We like Teresa Strasser now. We heard from Teresa Strasser and now Teresa Strasser is a Tabloid Baby pal.

We like Teresa Strasser now. We had a problem with Teresa Strasser about a year or so ago, but we don't have a problem any more.

The Emmy-winning writer, Emmy- nominated television host and journalist walked into our sights after she was hired to replace Rachel Perry as the "news girl" on the Adam Carolla radio program that took over Howard Stern’s timeslot in Los Angeles and other cities, a show that could only be an also-ran in comparison to the colossal enterprise that betrayed its listeners by moving to a private paid channel, but which sank lower in our estimation through its determined arrogance, amateurishness, boorishness and bullying. Teresa then accepted a job on the whitewashed syndicated television version of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, and after we criticized her role on that fetid platform, she “called us out” on the radio:

“… this media blogger, for some reason he just hates me, and he never writes about the contents of anything I do or my writing, he just writes about how ugly I am…. This guy has a site. I don’t want to say the name of it….But he writes about media... that’s his beat. He writes about our show here, the Adam Carolla Show, and he writes about TMZ… He’s written a book in the past and I think he used to work on Hard Copy. But he can’t work in television any more… I try to put it out of my mind because I thought this is just one guy and I’ve been really lucky I’ve had nothing but mostly nice things written about me. But I woke up this morning and the first thing… I just thought. 'I’m so ugly, I’m too ugly for television.' I started crying.”

Words to that effect only got us going...


So we had an old-fashioned media feud. And while it’s worth mentioning that at the time of our tiff, our online pal Luke Ford chastised us for our “low blow” criticism of Teresa (whom he described as “smoking hot”), we eventually moved on from the Carolla show (she'd left the whitewashed syndicated sister of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site after a few months). We probably last mentioned Teresa in April 2008. Earlier this year, the Carolla show was moved off the radio.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, from out of the blue, we got a Facebook message from Teresa, explaining why she hadn’t accepted our “friend” request.

We won’t reveal the exact contents of the note or the exchange that followed, but will say that we rarely get feedback from celebrities and that she dropped us a note because Luke Ford had vouched for us. We’ll also say that Teresa Strasser is not a phony, manufactured sob sister. What we heard on the radio is apparently what she is in life.


Teresa Strasser is a very nice woman.

She’s now a Tabloid Baby pal. And we are her pal.

Teresa, by the way, is married and, we’re very happy to announce, expecting her first child.

She writes about the impending birth, and reveals that Meredith Vieira smells of “powder, lilacs, and poise” (we’d have expected Grey Goose, Dermablend and Jeff Zucker), in her latest column, which you can read here, and which we hope will lead to a book.

Check out Teresa Strasser’s website here. She celebrates the typewriter, which makes us like her even more.

TMZ'd! Teresa Strasser lies about us on the radio

Teresa Strasser, if we made you cry, we apologize!

But come on. Did we really make you cry? Really? From a listen to the evidence, it seems more likely you made up the story to carry out a hit on behalf of your bosses!

And the hit was on us, a puny-- though qualified-- voice in cyberspace.

We got word yesterday that Teresa, who does double duty at the execrable Adam Carolla radio show and the syndicated TV series based on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, talked about us on the radio. And thanks to fans at the Adam Carolla message board, we were able to hear what she said about us.

Teresa, Teresa, Teresa… The poor gal, who for months has been a sexual punching bag for Carolla and crew, whose radio persona is based on whining about her unlucky-at-love status, and who is now aligned with a heartless tabloid series, actually claimed that one of our reports made her cry.

Teresa didn’t mention us by name, but gave enough hints that within minutes, our Tabloid Baby items were already posted on Carolla message boards and fan sites. And though she sounded to be speaking extemporaneously during the segment, anaysis shows that it's more likely she was referring to, and reading from notes (whenever she was interrupted mid-sentence by Carolla, she returned to the same point, verbatim)-- notes that were inaccurate.

To be blunt, she lied. In fact, Teresa’s complaint, which forms the basis of a 23 minute and 25 second Carolla show segment, appears to be the first diversionary counterattack from TMZ in wake of the every serious questions raised in our recent reports about the site.

You can hear the Carolla radio segment here, under the “Too Hot for Radio” link.

Our transcript follows, with footnotes:

ADAM CAROLLA: Teresa was a little dejected this morning due to an Internet blogger making nasty comments about her this week, but we all know she's the hottest thing in radio and now that she's on TMZ, the hottest on TV for that matter.

TERESA STRASSER: Maybe I had to put in a little extra effort because I had a rough day yesterday. I was just telling Brian, there’s this, um, media blogger, for some reason he just hates me (1), and um he never writes about the contents of anything I do or my writing, he just writes about how ugly I am (2)?

(Recorded gag effect: “What is it with this Jew?”)

AC: This is a media blogger. What is a “media blogger,” exactly?

TS: This guy has a site. I don’t want to say the name of it. (3)

AC: All right.

TS: But he writes about media. He covers— that’s his beat. He writes about our show here, the Adam Carolla Show, and he writes about TMZ. (4)

AC: Does he cover it from his mom’s basement—

TS: “Heee-- Yes--

AC: Or is it a real gig?

TS: Yes. He’s written a book in the past and I think he used to work on Hard Copy. But he can’t work in television any more. (5)

(Recorded gag soundbite: “I’m explosive!”)

TS (cont’d): And he, uh, I never look at those things, cause as you know I can’t handle it? But yesterday I was at TMZ and I was like, ‘Aaah, I’m kinda bored, let me just—let me just google myself’ and I got about eight pages in and there was nothing but great-- people just writing the most kindhearted things, (6) and I just kept looking until I got to the thing—and this guy was so cruel, and it was just basically about how I’m hideous, and uh, and he said that I’m gonna be replaced on TMZ because, um I’m like Rachel Dratch on 30 Rock and I’m too ugly for television and they’re gonna have to replace me with Jane Krakowski. And he was like that bent nosed, pancake makeup-- uhh!!

AC: …Rachel Dratch, too ugly to do comedy?

TS: That’s what he said. (7) And by the way, I mean--

AC: That’s like being too ugly to detail cars…

TS: Well I got really, you know, in my mind-- had a conversation with this guy in my mind for about four hours, where I thought like, what do you want me to be a Barbie doll? I do the news and um, you know he’s-- I don’t think he’s ever googled me or has any idea that I, um, you know, have had a career in journalism. (8) I’m not trying to be a Maxim model.

AC: Yeah, I—I—I-- I totally concur…

TS: Oh, it said one of the reasons I was ugly was because you are wearing me out. It said "after months of Adam Carolla, she’s worse for wear." (9)

At this point, co-host Danny Bonaduce goes into a funny riff on comments on the TMZ website about his own appearance.

TS: I-- I try. I try to put – I, I try to put it out of my mind because I thought this is just one guy and I’ve, I’ve been really lucky I’ve had nothing but mostly nice things written about me. But I woke up this morning and the first thing, about three seconds into consciousness, I just thought. “I’m so ugly, I’m too ugly for television.” I started crying. I had to wake up Batman. I’m like, “Batman, am I ugly?! Do I look like Rachel Dratch? I’m too ugly!”

AC: Well, okay, cup-- couple of things.

TC: I can’t move on and I can’t let go.

AC: I understand…

TS: Can’t let go.

AC: People-- People are, people are cruel. People are cruel. Um--

TS: Ouch! Ouch!

AC: Now the Internet has become what used to be the car window at sixty miles an hour…

TS: Yeah, like, “Hey, fat ass!”

At this point, Carolla launches into a braying, droning three minute and 32 second “rant” about the Internet, automobiles, Suge Knight, writing emails and the appearance of TV commentators and comedians, before taking a phone call from a listener who tells Teresa, “You’re much too pretty for radio” and suggests that the media blogger must “be on crack.”

AC: First thing I hate is the inaccuracy…

Carolla now launches into a braying, droning one minute and 22 second rant about reviews of The Man Show before Bonaduce gets a word in edgewise.

"To be honest, I got this job
basically because you, Adam,
flipped a coin between me
and some girl with better boobs.”

TS: Well, it was weird, when I first started working here at the Adam Carolla Show, this same site wrote a very lengthy piece, all of which was inaccurate, And I was shocked that he never fact checked-- it wasn’t mean to me so it didn’t hurt but he wrote, his thesis was-- and he, and he wrote it as fact, he said “CBS radio got together and all the suits got together’ and I think the headline was “Girl saves drowning show.” And it said they needed a liberal to save the show (10)and it was this whole cra—I’m-- first of all—I, I’m not that liberal, I’m fiscally conservative, I’m, I don’t believe in affirmative action, I don’t support a lot of welfare programs-- I’m not that liberal! And secondly—

DB: Not a huge fan of comedy—

TS: And secondly, there was, there was a hu—there was never a huge meeting with any suits in New York, I never met anyone in New York and to be honest I got this job basically because you Adam flipped a coin between me and some girl with better boobs.

AC: Mmmmmmm…

TS: I mean was there ever a powwow about hiring a liberal?

AC: Hahahaha…

TS: And this was completely, completely fabricated.(11)

AC: Yeah, yeah. That’s how it works.

At this point, Bonaduce speaks about Carolla’s cult of admiring fans.

Carolla launches into a braying, droning one minute and 26 second about laughing at his own farts and other people’s farts before Bonaduce gets another word in.

The segment ends with Carolla and Bonaduce assuring Teresa Strasser that she isn’t ugly. Carolla goes into a braying, droning two minute and 13 second rant about the “cut off point” of ugliness.

FOOTNOTES:

(1) We don’t hate Teresa. We, in fact, have watched out for her and called attention to the disrespect shown her on the Carolla show. And Tabloid Baby is not a "media blogger." We're a news team comprised of experienced, respected news and tabloid pros who share our knowledge and wisdom for free.

(2) That is demonstrably untrue. We have written about Teresa’s credentials and work from the beginning.

(3) Next time, say the name. Tabloid. Baby. Dot. Com. At least John & Ken were honest enough to do that.

(4) True.

(5) False. The journalists and producers who are part of the Tabloid Baby team, from its editor to its contributing reporters in far-reaching parts of the globe, are all influential and employed. As a currently-employed TV talent, Teresa should know better than to spread that kind of factoid.

(6) The first unkind mention of “Teresa Strasser” actually comes on the sixth page of Google search, not from Tabloid Baby, but in an item entitled “Someone is doing Teresa Strasser doggie style.”

(7) We never said that Rachel Dratch is too ugly to be on television. We merely reported that she was replaced on NBC's 30 Rock for that reason.

(8) Our first story on Teresa did in fact infer that we had “googled” her: “A check of the net shows Strasser to be a part of the Carolla-Jimmy Kimmel ‘family’ already-- an actress and TV host who worked as a writer on Win Ben Stein’s Money, the game show that featured Kimmel in a supporting role. She’s got a website that shows her to feel pretty good about herself, but that’s bound to change as Carolla will systematically grind her into powder on the air, trampling on any jokes she might throw out, and trumping her witty asides with his long-winded, monotonous stream-of-consciousness ‘comedy’ monologues.” In fact, most all of our mentions of Teresa cite her past, and as a result, bemoan her future.

(9) Actual line: "A dour Teresa Strasser, looking the worse for wear after months of battering by the execrable Adam Carolla on morning radio, literally got about three seconds of airtime near the end.”

(10) Inaccurate. False and strangely wrong. Our item, “Radio After Stern: Drowning Carolla grabs a woman” made no mention of CBS, CBS suits in New York or Teresa’s political leanings. It mentions Carolla’s (hanging up on) Ann Coulter stunt as a potential way to boost his own liberal credentials. But Teresa’s politics have not been mentioned on the site, ever.

(11) There was never a mention of powwows, executives, or “hiring a liberal” in the post. It appears some other suits led you into a trap, Teresa. Whose copy were you reading there?

Strasser's lies about Tabloid Baby reverberate

"...Read the "Cover-up! What was TMZ's role in the Indy 4 Theft" entry that was posted Thursday night. At first I found the idea that she was carrying out a hit a little far fetched, but what am I supposed to believe-- that she broke down over a throwaway line of backhanded praise written on September 13th, or that she responded on air to something unfavorable about TMZ written the night before?"
--posting on
The Adam Carolla Show's
Official Message Board

What a time for the Tabloid Baby staff to set off on an office-class teambuilding-spiritual retreat in the mountains high above San Bernardino, which is where we were when reaction began slamming in to our report that Teresa Strasser, who plays a journalist on the execrable Adam Carolla radio show as well as on the TV series based on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, had gone on the radio with an inaccuracy-filled attack on us--the day after our report that questioned TMZ's activities in the Indiana Jones theft case.

There's been reaction from colleagues on the TMZ staff, from media professionals and critics-- but first and foremost, among hardcore fans of the Carolla show (as heard on the show's official message board) who do not seem to be fans of the woman they call "T with the V":

"WOW! Someone finally calls Teresa out on her perpetual lies (Brandon the ex-bf, Brusca, what's written about her on the message board, not reading the message board, etc.) I gotta be honest - after hearing her on-air version of the story I wasn't convinced that it was tabloidbaby.com she was talking about because what she was complaining about was so ridiculously different from what was written. I even went to try and figure out who wrote tabloidbaby.com, but it wasn't readily apparent to me that it was the author of the book 'Tabloid Baby', who fit Teresa's description. He's totally on the mark that she distorted and outright lied about what was written to garner yet another pity party."

And:

"...Once again proves Brusca's point how T is "soooooo sensitive" about herself, yet loves to tear into other people.

"She said I woke up this morning and I woke up Batman... and said am I ugly like Rachel Dratch- am I too ugly?' Calling Rachel Dratch ugly? Real nice T. Saying this about anyone is rude but especially a NICE female guest that was just in studio recently. I noticed Adam had a slight pause after she said that- like he wanted to say something... yet he just let it go.

"T is exactly the 'society' Adam was ranting about in America the other day... how snarky and snippy we are loving to point the finger at others. In our little clicks... T goes down as Creep of the Century."

To be fair, the Carolla fans are no fans of Tabloid Baby.

And even our pal, the esteemed Luke Ford, has taken us to task for our criticism of Teresa:

*I’m a longtime Teresa Strasser fan. I think she’s hot and I think her writing rocks...

*Teresa says she cried about Tabloid Baby calling her ugly and saying she has a crooked nose and other such low blows. It’s ridiculous to argue that she was carrying water for anybody when she was just crying from her heart. There was no hit from her on Tabloid Baby. There was no personal attack on its primary author...

*It’s not fair or accurate to describe Teresa’s role on Adam’s show as "a sexual punching bag for Carolla and crew." She reads the news and she mixes it up...

*Teresa is clearly reading nobody’s copy. That’s preposterous. There are no scripted speeches on the Adam Carolla show.* It’s a low blow to keep taking these shots at the looks of women. For my money, Teresa and Sarah Silverman are smoking hot.

We emailed Luke to thank him for taking the time to add his voice to the debate-- and to explain, in part:

"We've no real problems with Teresa. We think she was typecast for TMZ TV because she fits the ethnic/brunette/not too pretty mold so the egomad managing editor/executive producer Harvey Levin-- who made himself the host-- would not look old, waxy, Dillerish in comparison... We don't enjoy Carolla's brand of fratboy anti-immigrant, woman-hating radio humour-- the type of humour that emanates from nerdy sports fan (not sports player) losers who hate beautiful women and blame the downtrodden for their own lost chances. Howard Stern played it masterfully when he was alive. Kimmel and Carolla are lunkhead buffoons and Teri S plays into their game.

But bottom line, she did not have to lie about Tabloid Baby. It was obvious she was firing a volley on behalf of TMZ after my report the previous day..."

Meanwhile, media webhub Fishbowl LA remarks that her "bit about how Tabloid Baby (not that she named the site) was mean about her... is pretty rich, coming from a woman who works for TMZ TV... Even sadder, the fans on the Adam Carolla message boards think she's an idiot as well. Strasser used to have a career. Why did she take either of these jobs?"

But what has Teresa said since? Fill us in. We've been in the mountains, and have returned, more focused, serene, forgiving...

Carolla, unfettered! Carolla, unlistenable!

We've had a chance to listen to the new -- read "old"-- Adam Carolla radio show a few times this week. We tuned in for about forty five minutes to an a hour at a time, between 8 am and 10 am-- as a matter of fact, we're listening right now (Carolla is "interviewing" "The Deaf Frat Guy," one of the show's time-killing "characters"). This is the third incarnation of the show that replaced Howard Stern in L.A. and some other markets, beginning the season last week without second banana Danny Bonaduce, who was imposed on the show last year, boosted the ratings considerably, and was ceremoniously edged out by a jealous Carolla in December.

Based on our listenings, this third season has been all Carolla, all the time, with no guests save his inhouse lugs and regular peeps and giggles from his servile "news girl," Teresa Strasser-- former plain jane "smartypants" TV hostess and John Fugelsang attachment who's now one of Harvey Levin's drab "co-hosts" on the whitewashed syndicated television show based on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com.

Carolla continues his anti-art of droning on about mundane subjects, rehashing old comedy bits and stretching what would could be a fifteen second thoughts into a fifteen minute monologues. On the mornings we've listened-- and as we're listening now-- he's droned on about subjects as exciting as fixing flat tires, lame Craig's List ads, Segways and homosexuals; solipistic audience-antagonizing ramblings that are broken only by the occasional ass-kissing of his mentor (and his radio network's "comedy" consultant), Jimmy Kimmel-- as in this morning's gushing appraisal of Kimmel's appearance last night on The Tonight Show:

"I thought Kimmel was excellent!"

Carolla's monotonal nasal bray is joined by his civilian football fan sidekicks and acolytes like "Brian," who were for the most part benched in the Bonaduce era, and fawning interjections by Strasser, who reads poorly-paced news items and chirps in trying to keep up with Carolla's alleged witticisms, like a dumb girlfriend or kid sister out to prove she's up on subjects she has no understanding of or interest in. It's sad to say, but "T" can't keep up. And it shows.

If ever a show needed the brash brilliance and entertaining diversions of the quick-witted Bonaduce-- anything to throw open the blinds and lift the show away from the lint-filled navel-gazing of a radio host who thinks the object of a four-hour radio show is to fill every available second with the sound of his own voice-- it's this one. Carolla is back to square one. He and his beerbong buddies have slammed the door on the outside world and cancellation is surely on the horizon.

A funny aside to all this: two Tabloid Baby contributors found themselves banned from the new, official Carolla Show message board earlier this week-- one for posting a link to a story on this site--the other for questioning the ban. When the first commenter (we'll call here "Goodie") emailed the site administrator to complain, the following, quite colorful, exchange took place:

Goodie: why did you suspend my account?

Adamcarollafan@gmail.com: We simply do not need you cluttering up the forum with ridiculous banter which ultimately is meant to get people to tabloid baby. It didn't work on the Official board, and it won't work here.

You're clearly not interested in discussing the show, rather you want to directly (or indirectly) link to tabloid baby.

Look, I realize you have a website to pimp - but rather than covertly doing it with links to the url, it would have been a bit slicker to actually add to ongoing discussions and build some trust/respect before slapping your site address in posts.

Anyways, if you showed any interest in actually talking about the show we wouldn't have a problem.

Goodie: who the f--- are you to say i cluttered the forum?

I WAS talking about the show.

I'm not pimping anything. I'm bringing up issues that people are talking about beyond the forums.

CLUTTER? With one post?

Ridiculous banter? Discussing Teresa Strasser's image problem?

F--- you .

The link I offered was a legitimate conversation point. You're the reason why the Carolla radio show will fail because you want to keep it all in your own little ass-licking clubhouse.

You're a toadie and a f---ing fool and have no respect for free speech, the exchange of ideas or the Internet. And watch who you call a pimp, because you're nothing more than a whore for Carolla.
What's your name?

Adamcarollafan@gmail.com: Interesting reaction. Level-headed, calm response to you being wrong'd. I like it.

You're right, I'm a whore for Carolla - nothing more, nothing less. I guess I should really whore it up and start a messageboard revolving around him and his show.

Anyways, think what you want about me/us being a whore or a toadie or whatever of me. I'm not into censoring stuff, hell it's one thing that bothered me about the Official board. Give you an awesome example, I hate Dave Dameshek. Well, not hate, but strongly dislike. I think he's obnoxious, loud, and unfunny. For whatever reason(s), he was removed from the show after 1 year. He has a lot of dedicated fans that post on this board -- and while I cannot understand their appreciation of him, I realize that they exist. We have a Dave Dameshek forum. And while I personally believe that Bonaduce is one of the worst personalities in the history of radio, we have a forum for him as well --- and would openly discuss him if he hadn't been removed from the show as well.

Your link would be a legit talking point if you were a member that randomly happened across a story on a quality site - rather, you posted to simply to link to your site (after condemning the messageboard) then continued the discussion "naively").

In any case, thank you for well thought out response, I appreciate the time you took to compose it.

Goodie: f--- you you sophomoric little putz. I never condemned the message board. and its not MY SITE. I added to a thread about teresa strasser. you say youre "not into censoring stuff" yet you censor two comments on a little read thread and then cancel my account? f--- you. are you the same fool who shut down the original board? And what's your name, you nazi f---?

AdamCarollaFan@gmail com: Again, thank you for your reply.

No, not the same guy that shut down the Official board, but thanks for giving me the credit.

Anyways, sorry that we're losing such a quality contributor. But, it's a war out there and you're bound to lose some good men in the heat of battle.

Sig Heil.

We emailed AdamCarollaFan@gmail.com asking them to explain the ban and confirm the exchange. They denied sending the replies, expressed surprise at the banishments and claimed they'd been "hacked."

It's a boy for Teresa Strasser

Chatter on her Facebook page indicates and a Twitter posting confirms that Teresa Strasser has given birth to a boy.

Teresa is the writer, television and radio personality former Tabloid Baby adversary (she took up the cudgel against our criticism of The Adam Carolla Radio Show, where she once toiled) who turned Tabloid Baby pal about six months ago, after she sent us the nicest note and began a correspondence that made us realize she's actually a very sincere, very genuine person.

And now she's a mom.

Teresa has been chronicling her pregnancy and expectations in a very engaging fashion on her website. Check it out. And mazel tov and congratulations to all.

SEPT. 27th UPDATE: Teresa writes on her Facebook page: "Nathaniel James was born Sept. 24th at 2:57 p.m. He has long feet, a full head of light brown hair and dimples. Thanks so much for all the love. I'm overwhelmed." To Tabloid Baby, she adds: "Thanks for this... Yep. I'm a mom. Writing to you from the hospital where baby and I are doing great."

Exclusive! TMZ-Carolla-girl Teresa Strasser nude!

We read on the Adam Carolla radio show message boards that "on-air talent/news" gal Teresa Strasser mentioned Tabloid Baby on this morning's broadcast. Cool!

Apparently, Teresa reacted in some way to our musings on the debut of the television version of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, on which she plays one of the supporting plug-uglies to "main on-air personality" Harvey Levin-- and not our advice and reactions to the execrable carolla radio show in which she plays the femme punching bag, referred to by the nasal host as a "Jewess," and forced to giggle at crude comments about her "V" and sex life.

Teresa, whom we salute as an actual writer, has unfortunately become wedged in the Carolla-Kimmel sexist lunkhead factory (as a print columnist, she also falls into the tired Fifties-stereotype as the hapless serial dater) as the prim counterpoint to Kimmel's gal Sarah Silverman (We watched nutty Sarah's ooh-how-shocking show last night and have to ask again: Is her head too small for her body or what?) and has seen her reputation erode further from her halcyon makeover-show hosting days with bad lighting and pancake makeup on the TMZ TV show.

Hey, we feel her pain.

So what did she say about us? Everyone in the Tabloid Baby office is very excited to know. Who'd think that the corporate monoliths would not only read-- but send out one of their hirees to respond to-- the comments of a small, independent operation?

Ha!

(Oh, when we wrote "nude," we meant stripped of all pretense. If you feel ripped off, go to this NSFW Tabloid Baby tribute site and ogle nudies to your heart's content. T's not there, but her predecessor at the Carolla show is).

Adam Carolla goes gay, explores feminine side

We haven’t done any extended listening to the Adam Carolla Radio Show in a couple of weeks, and we have to admit we haven’t missed the amateurish borefest that two years ago had the misfortune of replacing Howard Stern’s brilliance with its host's solipsism, insecurity and arrogant mediocrity.

We’ll admit, we threw up our hands when Carolla engineered the ouster of the entertaining Danny Bonaduce, whose presence on the show in 2007 saved it from certain cancellation, before Carolla staged a backstabbing coup, just in time for Christmas. Without Bonaduce’s genius crowd appeal, Carolla seems to be on the exit ramp once again, but recent events have shown he’s tap dancing to stay afloat on the rolling log of show business survival. He crossed picket lines to appear on Jay Leno’s show; this week it was announced he’ll join other D-listers competing on Dancing with The Stars; and according to another regular listener, he’s shifting his show focus to appeal to an audience beyond the xenophobic, women-fearing fratboy crowd he was molded to serve.

“Sam V,” like us, was banished from even viewing the Adam Carolla Show Message Board for posting an item that the webmistress found inappropriate (translation: “Not worshipful to Carolla”). In a message to Tablidbaby.com, he offers a different take on the show, which we post, with footnotes:

After being banned from the "Official Adam Carolla Show" board (1) for the fourth time. I thought I would write you with the new direction the show is going.

Since Adam's show will never be a male ratings contender anymore, it seems like Adam is now targeting chicks and gay dudes (nothing wrong with that):

* Adam is now on Dancing with the Stars (2)
* Lynn and Alex America’s favorite gay couple (3)

* First they had Teresa's "fake" wedding

* Now they made a big deal about Teresa's engagement (4) (she even barged into Frosty, Heidi, and Frank (5) to yap about it, who cares?)

I can list dozens more examples, but If the topics aren't gay or female-related they are boring crap like one of this week’s topics:

* "Wedding Songs that you WANT to hear, and Wedding Songs you DON’T want to hear.

* Movie reviews that you can't understand because a guy with a Nicaraguan accent (6) reads them ( I get it, funny the first dozen times).

I don't see how this show can stay on this long.

On the upside, I can’t wait for Adam’s fans to see him wearing spandex doing the tango. I can hear it now: “Is this The Man Show (7) Adam?”

FOOTNOTES:

1 See TabloidBaby.com, January 11, 2008: “Carolla, unfettered! Carolla, unlistenable.”

2 Tabloidbaby.com, February 19, 2008, “Adam Carolla is the new Heather Mills.”

3 A West Hollywood gay couple who competed on The Amazing Race 7, they have gone on to market themselves as stereotypical "gossip queens,” and, like Perez Hilton, have been regular guests, and targets of ridicule, on the Carolla show.

4 A former third-tier cable television presenter and writer affiliated with Carolla mentor Jimmy Kimmel who was recently fired from an on-air role on the inconsequential whitewashed syndicated television version of the corporate porn-pushing website TMZ.com, Teresa Strasser cultivated a “smartypants” image when she joined the show as newsreader, but gradually emerged with a pre-liberation self-pitying, luckless “single girl” persona, whose recent engagement serves to continue the character arc that will surely end in disappointment. Allows Carolla and his jock sidekicks to refer to her “V” and to refer to her as a “Jewish news girl.” Now that Bonaduce is gone from the show, she serves to encourage Carolla’s droning monologues by parroting the end of his sentences. Warning to Carolla: refers to herself as “news girl and co-host” on her MySpace page (where her picture shows off an "engagement" ring-- apparently from a pre-engagment photo session). Tabloidbaby.com, January 8, 2008, “While Carolla gets a third chance to make his radio show work, his ‘news girl’ could use a new photo”; October 5, 2007, “Exclusive! TMZ-Carolla-girl Teresa Strasser nude!”

5 The radio team that follows Carolla’s show in Los Angeles is distinguished by regular injections of forced, fake, mirthless laughter throughout their conversations. Tabloid Baby, December 12, 2006, “Carolla Forced to partner with Danny Bonaduce!”

6 Carolla has regularly humiliated a Nicaraguan construction worker named Ozzy, laughing hysterically and mockingly as he has the man read movie reviews and song lyrics in his thick accent. Carolla excuses the racism by pointing out that he gives Ozzy work and that he is a “close friend.” See Tabloidbaby.com, Adam Carolla search.

7 An old Comedy Central series originally hosted by Carolla and mentor Kimmel, celebrating loutish, racist, sexist males also known as “couch potatoes.”

Carolla's "news girl" brags to the lovelorn

From this morning's
broadcast of
The Adam Carolla
Radio Show:

Bobby Slayton: "Valentine's Day was on a Thursday--"

Carolla: "It was a Wednesday."

Teresa Strasser: No. Thursday. That was the day I got engaged."

Teresa Strasser, the former cable television hostess, short-lived reader on the inconsequential whitewashed syndicated television version of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, and "news girl" and self-proclaimed "co-host" of the radio show that replaced Howard Stern in LA and a few other markets, is using her recent engagement to relaunch her sideline career as a stereotypical, pre-liberation, unlucky-at-love, single Jewish girl sob sister columnist.

Her latest essay appears this morning in The Jewish Journal:

"There's nothing more smug and insidious than a girl who has finally fallen in love and thinks she now has all the answers. She can save you from your sad, pathetic, damaged love life and cure you of your nasty man-repellant habits. No matter what condescending tip she's giving you, it always drips with the self-satisfied knowledge that the spinster bullet she so artfully dodged is headed straight for you.

"I hate that girl.

"I can't turn into her, and maybe that's why I haven't written for the past nine months, since I met and fell in love with the first man I've ever been sure about. When it finally happened, it felt much more like dumb luck than brilliant man maneuvering. More dice than poker. I can't be gloating all the way to the altar because the fact is, I'm just a girl who left the house one Saturday night to have dinner with her girlfriends, saw a cute guy across the room and hit the jackpot.

"The only magical insight I can share with you has to do with the leaving the house part. Even Eli Manning can't throw a touchdown if he doesn't break out of the huddle. That's really all I can tell you for sure..."

"When I ask myself how I finally stopped screwing up my love life, the only answer that comes to mind is the same one famously used by one of Ernest Hemingway's characters to explain how he went bankrupt: 'Two ways, first gradually then suddenly.'

"The gradual part was the usual therapy in Tarzana... The suddenly part was meeting a guy who is so boundlessly good-natured and patient that he makes me want to bake him cakes and write syrupy e-mails..."

Teresa moves on to the cliche of connecting creativity with her neuroses and happiness, confirming the bond, by name, to Sixties columnist Erma Bombeck, and though the column ends on the cute-- "Three days after writing this column, she got engaged. She is very happy -- hopefully, not too happy."-- repeating the claim that "love" has kept her from writing "a darn thing" in nine months, hinting that in a passive-aggressive fashion, she's blaming her new beau for her lack of creative output (rather than focusing on months of abuse in Carolla's shadow), which doesn't bode well for the writer's-blocked days to come. We wish her the best.

(And a tip of the Tabloid Baby hat to our pal Luke Ford...)

TMZ TV: Goodbye, Mr. Levin

It opens with a dream sequence.

Harvey Levin is a buffed, bronzed, dyed and pumped Mr. Chips, presiding over a class of pretty young boys at a West Hollywood version of a British boarding school. As Harvey stands with a pastel marker to scrawl celebrity names on a wall of glass, the young pretties compete for his approval by pitching him gossip stories. There’s a beautiful Death in Venice twink with a mane of streaked blonde hair, straight out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue. Harvey fixes him with a smoldering, come-hither stare that has little to do with the story the boy is teasing...

And Monday's premiere of the televised version of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com was underway! Who’d have predicted that the nastiness, kink and coprophiliac sleaze of the website would be replaced by pure camp? While the website is a stinky cesspool, the TV show is a boys-only bubblebath—the television equivalent of that purple TeleTubby used by TMZ.com to mark the deaths of famous gays or conservatives.

But it was in the cards from the beginning. Aside from the queeny asides like "It's bewildering, Bitch!" (note to producers: a male co-host should not utter that line.), the frenetic, whiplash-inducing ride through rehashed video, movie clips, animated cut-outs and vaporous, wispy, dated stories, TMZ the TV show takes its cues— and replays many of the same stories-- from its mothership, Extra!, and the other infotainment shows that replaced storytelling and content with fast-paced fluff about ten years ago. Add the blurry TMZ.com video shot by its cut-rate kiddie harassment squad and the on-the-cheap graphics, and the show and look are a lot closer to the low-budget one-hour pop culture specials that clog and kill time on VH1 and the E! channel.

Harvey, with this Roy Cohn-meets-Barry Diller countenance, popped up throughout the first episode, but his putative co-hosts, all bent noses and too much pancake makeup, were hard to find. A dour Teresa Strasser, looking the worse for wear after months of battering by the execrable Adam Carolla on morning radio, literally got about three seconds of airtime near the end. Two of the pretty young boys had already appeared twice on the show before she and the other hired female made an appearance.

Boys, Boys, Boys

Harvey’s younger male counterpart, the left-leaning Hollywood scion Ben Mankiewicz, didn’t show up until Day 2, by which time someone in the hierarchy had demanded that executive producer Harvey add some females into his locker room opening. So two young women were hauled out to pretend to pitch Harvey stories. But the boy toy male model again returned for a cameo.
(Do we see a gossip item in the making?)

Ben was placed in the sequence to appear as if he was watching from the sidelines like a bemused Rafael Abramovitz. He followed up by pissing all over the TMZ concept by embarrassing the celebutard crowd Harvey has been elevating, with a “Jaywalking” segment meant to prove that they don’t know the year of the September 11th attacks.

Too bad that the 9/11 Q&A shtik has been done before, to greater effect, not only on Leno’s show, but on other television shows and more than once on YouTube (check out a version here that was posted in May). You're a copycat, bitch! Even so, it was a statement, a clear sign that Ben thinks he’s above the fray and that the clock is already ticking until the day he walks off the show in high dudgeon (we say it was in the cards from the day he was hired).

Gay code?

It was about six minutes into that second show that Harvey’s fetish object Matthew McConaughey finally made his first appearance in a shirtless paparazzi shot. Oddly, poor Teresa Strasser was made to read what was an apparently some kind of coded message signaling that McConaughey is gay:

“Adonis-chested Matthew McConaughey blew a fan…”

(long pause)

“...off last night…”

The line “Matthew McConaughey blew a fan” was definitely left hanging there, deliberately, long enough to get our attention-- and to have us think for a moment that he'd actually favored some lucky fan with oral gratification! Was that an in-joke among Harvey, Jim, Paul and the boys? Or did Teresa and Carolla's other boss, Jimmy Kimmel, give her the line reading?

Who cares? No one else noticed, apparently. And to be honest, we stopped there. After fast-forwarding through a lot of Episode 1, we didn’t even make it to the second quarter of Show 2, let alone Show 3. Everything we needed to know about TMZ the TV show was in that first 35 minutes or so. As it stands, the show is Harvey’s ego trip, and the gay meter is blowing… its top. Expect big changes ahead. Expect Ben to be gone. Expect a Rachel Dratch-Jane Krakowski-style female talent switch, and expect Harvey Levin to be shunted to the sidelines, Mike Walker-style, for his own good.

The stain of TMZ.com has spread indelibly across the Internet. TMZ the TV show is already irrelevant. Right now, it would fit in well at 11 pm on E! or the TV Guide channel and get that expected audience. But in the mainstream syndicated television market, it’s already time to count the little Harvey heads to cancellation.

Carolla forced to partner with Danny Bonaduce!

It didn’t last a year, after all.

CBS has thrown a virtual hand grenade into The Adam Carolla Show, the grating, droning anti-radio program that replaced Howard Stern in LA and five other markets-- firing Carolla’s on-air sidekick and replacing him with the unpredictable, volatile and violent former child star and current reality TV subject, Danny Bonaduce.

The shake-up, coming weeks before the show's dreaded first-year anniversary, was long overdue, and we've been calling for it since we first got caught in a traffic jam with these dullards. Carolla’s show has literally been an anti-radio broadcast, full of dull, repetitive, droning monologues by Carolla and the abrasive, honking voice of comedy writer-cum-“sports personality” Dave Dameshek, who, along with Carolla's executive producer and an on-air character, was fired in the bloodbath.

Surviving the axe were Carolla and his female co-host, Teresa Strasser, who joined the show six months ago. As with Carolla and Dameschek, Strasser is part of the Jimmy Kimmel comedy circle. Kimmel, the lunkish host of a little-viewed ABC late night talk show, is the CBS stations’ radio comedy consultant, hired in the wake of Stern’s desertion, and the main reason Carolla and his aggressively bad show have remained on the air this long.

Bonaduce, a drug, alcohol and steroid-abusing timebomb, as exhibited on the reality series, Breaking Bonaduce does not promise the most obvious chemistry with Carolla and Strasser, who present themselves as cerebral comics, while wallowing in a puerile, offensive, sophomoric pool of dead air. But the explosive former child star does promise publicity and more likely, an explosion.

Turning the ego-flaunting Carolla into one-third of a morning zoo team places the show in line with several other FM radio shows in LA, feature two males—one wacky, one trying to keep order-- and a third-wheel females.

The original was Jamie Frosty & Frank on the competing 98.7, which lasted two years until Frosty & Frank were abruptly fired and replaced by Bonaduce.

Frosty and Frank teamed up with a woman named Heidi, and as “The Triplets” (right) now follow Carolla’s show on 97.1. Bonaduce was fired from 98.7 a year and a half ago because of those drug and alcohol problems. Jamie is now teamed with Jack and Stench. So now, LA has a trio of incestuous triplets: Frosty, Heidi & Frank, Jamie, Jack & Stench and Adam, Teresa & Danny.

Make that Danny, Adam & Terry.

See this as another indication that Howard Stern will soon be lured into syndicating or simulcasting portions of his satellite radio program on the newly-christened “free” FM.

Meet Harvey Levin's TMZ TV costars

Get a load of these mugs!

These are the faces of the TMZ TV series. As expected, and as we reported, TMZ editor, former local TV news reporter, host search committee leader and TV show "executive producer" Harvey Levin has managed to insert himself into the on-air mix as "Main on-air personality." He's done a clever job by picking younger co-stars who are as plug-ugly as himself-- and with "newsy" backgrounds that distance the TV show from the sleazy corporate porn-pushing gossip site it will elevate.

But Ben Mankiewicz, Teresa Strasser and Katie Daryl, seen above, (along with "TMZ.com staffer" Michael Hundgen, whose work can be seen here) could also be trouble-- and not only because they're more suited to radio or cable than syndicated television. Harvey and the TMZ TV minds seem to be equating plain and non-flashy appearances with real tabloid authority. This group might look the part, but whether they bring any tabloid legitimacy to the table is another story altogether. In the end, there's no Arthel Neville, no Doug Bruckner-- no one who knows the territory, only younger faces that match the decor.

Ben's a leftie with intellectual pretensions, Teresa's an Adam Carolla strawlady with smartypants showbiz pretensions, and Katie-- well, we don't know who the hell Katie is, except they're pushing her role on an MTV politics special.

Ben is the kid brother of NBC Dateline's tabloid reporter Josh Mankiewicz, and the host of a liberal morning talk radio show on Air America.

He also hosts a cartoon show on the Turner Classic Movies channel-- and comes from a line of Hollywood royalty, being the grandson of famed screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz and great-nephew of screenwriter, producer and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. How does the family of writers react to TMZ.com's cheap, smarmy way with words?

Teresa is one of the girls from the Jimmy Kimmel camp, inserted into the execrable Carolla radio show as the sexless "Jewish" (their word) newsreader who's rebelled by generating sparks with cohost and show stealer Danny Bonaduce. She soaks in the lunkhead lowbrow humour that TMZ and Carolla's show share, but fancies herself a wit.

And Katie (below)? Well, she looks like Harvey's idea of the sexy blonde. Get the 13-week clock ready.


(Meanwhile, Page Six reports that "after the co-executive producer Bryn Friedman was canned last week, rumors started swirling that the start-up program could be in trouble. 'Bryn was the scapegoat of a riff between the executive producers, Harvey Levin and Jim Paratore,' our spy said. 'They've been fighting because there is no show and no set and the launch is just weeks away. 'But Levin told us, "I don't know what you're talking about - the set is the newsroom and I love Jim, he's like my brother! And while I'm on the show, there is an ensemble cast. It is different than a traditional magazine show."' As for Friedman? 'I like Bryn. I'm not going to discuss (firing her).' Friedman... has been in touch with celebrity lawyer Marty Singer..."

(Losing a "mainstream," "straight news" veteran like Friedman (we told you a few days ago about her misgivings) is a real blow for Harvey's quest for credibility. And his lies about the circumstances surrounding the show's troubled start-up don't bode well for expectations of candor and legitimacy for TMZ TV. )

Radio After Stern: Drowning Carolla grabs woman

The smudgy fingerprints of radio consultants are all over the flailing Adam Carolla show, the low-rated bomb that was given Howard Stern’s spot in Los Angeles and other markets.

Even a cursory listen in recent days reveals that Carolla has turned his show over to a cohost. And despite the dunderhead jock/frat boy/14-year-old male crowd the show had been playing to-- it's a female cohost.

Teresa Strasser, who replaced Rachel Perry as the show’s “newsgirl” a couple of months back, has been thrust into a leading role, joining Carolla in interviews, providing comedy bits in greatly-expanded “news" segments, speaking up freely throughout and blanding out the offensive broadcast considerably.

Carolla's gotten lots of ink this week for rudely and amateurishly hanging up on a late phone call from book promoter Ann Coulter. But in light of the changes in the show, it's looking as if the stunt was planned to boost his liberal credentials. With his droning free-association monologues and rants having been cut considerably-- and interrupted by a woman-- he's suddenly acting less "American Genius" (or "genious," as it's spelled on one of his site's web pages-- hit an audio link) and more grumpy boyfriend.

Former sidekick, “sports guy” Dave Dameshek, notable for painfully loud, flat routines and a honkingly annoying Midwestern accent, has been given a subsidiary role, similar to Jackie the Jokeman without the jokes. Look for the show's unfunny dead-air "characters" to also take their leave soon.

In wake of the David Lee Roth debacle in New York, the station group is evidently scrambling, and hoping to bring in some female listeners, who Carolla and team have actively discouraged and degraded since the show’s debut.

They also seem to want to cash in on Strasser’s recent national publicity binge as host of the ABC prime time dating show, How To Get The Guy. Too bad for them it was abruptly canceled last week.

The show's website displays further hints to the de-balling of Carolla. Original newsgal Rachel Perry was depicted in a series of kinky underwear and dog collar S&M shots. No sexy shots for Strasser, who gets the standard TV headshots, and the cliched refuge of the postfeminist Yuppie: the childhood photo.

When they start posting snapshots of a nine-year-old Carolla in short pants, you’ll know he’s definitely off to Davidleerothland.

Carollawatch: Rachel's gone; new gal for dog collar

Charming newsreader Rachel Perry disappeared from the Adam Carolla radio show last month, within days of our story that singled her out as the sole bright spot on the show that replaced Howard Stern in L.A. and a few other markets— and revealed that she’s depicted wearing a dog collar and chain on the Carolla show website.

Official word was that she was off taping a TV pilot. Today, her dog collar photo is gone from the Carolla site, and in between ridiculing the accent of an immigrant named Oswaldo, Carolla announced that Perry’s been replaced by a gal named Teresa Strasser.

A check of the net shows Strasser to be a part of the Carolla-Jimmy Kimmel "family" already-- an actress and TV host who worked as a writer on Win Ben Stein’s Money , the game show that featured Kimmel in a supporting role. She’s got a website that shows her to feel pretty good about herself, but that’s bound to change as Carolla will systematically grind her into powder on the air, trampling on any jokes she might throw out, and trumping her witty asides with his long-winded, monotonous stream-of-consciousness “comedy” monologues.

Strasser ‘s no sex kitten. Physically, she’s cut from the Sara Silverman mold and seems to consider herself a smartypants. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of sexy shots the Carolla team digs up for their site.

Radio is very different in wake of the Howard Stern era. It will be interesting to see who’ll replace Carolla when his show is canceled. Maybe a simulcast version of Stern’s satellite show, which is listener challenged, though not nearly as seriously as Carolla's…

While Carolla gets a third chance to make his radio show work, his "news girl" could use a new photo

Were you listening this morning? We missed it, but apparently radio blowhard Adam Carolla returned for a third year of turning away listeners from Howard Stern's old radio slot in Los Angeles, but without the benefit of sharp, compelling, relevance-infusing radio veteran Danny Bonaduce (Tabloid Baby's Radio Personality of 2007) to keep things real. That's because Carolla ran a backstabbing campaign to get Bonaduce, whose presence raised the ratings in Carolla's second year (and chance), off the show.

Of course, Carolla has his female "news girl" (as she calls herself) back on board. Teresa Strasser plays the part of the whiny, servile, stereotypically unlucky-at-love "Jewish princess," and her positioning in the ad on the Carolla website (top) shows she definitely knows her place. Strasser also has a minor role in the syndicated television series based on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site, TMZ.com (where she also knows her place), but she apparently only has one air-brushed "sexy picture" that the ad department has to use and re-use every time there's a new ad campaign or change in line-up (above). They flip it and cut it and move it around, but it's the same shot (see yet more versions on her MySpace page here and website here). But that's how Carolla and his very limited dorky male audience like her.  Airbrushed and pretend-sultry-- and way in the background.

Anyway, did you hear the Carolla show? Or Bonaduce's afternoon entry?  Let us know.