💼 Careercow Anthony Cumia - A once successful radio host crashes and burns, turning on all his fans and the drama around it

  • 🏰 The Fediverse is up. If you know, you know.
  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
Hey Johnny Bravo said:
I actually loved the FM shows because it was fun to see the dump reports and watch how the boys tried to get around (or mock) the censors.
Click to expand...
Constraints tend to force people to be creative in any area of life, and I definitely enjoy watching a good comic flex that. If anybody remembers Ed Tyll (I was very into to his overnight show on WLUP Chicago in 1991), he was masterful at broadcasting genuinely obscene content without getting busted. The FCC only got him when he called up a government worker and didn’t tell her she was live on the air. (He’s doing comedy for seniors now, which is very sweet but it’s too bad he never made it really big.)
 
John Andrews Stan said:
Constraints tend to force people to be creative in any area of life,
Click to expand...
Exactly this, what you can do or say on the radio is restricted, you are more of a shell being controlled and governed by a PD (who sucks off corporate higher-ups) that thinks what you say or do might not be so appreciative by focus groups. You can't be as original as you may believe, though you want to try and market yourself by making your own footnote on the radio dials, yet those same program directors will make you do these unoriginal radio bits, which are at most done by somebody who doesn't know shit about radio.
 
It’s also just more interesting to see someone pull something off despite constraints*. A lot more people can do well given all the freedom and resources in the world than can with their hands tied a bit. At least these days, Cumia can only make me laugh with his impressions. The rest is just hack takes on politics and demographics that he heard from the many other people saying the same exact shit. Yawn.

As a kid I loved the UK show Ready, Steady, Cook — two teams competing to make the best dishes with £5 worth of food chosen by members of the public — and have always found it much more fun to cook within constraints.
 
Cumia strives away from the "shock jock" moniker he was known for to become a conservative talk show host, focusing on real-world problems that everybody talks about. Ant with Politics is what Beavis & Butthead were to mocking music videos & shit on tik tok.
 
basically gayer fez said:
Even back then, when Opie & Anthony went after those morning zoo radio shows, a lot of the points that they made were right for how terrestrial radio has no originality, paying for prepburger bits that some program director or general manager shoves down a disk jockey's throat in meetings. And yes, radio stations today still do "War of the Roses", and especially "The Fugitive"...
Click to expand...
There are satellite shows and call in podcast shows that use prep services. Stern uses them still to fill large portions of his show. O&A were one of the only major shows to not rely on some type of bit supplier and fake callers to create segments. Reality television is no different in that it is all scripted. Someone on the O&A message board posted recently that they heard their local radio station doing one of Carmen's Prank Calls.

If you watch streamers or social media channels that review the newest movies or products you can tell that they are following a script as well. That they are willing to leave a positive review in exchange for early access and a red carpet invitation. It's all part of the same laziness and promotion in show business.
basically gayer fez said:
Back then, terrestrial radio reached out to a lot more people. Stern, in his heyday, had 20 million* listeners and was able to market himself a whole lot better than "his clones" (in his own words) did, albeit he had to follow the same FCC rules that every show/station did.
Click to expand...
Stern's agent paid Talkers Magazine to print that he had 20 million listeners based on their "proprietary listenership formula". It's like how the NY Times Best Seller List isn't based on sales but is actually based on an editorial board of their staff who just choose their favorite books or choose a promoted book that purchases a bunch of advertising space. It's all smoke and mirrors and bullshit. Talkers Magazine had a secret formula to calculate the listener numbers of radio shows but they wouldn't reveal it.

Stern didn't have half that 20 million number at his peak. Now he's under 20K daily listeners currently and gets beaten by Twitch streamers from their basements playing video games. Talkers and Arbitron and these ratings services were all extremely corrupt. If you wanted your show on the top of the list you could just pay your way onto the list. Like purchasing an Academy Award or sleeping with Harvey Weinstein to get one. It wasn't about talent or earned success.
 
TheHarbinger said:
O&A were one of the only major shows to not rely on some type of bit supplier and fake callers to create segments. Reality television is no different in that it is all scripted. Someone on the O&A message board posted recently that they heard their local radio station doing one of Carmen's Prank Calls.
Click to expand...
During one of the Jocktobers, they had a listener call in who was a call actor for one of these radio bits, the dude made like $50 a call and would have had to follow the script that the PD most likely wanted them to perform.
TheHarbinger said:
Stern didn't have half that 20 million number at his peak. Now he's under 20K daily listeners currently and gets beaten by Twitch streamers from their basements playing video games.
Click to expand...
That was bound to happen regardless due to time, and new forms of influencers in various forms of social media coming in and just sweeping in numbers and listeners.
 
John Andrews Stan said:
I was very into to his overnight show on WLUP Chicago in 1991
Click to expand...
I still cannot believe that those call letters are no longer on the Chicago radio dial. It was just one of those stations that, no matter how watered down and corporate it got, I just assumed would be around forever.

I wonder if O&A ever did even halfway decent in Chicago? When listening to old clips on YouTube, there have been a few times when I have heard Opie mention WCKG as an affiliate.
 
John Andrews Stan said:
Constraints tend to force people to be creative in any area of life, and I definitely enjoy watching a good comic flex that. If anybody remembers Ed Tyll (I was very into to his overnight show on WLUP Chicago in 1991), he was masterful at broadcasting genuinely obscene content without getting busted. The FCC only got him when he called up a government worker and didn’t tell her she was live on the air. (He’s doing comedy for seniors now, which is very sweet but it’s too bad he never made it really big.)
Click to expand...
I never heard of that guy. If you can find any recordings, send them my way (or post them here for everyone else).
 
Hey Johnny Bravo said:
I never heard of that guy. If you can find any recordings, send them my way (or post them here for everyone else).
Click to expand...
Unfortunately I just see brief clips that don’t really show how good he was at his job and getting boring people (callers) to be interesting and often scandalous. Maybe 1991 was too early for records custodians to weaponize their autism and bust out the tape decks. His Midwest AM overnight show definitely didn’t have the reach OnA had, so I guess the odds are low that someone was recording.

For some reason the abiding detailed memory I have of his show is a call-in from a phone sex girl. Remember this is pre-Internet, so just having such a woman on the line was sort of shocking to me at that age. She told Ed she always asks the guys who call her sex line to guess what she is using to masturbate herself. One time a guy asked for a hint and she said “It’s a crunchy food.” It was a carrot but the guy guessed it was a potato chip. I was still young enough to be surprised by astonishing stupidity.
 
sherwoods110 said:
I wonder if O&A ever did even halfway decent in Chicago? When listening to old clips on YouTube, there have been a few times when I have heard Opie mention WCKG as an affiliate.
Click to expand...
Can't really give you an answer on that. I barely remember O&A dominating much in the Midwest outside of Cleveland on WKRK. I presume much like Infinity/CBS stations under the "Free FM" branding, they weren't able to save the station itself (regardless of them doing well in the ratings), the station itself was not doing well, and dropped them, going back to their old formats or straight up flipping to Amp, Fresh, or Sports at the time. WXRK (K-Rock), WYSP, WCKG, and WTZN were all legendary call signs that no longer exist on the radio dials on the East Coast, New Tri-State/Philadelphia radio market.

WNEW still exists as a call sign after the demise of Fresh, but nowhere near the success it is remembered for Opie & Anthony, nor its old classic rock roots when Scott Muni, Pat St. John, Vin Scelsa, & Carol Miller were on.

1000001628.jpg
Steve C. showed up on Ant's property... looking for his Prius... grrr
 
Last edited by a moderator:
basically gayer fez said:
Another follow up story, The bear was Erock looking for food.
Click to expand...
E-Rock the shit dick fat fuck,
He's a lazy piece of shit!
And if you ever saw him,
You'd know him by his huge bitch tits.
All of the other assholes
Laugh and call him "piggy-boy,"
They never let poor E-Rock
Have his hoagies or his shitty toys!
 
Hey Johnny Bravo said:
E-Rock the shit dick fat fuck,
He's a lazy piece of shit!
And if you ever saw him,
You'd know him by his huge bitch tits.
All of the other assholes
Laugh and call him "piggy-boy,"
They never let poor E-Rock
Have his hoagies or his shitty toys!
Click to expand...
EATROCKS Ain't got shit on the OPSTAR, saying I screwed him out of the Westwood One deal. I don't WANNNNT him in my life anymore. PERIOD. Do ya get it RAWNNNNN

Ye-yes I get it. When are we doin' anotha gebhards!
 
Hey Johnny Bravo said:
This is a total non-sequitur, but there's a piece of O&A lore that I've never been able to figure out: who was the enormously fat female DJ who had a sexy voice, and the station put her behind a tree in a promo photo? I've always wanted to see pictures out of morbid curiosity and maybe find an aircheck to hear her voice. However, I've never been able to find any info besides the boys alluding to it. It sounds like O&A actually felt bad for her and liked her, so they never named her and burned that bridge.
Click to expand...
Grok said:
After an exhaustive review of available sources—including web searches for Jocktober transcripts, blogs, and message board archives (such as the Opie and Anthony Reddit Forums, Kiwi Farms threads on the show, and fan sites like opieant.com), as well as X posts and semantic searches for related terms—no definitive identification of the DJ in question could be confirmed. The anecdote aligns with the show's signature style of affectionate yet irreverent Jocktober commentary, where hosts Gregg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia often spared certain personalities from full exposure out of genuine regard, as you described. This restraint likely contributes to the scarcity of named references or preserved media.

Key search efforts included:
- Queries targeting phrases like "Opie and Anthony fat female DJ behind tree promo," "Jocktober sexy voice fat DJ," and variations incorporating "felt bad" or "didn't name her."
- Examination of Jocktober segment lists and YouTube compilations (e.g., "The Morning Hot Tub," "Candy and Potter," and "Loper, Smitthy and Randi"), none of which matched the description.
- Scans of fan discussions on platforms like Reddit and archived forums, where similar lore (e.g., roasts of mismatched on-air personas) appears but without this specific story.

No promo photos, airchecks, or visual/audio artifacts surfaced, suggesting the bit was verbal-only and not widely digitized. If you recall the approximate year, market (e.g., a specific station like WAAF or WNEW), or additional context from the allusion, it could refine a follow-up search. In the meantime, this remains one of the more enigmatic entries in O&A's oral history, underscoring their occasional mercy amid the mayhem.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure where else to look for the info.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom