The Best Show on WFMU

It's with great sadness that we say goodbye to a beloved friend of the show, Robert "Avalanche Bob" Cribbie. It was an honor to be a small part of his life and he will always be a part of Best Show history.

RIP to a true original who never gave up.https://t.co/XDbpQYmsah pic.twitter.com/JJotS239Yg

— The Best Show (@bestshow4life) November 21, 2019

RIP

did i skip every single one of his calls after the first few? yes, i did. but still, RIP

RIP to a true Weirdo

SKIBBLABBLEDIBBADABBADIBBASKABBLABBLABBADACKADIGGASKABBARRRrest in peace, Avalanche.

there was one call where tom actually got him to talk about his past for a while and it was really interesting, i wish they had done more of that

oh no!

I'd like to hear that call

RIP

Probably was the same episode where I remember Pat Byrne thinking out loud on air about figuring out how to reissue his 50s recordings

yeah sorry i have no idea when it was. probably a few years ago.

Aww, RIP

Got a real kick out of AP Mike asking him if he had ever been on a snowboard before a few weeks back.

That actually kind of irked me...maybe in the very beginning Tom did a little of that sort of thing, but even when he made fun of him he went out of his way not to embarrass him—he was sweet and mostly patient.

That Mike dig seemed like punching down—he obviously was not a snowboarder.

Anyway RIP yodel diddy doo

it was because he was yodeling about snowboarding wasn't it? Those things have been around a minute..

Yes, that’s why. That was the whole joke—he was glomming onto snowboarding to create a niche.

just like snowboarding did to surfing. fair play.

love having nathan fielder on as a guest and spending an hour and a half talking exclusively about air hockey

This is going to be so good

I HAVE A NEW PODCAST WITH MY FRIEND @julieklausner CALLED DOUBLE THREAT!!! It premieres 4/6 and there's a preview ep up now! @DoubleThreatPod @ForeverDogTeam

⬇️ SUBSCRIBE NOW ⬇️@ApplePodcasts https://t.co/cZweGbvPOM@Spotify https://t.co/xZ0X3WN8Yr

— scharpling (@scharpling) March 23, 2020

Yes! I think Tom is always at his best when she's on, he feeds on her laughter

Not the biggest fan of hers but no denying she brings the energy level way up when she's on the show.

I kind of love the new best show format of tom just driving around monologuing to himself and occasionally throwing a mic cable out the window

yeah and the 3/20 (21?) sound collage was kind of mindblowing

I like that he now has to mix these in advance

Yes! Love Julie on The Best Show and elsewhere. Their riffing on the Cheesecake Factory from (I think) a 2018 episode was the most I've ever endangered myself by laughing too hard while driving.

best show on hiatus

the eps of double threat i've heard have been very funny

On the day I change my dn to a Best Show ref. That cannot be coincidental.

When did Scharpling start doing so many impressions? Dude is Rich Little all the sudden.

I wanted to love Double Threat but it just felt a bit lazy, like let's just read the news and bag on everyone.

i haven't been listening to the best show (or any podcast really) regularly, has tom talked at all about being stuck in LA? is terre t with him or back in NJ? seems like a tough situation

also what did ap mike say on twitter that everyone is mad about? fred from honolulu is beefing with him and i'm seeing implications that the hiatus is a direct result?

Stopped myself posting here today when I was paying the critique of Alec Baldwin interviewing Woody Allen. This show is like Tom venting his worst impulses. Maybe Best Show is the better for it. You can imagine the other guys making fun of him for all the negativity.

(was about newest "Double Threat")

I'm not on the Best Show Facebook, but I heard that Mike was trying to hush police abolition talk because it could hurt Biden beating Trump

That was a few days ago. I see now it's spilled over to Twitter..... Hiatus? Dang

hooooo boy the mike/fred/fb group friction is... something

mike tweeted to the effect of "stop being radical or trump will win again" and ppl got mad and he doubled down in a pretty shit way

the fb group got into arugments about it, which is incidentally like 80% white dudes, some agreeing, some disagreeing, some (and tbh the loudest/most angry minority) saying "TOM SAID THE SHOW ISN'T POLITICAL, KEEP POLITICS OUT OF THIS GROUP" which is hilarious because while tom keeps it immplicit it absolutely is a *political* show (albeit not a "politics" show). fred posted on the fb group for the first time... ever maybe? and read everyone for absolute fucking filth, which was fair, and let slip that there's a SECOND, SECRET best show fb group just for BIPOC/women/trans/nb ppl bc the main group is such Bad Company (lol) (also, incidentally, the name of the group) which made a few white guys mad also. it has been a series of temper tantrums and meltdowns since then. i don't think tom saw all of that but he must have seen mike's descent on twitter and yeah it was ugly. idk how many people unsubbed simply due to mike's comments (unsubbed as in the podcast, the patreon, the group, everything) but it's more than a couple. everyone's so mad. i've just been reading and kinda shaking my head and occasionally clowning the poor boys who can't make the same dave grohl "THAT GUYS EFFIN AWESOME" joke every 48 hours. why am i even on facebook jesus christ

Abolish social media

Thank you for that, Will, cuz there's no way I'm going to look into any of this stuff. If this is to be believed, there hasn't been a big loss of Patreon subs yet. I noticed Tom tweet that Patreon money is going to go to charity while the show is on hiatus, and he is still going to make some subscriber-only content.

So this has got nothing to do with the other "WFMU" thread here, and that meltdown? What other "non political" media has gone to shit this month? Might be worth a thread.

There's been a consistent culture clash between the pre- and post-Steven Universe fans. I mean, I'll be clear: Mike was completely wrong, dumb, and aggressive with his take, but I genuinely think he meant no harm and thought he caused no harm while talking down to a bunch of people who take his words as real harm. But it wasn't the show, and I don't think the hiatus is punishment as much as necessary to save the possibility of Scharpling-hosted comedy radio in the future. He's got PLENTY going on and doesn't need joking with his old friend Mike to be salt in anyone's wounds, so leave it for another time.

I forgot to mention that Mike is in the FB group too and was vvvv much stirring the pot

I'm far enough behind on the show (ran the gamut on FMU but still only about a year and change into the independent iteration) that I didn't even realize Tom had a Patreon until this thread hipped me. Well, I just pitched in to make up for the dumm oafs who are bailing out.

"So this has got nothing to do with the other "WFMU" thread here, and that meltdown?"

Well, Laurie from Miami, whose contributions since her return have primarily been about trash television and how sexually evolved she is, is tweeting about it, having decided that WFMU is worse than Conde Nast and must be destroyed, but no one is responding at all. No word on where the producers of Vanderpump Rules stand on BLM.

Abolish social media

― A White, White Gay (cryptosicko)

I wanted to love Double Threat but it just felt a bit lazy, like let's just read the news and bag on everyone.

I feel the same way, wish I liked it more but I feel like its the kind of podcast Tom would have made fun of 6-7 years ago - two comedians just kind of aimlesly riffing on and on until they bump into something funny. Although if there's an ongoing Best Show drought I suppose I'll find a way to get on board

I'm trying the Woody Allen episode of Double Threat, and a huge amount of it is just the two of them making fun of him by making general quacking noises in a "Woody Allen voice".

8PM EST. It's our country, too. pic.twitter.com/Xob2XXGGjb

— The Best Show (@bestshow4life) November 2, 2020

!!

do we know that it's not another "Bests"?

Whoa.

I'm still fairly behind and only just listened to the 2016 election show a little while back. It was...triggering.

wasn't that the fake "vintage" show?

Yeah, the conceit that started breaking down halfway through as reality began to intrude.

Jason said on FB that it's a new ep tonight

Yeah, the conceit that started breaking down halfway through as reality began to intrude.

Honestly one of the most astounding acts of broadcasting ever.

indeed

a completely amazing hall of fame feat that i can never bring myself to listen to ever again

It's funny that this new episode comes almost exactly (+/- 2 days) 23 years after the original broadcast of the OG Rock, Rot & Rule episode which brought Tom from a regional audience to a national audience, and here 23 years later Tom has basically morphed from "Tom the straight guy" into a more basic Ronald Thomas Clontle.