DVD.

oodles of noodles

Unlike some viewers, I am not suffering from "TiVorexia" because of the writers strike. There are still plenty of shows for me to watch on my assorted DVRs. Here's my advice for those people with nothing to watch: lower your standards. I've started recording some movies on HBO, Cinemax and Starz now that they are broadcast in HD. I haven't watched them yet because I haven't run out of regular shows.

In addition to a backlog of shows like "Smallville" and "Reaper" recorded this fall, I can once again choose to watch every new "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show. The other night Jay Thomas was the guest. I will always be thankful to Jay for casting me as an extra on one episode of his sitcom, "Love & War." He started the segment by saying that he and Jimmy had never met before. It was a little surreal for me. I mean it's not everyday that you see co-workers from two different jobs having a conversation on national television about a third person you know. I worked with Jay at KPWR and with Jimmy at KROQ. Most of the segment centered on Jay's story about going "noodling" for catfish in Oklahoma with my friend Rodney Lee Conover. Rodney now works with Jay at Sirius and also worked at KPWR when I was there.

Jimmy got Jay to name all the cities where he had worked in radio. Knoxville was on the list. I either didn't know or had forgotten that Jay passed through here. I knew that Mark Thompson, a co-worker of mine from KLOS, had Knoxville on his résumé. I think Mark was on the air at WRJZ. Anybody know what station Jay Thomas was on? Sounds like a good question for Knoxville Radio History 101.

heard him explain

When Frank Jr. was three years old, he couldn't go to sleep at night without listening to a cassette tape of Wilford "Diabeetis" Brimley reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas." It was a read-along tape, that came with a companion pop-up book and an audible signal to turn the page. Frank Jr. unintentionally memorized the story by hearing it every night for almost a year. Two years ago I wrote about how we brought young Frank to the KROQ studios and recorded his rendition of the story. Audio production people far more skilled than me did some editing and brought in a talented keyboard player named nicknamed "Iceman" to provide background music.

I have played the old tape on the air here in Knoxville for the past couple of Christmases. About ten days ago, Marc Anthony suggested that we take the tape of three-year-old Frank and mix in his current voice. My son is now in high school and has a deeper voice than me. I didn't know if it would be possible without it sounding terrible since I don't have the master tapes or separate audio tracks from the recording session. The only version I have is the final mixdown with voice, reverb and music combined onto one track. I would need to find somebody who could replicate the music track, allowing us to cross fade between the old and the new. My friend Mike Greiner was willing to do it even though his schedule was filled with his day job in the Knoxville Symphony office, his performances as a singer with the Knoxville Choral Society and his excellent piano and organ playing at All Saints Church. I put my wife's Casio keyboard in the car and met Mike at the radio station during his lunch hour. As expected, he nailed it. The next day, Frank Jr. had enough of a break in his midterm exam schedule that he could lay down the voice track.

I still needed an audio production wizard to put all the pieces together and make it sound seamless. Fortunately Gene Wooten has chosen to make his home in East Tennessee after years of working at WPLJ in New York City. He pushed an outdated version of Pro Tools to its limit as he synchronized the music and voices. He added reverb and ended up with the finished product that you can hear by clicking on the play button below. Merry Christmas Eve!

in the most sincere pumpkin patch

Fair season is underway. There was a story on "Live at Five" today about a guy bringing his giant pumpkin to the Tennessee State Fair in Nashville. Coincidentally, I caught part of a show on PBS about giant pumpkins today. The show was called "Lords of the Gourd: The Pursuit of Excellence." It was amazing to see a group of people so deeply involved in a world I had never thought about except maybe for the year that I saw some giant pumpkins on display at Disneyland around Halloween. The growers deeply mourned when one of their prizes pumpkins "went down," sometimes due to mice or woodchucks. The pumpkins that survived were cut from the vine and brought to the Cooperstown PumpkinFest.

Kevin & Bean and Ralph were similarly fascinated by a world they previously knew nothing about when they interviewed the makers of a new documentary called "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters." I heard the interview on their August 17th podcast. I don't know if the movie about the world's greatest Donkey Kong players will make it to a local theater. If not, I'll keep an eye out for it on DVD or HBO or IFC, etc. The KROQ crew compared this true life documentary to the great mockumentaries by Christopher Guest, like "Best in Show." The same can be said for the giant pumpkin show.

To bring it back around to state fairs, I recently saw a news story about the World's Largest Self-Propelled Whole Hog Rotisserie at the Alaska State Fair. Mmm... BBQ...

lunacy

Comedian Frank Caliendo was a guest on the Kevin & Bean show on Friday. I downloaded several of their podcasts from last week and have been listening to them in my car. Caliendo's impressions always make me laugh. In the interview he talked about his upcoming TBS show. It features a sketch in which he plays all four of the main characters from "Seinfeld." He set the scene in the future to justify the added weight of the characters. The sketch is available online.

There's more funny stuff on the KROQ podcasts. I enjoyed the analysis of R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" (especially chapter 13) and the interviews with some "Superbad" cast members.

Best of all was the segment with comedian Joe Rogan. He gave a great description of a National Geographic documentary on superlions that have learned to swim and hunt powerful water buffalo. Just when everything seemed fine, Joe goes crazy defending his suspicion that NASA faked the moon landings. He seemed to doubt that astronauts could have crossed the Van Allen radiation belt. Joe said it looked like the alleged moonwalkers were supported by wires to simulate lower gravity. So basically, he thinks it must be fake because it looked fake.

world infamous

The listings for last night's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" promised a new show but ABC aired a rerun instead. Three years ago I took advantage of my friendship with Jimmy to get VIP tickets for a taping of his show. That episode got pulled over a joke about Detroit. I was worried that something similar happened last night but it was actually worse. Jimmy had to cancel the taping so he could have an emergency appendectomy. I sent an email wishing him well to which he replied that he's feeling good.

Another of my former KROQ co-workers now performs as lounge singer Richard Cheese. He sent an email today reminding me about his July 18th show in Atlanta. I wish I could go but it's on a weeknight. I hope I can persuade him to stop off in Knoxville for a visit while he's passing through the area. The last time I saw him was three years ago on the same night as the taping of Jimmy's show that I mentioned earlier.

Today's KROQ trifecta is completed by my friend Bean. The email he sent last night reached me first thing this morning. He wanted to get my reaction to a funny parody of "Hey There Delilah" that was deemed too dirty by the corporate lawyers. I wrote back and attempted to pinpoint the lyric that the lawyers might have found most objectionable. Kevin & Bean's show is so popular that they also have a listener who writes a daily blog about it. I read that they griped about the lawyers on the air this morning, which I was then able to hear via the audio archive that one of their listeners posts online. Later, it was a little weird to be skimming through TMZ.com and seeing an entry about the brouhaha.

paley in comparison

One of my favorite places has a new name. The Museum of Television & Radio is now known as the Paley Center for Media. The museum and I go way back. I used to go there when I was in high school and the museum was still known as the Museum of Broadcasting. At some point they decided that the word "broadcasting" wasn't broad enough for the scope of their collection. They had started to include shows that were made for cable and hadn't been broadcast over the air.

When I worked at KROQ, I arranged for the morning show to broadcast from the museum in New York while we were there to cover the MTV Video Music Awards. When I worked at KLOS, I arranged for the morning show to broadcast from the museum in Beverly Hills so that we could put on old time radio plays in their John H. Mitchell Theater.

I once sent an email to "The View" to complain about the way Barbara Walters always referred to the museum. I think she called it the Museum of Television & Broadcasting. My complaint was that she omitted radio. Now she can just call it the Pawey Centaw.

jedi mind trick

Air Supply had their sixth and seventh consecutive top five singles on the music charts in 1982. It was only fitting for them to perform at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Children's Miracle Network last night at the Coronado Springs convention center at Walt Disney World. Seeing them in concert reminded me of my Air Supply story.



About once a quarter, Kevin & Bean host a singles party for their listeners. Tickets are given away during their morning show, making sure that there will be an equal number of men and women at the party. During the time I worked on the show in the mid '90s, we had singles parties with various themes including an Oktoberfest, a beach party and a losers singles party on Valentine's night. For the losers party, we found a VFW hall and served macaroni and cheese. David Millman, then a publicist from one of the record companies, suggested we try to get Air Supply to perform. They were on his label. All I had to do was sell Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell on the idea.



I drove to a recording studio in Glendale for my big meeting with Air Supply. I explained that even though KROQ was known for groundbreaking alternative music, many morning show listeners would have listened to their songs when they were kids. Because it was a "losers party" I suggested that Air Supply could be in on the joke rather than the butt of it. Russell and Graham could call in to the show and offer to play at the losers party. They could even record a little blurb for a promo that would run for a couple of weeks while we gave away tickets. Either Air Supply has a good sense of humor about themselves or I did a pretty good sales job because they agreed to perform an acoustic set at the party. Their call-in to the show went well and the promo turned out fine. They must have started listening to KROQ during the next two weeks because I started getting phone messages from their people. Instead of an acoustic guitar, could Graham bring his electric guitar? Sure. A couple of days later they asked if they could bring a keyboardist. No problem. How about a drummer? Before long I had agreed to a full backline. It was worth it. Air Supply rocked the house that night.

like Duncan Hines

Moist. Does that word affect you? For years "moist" has been part of a running bit on the Kevin & Bean show on KROQ. As I remember it, a female listener once called in to say that she couldn't stand hearing the word. Ever since then, other listeners have gone out of their way to say "moist," especially in voice mail messages played on the air. Try it yourself by calling (323) 520-2376 and leaving a moist-filled message. By the way, you can now download Kevin & Bean audio clips for your cell phone.

Last night on "How I Met Your Mother," the writers decided to have Lily hate the word "moist." I wonder where they got that idea.

For a few minutes I mistakenly thought that "The Class" was a rerun last night. Then I realized that I had watched part of the run-through for that episode on the CBS website last month. It's still available online if you are interested in behind-the-scenes stuff. They've been getting rid of excess cast members on that show lately and now a prop seems to be missing too. I didn't see Yonk's University of Tennessee football helmet in the display case.

As expected, "Heroes" was great last night. Did you laugh at the "Lost" reference during Nathan's conversation with Simone? "24" and "Prison Break" were very good too, although I didn't watch "24" until this afternoon. I read an article that describes how "American Idol" has pushed all the good shows onto Monday and Thursday nights, which I've griped about before.

outside my window pane

Halloween is less than a week away but I'm not feeling it yet. To get in the right frame of mind, I need to hear a certain song by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. "Halloween Spooks" is an old song from the '50s that I didn't discover until the '80s when it turned up on a compilation disc called "Elvira's Haunted Hits." Don & Mike saw the camp value of the tune when I suggested they play it on WAVA. In the '90s, Kevin & Bean had a lot of fun with it on KROQ, permanently cementing it into my Halloween psyche. A blog called Cake & Polka Parade has a link to an mp3 of "Halloween Spooks." If you have a little more time, you might enjoy a podcast that also includes ten other Halloween novelties at a site called Why Fidelity. I tried playing the song on each of the Knoxville stations where I've worked but none of my co-hosts enjoyed the bit. Apparently the "so bad it's good" concept is not for everyone.

rock that town

How far would you drive to see one of your favorite bands in concert? An hour? Maybe two? How about three hours? My family and I drove that far when I was given some tickets to see Rockapella perform at Georgia Tech. Atlanta is about 3 hours south of Knoxville while Nashville is about three hours west of here. Concert tours are much more likely to be routed through one of those bigger markets than through KnoxVegas.

Check out the web version of an email sent to "radio professionals" today. It says that Brian Setzer has a new CD and it lets you hear the track "Everybody's Up To Somethin'." Best of all, it says that Brian is bringing the whole orchestra to the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville for a Christmas concert on December 7. I would love to get some tickets if I can figure out how to get enough sleep and still make it to work the next morning. I need to try because Brian told a Minneapolis newspaper that he will probably retire the BSO after this year's holiday tour.

Mr. Setzer is responsible for some of my favorite radio memories. One morning we packed the whole Brian Setzer Orchestra into the studio, offices and hallways at KROQ for a live performance. I still remember the thrill I got a couple of years later when I first heard the Orchestra's version of "Rock This Town" while they were in the KLOS studio. I am reminded of the feeling every time I listen to that track on my mp3 player/phone. One year when the NAB convention was in Los Angeles, I went to some downtown hotel to hear Brian play in a suite on the top floor. The lobby was swarming with a hundred or so radio guys when Setzer arrived and headed for the elevator bank. He made me feel like a million bucks when he spotted me in the crowd and shouted, "hey Frank!"

holy disposable income!

Only six more days until Adam West's episode of "Living in TV Land." During his Tennessee visit last month, Bean told me that TV Land filmed some of the show at KROQ. (He also said that he heard a DVD release of the 1960s "Batman" series is stalled by a disagreement over the music rights.)

I've mentioned before how much I continue to enjoy the campy humor of "Batman." Just the other day I came across an Argentinean website that catalogs all the cartoonish sound effects of the show. I still have my Corgi toy Batmobile (five inches of danger!) and I've sat inside the real Batmobile but my fandom is put to shame by Ralph Garman. Ralph is on the air daily with Kevin & Bean and was the host of the very funny "Joe Schmo" reality show parodies.

While watching the Barry Williams episode of "Living in TV Land" today, I saw the promo for next week's show. The promo said that a preview of the Adam West episode is available online for the next few days at TVLand.com. During the rather lengthy excerpt, you can see some of Ralph's incredible collection of Batman memorabilia when he takes Adam home with him. I half expected to see Ralph trap Adam in a giant Plexiglas box as the ultimate collectible.