Private Parts
Page 26
"So, how does it feel to be part of a failing show? How long before you get the pink slip?"
I was going right for the jugular.
"You know, Eddie, you're great," I said to Arsenio, hoping to antagonize him about Eddie Murphy, the man who made Arsenio's
career. "Eddie, I love your concert shows," I said, continuing the goof. "Seriously, I don't watch this show because I usually go to bed early. ... I would never do a show for this stinking network. I think this network blows. It'll last another six months and be off the air."
"Calm down." Arsenio was getting worried.
"Hey, I'll leave, man, I don't need this gig," I threatened.
Robin and I on the set of my never-aired Fox pilot.
Arsenio asked me what I had against Fox and I told the history of our pilots.
"Fox blows. They did the Emmys and they came in third place in the ratings. How can you blow the Emmys? I wouldn't be surprised if Fox drove Joan Rivers's husband, Edgar Rosenberg, to his death. The poor man was going out of his mind, was he not?"
The audience was going wild. Arsenio tried to get me off track by going to his prepared questions. I grabbed his stack of lame questions and gave him some index cards of questions I had prepared on my own.
"Is it right that a person comes over to this country and becomes a citizen just so he can own a TV network?" Arsenio read from my list of questions.
"That Australian Rupert Murdoch, all of a sudden he comes over and he's gonna own a network. Arsenio, you don't own a network because you're black. But you've been in this country longer than Rupert Murdoch!" I exclaimed.
Arsenio read the next question. "Do you think Arsenio Hall is talented or does he have a picture of one of the Fox executives with a donkey? Howard, we can't do these questions."
Arsenio pretended to faint. I looked at the camera and ignored Arsenio. "If Letterman is watching, I love you. I think your show is the best. I'm not even going to watch myself, I'm gonna watch
the Letterman show tonight."
The segment ended. Arsenio told me to leave the set for now and then he would have me back on after completing a segment with a South African band. Then a page came up to me at the break and said, "Follow me." So this page took me and Baba Booey back to the dressing room. Empty hallway, empty dressing room. No producer, no Arsenio, it was like a ghost town. Gary and I were standing there thinking, "What happened?"
Before I knew it, two security guards escorted me and Gary out. Nobody said a word. No "You were great," no "You sucked," nothing. They show us to the limo and we got in to go out to the airport and the limo driver was cracking up. "You were great, man!" he said. "You fucking showed him. He's a fucking asshole!"
I was pissed. Just because I trashed Murdoch, the Fox network, and Arsenio was no reason for me to be thrown out of a building. So I went on "Letterman" and said that doing the "Arsenio Hall Show" was like being on the set of Blacula. The next thing I knew, Arsenio was trashing me a few nights later in what had to be the lamest monologue ever.
"What's his name ..." He feigned forgetfulness, snapping his fingers. "Howard Stern, the deejay from New York. Oh, my man is a slimeburger to the max."
SLIMEBURGER TO THE MAX? You call this comedy? What a monologue!
"He's the reason why a lotta women are gay," Arsenio went on. "And Howard was on 'Letterman.' I'm surprised they were able to get all the Chap Stick off Letterman's pants during the commercial, because he kissed my man's butt for ten minutes."
That was it. The gauntlet had been hurled. I began a systematic attack on him. I played tapes of his various appearances on awards shows and analyzed them as if they were the Zapruder Kennedy assassination film. Arsenio laid off me but then he made the foolish mistake of getting in the middle of a controversy between me and another genius, Chevy Chase. Arsenio had Chevy on his show and while he was smart enough not to put me down, he gave Chevy a forum for a diatribe against me. The next day I went ballistic on Arsenio:
"Notice how Arsenio was afraid to even mention my name when he brought this up. He knows better. He knows I've bitch-slapped him a few times on the radio. He's well trained. He's my boy. He
knows to shut his big gums about me. He knows I would go on a tirade and ruin his life. You dope. You remember that, Arsenio, the last time I started talking about you... you fool. You learned to keep your mouth shut. 'Cause now I'm on in California and you'd have to be a stupid fool to open that big Gumby mouth of yours. You're my boy! You do what I tell you. You heard him there with Chevy Chase. My boy did okay. 'Cause I got you trained like a pack mule.
"But that little comment you made to Chevy that he shouldn't waste his time, that could be interpreted as sarcastic. That implies to me that I'm not important enough to have Chevy Chase's time wasted on. Don't ever let me hear you say, 'I don't know why you waste your time.' You hear me? I got you trained like a dog with your big blackened gums. So be careful when my name crosses your stupid German shepherd mouth. You just keep banging those broads who are stupid enough to get in the sack with you. Imagine bangin' Arsenio, thinking he might marry you. First of all, if you're a stupid white broad, he's never gonna marry you, it's bad for his image. So go ahead, keep spreading your legs. And you, put your hat on straight, you phony twerp! He puts his hat on backwards at the YMCA every day. He's supposed to be a street guy. You're not street. You're a loser. I bet you he gets the AIDS virus, with all those broads he's doing."
"That's the plague. I don't wish it on anyone," Robin interrupted.
I was uncontrollable. "I didn't say I wished it on him. All right. I wish it on him. I wish the AIDS virus on him."
"Now you've gone too far," Robin said. "I know you don't mean it."
"Why not? I don't like him."
"Nobody needs AIDS," Robin said.
"Okay." I was amenable. "Then I wish painful testicles on him. I know what that's like. That would hurt worse than AIDS."
The next day, the media went crazy. Reporters were outraged, entertainment anchors cluck-clucked through their broadcasts. In L.A., a dumb talking head said, "Enough is enough. When is local radio station KLSX going to give us all a break and show Howard Stern the door?"
But I was unrepentant. "What kind of gossip is that, that I wish Arsenio Hall would get the AIDS virus? I'd bet you ninety-nine percent of the people you polled would wish Arsenio would contract some disease." We went to the phones for our own poll. "If you had a choice, would you rather see Arsenio Hall healthy or with the
AIDS virus?" Needless to say, Arsenio got no calls that supported him.
He was definitely my bitch. I had trained that dog well. When he went on the Larry King show and my name came up, Arsenio had this to say:
Howard Stern is an interesting guy. He's a gentleman I had on my show and we had words on the show and he said some things but Howard's one of the nicest guys in the world. He's a happily married man, a good husband, a talented guy. Howard and I don't dislike each other. Howard and I, on the air, for some reason, act like wrestlers. You know how wrestlers are. You don't believe they're like that out of the ring. He does a lot of things to create controversy and he does it very well. I don't hate the man and I don't think the man hates me. As a matter of fact, we talk very kindly to each other during commercials.
Good dog, Arsenio, good dog. Woof, woof, woof.
LARRY KING
How this guy has a television show and a radio show and a newspaper column is beyond me. But when you analyze it a bit, it isn't that formidable a feat. First of all, his television show on CNN is actually a game show. Everyone watches to see how long it'll take one of my fans to penetrate Larry's idiot screeners and mention my name in the context of a question. Larry: Dubuque, you're on the line. Caller: Hey, Larry, Howard Stern's penis. Larry: Next caller. Montreal. Caller: Howard Stern. Baba Booey. But for me, Larry's special talent shines through in his regular USA Today newspaper column. I have never seen a greater collection of lame non sequiturs and idio
t savant pearls of wisdom week in and week out. I always had a great time on my television show whenever I'd slick back my hair, put on my suspenders, don my bigger, craggier nose and be Larry King for a night.
"As a guy, I like him a lot. He's a family man, he goes home ... every night. His show is not my kind of show. He's the best tasteless broadcaster in America."
-- Larry King
Here I am in full Larry King
makeup barking out marriage
proposals every fifteen seconds.
"People ask me how I write columns. Whatever thought comes into my mind, I just type it. Picking my nose in traffic is the most fun I have. . . . Call me a no-talent, but wasn't it a bitch coming to the blackboard with a boner? . . . Why can't I remove the mattress tag? . . . What is it about a junior high school girl in a Catholic school outfit that makes me want to wear a hood and get a net? . . . Did Mrs. Brown really have a lovely daughter? ... I wet my TV Guide many times watching Miss Kitty in 'Gunsmoke.' . . . What the hell is my daughter's name? I've been married so many times I'm confused. . . . There's nothing quite as beautiful as the buttocks of a college quarterback."
One time on my radio show, I even gave Robin a quiz to see if she could tell which words of wisdom were Larry's and which were mine. Let's see how good you discerning readers are at this:
A SHORT LARRY KINO STUPID QUOTES TEST
1. How about a hooray for whomever invented Q-Tips?
2. I miss those little Hershey's Kisses.
3. Isn't it about time we all started recycling toilet paper?
4. Sly Stallone must have terrific-smelling hands.
5. The tougher the Food and Drug Administration gets, the better I like it.
6. They should outlaw shorts on fat women.
7. Teri Garr is the finest little actress in this country.
8. Tony Danza plays light comedy as well as anyone on television.
9. Circumcision must hurt like hell.
10. I've never had an overnight delivery service disappoint me.
11. Maybe it's just me, but toe fungus isn't funny.
Time's up. If you thought Larry King wrote quotes 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, and 11, you're really far gone and you can no longer listen to my radio show.
KATHIE LEE GIFFORD AND REGIS PHILBIN
Is this a great country or what if two mediocrities like these can make it? Let's skewer Kathie Lee first. Hey, that's the one thing I wouldn't mind doing with her. She's got a hot little bod, and I must confess, I've masturbated to her.
But I'm sick of living through her pregnancies, miscarriages, and births. I really pissed her off when, while she was pregnant with Cody, I suggested on the air that it would be a great movie plot if she were carrying the Demon Seed. She was going to give birth to Satan's baby. She must have been listening because a mutual friend once said to her and Giff, "Hey, do you guys listen to Howard Stern?"
Kathie Lee turned white. "How could you bring up that horrible man!" she screamed and went running, crying, into the bathroom. I consider that a compliment because I don't consider myself a man. Then Giff said to my friend, "How could you do that?"
"What did I do?" my friend asked.
"He called my baby the Demon!" Giff wailed.
Then she had the kid and that's all we heard about for the next year on her show. She was on every morning showing pictures of the baby. What was coming next, pictures of the afterbirth? Would she be wearing the goddamn umbilical cord as a necklace?
Then she decided to write a book. She had a pretty good life up to that point, but she shrewdly figured that misery sells, so she had to come up with some hardship in her life. Okay, she wrote about her first husband, a real born-again great guy. She said this guy wasn't making love to her much. Now he had to be thrilled to be reading this in her book. What did that mean, he couldn't make love to her much? What is she implying? What was everyone going to think? If she was such a great born-again Christian, why was she saying anything about this guy? If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Turn the other cheek, isn't that what Jesus says?
So I was reading her boring book and I found out her real name was Kathie Lee Epstein. Hah! A Jew! Who knew she was a Jew with that whole Christmas rap! That's why I encouraged my audience to call her Kathie Jew Gifford. In the morning, in the evening, ain't we got fun!
But the worst part of that stupid book of hers was that ridiculous miscarriage story. The book was basically a bore and I guess she needed pain to sell, right? And apparently she had a miscarriage
a few weeks into a second pregnancy with Giff. Anyway, she dropped this clot into the toilet bowl and she freaked out so much that she made a nosedive into the bowl to retrieve her little baby. What was this woman talking about? That wasn't a baby. That was a guppy. And then she wanted us to believe that she dived in. I guess Kathie needed some controversy and adversity to sell a book. But if I were writing about my miscarriage, it would go something like this:
I cry when my husband plays with himself and everything dries up. I realize that could have been our baby. So I dive into the garbage can and get that soiled Kleenex. I'm so glad I dived into the toilet and saved our little clot. What a cute clot it is today. It can even do the backstroke now. We have the smartest, most intelligent blood clot in the world. We called him Aquaman, because he lives in our toilet.
Meanwhile, Kathie Lee never had a minute of adversity in her life with a puss like that. She even told a story in the book about dropping a ring into a toilet after she peed. And what did she do? She went into her little lost girl routine and had an assistant reach into the piss and retrieve the jewelry. What a tragedy!
Then she had to go right out and get pregnant again. Hey, poor Giff looks to me as if he's 177 years old, did he need this aggravation? Plus, he had to be afraid he couldn't pork her for like four months while she was pregnant. Hey, to a guy his age, four months can be a death sentence. So she was about to give birth and, frankly, I was surprised she wasn't filming the birth as a special. Now, it was time to name the kid. Again, I suggested Beelzebub on my show, but she wanted a cute name starting with a "C" to go with Cody. We offered Cucumberhead and Cokehead and Coolie but Kathie Lee picked Cassidy.
But as vile as Kathie Lee is, Regis is ten times more despicable. And he was the subject of one of our finest hours on the radio: the Danny Philbin Radiothon. It all started when we found an article in the Enquirer. There was a picture of a sad-looking guy in a wheelchair. I began to read the copy: "This legless student is the son of TV's Regis Philbin, ignored by his rich dad and living in a slum."
Regis is pulling in at least two mill a year, and he's basically ignoring his crippled son. I read on: "Millionaire talk show host Regis Philbin has a legless wheelchair-bound son who's desperately trying
to scrape by on a $300-a-month disability check, but Regis isn't lifting a finger to help him."
It seemed that Danny was one of the children from Regis's first marriage to a woman named Katherine. Regis had gotten out of that marriage with a lump-sum payment of $30,000. While he was sending his daughters from his present marriage all over the world, he was barely giving this poor kid anything. Occasionally, Danny would get a package of old shirts that Regis had gotten from his show's sponsors. Danny was trying to get through college, but he suffered from internal infections, kidney problems, bladder troubles, and liver disorders.
A light bulb went off in my head! We would have a radiothon for Regis's son and present the money to Regis on the air. We dispatched Gary out onto the street with a wireless microphone, a big tin can, and a sad picture of Danny. Meanwhile I read on:
Philbin personally declined to comment on how he treats his first family, but his attorney stated that Philbin denies he has failed to support his son and said the talk show host has complied with and far exceeded previous contractual undertakings regarding his son. Danny told an insider, "I want to love my father, but I don't even know him. He's just some man I see on t
elevision."
By now, Gary was outside. He had fastened the blown-up pictures onto a sandwich sign and he had a big bell. He rang it and screamed, "Why does Regis ignore his kid? Please help." In a short fifteen minutes, he had collected $230.76 and one subway token for poor Danny Philbin. Meanwhile, the phones were ringing off the hook with donations. Sam Kinison, with whom I was feuding at the time, called in with a $500 pledge. It broke the ice between us. Fred the Elephant Boy rang up with a $10 donation.
I tried to call the Green Room at Regis and Kathie Lee's show to ask their guests to contribute but I couldn't get through. A bus literally stopped traffic in the middle of Madison Avenue when the driver left to make a contribution. We read the tote board: $2,561.
"We've filled in three toes on our tote board for Regis's son, only seven more to go," I announced. I called an artificial limb company. The receptionist told me that a new pair of legs cost between $6,000 and $20,000. But a consultation was only $75. When it was time to
get off the air, we had collected $4,387.76.
Baba Booey collecting cash for Regis's son.
The next day Gary spoke with Danny Philbin. While he was very appreciative of our efforts, his lawyers had advised him not to take the money we had raised. He told us to thank our listeners for thinking of him but there were other people in the world who needed the
money more. He said it was Regis's responsibility and "that's a hell he has to live with every day." We sent the checks back and donated the cash to charity. But we got a great song out of the whole story. It was a parody of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary":
ROLL HIM INTO TRAFFIC
Left a TV job in Los Angeles
Headed to New York to work for ABC
Left my crippled son like a worn-out doorstop
I thought that pathetic anchor was through with me
That wheelchair leech is a liar
Embarrassed me in the Enquirer
I'd like to roll him ... roll him ...
Roll him into traffic
Flipper foot lives in a pesthole
While my two "normal" daughters live in luxury