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Read this in eastern European accent
it's hard to disagree when we listen back, but there was a time when he was funny, right?
The problem with shock comedy is you can't really be surprised by the same thing twice. It's the same reason horror movies age horribly and quickly. Anthony and Jim were hilarious because they were fast and often unpredictable. It was meant to be a disposable daily show, with occasional best ofs. It was never meant to be lasting doctrine for a mentally ill cyber terrorist drug cult, it just kind of happened that way.
The stuff that you can listen to over and over again is the stuff that Opie produced. Jocktober, song parodies, listener bits, the roasts of old material (usually featuring callers), comics telling stories and goofing on each other, free for all interviews with guests. The worst stuff are the 'shock jock' moments that lose their shock value literally seconds after airing. Or any Norton driven interview outside of Roy Den Hollander's meltdown or the Ozzy coffee table books.
I disagree. My name is literally about how listening to every single show would get you the most enjoyment. How these guys would drop references to other bits or old movies or shows and it would take years for you to realize what they were talking about. In order to 'get' the show you had to intently listen and dedicate time to watching movies and shows and whatever was mentioned on the show.
Anthony was never funny without Opie. Jim was never funny without someone like Opie or Colin holding his hand the entire time. Even most of the comics on O&A were terrible outside of O&A. Artie Lange did nothing worthwhile outside of Stern (and maybe Nick and Artie, which was all Nick in hindsight).
It's still the greatest radio show and podcast of all time. And will probably never be surpassed. But it was five hours a day of live content. Impossible to make everyone laugh nonstop that long. It takes the average good standup comic three years to get one hour of material. O&A had to provide 20-25 hours of material every single week for nearly two decades. One week of O&A shows is more than almost any comic will do on stage in their entire careers.
It was my understanding that he was 14 years old
I told a friend of mine that O&A was one of the best shows of any genre ever. The caveat is, you have to be in on the joke for 90%+ of it, meaning you "have to do the homework" to get the most enjoyment out of it. There are some bits he instantly loved that require no context, like Nigga vs. Nazi and Dice vs. Shane McMahon.
Entire post was very good and you're right about this too, I think people delude themselves into going "O&A was never good" because of how retarded the 3 hosts are now. No, it was good, it just self destructed. Even the worst O&A episode is better than anything on the radio or any podcast now. I've been listening to Stern recently and even the best Stern era (1994ish, around the OJ trial) doesn't compare to O&A. It's just okay. I can still listen to old O&A clips over and over. The only "so-so" era of O&A for me is the Free FM K-Rock era, but even then it's fine. Before that and after that I like the most.
