Last update: 01.15.2014

[JB] = Jon Benjamin
[JG] = Jon Glaser
[JW] = Jon Wurster
[MW] = Matt Walsh
[SS] = Sam Seder

October
10.10.2000 *  10.17.2000 *  10.24.2000 *  10.31.2000

November
11.07.2000 *  11.14.2000 *  11.21.2000 *  11.28.2000

December
12.05.2000 *  12.12.2000 *  12.19.2000 *  12.26.2000

10.10.2000 [Best Show Uncovered Vol. 1]

Start: theme; Tom’s back! and now we finally know what the best show on WFMU is! Tom pledges a 70/30 talk-to-music split, which could change at any time; Tom asks the people who “get” the “alternate reality of the show to not wreck it for the uninitiated; Tom vows he will not play Serge Gainsbourg or any other French-tacular music on his program, unlike many of his fellow WFMU DJs
0:07: Jack (or Jacques) welcomes Tom back, agrees with Tom’s anti-French-music stance; with his permission, Tom smashes the Serge Gainsbourg CD
[music: Optigonally Yours, “Genetic Engineering”, The Famous Finger Bangers, “Nobility in Golden Child”, Princeton Reverbs Colonial, “Ascend in Faith”]
0:11: back announce; Tom wants to prank a fellow WFMU DJ and opts for Gaylord Fields; Tom calls him up in a goofy voice to ask him about a motorcycle he’s supposedly selling, which Gaylord knows nothing about
0:18: Tom likes alt-country even less than French music and will never play it on his show; he wants to smash an Old 97s CD to prove it
0:20: Jack calls back to insist he smash it
0:21: caller wants Tom to skeet shoot with the CD or throw it out into the street instead; Tom tosses the case into the WFMU driveway and smashes the CD; Tom thinks The Best Show can average a solid B-plus; caller would like WFMU to have a Weird NJ-style news show; Tom accommodates him by reading a story about Rosie O’Donnell from the NY Post, reports how two women in a hospital waiting room almost came to blows over differing opinions about Rosie O’Donnell; Tom would bet everything he owns that Rosie is not anti-gay; the scary plastic surgery of Al Pacino and other older celebs; Tom recounts the show so far
[music: The Moving Sidewalks, “Crimson Witch”, The Thrones, “The Anguish of Bears”]
0:31: back announce
0:34: Todd Billups [JW] is thrilled to have Tom back on the air; Todd sent Tom a cake via the mail and wrote a song for him with his “progressive-prog” band, Top Flight; he wants to measure Tom for a “special” pair of pants; when Tom corrects him one too many times, Todd gets alternately threatening and more worshipful
[music: Eleventh Dream Day, “Ice Storm”, The White Stripes, “Why Can’t You Be Nicer to Me”, dbs, “Espionage”]
0:48: back announce
0:50: Officer Harrups [JW] warns Tom that Todd’s call came from inside the station; turns out it’s Todd, desperately trying to make a song request
0:52: caller wants to know why Tom has such a vicious streak; Tom just thinks some music deserves to be punished, wonders what France has done for us lately
0:55: Crow thinks the French are good because they took Jerry Lewis off our hands, which Tom thinks is an urban myth
0:58: caller thanks the French for “fromage”, hangs up; Tom is already regretting his call-centric focus for the show
0:58: caller heard the French love Jerry Lewis because of his translator
0:59: “a listener” thinks Tom is doing well with his anger management; Tom says he took an anger management class taught by Fred Durst; listener thinks Tom is “flailing”, and Tom agrees
1:02: George is happy to hear Tom on his brand new stereo, shares phone to his friend Heather; Tom compares tonight’s show to the Hindenburgh, but George thinks it’s more like a rocket taking off, or like the movie Talk Radio
1:06: outro
[music: Trash, [“?’]]

10.17.2000 [Best Show Uncovered Vol. 1]

Start: theme, music [Crush Senior, “A Sexy Fish”, The Small Faces, “Tin Soldier”, The Fells, “I Just Want to Go Back to Sleep”]; Tom wants to talk about the big battle going on tonight: the Gore/Bush debate! no wait, the possibility of a Subway Series, which Tom is sure will lead to apocalyptic death and destruction; regular season baseball: most boring thing ever?; NYC radio’s remedial sports coverage; Tom wants to have a Met fan and Yankee fan in studio to “fight it out”; back announce
[music: The Hives, “Die”]
0:16: back announce; Tom needs a score on the Yankees/Mariners game
0:18: a Met fan updates Tom: 4-0 Mariners; he is not a hardcore Yankee hater, which makes him unsuited for Tom’s purposes
0:20: Hot Rockin’ Ronnie [JW] wants to hear something from The Rolling Stones’ Bridge to Babylon, then requests other new tunes by old rockers; he is a former WFMU DJ who used to have a show in Tom’s slot (Hot Rockin Ronnie’s Hot Rockin’ New Classic Power Rock Guitar Boogie Hour); Ronnie vows “hot rockin’ revenge” on Tom, challenges him to a DJ-off, and promos several gigs he has; Tom needs to watch his back, because Ronnie is coming after him with “Hot Rockin’ Roger, JD, and The Pig”
0:34: Sean (“The Pig”) is amazed Tom left HRR on the air for so long, wants to hear some “indie noise”
0:35: caller wants to know if HRR was a put-on, tells a tasteless joke; Tom gets a threatening cell phone call from HRR; caller hates all sports except “battle croquet”; station announcements
0:40: caller thinks HRR was really Andy Breckman, is more of a hockey fan; Tom recounts a JM in the AM/hockey story and a scary childhood sleigh riding incident; caller recounts almost getting hit by a plane; the ridiculousness of using the pronoun “we” when talking about a sports team
0:47: caller is looking for Small Change, but Tom engages him in conversation anyway
0:49: a Hot Rockin Ronnie fan assults Tom with Beavis and Butthead sound bites
[music: Hot Snakes, “Salton City”, Crime, “Hotwire My Heart”, The Cars, “Bye Bye Love”]
0:51: Tom still wants to have a diehard Met and Yankee fan come down to the studio next week and duke it out
0:55: Saint laments the mercernary tendencies of both NY baseball teams, which Tom hardly thinks is a news flash; Saint is amazed Tom doesn’t know about the restaurant Aldo’s; Tom assures him that all the WFMU DJs do not live in the same house a la The Monkees
0:59: Tom previews his Unfair Record Review; first up, Hermann Nitsch; Tom thinks Mike Piazza looks like Roy Wood; a belated back announce, including Tom’s earliest musical influences: The Cars and the Willy Wonka sountrack
[music: International Harvester, “” Rick Rizzo and Tara Key, “Good Evening Mr. Peckinpaugh”, Spectrum, “California Lullaby”]
1:05: back announce; email from New Zealand
1:10: Tom gives an Unfair Record Review to a Hermann Nitsch eight-CD boxed set; Tom gives it the thumbs-down and seeks the high sign from station management to smash the whole thing
1:20: Belinda from Greasy Kids Stuff hates baseball but gives Tom a score update anyway (4-3 Seattle); Tom asks what he can do to repay her; she would like to be written into Tom’s next movie, promos the next edition of GKS; Tom wonders if it’s time to pull a Logan’s Run on her young charges, Max and Kate, or at least let them talk about grown-up stuff; can Tom borrow Max and Kate?
1:25: another Beavis and Butthead prankster; Tom does not have legal clearance to play such stuff; Small Change believes his show will be an instant classic; Tom wonders if it’s possible to scratch a CD the way you can scratch an LP

10.24.2000 [first archived Best Show]

Start: intro, music: White Stripes, “Truth Doesn’t Make a Noise”, back announce
0:09: Tom introduces Yankees fan, Rick, [MW] and Mets fan, Phil [JB], who spar over their respective team’s merits on the night of Game 3 of the World Series; Phil dismisses the Yanks as robots and says the Mets are more human
because he cheats on his wife; Rick makes fun of the Mets and Phil’s
weight when not interrupted by his cell phone; things get heated and
blows are exchanged
1:01: Philly Boy Roy [JW] wants to talk about ‘nem Flyers, “Baseball’s for tea drinkers!” Rick and Phil think he’s a girl
1:06: Rick and Phil promote their inventions & businesses
1:10: Donald [JW] calls about commercialization in sports (“How did Subway get to sponsor the World Series?”), has a “pronounced limp” that requires compression pants because otherwise “it goes everywhere” (“What does?” “My body and my weiner.”), requests “She Blinded Me with Science”
1:19: Rick and Phil are intrigued and humbled by Donald and start to reconcile; Phil threatens to kill himself “for my team”, bashes self in face with bat, gets Rick to root for Mets for his sake; Phil then immediately denounces him for turning his back on his team
1:40: Officer Harrups [JW] calls in to break up the disturbance, turns out to be Hot Rockin’ Ronnie pranking Tom
1:43: possibly brain damaged Phil can’t name any Mets players
1:56: music: Thomas Dolby, “She Blinded Me With Science”

10.31.2000

Start: intro, Tom talks about what everyone’s been looking forward to: the start of the NBA Season! Oh yeah, and Halloween, too; asks callers to guess the scariest band on earth, wants reports from trick-or-treaters and mischief makers
0:09: Saint guesses The Cramps
0:10: Prankster guesses the Misfits, then Menudo, admits to being an ineffectual mischief maker who mostly pranks animals
0:12: Boris Karloff wanna-be guesses Lee Donaldson and the Haywoods
0:13: Tom pledges to never play horrible alternative or French music on The Best Show
0:15: music, The Melvins, “Pitfalls in Serving Warrants”, The Spellbinders, “Spellbound”, Peter Tork, “Can You Dig It (demo)”, The Monkees, “Can You Dig It”
0:27: back announce, Tom talks about unfortunate Halloween makeup, promotes WFMU Record Fair
0:39: music: Pout, “We Gotta Party for Peace”, The Aints, “Ill Wind”
0:48: back announce, still waiting for The Creature from Pout to call in
0:54: Unfair Record Review: Radiohead, Kid A
0:59: phone trouble, music: Summer Hymns, “[?]” more phone trouble, music: [unknown]
1:16: The Creature from Pout [JW] discusses his band’s tour of the US, says Tom is only allowed to play three Pout songs for fear of sending his audience into a sexual frenzy; Tom plays Pout’s “Secret
Dancer” [Best Show Gems, 10/28/13]

11.07.2000

Start: intro, Tom talks about the big battle: Bucks vs. Knicks!, no wait, the election; tech problems
0:07: The Creature from Pout [JW] calls in with some scheduling changes; their album and most of their tour dates have been pushed back to 2001
0:18: music: The Move, “Vote for Me”, more basketball talk, caller talks hoops, gets silent and scares Tom
0:25: Alan Lieberman [SS], Joe’s son, discusses the election, tennis, and common law marriage in the Caribbean
1:02: music: The Feelies, “Forces at Work”, French Kicks, “Young Lawyer”, David Bowie, “Hang On to Yourself” (Bowie at the Beeb version), back announce
1:18: Brad Somerstandt, candidate for Newbridge Water Commissioner [JW], says he’s tired of Newbridge’s water being compared to “rotten pant cashews!”; unaware that election is on Tuesday, not Wednesday; ran for water commissioner to impress his father-in-law (a local mayor), gets scary and wants to hear “Safety Dance”
1:38: music: Elevator, “My Library in the Weeds”, Skywave, “Got That Feeling”, Mark Robinson, “Putting Up Good Numbers”, Rocketeens, “Car and Driver”, Beulah, “Sunday Under Glass”, back announce, outro

11.14.2000

No show

11.21.2000

Start: intro, music: Cheap Trick, “Everything Works If You Let It”, Star Spangles, “I Can’t Be With You”, Pretty Things, “London Town”, back announce
0:17: caller likes show intro, wants to talk Bush-Gore; what if presidency is presented like the Oscars?; Tom thinks Bush would be a “cool guy” to hang out with; what’s Bush’s favorite movie of the last year? Tom’s says he’s spending Thanksgiving running in a Turkey Day marathon in Philadelphia
0:24: Tom says this is the first Best Show Tuesday where no one has had anything better to do
0:29: music: The Oblivions, “The Leather”, Bad Wizard, “Keep High Stay Low”, Nation of Ulysses, “Last Train to Cool” (Embassy Tapes version)
0:40: back announce, Tom insists he won’t troll for calls, he can talk forever!; oh good, there’s 2 circuses in town!; creepy clown descriptions; Fox News creep Shepherd Smith arrested for hitting reporter with his car; Tom thanks the “old people and racists” of Florida
0:48: caller requests “Niagara Falls”, refuses to describe passing landmarks while driving through Jersey
0:52: caller [Terre T] reports that the Bad Wizard song drove her dog insane, Tom commands the dog over the air
0:55: Tom gives Shepherd Smith and Bill Hemmer the thumbs down
1:00: music: Sloan, “The Good in Everyone”, Todd Rundgren, “Chain Letter”, Game Theory, “We Love You Carol and Allison”, Butch Willis, “I Need You Too”, back announce; how could Todd Rundgren possibly go
bankrupt?; Tom discusses Canada’s government
1:19: Shepherd Smith update, Tom thinks he should be sent to a mental institution, then killed there by fellow inmates
1:22: caller thinks Shepherd Smith is possessed by demons
1:23: caller wants Shepherd Smith beaten to death in prison a la Jeffrey Dahmer, is drunk driving while talking on a cell phone and possessed by demons; Tom gives thumbs down to drunk drivers
1:23: caller [Terre T] weighs in on Shepherd Smith
1:26: Tom discusses Michael Douglas and Katherine Zeta-Jones’ horrifying wedding photos, Howard Stern’s sad and predictable bachelorhood, more thumbs down
1:31: caller is glad Howard Stern is alone, “Who could have seen that coming?!”
1:32: Tom wants Gyorgi Ligeti fans to call in
1:34: music: King Brothers, “[?]”, [three unidentified tunes]
1:45: Unfair Record Review: the entire Gyorgi Ligeti discography
1:56: music: French Kicks, “Young Lawyer”, outro

11.28.2000

Start: intro, music, David Bowie, “Five Years” (Bowie at the Beeb version), back announce, Tom derides David Bowie’s business acumen, “Didn’t he retire his hits?”
0:13: Todd Billups, Tom’s number one fan [JW], wants Tom to teach his calligraphy class and wear a homemade pair of transparent pants that steam up with friction; Todd says his basketball told him to kill Tom
0:21: should Tom reveal the ending to Unbreakable?
0:24: caller votes no, discusses horrifying movie version of The Grinch and buying bootleg movies
0:28: caller votes yes while washing dishes, talks about hanging out at the Loup Lounge with WFMU personalities
0:30: caller votes no, thinks Todd Billips is just messing with Tom, discusses Drunken Master (“You mean a Jackie Chan movie started off cheesy?”), Owen Wilson as a Star Trek character
0:37: fake M. Night Shyamalan votes no; Tom moves his vote to the yes column as punishment for his horrible Indian accent
0:38: caller votes yes because some of the movie’s proceeds go to Bruce Willis, last movie he saw was Atlantic City
0:39: caller votes yes for the Bruce Willis factor
0:40: Ed wants to know what The Best Show is all about, votes no
0:42: caller votes no
0:42: caller votes no, wants different question: did Bush put the fix in in Florida?
0:44: caller votes yes because he only goes to movies with happy endings; last movie he enjoyed was 1941
0:46: caller votes yes because thinks he’ll understand ending better if he knows it beforehand
0:48: caller votes yes because he’s mad Tom revealed ending to The Sixth Sense even though he’s had several years to watch it
0:49: music, The Magic Pacer, “Alien Communication”, Maher Shalal Hash-Baz, “Summer”, Hal Blaine “Love In (December)”; back announce
1:04: Zachary Brimstead Esq. [JW] wants to hear barbershop quartet music like “Father’s Handlebar Mustache” and “Mother’s Golden Locks”, sings barbershop versions of rock tunes, wants callers to harmonize with him; Zachary insists on co-hosting The Best Show with Tom [Best Show Gems, 3/16/11]
1:56: music: King Brothers, “[?]”

12.05.2000

Start: intro, music [not back announced]
0:14: Zachary Brimstead Esq. [JW] calls back expecting to co-host, wants to interview his nephew Royce the rodeo rider and debuts barbershop metal
0:22: caller wants to hear Bruce Springsteen or Tom Waits, then gets weirdly angry
0:24: Zachary Brimstead calls back, mad at Tom for hanging up on him and for calling him a douche
0:29: music: Libraness, “Face on Backwards”, The Polar Goldie Cats, “Rinsey’s Yarn”, The Sad Rockets, “Heavy Meta”, dbs, “Tearjerkin”; back announce
0:43: interview with Neal Pollack, pt. 1
1:00: music: Magentic Fields, “Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side”
1:04: Neal Pollack interview pt. 2, Pollack takes calls
1:58: music, Portastatic, “Looking for Leonard”

12.12.2000 [no archive: “Radio Hut”, Chain Fights, Beer Busts, and Service with a Grin]

“Tom Talks to Radio Hut Employee”

12.19.2000

Start: intro, music: Elastica, “Gloria”, The Jam, “I Need You for Someone”, Love Child, “Start to Smile”, Modern Lovers, “Dance with Me”, back announce, station announcements
0:23: caller doesn’t know The Modern Lovers, talks Xmas shopping
0:28: Anonymous Lid Blower who worked on the Star Wars prequels [?] has many details about the upcoming Episode 2; says title is The Veil of the Sith
0:48: Star Wars fan [JW] wants to know, did George Lucas withhold food from actors?; gets Star Wars confused with Star Trek
0:49: more Episode 2 bombshells from the Anonymous Lid Blower
0:54: Star Wars fan [JW] calls back, is there product placement for Doritos and Lemon Pledge in Episode 2?
0:54: Anonymous Lid Blower takes calls
1:00: caller claims to be documentarian filming Episode 2 footage, insists “This guy’s a fake!”; the Anonymous Lid Blower sticks to his guns
1:06: Anonymous Lid Blower takes more calls, talks about fighting Lucas on several “comic relief” choices
1:32: music: Coco, “Coco”; Gonzalez, “Let’s Groove Again”; back announce; caller asks about bed music; Tom says it’s from Magnolia (“Remember that scene in Magnolia that was depressing?”); who would win in a fight between Han Solo and Capt. Kirk?; caller wants copy of show
1:43: Kris Kringle [JW] wishes Tom a merry Christmas, but it’s really Hot Rockin Ronnie, broadcasting from Stark, Florida “The Home of RM Radio”, where he only
plays 15-second snippets of classic rock tunes “That’s all you need!”

12.26.2000

Start: intro, music: Rolling Stones, “We Love You”, Sensational, “Club Selection”, Some Velvet Sidewalk, “Shame”, The Move, “Hello Susie”; back announce
0:22: Todd Billups [JW] calls Tom about his weird cell phone connection, discusses his fansite where he puts Tom’s head on other people’s bodies
0:34: Tom recounts Dio’s appearance on Edde Trunk’s Saturday Night Rocks radio show
0:41: music: Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, “My Mysterious Death”, Fleur de Lis, “Gong with the Luminous Nose”, The Grifters, “Soda Pop”, The Strokes, “The Modern Age”, Governor, “Cameo”; back
announce
1:00: Dick Halligan Jr. [JB], son of Blood Sweat and Tears trombonist/organist, promotes his book “Blood Sweat and Real Tears” and blows the lid off of BST frontman David Clayton Thomas‘s drunken brand of Canadian thuggery
1:35: Dell Mackenzie [JW], president of the David Clayton Thomas Fan Club, calls in to defend DCT and promote some of his upcoming casino gigs
1:44: Dick talks about his father’s animal field recordings such as “Tortoise Walking”, takes calls
1:47: Dick’s brother Mike [MW] calls from New Paltz to dispute some of Dick’s claims and denies their father was killed by a cougar; Dick claims Mike has been in and out of institutions his whole life
1:55: Dell Mackenzie calls back to update DCT tour information and album info
1:56: Dick says his father made royalties from copyrighting the phrase “Kwanzaa,” takes calls
1:59: Mike calls back to point out that their father teaches at a Learning Annex in Santa Barbara, which Dick Jr. denies
2:00: Dell calls again to tell everyone to check out DCT’s new album “Blue Plate Special,” which Dick dismisses as “the music of a demon”