DMCA, complaints, and other inquiries:
One of the best ones was Fred losing his shit because John prodded him about not being worth 2 million after like 20 years on the show. Fred of course started getting mad at Jackie who wasn’t even on the show anymore. They were all huge parts of the brand and it was shitty for Howard to not spread the wealth around. Opie got his fawkin guys paid.
No way. Howard started hanging out with celebrities a lot in the Sirius years and toning down his material. No more using 'nigger' or 'retard' or 'fag' or anything like that. After Artie was fired, Howard was really free to pivot the show in his own way. At that point Marci Turk and others were given total control to remake Howard's image. Marci is likely the one who pitched doing stuff like AGT to Howard. She was around way before he revealed her to the audience in 2013. And they still try to keep her secret which is hilarious.
Marci was around in 2012 and overseeing Gary. One of her jobs was performance reviews for everyone and she can be seen literally sitting behind Gary in his office and shadowing him and writing down notes about how well he is doing his job. She was promoted to COO at Howard100 and 101 but had to have been working behind the scenes well before then.
Touche. Yea, she was introduced to Howard I think in 2012 and was in his personal life before he brought her into the workings of the show. I remember him telling some story about how she helped him go through and clean up his email inbox, no joke. The rest is sadly history.
As he stands up on stage skulking about like a fucking grave digger Frankenstein in a horrifying clown wig in a funeral director phantasm suit with a repulsive limp penis nose as his most prominent facial feature. And those blob fish lips and naso-labial folds. Quite the omnipotent grotesqueness to behold that Night Before Christmas monster looking scum.
If Leno did steal his show and was successful it just goes to show how not being a fucking miserable jealous stork mutant who is an asshole to everyone is a better way to go.
Plus Howard is not that good of an interviewer as he tells everyone he is - half the time he wouldn’t have correct notes and it’s the same questions about their childhood, multiple “In a sense” statements, and if they’re an actor - of course he mentions the one movie he did almost 30 years ago like it was recent.
The joke for years with Letterman was you couldn’t make eye contact with him unless you were important -I feel like Stern actually demands the little people don’t look at him / make eye contact when he did go into the studio.
Jason Kaplan was the worst stern staff member - just a fat smug unfunny douchebag.
Only the people that “got it” were the good interviews - Trump was an example of this - of course Howie isn’t allowed to acknowledge that anymore. I’ve heard they don’t even do Robin’s News anymore which was the best part of the show for years. Gilbert was always on fire for that segment.
Marci was first hired as a threat to Gary basically. That Howard was signalling to Gary to get the back office in order and make the place more professional. But Howard is so conflict averse, like another well known pissy eyed faggot in radio, that he would never have the heart or stones to outright fire Gary. So Gary survived and Marci was hired anyways and Gary was slowly phased out of running the office but still allowed his cushy job and salary.
Every interview I remember him doing was basically this. The man is incapable of having an discussion or interview thats not totally through the lens of his own experience
I agree with Craig Ferguson, that was the last great late night show. The cold open I thought was such a fresh idea - especially since it would be either him being silly, telling a funny story, or in some cases a something serious like why he didn’t do Britney Spears jokes because “too easy” or hack / low lying fruit while other late night guys were beating a dead horse when it came to Britney jokes. Interview wise it would be two people talking - not him making sure he read the right note cards at the right time fot whatever the person was plugging.
No, just like he didnt plug Jackie’s - and even turned DOWN money to plugs arties two books after “Too Fat To Fish” but Jackie got the last laugh (hee-heeeee) because Stern put his book AFTER Jackie’s so when people looked up Sterns book Jackie’s would pop up as a suggestion.
His bullshit armchair psychology and incessant need to cut everyone off before they even get to answer the question proves freaky geeky Pelican Boi is the exact opposite of an amazing interviewer. I'll never forget how irritated Roger Waters was when Kikester Stern kept asking questions that he didn't care to even hear the answers to while just talking over Roger. Finally Waters said "well, would ya let me answer the fucking question?!"