Erich "Mancow" Muller (born June 21, 1966) is a United States radio and television personality. He is best known as the shock jock on Mancow's Morning Madhouse, a Chicago-based radio show that has, in recent years, been syndicated across the U.S.
Early life
Mancow attended Central Missouri State University and received a Theatre degree in 1990. His career in radio began at KOKO in Warrensburg, Missouri. Later, he became a part of the morning show, Holy Moly & Maxx, for station KMOK in Kansas City.
Pre-Chicago notoriety
After a stint at KDON (the first radio station to feature UFO Phil) in Monterey, California Mancow headed north to San Francisco. In 1993, Mancow made national headlines while working for radio station KYLD-FM in San Francisco, California. At the time, a story had been circulated that President Clinton had tied up traffic on an LAX runway for over an hour because of a haircut on Air Force One. Mancow staged a parody of this incident on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge during rush hour. He used vans to block the westbound lanes of the bridge while his sidekick, Jesus "Chuy" Gomez, got a haircut. As a result of this publicity stunt, Mancow was prosecuted and given three years probation, fined $500, and ordered by a San Francisco Municipal Court judge to perform 100 hours of community service. The radio station eventually paid $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a bridge commuter.
Mancow's Morning Madhouse
After leaving California, Muller came to Chicago, where he created his now-famous radio show in 1994. Originally, he broadcast from WRCX FM 103.5, which at the time was a heavy metal station. In 1998, he moved to WKQX FM 101.1, the city's foremost alternative rock station. Currently, he is heard from 5:30-10am (CST) in twenty-one nationwide radio markets. The show is currently broadcast from the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago. When Muller worked for 103.5, he broadcast from the John Hancock Center. dgfwrthrth
Radio show overview
Despite being syndicated across the country, Mancow's Morning Madhouse retains its Chicago flavor. Its humor is laden with schadenfreude. It also retains inside jokes funny only to Chicagoans, such as its constant insults against Joliet, Illinois. A typical show consists of prank calls, celebrity impersonations, political rants, and merciless teasing of members of the show.
While the show has attracted more prominent musicians, actors/actresses, and figures in recent years, the tone has not lightened.
The cast of the show reveals much about its focus and source of humor. In addition to "Mancow" Muller, the main characters are:
- Turd the Bartender (sidekick)
- Deejay Luv Cheese (technical producer)
- Ryan the Gay Mexican (music reporter)
- Jim Jesus the Yelling Guy (traffic reporter)
- Al Roker Junior (sports)
- Creepy Bill (prank caller)
- Dewey, Lord of the Fat Chicks (webmaster)
- Vic the Prick (former stunt/video producer)
Recurring characters have included "Wade the Gimp," a disabled man in a wheelchair; "Cowboy Ray," a bad comedian and pornographic movie producer, who repeatedly shaves his junk; the "Big Goony," a mentally retarded worker in the building; and "Crazy Mary," a schizophrenic. The show's regular programs include such things as "Skid Theater," where the staff pays homeless people to act out lines from movies, then have people call in and try to guess which one.
Not surprisingly, the show is not considered to be politically correct. In 1996, the Chicago magazine New City published a scathing attack on the show, including accusations that the show was homophobic and racist (the title of one article was "In Search of the Straight, White Male") and in bad taste. When the article came out, Muller angrily read it on his show while attempting to refute it point-by-point. However, afterwards, he toned down on how he spoke about minorities - when Andrew Dice Clay co-hosted with him for a week, he forbade him to make any anti-gay statements, and "bleeped out" any such comments (which resulted in quite a few bleeps).
The show, despite its emphasis on humor, can be extremely political. While Muller calls himself a libertarian, critics have attacked him as a right-wing demagogue. Although the show routinely satirizes politicians of both parties, Muller takes strong positions on the abortion and right to die debate, and has endorsed Republican candidates.
Moreover, Muller often acts like a pious Catholic, even claiming that, while in college, he considered becoming a priest. He has become well-known for, on his radio show, telling pagan guests and callers that they really worship Satan. However, this "Christian piety" does not exactly find expression in his life, or in the rest of his radio show (as he has admitted on air on numerous occasions). For example, after his marriage in a Roman Catholic ceremony, the following reception included guests as varied as known pimps and porn-movie actors.
One mainstay of the show is the invitation of conspiracy theorists. However, Muller and the show's staff almost always insult and make fun of such theorists, rather than taking them seriously.
Muller published his memoirs in 2003, Dad, Dames, Demons, and a Dwarf (Regan Books).
Muller is currently trying to expand his radio market, including broadcasting in Los Angeles. However, not all his expansions are successful, such as his attempt to break into the Detroit market.
Incidents
While the Mancow show has refrained from stunts on the scale of The Opie and Anthony Show, it has had its moments.
Muller began a long-term rivalry with Howard Stern shortly following the death of the former's father. After claiming Stern made nasty statements about his deceased father, Muller responded furiously.
In 1996, Muller faked his own death. This incident led indirectly to the aforementioned New City critique of his work.
Comedian Chris Farley appeared on the show several times. He was slated to appear on the show the morning after his death by drug overdose. Incidentally, Farley's Chicago apartment (where he was found dead) is located in the Hancock Center as well, only floors away from where Muller broadcast at the time.
For many years, the show hosted unusual contests for listeners, including putting contestants through humiliating ordeals, such as eating cat food and other disgusting items. On other occasions, the show played pranks on Chicago businesses, such as walking into a Chinese dry cleaner with a bloody shirt and pretending to be nervous over a supposed murder. Still other contests were specially designed to scare passersby, such as "Grand Theft Auto," based on the video game series of the same name, where contestants would be issued car keys, then told an expensive automobile would be parked on a (preferably) busy Chicago intersection. However, only one of the keys actually worked; other contestants trying to win the car would appear to be would-be thieves to the uninformed observer. Such contests were slowly weeded out over the years.
Some of his stock material involves using the prank call tracks from the Touch Tone Terrorist's albums, and passing them off as his own creations.
A self-admitted Star Trek fan, Muller has in recent years hosted paint ball fundraisers with William Shatner.
In November 2005, Cowboy Ray, a frequent guest, was struck by a car in a hit-and-run accident. Because of the incident, Muller has offered a $23,000 (as of mid-January 2006) reward pertaining to the arrest of the driver. Although this story was eventually confirmed by the Chicagoland news media, it was intitially greeted with skepticism - about two years earlier, Muller faked Ray's death for several months to explain his absence from the show.
On January 11 2006 Mancow announced on his show that Cowboy Ray's life support was terminated.The show that day was dedicated in his memory.
FCC Problems
Mancow ran afoul of the FCC's indecency regulations in at least 6 separate incidents during 2000 and 2001. As a result of these incidents, the FCC levied $42,000 in fines on Emmis Communications, the licensee of Mancow's then-home station WKQX-FM. In 2004, Emmis Communications signed a consent decree with the FCC sharply restricting indecent content and requiring the payment of $300,000 to the US government.
Running Jokes
- Mancow's wife. Muller's new wife is considerably younger than him, and both staff members and callers often try to get in a dig at his expense. Before his marriage, when Muller pondered where to hold the reception, Turd sarcastically suggested Chuck E. Cheese. After his marriage, when he complained his wife couldn't cook, a caller managed to say the following before being cut off: "Well, Mancow, in a few years, when your wife goes to high school, they have this class called home ec..."
- Turd's drinking. Turd is considered by other staff members to be an alcoholic, so the others try to find ways to stop him from drinking, such as looking for booze so disgusting that he couldn't consume it.
- Turd's made-up stories. Sometimes, Turd will start to tell a story, only to be stopped by Muller, who reveals that the "story" is actually ripped off of a popular movie, fairy tale, or television show (in this sense, it resembles numerous comedic acts, such as those on Late Night with Conan O'Brien). The show then invariably plays an audio loop which involves Muller punching Turd.
- Turd's mother. Callers and staff members alike call Turd's mother a whore, which invariably elicits the response, "My mom is not a whore!"
- White women. Al Roker Junior, an obese African-American who was created as a parody of the real Al Roker, plays to the stereotype that all black men want sex with white women. The words have become somewhat of his catchphrase - he uses them even in his reporting outside of the morning show.
- Anytime the name 'Menominee' or the word 'phenomena' is mentioned, or any other such word that sounds like those, the background crew members respond with a "Do-do-do-do" tune. This is a reference to the infamous song Mahna Mahna regularly played on The Muppet Show.
Collections
Several collections have been made containing highlights from Mancow's Morning Madhouse.
- Fat Boy Pizza Breasts
- Box of Sharpies
- The Sloppy Box ISBN B000BLKHYM
- In the Kingdom of the Blind. ISBN B0009XWV2S
- White Cotton Panties. ISBN B0007Z2XDA
- Poop
Lawsuits
Mancow spear-headed two major lawsuits: one against the antics of Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst and his disrespectful behavior towards fans at a radio concert in Chicago, and another suit against a man who reported Mancow to the FCC for alleged indecency on the air, which Mancow cites as totally unfounded. Mancow has recently withdrawn his second lawsuit because it was a publicity stunt.
External links
- MANCOW.COM, Official site
- MANCOW.ORG, Discussion forum
- MANCOWMILITIA.COM, Discussion forum
- FCC order fining WKQX $14,000 for indecent content on Mancow's show
- FCC order fining WKQX $21,000 for various 2001 broadcasts by Mancow