Adam Carolla
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Adam Carolla (b. May 27, 1964) is an American comedic radio personality and television personality, best known for co-hosting the radio show Loveline and The Man Show on TV.
Early life
Carolla was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to an Italian American father and a Hungarian American mother. He attended North Hollywood High School, where he was voted class clown and was the captain of his football team but never received good grades, graduating with a 1.75 grade point average (though due to an unreturned library book, he never actually received a diploma). Carolla began living on his own at the age of 18 and briefly attended Los Angeles Valley College, a junior college, before dropping out to work in a series of jobs, including a carpet cleaner, carpenter, traffic school instructor and boxing instructor.
Early comedy career
In his spare time he worked on his comedy skills, training with The Groundlings and attempting stand-up, but he didn't believe either of these were a good fit for him (though he did perform sketch comedy with ACME Comedy Theater for a few years). In his late twenties he heard an ad on the radio seeking a boxing instructor to train Jimmy Kimmel, who at the time was a radio personality on the KROQ morning show Kevin and Bean as Jimmy the Sports Guy. Carolla met Kimmel at the radio station and the two became best friends. Carolla eventually joined the show's repertoire as Mr. Birchum, the Vietnam veteran shop teacher.
Carolla was offered the job of co-hosting Loveline with physician Dr. Drew Pinsky in 1995, replacing Riki Rachtman. Loveline is a syndicated radio program produced by Westwood One, and was also for several years a television show for MTV. On Loveline, Carolla often gave extended commentary about matters having little to do with the official subject matter of the show. Common topics included his dislike of religion, junior college, traffic/parking enforcement, and political extremists and his preference for pie over cake. Carolla added a humorous slant to the callers' problems.
Recent comedy career
Carolla then went on to do The Man Show with Kimmel on Comedy Central from 1999 to 2003. He left The Man Show at the same time as his good friend Kimmel, even after having been reportedly offered $50,000 per episode to stay on. Carolla has continued his work with Kimmel as a writer and regular guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live. With partner Daniel Kellison, they are the heads of Jackhole Productions and created another television show named Crank Yankers for Comedy Central, which revived the Mr. Birchum character.
Carolla has also done voiceovers for cartoons, including Commander Nebula on the Disney animated series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Death on Family Guy (replacing Norm MacDonald) and Spanky Ham on Drawn Together.
From August 2005 to November 2005, Carolla hosted the talk show Too Late with Adam Carolla on Comedy Central.
He is currently filming "The Hammer", a movie starring himself and Heather Juergensen in Los Angeles. [link]
In 2006, he appeared on the special summer series Gameshow Marathon as a celebrity panelist on the Match Game episode.
The Adam Carolla Show
On August 4, 2005, Carolla announced that he would leave Loveline to pursue a position in morning radio, replacing Howard Stern (much to Stern's approval) in a number of morning markets. Adam's last night on Loveline was November 3, 2005, to allow him to have time to prepare for his morning debut at the beginning of 2006. He stated that he would love to continue to do Loveline noting how every night that he did it flew by, but it would not be a possibility. On October 25, Infinity Broadcasting announced that it would be replacing Stern with Carolla on several radio stations in the western United States. On January 3, 2006, Carolla began his new morning radio show, The Adam Carolla Show, on stations in Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, Las Vegas, Fresno and Sacramento.
Controversy
Carolla's morning show became the subject of controversy within a few weeks of airing when on January 24, 2006, Carolla played a segment which spoofed the upcoming Asian Excellence Awards, which honor Asian American media accomplishments. The spoof consisted of what sounded like a typical excerpt from an awards show, except that the dialogue of the actors consisted only of the words ching chong, repeated [over and over]. (The actual award show was conducted in English.) Branding the segment as demeaning and racist, several Asian American organizations (including the NAAAP) threatened to ask advertisers to withdraw their support from the show if the station did not issue an apology. [link] [link] On February 22, 2006, Carolla without fanfare read a brief apology for the segment, in which he said that his show had regrettably ["crossed the line"]. On April 26, 2006, Carolla invited the head of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, Guy Aoki, [to further explain] that when he aired the bit, he had no idea that "ching chong" was a racial slur. He further attributed the bit to Dave Dameshek, the show's sports correspondent, for conceiving it.[link] Mention of the bit was removed from the official show blog. [link]
On July 6, 2006 conservative pundit Ann Coulter called the show an hour and half late. While explaining she had been given the wrong number and was "really tight on time", Carolla hung up on Ann, telling her to "get lost" [link]. Coulter had previously not called a week earlier when she was scheduled to, and was clearly in a poor mood when she did finally call through.
Personal
He married his longtime girlfriend Lynette Paradise on September 28, 2002. Lynette gave birth to both her and Adam's first children, twins Natalia and Santino "Sonny" Carolla on June 7, 2006. [link]
Earnings
Carolla is fond of pressuring guests to reveal their earnings for a magazine layout, TV show, commercial, etc.On the Loveline radio program from May 5, 2002 he read his Social Security Earnings Statement. It is as follows.
1980: $232
1981: $746
1982: $1,093
1983: $2,289
1984: $9,367
1985: $0
1986: $17,672
1987: $2,553
1988: $0
1989: $22,543
1990: $6,312
1991: $0
1992: $3,521
1993: $3,984
1994: $6,442
1995: $36,000
1996: $316,424 (the first full year of being a Loveline cohost)
1997: $354,661
1998: $543,453
1999: $1,237,903
2000: $1,013,726
Trivia
- On Comedy Central's Roast of Pamela Anderson, Greg Giraldo called Adam "Pete Sampras with Down Syndrome." Perhaps coincidentally, Adam had once made fun of an audience member of The Man Show by saying that he looked "Like Tom Cruise with Down Syndrome."
- As of May 1st Adam Carolla will have a sleep oriented radio station on US Air flights[[Citing sources citation needed]]. A frequent subject that Adam has complained about is his inability to sleep during long airplane trips because he can only sleep on his stomach.
- Circa August 15, 2005, Carolla became a member of the advisory board of Marijuana Policy Project after devoting nearly an entire episode of Too Late With Adam Carolla to talking with Weeds star Kevin Nealon about the supposed absurdities of the war on marijuana. [link]
- As a child, Carolla got carbon Monoxide poisoning in the back of his mom's boyfriends microbus[[Citing sources citation needed]].
- Carolla lost his virginity to Beth Ringwald, the sister of Molly Ringwald. This was confirmed May 26, 2006 on the Adam Carolla Show. [link]
- When he was in his 20s, he had an English girlfriend who was a stripper.[link]
- He cleaned carpets for a number of years after high school[link]
- He majored in ceramics at North Hollywood High School. [link]
- He was a traffic school instructor in Los Angeles. [link]
- Asteroid 4535 Adamcarolla is named in his honor.[link]
- Carolla was not allowed to walk across the stage during his high school graduation due to his senior prank[[Citing sources citation needed]].
- He is a part-owner of the Los Angeles restaurant Amalfi where he is often spotted dining [link].
- He is an advisory board member of the Marijuana Policy Project. [link]
- He is doing radio advertisements for Lance crackers as of late 2005.
External links
- [Adam Carolla's TVRage Page]
- [Bankrate.com - Interview]
- [Vyuz.com - Profile]
- [ACSArchive.com - Daily Podcast of the Adam Carolla Show]
- [LovelineArchive.com - Daily Podcast of Loveline]
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