In 1993, Mancow made national headlines while working for radio station KYLD-FM in California. At the time, former 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.
After leaving California, Muller came to Chicago, where he created his now-famous radio show in 1994. Originally, he broadcast from FM 103.5, which at the time was a heavy metal station. He later moved to FM 101.1, the city’s foremost alternative rock station. Currently, he is heard from 5:30-10am (CST) in eight nationwide radio markets. The show is still broadcast from the Merchantdize Mart in downtown Chicago. Muller has also published his memoirs, titled “Dad, Dames, Demons, and a Dwarf” (Regan Books, 2003).
HIS SHOW
Despite being syndicated across the country, Mancow’s Morning Madhouse retains its Chicago flavor. Its humor is laden with the schadenfreude common to the city. 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.
Recurring characters have included “Wade the Gimp,” a handicapped man confined to a wheelchair; “Cowboy Ray,” a bad comedian; 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 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. Nonewithstanding these cultural criticisms, the Mancow show has become the most popular morning radio show in Chicago as of early 2005.
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.