We called it in 2006: CBS Radio cancels Carolla

It's official. Adam Carolla has lost his radio show. Anyone listening this morning to the painful banter and bluster between Carolla and his nails-on-a-blackboard guest David Allen Grier would not be surprised and probably be thankful to read this afternoon's LA Times report:

"Beginning Friday at 5 p.m., ...KLSX (97.1 Free FM) will switch formats... to CBS Radio's latest concept, titled AMP Radio.

"During the last three months of 2008, KLSX averaged a 1.3% audience share among listeners 12 and older, which placed the station at No. 27 in the market. In fact, KLSX never truly recovered in the ratings after losing its major morning lead-in, Howard Stern, to satellite radio. When Stern was still on the air in late 2005 at 97.1, the station enjoyed a 2.2 share...

"...Beginning next week, new episodes of Carolla's show will no longer broadcast in any market, although it is believed that "best of" shows may air in some territories..."

Los Angeles to lose its worst talk radio station

We haven't bothered with Adam Carolla's radio show in the past year or so, as it slid from shockingly amateurish and boorish offensiveness (all the worst because it replaced Howard Stern in Los Angeles) to a bland, neutered version of its droning self after its sole saving grace Danny Bonaduce was jettisoned and the show took on a more feminized demeanour in wake of Carolla's Dancing with The Stars appearance. But attention should be paid as it is rumoured that Friday is the show's last day on the air in L.A. Friday is also apparently the final day on the air for the mirthless, forced laughter of the Frosty, Heidi and Frank team, and for Tom Leykis (who sounds too often like his strained voice needs a rest, anyway), because radio station KLSX is switching from talk to an all-music format-- reportedly Top 40. Note that the imminent departure of these talents does not bring the same bemoaning wails of a month ago, when a format change at 103.1 forced the departure of the singular Jonesy's Jukebox.

Howard Stern regular dies and nobody hears

If a
Howard Stern
sidekick
drops dead
and nobody
hears about it,
is he really dead?

Well, it's happened, but who would know? Or care? Gosh, has it really been that long since Howard was relevant-- or even real? For you younger readers growing up in an aural wasteland dominated by the likes of the surprisingly pliable and recently feminized monotonal bore Adam Carolla (he now plays the “modern woman” to his pre-liberation sidekick Teresa Strasser and Eighties pop culture gal “Bald Brian”) there was a time when the radio personality was a vital force in pop culture, with his radio show debated on television and in print and the comings and goings of his subsidiary characters like Jackie The Jokeman and Stuttering John treated like characters on a radio reality show.

But since Howard sold out his fans and moved to private pay radio, he works in a vacuum. Forgotten by the mainstream and occasionally popping up in the media few days after the fact, thanks to a vigorous PR efforts and public displays of inebriation by his pathetic sidekick Artie Lange (whose phony on-air explosion and possible "firing" was an obvious publicity stunt before a vacation a couple of weeks back), whose sad claim to fame is being at the top of most Celebrity Death Pools.

But another Stern player has beaten Artie to the punch. Kenneth Keith Kallenbach, the hippie burnout who parlayed his Stern exposure into other appearances, died in jail last week (he'd been arrested for pulling an underage girl into his car-- looks like Howard didn't bail him out). The death was announced Thursday on Howard’s private show, but news from Stern's hideout travels as quickly as it did in the days of Pony Express.

Who would know if we didn’t mention it here?

This is the new entry page for AdamCarolla.com

On the breakup of Conway & Whitman

Don't we know how to pick 'em? Only weeks after we praised Tim Conway Jr. and Brian Whitman's nightly radio show on the creaky KLSX in Los Angeles comes word that Whitman has quit, leaving Conway Jr. and fans in the lurch.

Some of those fans have set up a tribute board (here) to memorialize Whitman, who came on board to replace Conway Jr.'s first partner, cranky old man Doug Steckler, and over the course of two years managed to, as we wrote:

"...settle into a rare, classic talk radio groove... two guys cracking each other up, and in the process, entertaining a wide audience..."

Word is that Whitman's got depression or something, though the resignation comes in wake of the recent and disturbing on-air fantasizing and virtual stalking of Whitman by Frosty Stilwell (right), who plays the celibate eunuch on the station's midday talk show on which he, a raunchy younger male and a recently-announced "lesbian" (collectively "The Triplets") trade mundane insights punctuated by mirthless fake laughter.

We'd hoped that the break-up announcement was the precursor to an April Fool's Day joke, but apparently it's not, and it's all the more disheartening in light of the continued presence of Adam Carolla's failed morning radio show on the same station.

In a last-ditch attempt to boost ratings,management is apparently switching gears and feminizing the boorish, luggish Carolla and aiming his show away from the beer-belching frat boy crowd and toward the LGBT community, with a slant toward queer-friendly guests and topics, a movie collaboration with the star and director of the lesbian romantic comedy Kissing Jessica Stein, a stint on Dancing with the Stars, and a new gossipy gay bent to the show, like this morning's dishing of Kimora Lee Simmons (Carolla did manage to insert his more familiar racism into the "rant"). And where he once could, if he hadn't been so insecure, bounce off the testosterone-pumped brilliance of Danny Bonaduce, Carolla is now egged on by encouraging one-line squeaks from the wispy, estrogenic voice of someone called "Bald Brian" and and the self-pitying "smartypants" whining of pre-Feminine Mystique-styled "girl" Teresa Strasser. We realize we'd said we probably weren't going to be writing about the passe Carolla any more, but this doesn't count because we're really writing about Conway and Whitman.

We probably won't be complaining or writing about The Adam Carolla Radio Show any more

Not after seeing this. What's the point, right?

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...)

Free advice for radio host Adam Carolla

#101: When doing a phone interview with a heavyweight comedian like Larry The Cable Guy, don't cut him off and then keep him on hold for four minutes while you go into a bit about comics being forced to do the acts of others, cracking yourself up the entire time while Larry's mic is shut off. Generosity is a key to being a good radio host and getting guests in the future.

Note to his "news girl" and self-proclaimed "co-host" Teresa Strasser: While it certainly serves you well to polish the apple of your sexist boss Carolla by chirping in with repetitive words of reinforcement, as in...

Carolla: "Larry, we have to do a television show where every comedian has to spin a wheel and do the other comedian's act..."
Strasser: "The wheel of comedy!"
Carolla: "Blather blather blather..."

...this is not exactly Robin Quivers-level radio work.

Adam Carolla, the personal trainer-turned-quasicomic and former sex show wisecracker who was handed Howard Stern's radio slot in LA and a few other markets two long years ago and has driven it into the ground ever since, has recently shown himself open to change, with a reported feminization of his anti-entertainment show and a very "gay" upcoming stint on Dancing with the Stars. So we're sure he'll be open to suggestuons from a group of frequent listeners.

Stay tuned here for more Free Advice for Radio Host Adam Carolla...

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.”

Adam Carolla is the new Heather Mills

Ha! Don't we have a lot of influence! From Harvey Levin to Heather Mills, offensive media figures only seem to rise in stature and success after they cross the Tabloid Baby radar screen and become the subjects of our howling warnings into the wind! The latest recipient of the inverse effects of our inveighing is the boorish and boring morning radio "host" Adam Carolla. The egomaniacal mediocrity who's punished LA radio listeners with his repetitive, elongated dronings for more than two years now since he was sadistically given Howard Stern's morning show, has just ben handed a gig on a popular reality TV series and is probably on his way to mainstream stardom despite of-- hey, more likely because of-- our attentions!

Carolla's ties to mentor and business partner Jimmy Kimmel got him the radio show and have kept him on the air. Now the Kimmel connection has paid off once again, as Carolla's been selected as one of the competitors in the sixth season of ABC's Dancing with The Stars (Kimmel, ABCs late night host, does comedy segments on the series). And just as producers referred to Season Four competitor Mills, best known as a one-legged former porn model and alleged prostitute and Paul McCartney nemesis, as a "charity campaigner," so is Carolla named in production notes as a "TV and radio personality." Sure, the Dancing contestants are a mangy brood of D-list wannabes, has beens, never wases and never heard ofs, but they do tend to get more work from the gig. And though we wonder how Carolla's homophobic fratboy fanbase will handle the news (our guess is that he'll cast himself in the "nimble boxer" role that Evander Holyfield and Floyd Mayweather held in past seasons), at this point, we're betting on Larry Baras becoming the next commissioner of Major League Baseball. That's just how influential we are, and how much our opinion counts.