Last updated: 04.04.2016

[AE] = Andrew Earles
[JB] = Jon Benjamin
[JW] = Jon Wurster
[SS] = Sam Seder

January
01.07.2003 *  01.14.2003 *  01.21.2003 *  01.28.2003

February
02.04.2003 *  02.11.2003 *  02.18.2003 *  02.25.2003

March
03.04.2003 *  03.11.2003 *  03.18.2003 *  03.25.2003

April
04.01.2003 *  04.08.2003 *  04.15.2003 *  04.22.2003 *  04.29.2003

May
05.06.2003 *  05.13.2003 *  05.20.2003 *  05.27.2003

June
06.03.2003 *  06.10.2003 *  06.17.2003 *  06.24.2003

July
07.01.2003 * 07.08.2003 * 07.15.2003 * 07.22.2003 * 07.29.2003

01.07.2003

Start: Tom previews Petey’s birthday bash; theme, music: ESG, “Moody”, WQLJ, “Instrumental #1”, Double D and Steinski, “Jazz”, Sound Dimension, “The Drum Song”; angry back announce as Tom fumes over Petey’s absence
0:26: “Petey” [JW] says he can’t make it to his birthday party because he and his dad are in jail
0:28: Petey’s here! and so is his dad! and Ranger Jim, Hova, Belinda, and Terre T!; bathroom break and some technical adjustments
0:32: Petey interviews Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Samurai Jack
0:50: Tom asks Petey’s dad if the birthday boy can have cake, sod-y, and other party treats
0:53: Josh loved the Genndy Tartakovsky interview, has “Petey fever”
0:55: Pat, age 7, sings “Happy Birthday”
0:56: Paul from the message board asks Petey some Suburbanal Cuts questions; Petey mentions his “hip hop experiment”; Paul says there’s a Suburbanal Cuts cover band (The Hinterland Probalities); Tom plays their version of “The Tommy Song”, then Petey’s
1:03: Sprocket thanks Petey for promoting his Genndy Tartakovsky interview on Toon Zone; Tom chastises him for using the word “heck”
1:07: Gord wishes Petey a happy birthday, reveals he is the artist behind The Hinterland Probalities; Belinda discusses gaming with Petey as Tom takes some shots at Greasy Kid Stuff; Gord urges Petey to be true to himself as he gets older; Chris joins the call to wish Petey a happy birthday, tell an inscrutable Canadian joke; Petey front announces one of his favorite songs
1:17: music: Wade Hemsworth, “The Blackfly Song”
1:22: Petey debuts his new character, The Nah Man, and runs through his many other personalities; everyone sings “Happy Birthday” to Petey
1:24: Barry Smith-Robley [JW], an agent from CAA, is very interested in representing Petey, asks him to improv a father-son scene with him; Barry thinks Petey has “it” but needs a sequin-y/spangly makeover and a new name (Blaze Newsome); Tom also attempts to audition for Barry
1:36: Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force wishes Petey a happy birthday, has several age-inappropriate ideas for how he should celebrate it, gets suddenly cut off
1:39: Tom recounts all the exciting events of Petey’s birthday thus far
1:40: music: [?], Samurai Jack theme song
1:43: Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro, Aqua Teen co-creators, wish Petey a happy birthday; Tom attempts to explain Philly Boy Roy to them; Petey tries to invite himself over to the Aqua Teen studio; Carl and Meatwad make brief appearances; Tom alludes to a potential guest who priced himself out of the market; Dave and Matt talk about Vegetable Man: The Movie and their total willingness to turn in copyright offenders
1:56: with some cajoling, Petey agrees to play “Samanowski”, “The Tommy Song Live” into “Singin’ in the Pizza”, a Sammy Siggles number, and an improvised song about driving to the studio
2:03: Officer Tom wishes Petey a happy birthday, offers to send him a DARE shirt; he wants Petey to play “Back in Black”
2:05: Petey plays his hip-hop experiment instead; birthday emails; Petey talks about how he discovered WFMU and transformed from Tom’s worst enemy into his friend
2:13: Petey and Tom “shock” numerous WFMU DJs as Doc Shock and Doc Shock Jr.; Tom even considers shocking Ken Freedman, even if it means he might not have a ob-jay omorrow-tay; more emailed birthday wishes
2:30: music: Aqua Teen drop in, [?]; Tom finds out Petey’s future via the Angry Monkey web site; Petey gives Tom some of his movies; Petey gets some Cherry Blossom Clinic-themed gifts; Petey tries to call his dog, Belle, over the radio, and she “attacks” Tom
2:39: Stan wishes Petey a happy birthday, thinks he’s old enough to listen to the Velvet Underground
2:42: Sprocket calls back to complain about getting cut off and is cut off again
2:43: caller who wishes to remain anonymous thinks Petey is the best part of The Best Show; when he refuses to think of a nickname, Petey GOMPs him
2:44: Sprocket calls one more time and is cut off yet again; fly and cricket sound effects
2:45: Erin wishes Petey a happy birthday, wants to find Petey’s web site; Tom suggests looking for the link at FriendsofTom.com
2:47: Officer Tom calls back, thinks Petey will “not be a problem to society” as he gets older
2:49: suspiciously anonymous caller (probably Sprocket) wants to know Petey’s birthday plans, gets hung up on
2:50: James wants to know if Petey’s “a joke”; Tom says he does Petey’s voice; Petey’s dad thanks Tom for a great birthday party
2:51: music: songs from Petey’s dad and Petey; Petey’s dad talks about his music
2:57: Ian from Toon Zone likes Petey’s interviews; Tom thanks everyone who made the birthday party possible; outro
3:00: more Petey music

01.14.2003

Start: theme, music: Alan Licht, “Tone Poem for the Nikki Sixx Million”, Love Child, “No It’s Alright”, Run On, “Doesn’t Anybody Love the Dark”; Tom previews interview with Alan Licht, guitarist extraordinaire and author of An Emotional Memoir of Martha Quinn; back announce; Tom thanks everyone who made Petey’s birthday party possible, chastises online goons who hassled Petey
0:25: interview with Alan Licht
0:51: music: Bow Wow Wow, “I Want Candy”, Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Spellbound”, Big Country, “Fields of Fire”, Romeo Void, “Never Say Never”, Missing Persons, “Destination Unknown”
1:08: back announce; interview with Alan Licht continues; calls from listeners, including more appearances from the Kansas-obsessed guy
1:50: music: Scandal, “Goodbye to You”, The Fixx, “One Thing Leads to Another”,  The English Beat, “Save It for Later”, The Pretenders, “Time the Avenger”, JoBoxers, “Just Got Lucky”
2:09: back announce; more interview with Alan Licht
2:22: music: Duran Duran, “Rio”, The Inmates, “Dirty Water”, Thompson Twins, “Lies Lies Lies”, Rockpile, “Teacher Teacher”; partial back announce; Tom talks about seeing Ween for the first time and hating them immediately; call screener Matt gets banned for an unfortunate Ween-related remark
2:38: Officer Tom advises Tom on the best way to get out of a parking ticket he got during his last trip to NYC; Officer Tom looks forward to representing WFMU at a demolition derby; Tom and Officer Tom decry the bean counting of “the white shirts”; Tom will soon join Officer Tom on the firing range; Alan Licht recalls his one unfortunate experience shooting a gun; Officer Tom likes Petey but compares him to “The Children of the Corn”, suspected Tom’s 80s music sets were punishment for shocking Ken Freedman (which Tom chickened out of doing); what was Officer Tom’s favorite MTV video of the 80s?; Tom promos his “fun” club, FriendsofTom.com
2:51: a call from Ron Hill, who works at an unnamed comic book store, prompts Tom to declare his continuing hatred for Kevin Smith; Ron fills Tom in on the hot new comics coming out this week and a scary interview with Alan Moore
2:54: Petey reports that being 12 years old feels the same as being 11, thanks Tom for his birthday party; Tom wants Petey to come back to the studio soon ; Petey says he’s being made fun of the Toon Zone and WFMU boards, but Tom predicts a Carrie-esque revenge for him; Tom plans to move into Petey’s house
3:00: Tom outlines the terms of call screener Matt’s ban; outro

01.21.2003

Start: theme, music: The Heads, “Quad”, Hypnolovewheel, “Cows”, The Versatiles, “Something Like a Man”, The Insomniacs, “Guilt Free”; back announce; get your FOT card!
0:23: Tom reprises his Vegas story, this time involving Tim Allen
0:27: Tom says everyone told him he’d love The Two Towers even though he hated Fellowship of the Ring; unsurprisingly, everyone was wrong; even worse than the “action” were the movie’s attempts at humor
0:32: Jim didn’t like first LOTR movie but heard there was a lot of burning in Two Towers; Tom expounds on the movie’s endless battle scene, thinks Jim might be a pyromaniac, recommends he watch Frequency for its combination of fires, ham radios and the ’69 Mets; LOTR hate via email
0:36: Ben notes that, unlike LOTR, most other three-hour movies are based on real-life events
0:37: Rich from Marlboro doesn’t like his town, thinks Two Towers rivaled the Star Wars prequels in stupidity; Tom prefers Star Wars because “you can make the case that they’re all garbage”; Rich laments the lack of good scripts and good TV, says his favorite movie is Pulp Fiction; Tom teases him with details of the Kill Bill trailer, has to hang up on him for toilet talk
0:41: Matthew calls Two Towers atrocious; call screener Matt is allowed back on mic, apologizes for his remark but not to Ween fans, corroborates Tom’s Kill Bill details; Roger Moore is not in Kill Bill but will go see it, according to Tom; what movies will you never see on an airplane?; you will never see The French Connection in a car; more email LOTR hate
0:44: Matt says his friend cuts trailers for a living and has seen Kill Bill; Tom offers the princely sum of $40 in order to get a sneak peek of it; Matt starts singing “Carry on My Wayward Son” and Tom sings along (“it’s not as much fun as now, is it?”); Tom GOMPs him for not knowing how the full lyrics
0:47: Robbie from Long Island wants to talk about the Matrix:Reloaded trailer, then launches into “Carry on My Wayward Son” (“there’s two of you!”); Tom puts call screener Matt back on probation for allowing The Kansas Guys on the air; Tom laments the turn tonight’s show has taken
0:51: Chuck wasn’t too thrilled with the Kill Bill trailer, calls Quentin Tarantino “the Puff Daddy of motion pictures”, thinks Tom would’ve liked Two Towers if he read the books and/or saw the last LOTR movie; Tom fears the life has been sucked out of the show
0:52: Neil thinks Tom could jumpstart the show with some tunes, tries to cheer up Tom with some organ
0:53: Petey thinks Signs was the movie of the year, likes a special movie on the DVD version; Petey has redesigned his web site, which Tom urges everyone to visit
0:55: Matthew from Brooklyn ascribes Two Towers‘ success to the character of Gollum
0:57: Rich from Brooklyn thinks the Gollum character killed the movie, prefers the first 10 minutes of the movie; Tom begs him to just sing “Carry On…” and get it over with, which he does (badly)
0:58: in despair, Tom “duets” with Aimee Mann’s “Wise Up”
1:01: music: Bob Dylan, “Wigwam”, Unrest, “Invoking the Godhead””, Double D and Steinski, “Jazz”, The Other Half, “Mr. Pharmacist”; back announce
1:19: Philly Boy Roy [JW] wants to sue the state of NJ because its “swampland gas” sickened the Eagles and caused them to lose the NFC Championship Game; Tom thinks he’s just trying to welch on yet another bet; Roy welded himself to Veteran’s Stadium to keep it from being torn down (“it’s where I’ve had all the defining moments of my life!”), even though the Phillies will play there for another season; Roy recounts all of his many treasured memories at the Vet and his violent reactions to the Eagles’ loss; Roy Jr. did not take the loss well, either; Roy has to go when the police show up to pry him loose
1:38: Tom reads email from folks who thought last week’s show was annoying or boring; Tom wonders if everyone just wants a “party”; if just one listener tells Tom they want a party, Tom will give everyone a party
1:41: caller does not want a party, but Tom thinks he’s in the minority
1:42: Jason votes for a party, so Tom debuts THE PARTY ZONE to the strains of Andrew WK, reverb effects, Austin Powers soundbites, and plenty of PARTY music!; The Kansas Guys call in to sing along, but Tom declares they don’t know how to party!
1:48: The Party Doctor [AE] checks in, but Tom doesn’t think he needs his help, so The Party Doctor returns to writing the sequel to Disorderlies (“The Reckoning”)
1:51: The Party Zone continues with some PARTY CLASSICS like “Radar Love”, “Car Wash”, and “Gettin’ Jiggy with It”
1:58: Chris needs a Party Doctor, wants to send out some shoutouts!
2:00: the Party Zone ROCKS ON with The Beastie Boys and Gary Glitter; Tom thwarts the advances of the Austin Powers soundbites
2:06: Terre T gives some very vague shoutouts; more PARTY MUSIC with “Low Rider”, Queen, “Louie Louie”; Tom takes a few brief calls and hangs up on each one for not being sufficiently party-rific; Animal House soundbites; KISS
2:19: Officer Tom knows how to party!; more Andrew WK; a caller demands “Blitzkrieg Bop”; Puff Daddy joins the party zone! and so does the Master Control Program! (“end of line!”)
2:25: Tom wonders if he’s taken the Party Zone too far, is willing to end it; caller likes “the old Tom” just fine
2:28: James votes for The Party Zone because there’s no other show like it on WFMU; another caller believes The Party Zone was “pure comic genius” but thought it was cut off just in time; Tom says you cannot tell a Party Zone party to stop, and so…
2:29: THE PARTY ZONE’S BACK! with House of Pain, more Animal House drop-ins, Master Control Program, and lots of Austin Powers; a giggly girl requests “Shoop”!; The Ramones join The Party Zone! and so does “Push It!”; caller liked the Alan Licht interview but likes parties too, wants to hear Love Child; a caller from South Orange loves The Party Zone, wants to hear “Work It”
2:39: caller wants to rattle off party music, but Tom responds with Bay City Rollers’ “Saturday Night”; listener Brian appreciates the new party animal Tom, who dubs him PARTY MEISTER BRIAN; “Smokin’ in the Boys Room” (with digital glitches), followed by “Work It”
2:47: Daniel P, a member of Tom’s enemies list, likes The Party Zone (“Then I might be doing something wrong”); Tom GOMPs him
2:50: The Party Zone continues with a hot British partier, Badly Drawn Boy! oh wait, that’s not party music! here’s KC and the Sunshine Band! some shoutouts from Brooklyn! but even The Party Zone has a shoutout limit; “Black Betty”
2:56: Party Zone outro, closing with the Rocky theme

01.28.2003

Start: theme (with Austin Powers and Animal House sound bites), music: New Order, “Temptation”, Jango, “Jango”, Muddy Waters (by way of David Holmes), “Tom Cat”, Half Japanese, “Nicole”; back announce; Tom needs calls so he can test out the equipment; a Party Zone recap
0:32: Jim is all partied out after the Super Bowl, discusses his favorite Super Bowl commercials; an emailer thinks Tom talks too much, and Tom responds in kind; Tom embraces the silence; Tom laments a sucky Super Bowl and equally sucky commercials
0:39: Petey thinks he hasn’t been funny at all lately, and feels a growth spurt coming on; his new, deep-voiced persona is named Peter, but he quickly returns to form; his web site now features guitar lessons with Beano; Tom gets Petey’s permission to put Suburbanal Cuts tracks on his marathon premium CD
0:43: Tom GOMPs caller who sounds suspiciously like Kid Kansas
0:44: caller hated most of the Super Bowl ads but liked the Matrix trailer, thinks the Hulk trailer looks stupid; caller uses an ad involving Jim Carrey to reveal himself as Kid Kansas; Tom gives him points for creativity
0:46: Jim calls back to declare his favorite Super Bowl ad to be the Reefer Madness-esque anti-pot scare ad; Tom hates beer ads that show people becoming sociopaths for the sake of one beer, hypocritical “drink responsibly” disclaimers, and mixed messages vis a vis genders; let’s riot against the beer companies!
0:51: Officer Tom reports “many complaints about The Party Zone”, then shocks Tom as Cop Shock!; Officer Tom’s favorite comic: The Punisher (“How could I ever have guessed that?”) and Lobo (“Sherrif Lobo had a comic book?”); he does not recommend anyone buy the latest issue of Tongue Magazine, did not enjoy the Super Bowl but liked the Matrix trailer; the fates of the new comic book movies are considered; call screener Matt says Kevin Smith is in the new Daredevil movie, news that delights Tom; Tom asks Officer Tom about fake police codes; Officer Tom will be in studio next week with “a special surprise” for Tom, proposes a Deer Hunter-style round of Russian roulette for his next segment, and wants to track down Kid Kansas
1:01: Tom calls up sports talk show The Shark Tank as Jack, an idiotic football fan who “works on factories”, and drives its host Greg, aka Sharky [JW], nuts with his Pittsburgh Steeler-centric view of the universe
1:19: music: The Cheater Slicks, “I Can Go On”, Cheap Trick, “Everything Works If You Let It”, Buzzcocks, “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” (Peel Sessions), The Versatiles, “Something Like a Man”; back announce; tonight’s hot topic: if you could snap your fingers and turn someone into a pile of goo, who would you pick? Tom wonders about his own choice–Bob Hope? Robbie Knievel?
1:36: caller picks Robert Wuhl because he hates Arli$$, blames that show for never getting HBO, and also wants to turn all master tapes of the show into goo; Tom suggests melting the bad half of Eminem, discusses the logistics of melting Robin Williams
1:41: caller from Virginia wishes Tom had been meaner in his call to The Shark Tank; she says Virginia is depressed; Tom suggests an Honor Roll reunion
1:45: Gord, in Guelph, needs some cheering up, suggests prank calling Hot Rockin’ Ronnie; Gord suspects Cheap Trick stole the riff in “Everything Works…” from Rush’s “Spirit of the Radio”; Tom’s attempt to discover which song was written first is thwarted by bad web sites
1:52: Chris calls in but can’t help answer the question because his girlfriend is using his computer; Tom suspects he just wanted everyone to know he has a girlfriend; Tom and Chris each get 30 seconds to make his girlfriend laugh; Tom wants Gord and Chris to teach him to love hockey
1:56: young Sathington wants to melt David Letterman, likes Jay Leno; Tom makes him justify his Leno love
1:58: caller defines poutine, can not find vegetarian poutine in New York; Tom will help him fight the poutine makers of New York if the caller will do the leg work to find them
2:00: caller says “Everything Works…” and “Spirit of the Radio” debuted in the same year (verified by an emailer), so now Tom needs to know in which months they debuted; caller wants to melt Courtney Love, but Tom thinks she’s already melting (as is Ace Frehely); caller wants to go back to the Party Zone, and Tom obliges briefly; goo-conversion suggestions via email
2:05: caller reports seeing Ace Frehely and thinking he looked like Cher, shares other horrifying celebrity sightings; Eddie Van Halen spotted buying wine for a dinner party, prompting Tom to imagine a guest list for said dinner party; emailer determines that Rush’s “Spirit of the Radio” came out first, which delights Tom as a Canadian citizen
2:09: music: Sonic Youth, “My Friend Goo”, Thin Lizzy, “The Rocker”, KISS, “I Stole Your Love”
2:20: back announce; how to become a FOT
2:24: Tanner Wildgrass [AE] forces his way into the studio and on the
air; he purports to be the inspiration for Patrick Swayze’s character
in Roadhouse; he’s currently bouncing at an adult-oriented Chuck E. Cheese, talks about having to “put people down”, and plays a track from his blues band; Tanner reveals he’s been hired by Ken Freedman to “clean up” WFMU, and Tom’s first on his list; Tom refuses to leave and gets bounced
2:52: Tanner plays his blues band on loop until the end of the show

02.04.2003

Start: Tom vamps; theme, music: Imperial Teen, “Ivanka”, Comet Gain, “Really Stay”, Stephen Malkmus, “Water and a Seat”, The Yardbirds, “You Can’t Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover”
0:20: back announce; coming up: Officer Tom in the studio and a special celebrity guest!; Tom’s bidding on an eBay item and wants some tips; Tom announces an art contest to design the cover for The Best Show marathon premium CD
0:27: Julie, self-proclaimed eBay champ, gives Tom some bidding advice
0:34: the celebrity guest tries to call in but has some phone trouble
0:35: Petey’s dad suggests Tom use eBay Sniper
0:39: the celebrity guest calls back: it’s Matt Walsh, UCB founder and co-star of the soon-to-be released Old School; Tom plays audio of the Old School trailer, which prominently features Matt; Matt talks about how his role expanded during shooting, improvising with Luke Wilson, and doing promo for the film [Best Show Gems, 5/28/12]
0:53: Scott Armstrong, co-writer of Old School, calls in; he believes Matt has completely exaggerated his role in the movie, which Matt begrudgingly admits
1:02: Jon Benjamin calls up and accuses Matt of doing a “bit” that they discussed beforehand, also accuses Matt of doing a “bit” the last time he called in, to promote his Comedy Central special; the conversation quickly veers into an ultra-meta discussion of what is and is not a “bit”
1:24: with five minutes left to go in his eBay auction, Tom contemplates bidding strategy and fights off the headache acquired from the Matt Walsh/Jon Benjamin meta-conversation; Matt Walsh calls back to briefly apologize
1:26: listener Brian thinks Tom makes his own life difficult, urges him not to panic about his eBay auction; Terre T weighs in with some brief eBay advice; after a brief snafu, Tom wins his item
1:30: Yoni from Five Towns says Tom is really just competing against computers; Tom reveals he won a damaged cell phone for $1100
1:32: the listener response to the Matt Walsh segment could not be lower, prompting Tom to put Matt on probation
1:33: music: Drive Like Jehu, “Good Luck in Jail”, Red Kross, “Play My Song”, Larry Wallace, “Police Car”; Tom officially announces Matt Walsh’s probation; back announce
1:47: Officer Tom visits the studio to reveal his best and worst movies of 2002 and rate them on his four-bullet scale; he also shows off a few of his favorite guns, discusses cop movie cliches and the lost art of car chases, and takes calls from relatives and colleagues; Officer Tom drops off a DARE t-shirt for Petey; Tom wonders if he hates hipsters who wear such t-shirts ironically
3:02: outro

02.11.2003 [Best Show Uncovered Vol. 1]

[theme, music: New Order, “Temptation”, Ewan McGregor, “Your Song”, Peelander-Z, “Oi! Star!”]
Start: coming up at the 9 o’clock hour, a special radio event: The Majority Report with Sam Seder; back announce; headphone trouble and other tech issues; Tom finds himself in someone else’s email account and wrestles with the idea of reading it
0:07: Petey sings a special happy birthday song for Tom, which contains a zinger for a message board troll; Tom watched Petey’s movies and compares him to “a young Adam Sandler”
[Jarrett, “The Weight Loss Kid” [JW] calls Tom to promote Choclogeddon, the delicious dessert that helped him shed pounds–and which turns out to have some horrifying side effects unless ingested in the proper fashion (“Choclogeddon,” New Hope for the Ape-Eared)]
[music: [?]]
0:11: Tom throws it over to The Majority Report with Sam Seder, as Iraq War looms large; Sean Hannity apparently ducked out of a chance to debate Mr. Seder
0:32: Sam debates Julian Phillips of FOX News
1:02: music: Billy Bragg and Wilco, “Walt Whitman’s Niece”
1:03: Sam interviews Janeane Garofalo about her vocal anti-war stance
1:29: music:[?]; Sam finally gives out the phone number and takes a few calls
[music: Thin Lizzy, “Look What the Wind Blew In”, Comet Gain, “Realistes”]
1:53: Tom returns; back announce; outro

02.18.2003

Start: theme, music: Muddy Waters (via David Holmes), “Tomcat”, Phantom Tollbooth, “Extinction Plus”, Clark Hutchinson Band, “Free to Be Stoned”, Electric Eel Shock, “Joyride Rock n’ Roll”
0:20: Tom experiments with new bed music from Moulin Rouge; back announce; one more week left in the Design the Marathon CD Contest; Tom marvels at some of the submissions; the winner will receive an exclusive “fun pack”
0:32: per the advice of a few listeners, Tom used eBay Sniper for an auction he wanted to win and the system failed him; he now expects those who recommended it to call him up and beg forgiveness (especially Petey’s dad); email; Tom has a splitting headache, blames incessant futile snow shoveling; Tom and call screener Matt discuss the disturbing lack of calls, until a call comes through
0:44: listener Brian chastises Tom for the Sam Seder show, which he did not enjoy; Tom calls Julian Phillips “the Greasy Kids Stuff of Fox News”, discusses GKS’s televisual competition versus his own
0:48: The Brick, host of the Gnarly Nighttime on Z99 (AKA The Crank Dog) [AE] prank-calls Tom in a way that’s extremely similar to Tom’s own Doc Shock segments; The Brick tries to put him in the running for Drowning Pool tickets for being a good sport, but Tom GOMPs him
0:53: Tom discusses the TV shows he has to combat in his time slot
0:55: Petey tries to apologize for his dad, but Tom insists on a violent punishment involving a snow shovel; Petey shares his saga of getting stuck in the snow; Petey’s dad offers to “get to the bottom” of the eBay Sniper debacle; Tom says he was bidding on a piece of Lindbergh’s plane; Tom GOMPs Petey and immediately feels bad about it
1:07: Michael finally moved his antenna so he can listen to WFMU again, reports rampant cheating in online Boggle, confesses to cheating at cards as a kid; Tom suggests an on-air confession to cleanse his soul
1:11: Tom gets another prank call from The Crank Dog; Roadhouse is being shown in Spanish on TV, and Tom would like to hear some of the dialogue
1:14: music: The Outsiders, “Touch”, The Germs, “Communist Eyes”, The Electric Eels, “Agitated”, Glass Candy, “Love on a Plate”, New Order, “Confusion”
1:32: back announce; updates on the art contest and a poll on the Friends of Tom forum: who should be voted off the board forever? (Tom says he’d vote for Gargoyla)
1:38: caller tries to play Roadhouse in Spanish over the phone, but the results are mixed
1:42: Tom talks about the two-hour Dateline “expose” on Michael Jackson, which actually forced Tom to think everyone should lay off The King of Pop
1:44: cranky roadtripping girl begs Tom to “play some more music, dude!”; Tom GOMPs her and almost takes a trip into the Party Zone
1:45: Robby wants to know Tom’s opinion on Michael Jackson; Tom suspects he’s Kid Kansas and begs him to reveal himself; Robby insists he’s not, but when Tom starts talking about Michael Jackson again, Kid Kansas sings “Carry On My Wayward Son”; Tom pledges to leave Kid Kansas on the whole show and takes a call from Captain Jack as Kid Kansas attempts to sing over their chit-chat
1:50: Tom fades down the Kid Kansas/Captain Jack chaos and “duets” with Aimee Mann
1:54: Tom tries to pick up the Michael Jackson thread again, but Kid Kansas returns; Tom wants to know “why are you killing me like this?”, and he performs another duet with Ms. Mann
1:59: Stan briefs Tom on a Smoking Gun report about Michael Jackson; Tom emphasizes he only has an issue with the piling on about the non-criminal aspects of MJ’s character, and Dateline‘s cheesy graphics; Tom notes he dug his way out of the snow and drove 3 hours to take this abuse; Stan shares some glimpses from the recent anti-war march in Manhattan; Tom wishes Kid Kansas and the “play some more music, dude!” girl were attacked with pepper spray as the protesters were; Stan admits he might be tempted to put pepper spray on food
2:06: Gord calls from outside Neil Peart’s childhood home, voices his approval for Sam Seder
2:10: Captain Jack calls back and clarifies he is not Kid Kansas; his nautical talk makes Tom scream and hang up
2:11: Ken from the Shake-It Shack says he has Tom’s wallet, but it turns out to be another crank call from The Crank Dog; Tom duets with Aimee Mann yet again
2:16: Mark wants a symposium on why Kid Kansas is awful; Tom wonders if giving him more air time is wise, hangs up on Mark when his phone starts to die; John Conte will be appearing in studio shortly; Tom whispers to himself to hold it together for the next 40 minutes; in a disturbing, whispered monologue, Tom realizes doesn’t remember the first 2 hours and 20 minutes of his show
2:20: Tom angrily orders John Conte’s documenter, Jim, to leave the studio; Pete in Springfield found Tom’s whispered monologue unsettling; Tom has no memory of anything after shoveling his driveway, feels like jumping out of his skin or jumping off the roof of the radio station; Pete thinks The Best Show could turn into The Tom Scharpling Death Watch; Tom longs for the danger inherent in being Michael Jackson’s son
2:24: music: The Clean, “Whatever I Do, It’s Right”, John Cale, “Gideon’s Bible”; back announce
2:31: Tom welcomes a triumphant John Conte into the studio to discuss his record-breaking piano playing streak, the crazy acts that accompanied him, the high points/low points, and the pre- and post-record-breaking hoopla; if John and Jim can’t get distribution for their latest film, John will walk across America, which Tom is convinced will be the death of him; outro

02.25.2003

Start: theme, music: Teenage Fanclub, “Everything Flows”, Sally Crewe and the Sudden Moves, “The Loan Sharks”, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, “(Do Not Feed the) Oyster”, Nicole Kidman, “Someday I’ll Fly Away”; back announce; preview of interview with comic book artiste Mike Allred
0:25: tonight a winner of the art contest shall be crowned!; Tom wishes associate producer Matt a happy birthday; Tom culls the wheat from the chaff and determines the art contest finalists
0:42: Petey channels Kid Kansas via Eminem, talks about his new comics; Tom previews the annual WFMU “Fun”-Raiser, wants listeners to suggest a gimmick for week one
0:50: The Subsonics, “Chase You Back Under My Skin”, Shelly Duvall, “He Needs Me”, Small Faces, “Tin Soldier”, Silkworm, “Nerves”; back announce
1:05: Tom interviews comic artist Mike Allred about gaining and losing audiences, “classic” comic book style, indy vs. Marvel comics, Robert Rodriguez, the palatial desert estates of Penn and Teller, working with his wife, and the ever-expanding Madman universe; Mike takes calls from listeners
2:12: music: Guitar Wolf, “Gion Midnight”, The Outsiders, “That’s Your Problem”; back announce
2:20: Tom interviews Matthew Tompkins, head of programming at the Shout! Network [JW], about his channel’s insane spring lineup, from detective shows like “Jerry Van Dyke’s Crime Crunchers”, reality shows like “Drink This”, documentary programs like “The Other Side of the Music” (with a special retrospective on The Jump ‘N the Saddle Band), and a TV movie penned by Philly Boy Roy called “The Gangs of Philadelphia” [Best Show Gems, 04.06.09]
2:56: Tom winnows down the art contest field to the final finalists and announces the winner: an insane drawing by Petey of Tom with Officer Tom, Dogmo, The Gorch, and other Best Show regulars; Tom thanks all the contestants; what should Tom do for the WFMU marathon?; outro

03.04.2003

Start: theme; it’s week one of the WFMU Marathon, being videotaped for posterity! Tom will not start the show until he gets a call!
0:04: music: Rolling Stones, “Monkey Man”, Volcano Suns, “Testify”
0:14: Tom returns to the strains of “Carmina Burana” and welcomes his co-host, Hova; Tom explains his premium as Hova thanks pledgers; Tom plays Jim Broadbent in an attempt to get the phones ringing; CD giveaway: Silkworm
0:27: music: Silkworm, “The Brain”
0:31: more pledge thanks; Tom wants to give away some hot Brooklyn rock (The Rogers Sisters), but does Brooklyn rock?; Tom blows up at distracted phone slaves when they don’t applaud for Mouse pledges, threatens to bring out “the bucket” and force them to contribute money (“You don’t have to like me, but you will respect me!”); Hova explains the WFMU premiums and Tom talks about The Best of the Best Show premium, which includes The Gorch’s tour diary, “Get on the Rascal” and a live set from Soundtracapella
0:43: music: The Rogers Sisters, “Delayed Reaction”
0:46: more pledge thanks; Tom threatens to kibosh someone from the phone room if they don’t exhibit the proper phone room spirit; Tom challenges Hova to name a band from a short clip; Hova guesses Red Kross in two guesses, which just so happens to be the next giveaway, along with a 2-CD set of The White Stripes’ Elephant
0:58: music: Red Kross, “Peach Kelli Pop”, White Stripes, “Expecting”, Sally Crewe and the Sudden Moves, “The Loan Sharks”
1:06: more pledge thanks; Tom leads a shameless “USA!” chant; the show hits a lull, and Tom threatens to talk in a weird high pitched voice until they pick up; Tom describes an awesome grand prize: an Adult Swim Fun Pack; next giveaway: 2-CD set of The Velvet Underground and Nico; Tom intros the phone slaves to the radio and video audience
1:22: Tom notices one phone slave surrounded with many empty beer bottles, who turns out to be Philly Boy Roy [JW]; Roy thinks he won his football bet with Tom, despite all evidence to the contrary, and has taken pledge money for his own use; Roy wants to hear some more Philly rock because “rock was born in Philly”
1:32: music: Velvet Underground, “Sunday Morning”; the next callers will get to talk to a pretty girl or Philly Boy Roy!; Tom plays the Hinterland Probalities’ version of Petey’s “Tommy Theme”; more pledge thank yous; Philly Boy Roy still thinks people are pledging to him, not WFMU; he offers Tom some Tastykakes and explains how he force-feeds them to his kids; Roy plays a track from his Philly rock compilation: The Hooters’ “And We Danced” (“they’re our Rolling Stones!”); Roy talks up the Hooters-inspired supergroup, Hazilian Bazyman
1:52: Tom counters with Jersey rock: Yo La Tengo, “Sugarcube”
1:55: more pledge thanks; Roy says Officer Tom sucks, which immediately prompts a retaliatory call from Officer Tom, who thinks all music from Philly should be thrown in a woodchipper; more pledge thanks; Tom threatens to talk in a weird voice again until the phones pick up; prizes: The Onion’s The Tenacity of the Cockroach and Guitar Wolf’s UFO Romantics
2:17: music: Guitar Wolf, “Gion Midnight”
2:21: Hova testifies to the tastiness of Tastykakes; more pledge thank yous; Philly Boy Roy waxes poetic about dancing in the Mummers Parade and giving beer to minors; the latest tracks to prove Philly’s musical superiority: “Let’s Go to the Hop” and “Parents Just Don’t Understand”; Tom counters with Run DMC, which horrifies Roy (“They’re doin nothin but braggin! We’re humble in Philly!”); Tom plays Springsteen, which does not impress Roy as much as Cinderella (“This takes me back to the Jamesway parking lot!”); he declares Todd Rundgren as “the best Philly has to offer”; if Tom doesn’t get 10 more pledges in 10 minutes, he will give Roy his show; Roy gives a preview of his Philly-centric show; Tom gets 10 pledges just under the wire; Roy accuses him of having “inside information” and leaves to the tune of Hall and Oates’ “You Make My Dreams Come True”
2:41: more thank yous; some confusion over the number of pledgers (a pro-Philly pledge makes things complicated) brings Philly Boy Roy back to the studio to play The Oak Ridge Boys as the pinnacle of Philly music; to resolve the dispute, Tom challenges himself to get three pledges in one minute; he makes it and has Philly Boy Roy thrown out, but another pro-Philly pledge confuses things yet again and brings Roy back; Tom challenges himself to do 12 pledges in nine minutes; Roy wants Terre T to wear “something a little skimpier”; Tom plays some Mummies to stir up pledges; more thank yous; Tom reaches his goal and Philly Boy Roy is vanquished!; outro

03.11.2003

Start: theme; music: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Machine”, KISS, “Shock Me”
0:10: Tom begins his second week of the WFMU Marathon with co-host Terre T; Tom will be on an exercise bike for the entire show, but he will only pedal if the phones ring!; pledge thank yous; Tom desperately tries to reduce the tension on his exercise bike; he will automatically pedal for 5 straight minutes for each Mouse pledge; as the pledges roll in, Tom sings along with Ewan MacGregor
0:25: music: The Bangs, “[?]”, “[?]”;
0:29: pledge thank yous; Tom’s knees are already on fire
0:37: music: Comet Gain, “Really Stay”
0:41: Tom welcomes The Stitch and Bitch Cartel to the airwaves; if The Best Show gets to a certain $ goal, the ladies will take a hit of “female Viagra”!; pledge thank yous and giveaways as Tom pedals for his life
1:00: music: The Styrenes, “Drano in Your Veins”, The Dogs, “Here Comes My Babe”
1:04: back announce; more pedaling and thank yous; The Best Show reaches its goal, and Tom commands all male phone slaves who did not pledge must take the female Viagra (something they are apparently eager to do)
1:24: music: Elf Power, “[?]”; Tom demands a pledge before he’ll continue with the hot rock; Glass Candy, “Love Love Love”
1:31: the female Viagra does not seem to have the desired effects for either gender; pledge thank yous; Tom says much-hated FriendsofTom.com message board member Purple Shirt is willing to take abuse via phone for pledges; Tom does not want to duet with Aimee Mann tonight
1:45: music: Radio Birdman, “Anglo Girl Desire”
1:49: more pledge thank yous; Tom doesn’t want any more pledges, because that means he has to keep pedaling; for a Mouse Pledge, Tom will sing Aimee Mann while pedaling fast; Tom is fading fast as the pledges fly in
2:08: music: The Greenhornes, “Three Faint Calls”, The Maggots, “Let’s Go in ’69”
2:13: back announce; pledge thank yous; Terre T reads anti-Tom/Best Show listener feedback; Tom commands Friends of Tom to react to this unreasonable prejudice and pledge in kind, as “Eye of the Tiger” plays
2:26: music: Mink Lungs, “Think of Me”
2:30: pledge pleas as Tom commands phone slaves to “shake the pockets” of callers; Tom continues to fade, and Andrew W.K. is summoned to give him energy; pledge thank yous; Tom insists he can get $1500 in the last 15 minutes!
2:46: music: The Cheater Slicks, “[?]”
2:48: the prizes and pledges fly in furiously!
2:53: music: James Kochalka, “Hockey Monkey”, cut short for lack of phones; Tom threatens to “choke the life” out of anyone who dares call in next week but didn’t pledge; with minutes left, Tom reaches his goal of $7000! hoorah!

03.18.2003 [Best Show Uncovered, Vol. 1]

[Theme; music: Trumans Water, “Empty Queen II”, Midnight Snake, “Ambassadors of Throttle”, C Average, “Star Hawk”]
Start: back announce; Tom needs a call to test the phones
0:04: caller [JW] screams “ANDREW W.K. ROCKS!” and “SCREW YOU!”, then hangs up
0:05: emailer thinks Tom’s mic is distorting; Tom figures he will just have to work through the distortion; further attempts at testing the phones prove fruitless;
0:08: Tom wants to tie up one loose end: the poll on FriendsofTom.com about who should be banned from the message board forever; the answer: Gargoyla; Tom wants Gargoyla to call in for a send-off
0:11: Gargoyla [JW] feels really bad about getting voted off the message board, runs down the list of all the other sites he’s been banned from; he considers other message board members his best friends, despite the violent threats he launched their way; Officer Tom calls in to zing Gargoyla on his way out; Tom considers booting Purple Shirt from the message board
0:21: Officer Tom stays on the line; he was tempted to shakedown drug dealers to support WFMU during the marathon, but it proved unnecessary; he gives a quick blast on his squad car siren; station announcements
0:23: Purple Shirt calls in to defend himself, does not like a message board avatar of a guy in a purple shirt getting hit by a car, threatens to get Gargoyla back on the message board; Tom GOMPs him
0:25: Tom thanks marathon pledgers; emailer Jenny shares some inappropriate behavior from Gargoyla
0:28: Tom calls out caller for trying to tape her call; she wants to expose a “shakedown” at the Brooklyn Home Depot, but Tom thinks “someone” just can’t get a job at Home Depot; Tom hangs up when caller gets antsy about giving her real name, gives instructions to anyone who might be listening to this tape in the future on how to properly shame her
0:34: Sean in Burbank calls in from the Warner Bros. studio; Brett Ratner’s talentlessness is discussed, as are Sean’s B-list celebrity sightings; Tom wants Superman movie dirt and Sean offers to dig through trash for him; Sean shares recent changes in the Shamrock Shake, whose new color he compares to that of Dweezil Zappa’s guitar
0:40: Daisy (whose name confuses Tom for some reason) wants to know which movie made him want to tear his eyes out more: Red Dragon or Lord of the Rings?; Tom sides with LOTR for its sheer length; Daisy’s husband pretends to be angry and yell at her, which Tom believes has ruined the phone call; Tom recounts some Hoof and Mouth Sinfonia performances
0:46: Sathington calls; Tom blasts him for saying he was sick of the marathon; Sathington talks about bidding on a piece of a former Primus drummer’s kit; Tom dubs Primus the Weird Al of prog rock; Sathington recommends a track off of Pork Soda, which Tom does not like, but they agree to disagree; Sathington talks about his own “experimental music” CD
[music: Folk Implosion, “Coral”, Subsonics, “Doublecrosser”, The BeeGees, “Lonely Days”, Iron Knowledge, “Showstopper”, Frank Black and the Catholics, “Suffering”]
0:55: back announce; reminiscing about The Hoof and Mouth Sinfonia and marathon hijinks; station announcements;
1:01: Tom attempts to shock Hova, who recognizes him immediately; Joe Belock gets shocked instead; a few more aborted shock attempts before shocking Mike Lupica, Belinda, Terre T, and Toddophonic Todd in succession; Tom then shocks Mike Lupica again for a double dip
[music: Guitar Wolf, “UFO Romantics”, Sly Stone, “Ain’t That Loving You Baby”, Laid Back, “White Horse”]
1:19: back announce
1:22: Petey has been sick but is feeling better, introduces more Petey language to the world, and revels in his super Adult Swim fun pack that he won for designing the Best Show premium CD cover; Tom recommends an exercise to help Petey’s tired eyes; Petey defends Sathington and talks about their supergroup; Tom wonders why Sathington’s name is in the band name and Petey’s isn’t; Tom wants to form a band with Petey called The Tommy Band with Petey, has some very specific ideas about the font sizes of their respective names in the band logo
1:30: Kevin Purcey [AE] checks in after a long time; after robbing a dreamcatcher kiosk at a mall and shooting a security guard in the hand; now he’s on the lam at Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo resort; Tom urges him to turn himself in
[Bill Chippert of the Chippert Report [JW] wants some quotes from Tom for an article he’s writing on “toilet rock”, a musical genre Tom’s never heard of; it turns out Chippert has not only already written and published an article featuring “quotes” from Tom, but also painted him as the genre’s “foremost proponent” (“The Chippert Report”, New Hope for the Ape-Eared)]
1:39: emailers seem to think this is one of the worst Best Shows ever
1:40: Pete thinks Tom’s doing a great job, does not think this is the worst Best Show ever; his vote is for the night Tom felt like throwing himself out the window; Pete thinks Chicago might be the best movie of 2002; Tom recalls how he renounced his American citizenship to become a Canadian; the ham-handedness of Gangs of New York and more great movies of the past year; Tom thinks Pete has a Dave Emory quality to his voice; where does Attack of the Clones rank on the Star Wars movie continuum?; the two-way tie for last that is Kathy Bates and Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt
1:55: a pro-LOTR email prompts an anti-LOTR rant from Tom; outro

03.25.2003

Start: Tom commands the scratchy record to stop and start on cue, trades some political banter with it; theme; music: Clark Hutchinson, “Free to Be Stoned”, The Action, “Look at the View”, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, “Do Not Feed the Osyter”
0:23: back announce; Open Phone Tuesday is back! Tom wants to talk about the story everyone can’t get enough of: The Spurs beating the Lakers! or we can talk about the Iraq War instead
0:29: Gord is feeling down; Tom wants to learn about hockey, but Gord is more of a curling and bowling guy; Tom tells a bowling story that sounds suspiciously like a mashup of the plots to Saturday Night Fever and First Blood; Gord and Tom sing the praises of 24 Hour Party People, though Gord was not a huge fan of Steve Coogan’s portrayal of Tony Wilson; Tom says he was at the legendary Sex Pistols show in Manchester, but walked out because he wanted to see a Jade Warrior tribute band; Gord schools Tom on Trailer Park Boys
0:41: Tom swaps one Canadian for another and asks Chris to teach him about hockey and explain why he doesn’t care for basketball; Tom wonders if Canadians are trained from birth to see the puck; Chris explains the insanity of Bobby Clarke, famed member of The Broad Street Bullies; Tom suspects Philly Boy Roy will never call back ever again; Tom announces he will shelve Doc Shock for a new harassing persona, to be revealed later
0:54: Peter wants Tom to quickly sing “Wise Up” to cheer up his mom, but Tom can only do it if Kid Kansas calls in; Tom asks Peter’s mom if he ever made her so mad he had to pick out his own switch; Tom tries to make their dogs go nuts, to no avail
1:00: Dave Emory sound-alike Pete urges peace on the FOT message board, shares a few slogans that go over like a lead balloon; Tom promises much more violent stunts for next year’s marathon
1:06: Kenny Dupree [JW], a country singer/songwriter from Houston, wants Tom’s support for his new uber-patriotic single, “Freedom Bombs”, written in response to the Dixie Chicks’ anti-Bush comments; when Tom has no interest in doing so, Kenny dubs him “Taliban Tom” [Best Show Gems, 8/6/12]
1:37: music: Tom Dae Turned On, “I Shall Walk On”, The Subsonics, “I Will Walk Alone”, New Order, “Age of Consent”, The Washington Fliers, “The Comets are Coming”
1:51: back announce; Tom talks about the strange, reserved pall cast over this year’s Oscars in the wake of the start of the war in Iraq, thought Michael Moore’s screed was clumsy but is glad somebody said something; Tom contrasts boos for Moore with cheers for convicted rapist Roman Polanski; stay tuned for a trivia contest on FriendsofTom.com!; Tom hopes people can talk about positive stuff on the message board;
2:05: Tom wants to start some chanting that has nothing to do with war, calls up Hova with an anti-Greasy Kids Stuff chant; call up Tom and he will chant against anything you think has to go
2:08: caller wants to chant against belief in gods, but can’t sell his conviction
2:08: Petey suggests George Bush, but Tom suggests an anti-homework chant instead; Petey’s got a new guitar, debuts a new song (“Death by Hand Cream”); its excruciating length causes Tom to start chanting against it; Tom compares Petey to a young Jad Fair
2:15: caller chants against “vapid chanting”
2:16: Sean in Burbank compares Petey to a young Captain Beefheart; Tom contemplates signing him to a 40-year contract; Sean suggests Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman on DVD to heal the nation, chants against Boston Chicken, wants to do a “Hollywood Challenge” where he calls from an undisclosed location that Tom must guess
2:19: caller chants against “Melissa Rivers”; Tom breaks down his overly enunciated chant
2:20: Message Board Paul chants against Rutgers University and “the RU screw”; Tom suggests defacing the restrooms in retaliation (“Just miss, that’s all I’m saying.”)
2:22: Tom unsuccessfully tries to protest against Eva, then chants against Mike Lupica and the Hip Transistor; after another failed attempt, Tom protests Brian Turner; email protests; Tom declares Open Phone Tuesday for the remainder of the show
2:28: Glass Candy, “Love Love Love”, Yello, “Bostich”, 50 Cent, “In Da Club” (a minor concession to requests for The Party Zone); back announce
2:40: Officer Tom checks in, suggests movies as an escape from regular life, while Tom recommends breaking into cars in movie theater parking lots; Officer Tom shares an anecdote about a car crash that turns into a “moldy oldie” cop joke; Officer Tom wants to see House of 1000 Corpses, but call screener Matt (who has advance word) strongly warns against it; the last movie Matt walked out on was Goodburger; Officer Tom recounts his agony at having to bring The Underling to see The Pokemon Movie; Officer Tom reads off some police call codes; Tom discusses the fear-mongering Brinks Security commercial; Officer Tom reveals a policeman’s bathroom options; Tom shares all the items he’s stolen from cop cars, including four cage dividers, and discusses his love of Luke Cage and other early 70s Marvel Comics heroes, despite the fact they were clearly written by 60-year-old white dudes desperately trying to cash in on trends; Officer Tom says he loves everyone on the message board, with the extreme exception of Purple Shirt
2:57: email; Tom urges restraint and calm before attempting another protest call; outro

04.01.2003

Start: Tail end of Antique Phonograph Music Program
0:01: Tom introduces “The Patriot Zone”, extreme conservative talk hosted by Colonel Thomas Sharp, replete with spaghetti Western-esque theme music; The Colonel discusses what it means to be a patriot, mentions a man in Fieldsboro, NJ who was forced to take down his flag because it was “un-American”
0:07: caller wants The Colonel to define patriotism in his own terms; The Colonel says he “believes in this country, no matter what”; when caller disagrees, The Colonel thinks he’d be better off in Baghdad
0:08: caller and The Colonel lament the fact that US troops can’t raise American flags in Iraq
0:10: Johnny from Brooklyn thinks The Colonel is just playing devil’s advocate “for show-biz reasons”, thinks he should get over to Iraq (“I’ll go over as soon as they let me!”); The Colonel hangs up on him, declaring him to be not a patriot; another caller from Brooklyn gets hung up on for toilet talk
0:12: caller [SS] confuses The Patriot Zone for The New England Patriots Zone and wants to talk about football trades
0:14: caller thinks it’s stupid to call anyone un-American
0:15: angry caller wants to know if The Colonel volunteered on 9-11; The Colonel insists he was in “section 8”
0:16: caller can’t find any info on the Fieldsboro story, wants to know where the whole yellow ribbon thing started
0:18: caller thinks the yellow ribbon “fad” came from the Tony Orlando song
0:20: caller says yellow ribbons date back as far as The Civil War; another hang up
0:21: caller salutes The Colonel, thinks the yellow ribbons are a Soviet communist conspiracy; his color-based theories intrigue The Colonel;
0:23: The Colonel laments the fact that Michael Moore is “almost worshiped as a god” for making movies that “celebrate” Columbine
0:25: Major Upset thinks yellow ribbons came from the Iranian hostages; they argue the finer points of the hostage crisis; The Colonel hangs up on him for mentioning drugs
0:27: Captain Gregor starts to get very philosophical, until The Colonel insists it’s all “the good guys vs. the bad guys”
0:29: caller wonders if The Colonel is Bill O’Reilly, who The Colonel considers “too wishy-washy”; The Colonel hangs up on him for mentioning rock and roll
0:30: caller [Terre T] tries to correct The Colonel’s interpretation of Bowling for Columbine, but The Colonel hangs up on her for “using a dirty word”
0:32: caller wonders what The Colonel is a colonel in; The Colonel hangs up on him for “bad language”
0:32: caller wonders why he calls it The Patriot Zone if “zone” is a French-derived word (“it’s not theirs anymore, it’s ours!”)
0:33: The Colonel is insulted by a caller who wonders if he’s related to Howard Stern
0:34: caller wonders how close The Patriot Zone is to the No-Spin Zone
0:34: caller reminds The Colonel that France helped America in the Revolutionary War; another caller thinks this is the best radio he’s heard in a long time
0:35: The Colonel blasts Michael Moore’s “profanity-laced Academy Award acceptance speech” and George Clooney
0:36: yellow ribbon caller calls back to tell The Colonel that “zone” comes from Middle English, not French, but “patriot” is a French word; The Colonel is confused by his pronunciation of the word “root”
0:38: Jimmy Aiello (son of Danny) wants people to come to his apartment to get around the new smoking ban in NYC
0:40: caller wonders what the Bizarro World Michael Moore would look like; The Colonel doesn’t want to talk in abstractions
0:42: caller thinks he can take down The Colonel because he knows his “secret recipe”; The Colonel talks about doing his show on a carrier-current station out of Newbridge Community College; a few abandoned calls
0:44: caller can’t believe how many “hippie freaks” are calling in, thinks they should be dispelled with a machine gun sound effect
0:44: caller shares the patriotic spectacle of WrestleMania XIX; The Colonel hangs up on him when he goes into too much depth about the event’s finer points
0:48: The Colonel reports seeing a 4-year-old girl holding up a sign that said “I hate America” at an “anti-troops rally”
0:50: caller thinks the Tony Orlando song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” was about a guy getting out of jail
0:51: caller wonders if The Colonel trusts the media; The Colonel says he only trusts FOX News
0:52: another caller with a yellow ribbon theory, this one via Texas, also tries to correct The Colone on the background of the Iranian hostage crisis, which he does not take kindly to
0:54: Steve Bouchon of the Oxygen Network [SS] loves The Patriot Zone and his bumper sound effect, shares some more yellow ribbon theories, and talks about how great the Iraq War is for television, as well as his plans for war-themed programming
1:04: Philanthropist Phil wants to know why The Colonel has a problem with “love grass” and tries to school him on its finer points, which he does not appreciate
1:07: music: Darryl Worley, “Have You Forgotten”
1:12: Isaac wants to know how long The Patriot Zone has been open; The Colonel hopes he can parlay his WFMU spot into a gig with New Jersey 101.5, and believes conservative talk show hosts are “an endangered species”
1:16: Petey says he loves The Patriot Zone and President Bush, but sounds strangely out of breath; The Colonel adds “chime time” to his show, with sound effects
1:18: caller from Norway wants to read a poem, which The Colonel will not allow
1:19: caller wants to know what a Spin Zone is, prefers The Phantom Zone
1:20: The Colonel discusses France and why they hate America
1:23: Price Whittaker [AE], writer/producer of Docs, congratulates The Colonel and talks about an anti-French ad he produced; The Colonel thinks America should either send back the Statue of Liberty or dismantle it
1:27: The Sarge agrees 100 percent, is sponsoring a CD exchange where people can swap their Dixie Chicks albums for Kenny Dupree
1:29: caller thinks we should invade France and take the Eiffel Tower; is the Eiffel Tower a statue, and if so, what is it a statue of?
1:30: Corporal O’Really wants to wrap up the Statue of Liberty in a huge red, white, and blue body bag and send it back; The Colonel previews an upcoming guest
1:31: callers says the Eiffel Tower is a radio antenna
1:31: music: SSgt. Barry Sadler, “Ballad of the Green Berets”; Department of Homeland Security PSAs
1:37: The Colonel welcomes Dr. Medesto Hevia [sp?] to differences between the genders in terms of how they view and deal with war and conflict
1:47: Steve Bouchon calls back, thinks the doctor is “a total crackpot” because according to his research, women are “really into this war”
1:52: The Colonel continues and concludes the interview
2:00: caller tries to confront The Colonel, gets hung up on for calling him “kid”; The Colonel wonders if the French are “sick”, hangs up on another caller because he sounds like he’s on drugs
2:03: music: [?]
2:07: CC Tennessee [?], The Colonel’s Utica counterpart, commends The Colonel on a job well done, fears Utica may be next on the terrorists’ hit list, and promotes an anti-protest protest starring Benny Mardones
2:30: Travis from Mobile, Alabama [AE] shares an argument with a coworker over Wilco, the Dixie Chicks and Michael Moore, believes freedom of speech only covers your own house
2:35: caller wants to defend Wilco, while The Colonel believes there are limits to freedom of speech; The Colonel has a few errors trying to play the chime time sound effect
2:39: caller in a bunker debunks the myth of free speech and exposes the “Clinton-Gore-Moore axis”; what’s the deal with Canadians and that red pot leaf on their flag?
2:47: caller thinks people should be free to prove themselves morons in public
2:48: caller thinks Steve Bouchon was a bit over the top and wonders if anyone really loves war; The Colonel insists he does
2:49: caller thinks liberals hide behind the Constitution, gets cut off by a crappy phone
2:51: caller reports seeing shirts that say “French of Speech”; The Colonel predicts a war between “us and them”; The Colonel hopes he can use this show as an audition tape, promotes VetolaFrance.com
2:54: caller wonders about The Colonel’s favorite weapon of choice
2:55: caller gives The Colonel “mega-echoes”
2:56: caller discusses giving back the Statue of Liberty
2:56: caller wants to send all Iraqis to hell because they’re “Moslems”; The Colonel shares a disturbing French web site involving a toilet and an American flag
2:59: caller is disturbed that The Colonel is on WFMU, gets hung up on for toilet talk
2:59: caller wants to expel all Muslims without proper papers
3:00: outro

04.08.2003

Start: theme, music: The Melvins, “Grinding Process”, Vertigo, “Fire Escape”, The Action, “Look at the View”, Lynn Carey and Barbara Robison, “Find It”, Jackie Mittoo, “30-60-90”; back announce
0:24: Dave wants to know what the bed music is; Tom says it was played by his band, The Medical Marijuana; Tom thanks The Colonel for filling in for him last week, though he didn’t hear the show; the Patriot Zone may soon return in smaller doses
0:26: Tom wants to recruit new regular callers and will audition them tonight
0:30: Brooks is in NY to play with his band, wants to audition as a regular caller; Tom wants to know crazy road stories, but thinks he’s just using the show as a promotion for his gig, encourages listeners to visit the show and throw fruit at them
0:32: Gregger wants to be a regular caller; he self-applied his nickname, which fascinates Tom
0:35: Zack agrees this is The Best Show on WFMU; Tom explains how that title was (confusingly) foisted upon him by the people; Zack wants to be the show’s Fact Man; they discuss Brooks’ unwise show promotion ideas and how far from over the Iraq War is; Zack suggests a religious debate on Tom’s show, while Tom recounts Michael Savage’s bad Bible quoting; Tom declares Zack a regular caller
0:44: Christa brings up C.S. Lewis and communism, but Tom doesn’t want to talk about heavy stuff, so they discuss TV; Christa hates the telephone ads with Alf and Carrot Top; Tom puts Christa on the regular caller shortlist
0:48: caller wants to be the poet laureate of The Best Show; he can’t think of a poem to recite, but he did pick up Our Band Could Be Your Life after hearing Tom’s interview with Michael Azzerad
0:53: Gregger calls back, wanting to read from the Koran, but Tom doesn’t want any heavy stuff tonight
0:54: Chris from Maryland praises Tom and insists he’s not a fawning sycophant, even though Tom has no problem with that
0:55: Brian wants to be a regular caller who brings a lot of negativity to the table; thanks to an email request, Tom flushes him
0:56: Tim wants to know the name of the “foxy” DJ who was on the air the night before, wants to be a regular caller but gets into an argument with Tom on the appropriateness of protest in a time of war; Tom GOMPs him for insisting “you gotta” a bit too much, then GOMPs the next caller in a bit of collateral damage
1:05: Zack offers to be a Best Show correspondent in Detroit and give updates on local celebrities like Meg White, schools Tom on some good local bands
1:08: Mike from Hunchback wants to know if Tom really wants to start up The Medical Marijuana; Tom recruits Mike as his first bandmate
1:10: caller plays Mudhoney song he thinks sounds like the bed music; Tom does not appreciate the accusation
1:11: Ned is peeved by people who don’t even try to pronounce foreign names; Tom compares his god-like powers to those of Thor
1:13: drummer for The Rubber Band wants to join The Medical Marijuana; as Tom recounts his eclectic tastes, the drummer goes off on a weird anti-Iraqi rant
1:15: caller discusses the self-fulfilling importance of military action; Tom continues to rail against the “ya gotta!” argument
1:18: music: The Clone Defects, “Stray Boy”, Ewan MacGregor, “Your Song”, Sonic Youth, Genetic””; back announce
1:31: Tom wants to prank call someone with a famous name, and picks someone named Bruce Willis from the phone book; Bruce [JW] has been going through some tough times and seems oblivious to the fact that he’s being made fun of; Tom gets Bruce to do a station ID for him [Best Show Gems, 06.28.10]
1:37: Chris from Wayne decries the lack of local punk shows; Tom and him duet on “Chop Suey”; Chris wants to “give Petey a run for his money”, while Tom insists that Petey would “turn your face into hamburger”
1:42: Bruce Willis calls back; he realizes Tom was making fun of his name and he’s very upset, calling Tom “a piece of filth”; Tom apologizes, but Bruce refuses to accept it and promises to “cut down” Tom in increasingly scary ways (such as draining all his blood)
1:47: Sathington assures Tom that he’s not a piece of filth, says he just saw The Ring; Tom imagines Sathington crying in terror
1:49: Bruce Willis calls back in tears, apologizing for his previous call, blaming it on all the stress he’s been under lately
1:52: caller recommends Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions, though he hasn’t finished it, Tom tries to ruin the ending for him
1:54: Bruce Willis calls back in an insane, screaming rage; he’s decided he’s still angry and threatens Tom in increasingly scary ways (“I’M GONNA MAKE YOU EAT A LAWNMOWER!!”)
1:58: Klaus wants to be a regular caller but begs Tom to play some music, wants to hear Volcano Suns; Tom suspects he is not a true Volcano Suns fan
2:01: Randy in West Orange gives a endless string of shoutouts, wants to talk about the Super Bowl; Tom tries to steer the conversation to basketball, but takes Randy to task over his opinions of Tim Duncan and Shaq
2:06: Petey announces he has become a vegan, and is also a cannibal; he has eaten “Muffler”; Tom fears for his sanity (“Puberty’s hitting you pretty hard, isn’t it?”); Tom thinks Petey and Sathington are in the band Yatta;  Petey fears he’ll die after seeing The Ring, but Tom reassures him; Tom yells at emailer who yelled at him for “ruining” The Ring for him; Tom suggests moving in with Petey for a day and filming, but gets creeped out by Petey’s Dad’s level of enthusiasm for the idea;
2:17: music: Los Mockers, “Captain Gray”, [?], Volcano Suns, “[?]”, [?], Grady Clark, “I Got Six”, Joe Bataan, “Subway Joe”, Ananda Shankar, “Streets of Calcutta”, Glass Candy, “Hurt”, The Fall, “Drago’s Guilt”, Mel Richards, “Blue Monk”, Michael Nesmith, “Nevada Fighter”, Neu, “[?]”; Black Ops, filling in for Tom, does the back announce

04.15.2003

Start: theme, music: The White Stripes, “There’s No Home for You Here”, Buffalo Springfield, “Expecting to Fly”, Volcano Suns, “Barricade”, The Music Explosion, “Let Yourself Go”; back announce
0:20: Tom previews another appearance by Colonel Thomas Sharp and The Patriot Zone; Tom is disappointed by the lack of follow-up from the potential new regular callers from the previous week and the lack of chatroom activity (except for Petey)
0:26: three-year-old Caleb calls in (accidentally, apparently) for the first time since he sang “Jingle Bells” on the air; Tom talks to his mom and resists the temptation to GOMP him
0:29: “JJ McClure” checks in with a Burt Reynolds laugh to discuss the Ringo Starr vehicle “Caveman”; Tom wonders if Randy Johnson had a role in that film; Tom and JJ discuss the upsetting-in-retrospect rape scene in Revenge of the Nerds
0:34: Chris from Wayne, hopeful Petey usurper, touts his WFMU Record Fair purchases, wonders why “kids like to act like they’re from the ghetto”; Chris’s comments, knowingly or not, tread a very fine line, though he insists he doesn’t have “any problems” with black people; Tom GOMPs him, thinks his life sounds like a Bad Religion song
0:40: Sathington insists he and Petey will destroy Chris; Tom was disturbed the picture Petey made for Officer Tom, which showed Officer Tom pushing Purple Shirt into a woodchipper; Tom is reassured by Sathington’s insistence that he won’t kill anyone, less so by the fact that his teacher’s think he’s a Nazi; his explanations of the situation are not any more reassuring, and Tom GOMPS him
0:43: caller worries about Chris; Tom is disturbed by his smoker’s cough and encourages him to stop, and to also stop rationalizing his unhealthy behavior; they have a long back-and-forth about quitting, with a strange aside about an appearance on the Richard Bey Show
0:51: Peter from Middletown NY also wants to take Petey’s place, despite a large age difference; Peter thinks Chris’s life-as-Bad-Religion-song could use some more whoah-whoah-whoah’s; they discuss their favorite members of Bed Religion and Volcano Suns, and Tom launches on an extended recitation of the Volcano Suns’ members/discography; Peter wants to volunteer for the record fair, and Tom encourages him to do so
0:56: Chris calls back to insist he’s not a racist; he is apparently not aware of Trent Lott, Archie Bunker, and several other cultural figures; Tom GOMPs him yet again
0:59: music: The Rolling Stones, “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow”
1:01: it is now time for The Patriot Zone with Colonel Thomas Sharp; the Colonel denounces a poll of fourth graders where the #1 most admired person was Saddam Hussein; the Colonel repeats his desire to get a slot on NJ 101.5; The Colonel’s son reports a trend of high school kids wanting to grow mustaches to look like Saddam
1:14: Herbert Goering from the Center for Patriotic Studies [SS] calls in to share his completely impartial, Republican-funded research on protesters; he insists there are no more than 5000 actual anti-war protesters worldwide, who are also mostly anti-minority, unemployed, and have received treatment for pedophilia
1:35: caller wants to talk about a Spanish fascist movement, but The Colonel wants to know how many times he’s saluted the flag today
1:36: caller wants to talk about how wrong France and Germany was about the Iraq war; the Colonel agrees (“I think the only thing France and Germany are is next.”)
1:38: The Colonel welcomes country star Kenny Dupree [JW] to the studio; Kenny and The Colonel share a t-bone steak for their “victory feast”; Kenny sings his song “Freedom Bombs” and thinks the troops should put up ribbons to remember patriots like him and The Colonel who are left back here in America
1:56: The Colonel adds his final thoughts on patriotism; a caller wonders how Kenny spells his name and if it’s French; Kenny swears he would “bayonet” the caller if he was in the studio; The Colonel wants people to email him, but can’t read emails until the next time he gets to the library; The Patriot Zone closes with a rousing rendition of “The Stars and Stripes Forever”
2:02: music: Los Mockers, “Captain Gray”, Skunk, “Hots on for Susie”, The Monkees, “The Door into Summer”; Tom says he does not agree with The Patriot Zone but supports The Colonel’s right to free speech (and also the $175 he was paid to allow The Colonel on the air); back announce
2:16: Gord has relocated to Toronto (aka The Big Smoke); many American TV shows were filmed in his new ‘hood, as were the bumper segments for The Kids in the Hall; Tom swears he will return to the T-Dot; Gord shares scenes from outside the methadone clinic across the street, including a Tom Cochrane meltdown; Chris joins the call to discuss hockey, as Tom tries to name The Original Six; Tom thinks the Devils are going all the way to the cup, but Chris is not convinced; Chris saw a rascal outside a bar and fears The Gorch has come to Toronto
2:28: executive producer Matt says someone’s in the building to see Tom and won’t leave until he talks to him; Bruce Willis [JW] storms the studio in a rage, swearing he will “SMASH THIS PLACE UP!”; soon, he apologizes tearfully, then admits he likes the show and loves some of the “bits”; just as he leaves, he flies into a rage again about Tom “getting the best of him”; Bruce Willis turns animalistic and demands Tom’s wallet; Tom gets him to leave by giving him CDs, but Bruce swears he’ll be back
2:39: caller wants to hear some Joey Ramone on the 2-year anniversary of his death
2:40: Petey does his rendition of “Have You Forgotten”, reports on the jingoistic views of his classmates, but Bruce bursts back into the room; he was so charmed by Petey that he come back and talk to him; he is touched by Petey’s concern, but soon flies into a rage yet again; Petey drives him away by acting crazy; Petey talks about a crazy war-related poll
2:49: Jamie calls in to talk about Bruce Willis’s craziness; Bruce runs back, infuriated, but Jamie stands up for herself
2:51: Sathington calls, but Tom is afraid he’ll set off Bruce even more
2:52: Natalie calls just as Bruce Willis starts baying like a wolf; he thinks he can see Natalie because “I HAVE WOLF EYES!” and wants to eat her hand; after she hangs up, Bruce wants to eat Tom’s hand and actually bites him, then does a complete 180 and insists he was just kidding; Bruce storms away in a rage, and can still be heard barking at the moon from the parking lot
2:57: Tom starts to do an outro, but Bryce is nowhere to be found, so he tries to induce phone ringing
2:59: Sathington calls back; he wants Tom to name his new song, even though it’s 20 minutes long and involves a harp
3:06: Officer Tom calls in with his review of House of a 1000 Corpses, but his phone fails him
3:07: Stan from Matawan wants to do a phone-in audition for The Medical Marijuana [show ends at 3:09]

04.22.2003

No show

04.29.2003

No show

05.06.2003

No show

05.13.2003

No show

05.20.2003

No show

05.27.2003

Start: Tom has a dialogue with the Scratchy Record, who’s been using his child support money to invest in an Arthur Treacher’s franchise; theme; music: Fairport Convention, “Jack of Diamonds”, The Monkees, “As We Go Along”, Tim Buckley, “Song to the Siren”, Grandaddy, “The Crystal Lake”; The Best Show is back! Tom urges you to visit the Friends of Tom chat, as long as you’re not a pervert; back announce; Tom decides he wants to hear from Pete, thanks all those filled in for him during his prolonged absence
0:30: as commanded, Petey calls in; Tom demands a performance of Sammy Siggles; Tom notices Petey’s voice is cracking, which Petey denies; Petey recounts some school bullying and previews a new Suburbanal Cuts track, “Cauterized Petey”, which makes heavy use of guitar and back-scratcher; Tom threatens to pound Petey’s bully, though Petey’s frequent interruptions undermine the threat; Tom outlines a My Bodyguard-esque revenge on Petey’s bully and marvels at Petey’s Gene Simmons-like array of side projects; Tom still wants to make a movie with Petey, but balks when Petey insists it be called “The Petey Movie”; Petey says Sathington is going to “quit” the show because he thinks nobody likes him; Petey reports that he is picked on by everyone at school, even second graders
0:48: Tom warns Petey’s dad to not go into school and talk to the principal about Petey’s bully; Petey’s dad says he’ll take care of business, but Tom fears he may wind up getting a swirly from Petey’s bully
0:50: Tom is completely convinced that Petey’s dad will talk to the principal and make things way, way worse; Tom vows to show up at Petey’s school on a motorcycle to enact revenge; why do people in the chat want Tom to say hello to them?
0:52: 15-year-old Jamie checks in to share her own bullying experiences and how she got her life threatened in the second grade; she advises Petey to form a “geek alliance” to attain strength in numbers
1:00: Officer Tom will debut his listener hour on WFMU this Saturday: High Speed Pursuit with Officer Tom!; he reviews the new Matrix movie, wishes he was Neo so he could vanquish Purple Shirt like so many Agent Smiths
1:05: Purple Shirt joins the call; he “apologizes” for a “little fire” he may or may not have caused when trying to vandalize Officer Tom’s house; Tom suggests Purple Shirt and Officer Tom either shake hands over the airwaves, or take a Friends of Tom poll to determine who’s the alpha dog; whoever loses has to completely kowtow to the other for a year; Purple Shirt and Officer Tom immediately begin campaigning
1:13: music: Phantom Tollbooth (with Robert Pollard), “Mascara Snakes”, Cobra Verde, “Riot Industry”, Alice Cooper, “Clones (We’re All)”, The Numbers, “Insomnia”; back announce
1:29: Tom prank calls Kenny Dupree [JW], pretending to be Kenny Harrison from the Foundation for Honoring Iraq; he offers Kenny $1.2 million to write a pro-Iraq song that would be played at “anti-troops” rallied; within seconds, Kenny comes up with a lines blasting Bush, Cheney, and America’s “so-called freedom” (“We wipe ourselves with your flag and defecate on your Liberty Bell”); Kenny even considers a cabinet position in the “new regime” imagined by the FFHI; when Tom reveals the prank, Kenny insists that Tom has been zung by “Kenny Dupree’s Crazy Crank Calls”, a new show on the Shout! Network
1:54: Sathington swears this is his last call, because he won the Friends of Tom poll about whose house Purple Shirt should vandalize, and because he thinks Tom hates him; folks on the message board say they like him; Tom officially invalidates Purple Shirt’s poll and forbids Sathington from going away
2:00: Petey calls in and urges Sathington not to go away; Tom teases Petey about his rapidly deepening voice; Tom is incensed to find out that kids at Petey’s school are making fun of WFMU, but feels better when he finds out they’re not making fun of him; Sathington agrees he won’t leave the show, details the printing-related obstacles to him sending Tom a CD of his music; the fake loser-ness of Purple Shirt is discussed; Tom talks about how he stood up to a guy who didn’t like so many young callers on the show
2:13: Natalie promotes her web site; she gives a shout-out to Anti-Kansas Kid, who she talks to online; Tom worries AKK might really be 40 years old; Tom wonders what her favorite movie is, The Lizzie Maguire Movie?; no, she likes White Oleander and 80s movies like Heathers and The Goonies; Tom says Purple Shirt looks like Sloth
2:18: Tom has a special surprise on the Teen Chat Line: it’s Anti-Kansas Kid!; Natalie is disappointed because AKK said he sounded like Barry White; Tom schools the kids on Megaforce; AKK reports meeting Petey at a Media Play store; Tom says he’s planning a series of in-stores for Petey at various Atlanta Bread Company locations, and promises an appearance at the Willowbrook Mall some time in 2007
2:25: Chris in the Upper East Side disagree about the merits of Chris’s neighborhood; Chris is a bit creeped out by Petey, and Tom blasts him and his “ivory tower”; they marvel at the Devils’ performance in the Stanley Cup Finals; Tom laughs at his Canadian friends’ inability to correctly forecast the NHL playoffs; Tom adopts a Jim Rome-esque persona and wants Chris to verbally spar with a Canadian
2:32: Chris from Toronto calls in to argue, noting the preponderance of Canadian players in this year’s finals, and Chris from UES folds like a cheap suit; Tom calls out Chris from Toronto for saying the Leafs would win it all; Tom did not enjoy A Mighty Wind; Canadian Chris talks about how Toronto is dealing with the SARS outbreak
2:38: Chris passes the phone to Gord, who opens with a Newfie joke and an anecdote from Toronto eatery The Jug; Gord gives Tom the skinny on Canada’s new, relaxed drug laws; Tom confuses kvass (a bread-based drink) with poutine; Tom mentions that someone in the FOT chat thinks Gord is boring; Tom plots out exactly how the next few weeks of shows will go; Gord slips a reference to the Canadian band Saga
2:49: music: Cherry Valence, “”, Paul McCartnet, “Monkberry Moon Delight”; Tom gives thanks for all the well-wishes and fill-in hosts; Tom notes the passing of Chris Beyer and his role in Rock, Rot and Rule; outro
3:00: excerpt from Rock, Rot and Rule

06.03.2003

Start: Call screener Matt spins some tunes in Tom’s stead: New Pornographers, “The Laws of Change”, Helene Smith, “You Gotta Be a Man”, Lavender Hour, “I Got a Way with Girls”, The Nines, “Holiday”, Love, “You Set the Scene”
0:22: Best Show theme; Tom thanks Matt for filling in briefly and insists on taking on a series of difficult callers, which immediately does not bode well for the show
0:30: Philly Boy Roy [JW] mourns the loss of Sixers coach Larry Brown, is starting his own Enemies of Tom group with The Gorch, Bruce Willis, Hot Rockin’ Ronnie, and Jeff LaBar from Cinderella; Tom’s gang will have Petey, Officer Tom, and Richie Sambora; he proposes a Beat It-style gang fight, where the loser must publicly denounce his home area
0:47: Gord vows to take on PBR, discusses the difficulty of being criticized; Tom thinks the answer is to give up and listen to Aimee Mann; Chris reveals Officer Tom’s wife as The Secret Weapon, gives his take on the Stanley Cup finals: Anaheim in 7 (Tom thinks Devils in 6); Gord closes with a little DCT
0:55: Tom gomps a very bad prank attempt when the caller can’t think up a fake name
0:55: John Junk passes along inside info on Jeff LaBar: his parents own a health food store in Lansdowne, PA; Tom disappoves of John Junk’s band’s name–The Tokeleys–and suggests Ultimate Punk or 99 Cent Beer Tonight for Ladies; Matt can not locate the Magnolia soundtrack
1:00: The Leader of the Jersey City Crank Crew lets Tom know his crew is “starting it up again”, as gas station noises can be clearly heard in the background; he says he has a CD of their “greatest pranks”, though currently it is just a CD; Tom gets in a few gas station-related zings
1:03: caller confirms a LaBar Health Food Store in Lansdowne, PA, but cannot confirm any connection to Cinderella, though there were rumors Joan Jett was from there; Tom disagrees–Joan Jett lives in Rocktown!; caller wants to increase the peace between Philly and NJ, thinks they should band together to combat NY; Tom hates the recent NYC cupcake trend, thinks maybe he can sue The Leader and get free gas out of it; Wilt Chamberlain’s greatness on and (particularly) off the court is celebrated; caller gives a shoutout to Al Gorey, proprietor of the merry-go-round at the WFMU Record Fair
1:10: Phillip wants advice on how to balance grad school, family, and pleasure, but his oppressive verbiage drives Tom to duet with Aimee Mann
1:15: caller on a road trip has some really heavy questions about the nature of good and evil; Tom initially debates him about whether evil exists, but begins to weep and accuse him of being evil; Tom wants to know who else is on the road trip, mocks them for wanting anonymity, then tries to lead them in a round of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” and GOMPs them for doing it wrong
1:20: Sathington reports on his trip to Washington and his new bass, plays a few licks that remind Tom of Seinfeld
1:24: Petey promises to curtail his plugging, wonders what happened to Chris the racist, and says he’s annoying his teachers with random meowing in class; Tom asks about Petey’s bully, Nick, but Petey wants Tom to start a topic because he’s “bored”;
1:27: Tom promises to not sing along with “Wise Up” anymore and sings along to “Deathly” instead
1:33: Tom talks about Stupid Behavior Caught on Tape, a FOX home video show, and wants to call up their 800 number to tell them about a video he has
1:35: Jamie wants a name for her band, says they sound like the Norwegian band Nightwish (“Do they sound like Yata?”); Tom makes many suggestions, like The Before and Afters and American Juniors; Jamie admits to being influenced by Petey; Tom suggests Lourdes Blanket, after the children of Madonna and Michael Jackson
1:43: Tom resumes his quest to call up the FOX video show; he leaves them a message as “Edgar Reynolds” about a video where his brother tried to shoot trick-or-treaters from the roof of his house and fell off
1:45: caller has a gross band name suggestion; Tom calls the FOX show as Edgar Reynolds, with a lengthy description of a mini-golf-related video that he ultimately decides would be better for America’s Funniest Home Videos
1:50: music: Cherry Valence, “Sunglasses and Headlights”; Cobra Verde, “My Name Is Jennifer”; Led Zeppelin, “Custard Pie”, The Cows, “Chow”; back announce; Tom wants stupid video suggestions to leave as messages for Stupid Behavior Caught on Tape; a hot new contest will be announced next week!
2:09: “all-around brilliant impresario” Roger Tamblyn [AE] checks in, laments not being mentioned once in a Madchester retrospective; he has a compilation CD called “Rednecktroclash”, featuring Kenny Dupree dueting with Peaches and Jeff Foxworthy spoken word over the music of Fischerspooner
2:18: Tom promotes poll between Officer Tom and Purple Shirt on FriendsofTom.com; loser has to address winner as Sir and Master for a month
2:20: Tom calls FOX show hotline again as Ian Fields with a video description that sounds suspiciously like The Leader;since no one is calling in with video suggestions, Tom calls up a small movie theater in North Carolina to hear their homespun answering machine message, but is thwarted by technical issues
2:25: Captain Jack checks in with some nautical talk, says Tom keeps him afloat on the long nights at sea; his schtick drives Tom to duet with Aimee Mann once more
2:33: Tom finally reaches the quaint movie theatre answering machine; the proprietor, Tim Bob, half-heartedly promotes Secret Agent Cody Banks and Gangs of New York, before telling a creaky old joke; the new topic for the evening: Why me?!
2:37: Captain Jack calls back to ask why Tom’s so mad at him, proclaims his love for Tom but gets increasingly hostile; “BECAUSE JUST LIKE GOD HATES ME, IF I AM A GOD, THEN I HATE YOU! GET OFF MY PHONE!!”
2:41: music: [?], [?], Supertramp, “Goodbye Stranger”; outro

06.10.2003

Start: intro, theme, music: Rolling Stones, “Carry the Lantern”, Red Kross, “Citadel”, Cobra Verde, “Riot Industry; back announce
0:16: tonight, a special tribute to the newly crowned Stanley Cup champion New Jersey Devils! replete with Tom on drums! Tom beats out a Devils roll call to nearly everyone on the Devils’ roster and sings along with Gary Glitter
0:27: caller requests a roll call for Brian Gionta, asks Tom’s opinion on a particular play; “I THINK LOSERS LOSE AND WINNERS WIN!”
0:28: Chris from Toronto congratulates Tom, though he has some issues with the Devils and their fans; Tom continues his Gary Glitter-themed reverie, comments on the hideousness of Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising”, and ponders the existential question, “Why is there hockey?”
0:35: Tootie, playing pool in his garage in South Orange, congrats the Devils but also wants a banana bread recipe; he compliments Tom’s drumming and requests a duet with “Who Let the Dogs Out”; Tom schools Tootie on his own game called Cool Pool; emailer thinks The Medical Marijuana should record ASAP; Tom tries to play for-real drums
0:42: Mike from Hunchback wants to invent a hand signal to tell other drivers you have a WFMU bumper sticker; middle three fingers for ‘W’ is rejected for “read between the lines” reasons; the compromise: an ok sign and a point at the bumper; discussion of WFMU bumper sticker sightings across the nation; Mike wants to “get the band together”, as Tom does a drum rendition of “Paradise City”; emailer comments on terrible MTV Movie Awards, inspiring Tom to play TaTu
0:47: Mullet Man from Mountain Lakes (buddy of Hasu Kid) says he just signed up for a FOT card; when he professes a like of Def Leppard, Tom and him duet on “Rock of Ages”; Mullet Man loved Woodsy and would like to hear him again; Tom says he’s not a fan of mullets but, in the spirit of the evening, likes hockey hair
0:52: Greg wants to talk about music, but Tom sniffs out a trouble maker right away and asks him what he wants to sing; when he says “a Boy George song like ‘You Spin Me Right Round'”, Tom GOMPs him for not knowing that’s a Dead or Alive song, and is also ashamed that he knows this
0:54: Sean from Burbank requests some Bullitt-type music for a high-speed car chase; Tom pumps Sean for some Hollywood gossip but he has very little
0:58: Officer Tom regrets not being able to provide Sean with sound effects; Tom and Officer Tom do a police-siren-and-drum-kit duet; Tom gives an update on the FOT poll, and Officer Tom has a commanding lead over Purple Shirt
1:01: Peter in Middletown, NY shares his sports superstition (eating kosher soup) and how it started; Tom confuses Middletown for Levittown and plays “Uptown Girl”; Tom plays “Ant Music”, insists Adam Ant was from Middletown and GOMPs Peter for thinking otherwise
1:05: Matthew from Fluxblog inspires Tom to sing “Blog-Man” to the tune of “Batman”; Matthew requests “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and sings along
1:07: Sathington wants to know what kind of drum kit Tom has, his favorite drummers (“Peart, obviously!”) and his favorite food; Tom proves his love of Red Hot Chili Peppers by playing “Give It Away”; Tom asks Sathington if he like Tatu, leading to much confusion and generation gap discussion; Tom GOMPs him for revealing a teacher’s name over the air; Sathington calls back and slips while saying ‘hi’, delighting Tom; Sathington insists the previous caller was not him; Tom and Sathington duet on Primus’ “Too Many Puppies”
1:18: music: Simply Saucer, “Here Come the Cyborgs”, Mink Lungs, “Men in Belted Sweaters”, The Cuts, “Losing Sleep”, The Tie Reds, “Gimme Conversation”; back announce; Tom announces the First Annual Friends of Tom Zany Caption Contest
1:35: Tom calls Tim Bob’s movie theater in North Carolina again; this time, he’s showing How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and tells his own joke about how to lose a husband
1:39: Ed insists he’s married with kids, but Tom sniffs out his lies right away
1:40: Evil Monkey (aka Petey) duets with Tom’s drums; Petey insists his voice is not changing, despite all evidence to the contrary; Petey reports racist school bus chatter; when Tom says Stan in the chat is talking smack about him, Petey says he’s going to “quit” the FOT and hangs up
1:45: Frank wants Tom to play “Good Vibrations”, but Tom is in shock from Petey quitting, and GOMPs Frank for not knowing who Petey is; Tom all but begs Petey to call back
1:48: “Petey” calls, but it’s really the “Good Vibrations” kid; Tom starts but can’t continue; he kicks Stan out of the FOT for driving away Petey and recalls Petey’s characters; Tom GOMPs Sathington for having a crummy phone, then GOMPs Frank for calling back; Petey’s departure drives Tom to the verge of tears; Tom decides to audition for a new Petey (since he owns the Petey copyright)
1:55: The Good Vibrations kid says he’s The Original Petey, but his audition consists of shrieking GOOD VIBRATIONS!; Tom tries to lure Petey back with a drum solo
1:59: Tom boils down all three hours of Led Zeppelin’s How the West Was Won into a five-minute sampling, contrasting the very good with the very bad (including excruciatingly long versions of “Dazed and Confused” and “Moby Dick”), with some additional drum accompaniment from Tom
2:15: Petey calls back, addicted to drugs ever since he left the FOT; Tom welcomes him back with open arms but warns him to stay away from Purple Shirt
2:18: Tom continues with disc 3 of the Led Zeppelin set and a 23-minute version of “Whole Lotta Love”
2:27: caller says Robert Plant wrote lyrics to the Star Wars theme and wants help remembering them; his quest is thwarted by a bad phone; should Tom just drum for the rest of the show?; now that Officer Tom has defeated Purple Shirt in the FriendsofTom.com poll, Tom wants the parties to call up and discuss how they will handle the terms of their bet
2:30: Officer Tom calls in, and Tom congratulates him on his victory; Purple Shirt wants to know if he won, but soon realizes he is Officer Tom’s “dog” now, though he suspects the voting process; with his new-found power, Officer Tom makes Purple Shirt sing “I’m a Loser” and “Loser”, but Purple Shirt feigns phone trouble to escape further humiliation; call screener Matt sends out a birthday dedication
2:40: music: The Who. “A Quick One (While He’s Away)”; Tom recaps the show and promises a victory song to close out the show
2:52: Eric wants to hear “Fairies Wear Boots,” but Tom doesn’t have enough time to play it
2:53: in honor of the Devils and Officer Tom, Tom sings and plays drums along to “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions”; when Bryce is late in arriving, Tom also drums/sings along to the Flash Gordon theme

06.17.2003

Start: theme, music: Mink Lungs, “Black Balloon”, Phantom Tollbooth with Robert Pollard, “Atom Bomb Professor”, Cheap Trick, “ELO Kiddies”, Gossip, “Jason’s Basement”; back announce, with a confusing self-dialogue about Phantom Tollbooth/Robert Pollard that turns violent; Tom wants to hear from kids fresh out of school; a contest at FriendsofTom.com: the first annual zany caption contest
0:28: Tom GOMPs a lowllife for pretending to be a kid, suspects him of being one of The Leader’s gas station crank crew; Tom promotes the WFMU summer schedule; so far, Tom feels left down by his sizable kid audience and declares he will not beg for calls; Tom predicts the Hulk movie will get crushed at the box office by From Justin to Kelly (“Guarini smash!”)
0:33: music: The Pink Fairies, “I Wish I Was a Girl”
0:43: Tom responds to a dink who thinks the Pink Fairies are a Simply Saucer ripoff; Tom initiates Open-Phone Tuesday but still wants to hear from kids now on summer vacation and comments on its fleeting nature; Tom issues a listener challenge: can you make Tom laugh?
0:51: Todd tries to make Tom laugh with a sex addict routine, to no avail
0:52: Petey tries to make Tom laugh with “The Mainstream Song”; when that fails, Petey tries an instrumental tune, “Don’t Risk It Triscuit”, with similar results; Petey is done with school and says his bully, Nick, is going to Akosimoff, Petey’s own version of Hell; Petey gives Sathington a bass-related shoutout, declares Sathington a genius and himself “stewy-pid”; Petey will not see From Justin to Kelly until his own movies make the theaters; Petey’s summer plans involve guitar playing, Harry Potter, and lots of web work, and declares Homestead “the worst thing ever”; Tom says he has a promo copy of the as-yet-unreleased Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and seems blissfully unaware of its street value; Petey says everyone calls him Harry Potter
1:05: Pete tries to make Tom laugh with a goofy voice and saying he wants to camp out at WFMU; he tries to GOMP Tom but gets GOMPed instead; Tom says he may just throw out or rip up his promo Harry Potter
1:08: pizza delivering call tells old pirate jokes but can’t make Tom laugh; Tom may read from the Harry Potter book, but probably not
1:10: The Madman from KSANT, The Ant FM in San Antonio [JW], calls Tom to lord “our win” in the NBA Finals over the NJ Nets; he wants to collect on a wager that Tom has no recollection of making; according to The Madman, Tom agreed to spank his bare bottom on the air if the Nets lost; The Madman is confused by the idea of a freeform station and its lack of sound effects; after trading barbs with Tom, The Madman reveals a checkered past and gets intensely depressed [Best Show Gems, 1/7/13]
1:41: Sathington explains “Primus Sucks,” which Tom takes literally; wants to jam in studio with Petey on Violent Femmes-style acoustic tunes
1:47: Cheesesteak Kid and Good Vibrations kid try to hijack show by singing along with the Beach Boys; Tom deflects them by feigning silence to make them think he’s hung up
1:49: Mullet Man is rebranded Mullet Lad due to his age; Tom wonders if he should light his review copy of the new Harry Potter book on fire
1:55: music: Outrageous Cherry, “Supernatural Equinox,” Blue Oyster Cult, “Then Came the Last Days of May,” Screaming Trees, “End of the Universe,” back announce; Tom begs listeners to stop sending in dirty Harry Potter poetry
2:11: Creekwood Banks, retired stuntman [AE] tells tales of working with Hal Needham and Jerry Reed, working the Sober Fans of Widespread Panic tent at Bonnaroo, and his strained relationship with his daughter
2:21: “Eddie” with a Jim Backus accent wants to talk about lunchboxes, clearly wants to sing “Good Vibrations”; Tom tries the silent treatment before hanging up for real
2:22: Mitch Greenwell of BTR Research [AE] reveals that “Creekwood Banks” was actually a “character” hired to see how Tom would handle strange situations; Mitch assures Tom he scored well but Tom is bummed out to learn Creekwood wasn’t real
2:24: Bawdy prefers term Ape Drape to Mullet, describes old haircut that resembles the guy from ABC
2:26: Tom calls Tim Bob’s movie theater in North Carolina, which is holding over How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
2:32: Tom solicits anonymous callers to talk about their secret crushes; Tom pretends to hack into one caller’s computer; calls include someone with a crush on The Hulk and two separate teens feigning interest in Greg Louganis; Tom urges the girl Louganis liker to ditch her terrible friends; outro

06.24.2003

No show

07.01.2003 [no archive: “Todd and the Audio Guru, New Hope for the Ape-Eared]

07.08.2003

Start: Tom chats with the scratchy record about child support and the Virginia sniper; intro; music: Granddaddy, “Crystal Lake,” Led Zeppelin, “The Ocean,” This Moment in Black History “Art Project,” Mijal and White, “I’ve Been You”; Tom previews tonight’s exciting guests, relishes the firing of Michael Savage
0:30: Sathington reports on his cheesy/syrupy family vacation to Vermont; Tom plays a bit of Sathington’s CD; Sathington says Harry Potter gets beat up too much in the latest book; Tom solicits bands to subject themselves to the Smash or Trash gauntlet
0:42: in light of a recent lawsuit, Tom compares Cat Stevens’s “Father and Son” to The Flaming Lips’ “Fight Test” and finds them nearly identical
0:46: Gord reminds Tom of the Cheap Trick/Rush plagiarism debate, discusses the pros and cons of growing up with the name Gordon
0:51: Terre T of the Cherry Blossom Clinic suggests making Smash or Trash random to keep band-friends from polluting the process, raises the plagiarism case of The Beatles’ “Taxman” vs. The Jam’s “Start”
0:55: Tom starts to play Cat Stevens but is appalled by the terrible lyrics
0:57: Timmy says The Jam’s “ripoff” of “Taxman” was an homage; Tom suggest it’s time for Timmy to move up to Tim
0:58: Petey plays his new guitar, is afraid his dad’s demand he take lessons will turn him into Dave Matthews; Tom suggests telling his dad the guitar teacher tried to turn him into a drug dealer; Petey is sad Cartoon Network is taking Popeye off the schedule, which baffles Tom; Petey starts yelling about Popeye and gets GOMPed
1:06: Tom interviews Leidra Lawson, author of Sugar Daddy 101
1:27: Gene Simmons [JW], trying to stay anonymous by calling himself The Doctor of Love, praises Leidra and wonders if she might accept another Sugar Daddy
1:29 interview and phone calls continue
1:34: Rocky Stone [AE] wants to know if Leidra would recommend the book for aspiring sugar daddies like himself; he feels his sugar daddy career is stalling due to him concentrating mostly on teen runaways and drug addicts, then tries to bully his way into getting a free copy of her book
1:39: The Gorch [JW] confuses Leidra with an old flame, says she stole all his money and she’s not getting his rascal
1:42: interview and phone calls continue
1:45: music: The Fall, “Hip Priest,” The Monkees, “What Am I Doing Hangin’ Round,”; Steve Turner, “Instrumental Number 1”; Tom warns the dinks who keep calling the show; back announce; Tom describes a morbid eBay auction of Elvis Presley’s teeth and hair
2:07: an interview with Terry Fritch [JW], director of the new documentary Weapons of Mass Deception; the interview never quite takes off because Terry seems confused about the concept of old records being reissued on CD [Best Show Gems, 04.29.13]
2:25: Mike reports on his preview screening of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, says it’s basically okay
2:37: Sathington reminds Tom of the plagiarism of the Rolling Stones’ “Has Anyone Seen My Baby” vis a vis k.d. lang’s “Constant Craving
2:39: Tom calls Tim Bob’s movie theater in North Carolina, where Gods and Generals is currently showing
2:43: Tom relishes a story about Ted Nugent’s house being overrun by mold, then asks callers to contribute ideas of other people getting their Twilight Zone-style just deserts
2:46: Kelly thinks the Nuge should fall out of a tree, get knocked out, and get chewed up by squirrels; Tom does his best to keep the just deserts non-violent but the only alternatives Kelly can think of involve poop
2:51: inundated by teen pranksters, Tom swears they shan’t get on the air again; Tom takes a few off-air calls to dispel them
2:53: Mike in Brooklyn thinks Michael Jordan should be crushed by a truckload of his own Nikes and Dick Cheney should be crushed by his own shadow; Tom suggests a soundtrack of Cat Stevens’s “Moon Shadow”
2:55: bereft of good callers, and with Bryce MIA, Tom initiates a Cat Stevens singalong
2:58: Mullet Lad wants Justin Timberlake locked in a room forced to listen to N*Sync nonstop
2:59: OCDJ wants Philly Boy Roy to get food poisoning from a rotten cheesesteak
3:02: Officer Tom checks in, describes the volunteer rescue squad as the computer geeks of the police department and the postal police as disturbed individuals [call ends at 3:09]

07.15.2003

Start: intro; music: Electric Six, “Danger High Voltage,” The Monkees, “Do I Have to Do This All Over Again,” The Dictators, “Stay With Me,” Sathington, “Thoughts,” The Laughing Clowns, “Sometimes I Just Can’t Live With Anyone”; back announce; Tom previews tonight’s special guest and the next edition of Smash or Trash; Tom debuts “Hey, This Sucks” for callers to declare things suck that other people seem to like; his example: bubble tea, which nearly made him vomit
0:29: shouty pedantic caller from Los Angeles suggests Tom goes to a place that calls bubble tea by its proper name, boba; says he’s in LA and there’s nothing good in Jersey; Tom offers him a nice cold cup of GOMP
0:32: caller from San Diego corrects previous caller’s correction, agrees bubble tea is awful; Comi-Con talk drifts into discussion about the pointlessness of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie and his love of Mad Magazine; Tom uses bed music from longtime FOT Gord from Toronto, adds League movie to the suck pile; suck contributions via email: walkie talkie cell phones and the Dennis Franz commercial for the same
0:41: caller thinks Roger Clemens’ presence in the All Star Game sucks; Tom and caller debate the merits of basketball, foosball, pool, and ping pong; Tom recalls the trauma of getting nailed in the batting cage by two consecutive pitches
0:50: Petey thinks a Nissan commercial stole his website design and details his woes in trying to move his site to a new host; Tom offers to use the power of the media to help his case; Petey recites his daily schedule in brutal detail and his adventures selling his CD at the local mall; Petey’s suck contributions: Code Name: Kids Next Door and Garfield
1:01: interview with and phone calls for Dr. Udo Erasmus, author of Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill and Choosing the Right Fat
1:26: Philly Boy Roy [JW] asks the doctor if his diet is to blame for his recent sluggishness, is surprised to find out a daily diet of hoagies, Yuengling, and Tastykakes might be unhealthy; the doctor suggests yoga as a substitute for alcohol but Roy “don’t wanna get involved in no occult stuff”
1:32: more phone calls for Dr. Erasmus
1:39: music: The Little Killers, “Better Be Right,”This Moment in Black History, “Art Project,”, The White Stripes, “Girl You Have No Faith in Medicine,”The Suburbanal Cuts, “Operation”; back announce; Tom shares Things That Suck submitted via email
1:56: Brenna from Wyckoff requests something by The Beatles, wants to know if Tom has ever been to a concert; Tom GOMPs her when the phone connection gets bad
2:01: Tom recounts the summer he ditched day camp
2:06: Jason from England checks in; Tom wants to know which British comedy shows he should be watching
2:29: “Sven” attempts to prank Tom, gets scream-GOMPed
2:33: Smash or Trash with The Tokeleys’ song “Pizarro”; callers declare it a smash, despite some attempted sabotage by the prank call girls
2:55: Tom fits in a quick call to Tim Bob’s movie theater in North Carolina; outro

07.22.2003

TK

07.29.2003

TK