Forum Overview :: Peter Molyneux's The Movies :: The Best Show on WFMU

[quote name="mark"]"The Best Show on WFMU" is a weekly, three hour, radio program on Jersey City's WFMU, the much celebrated listener supported radio station. The show features Tom Scharpling, a writer for the television show Monk, and his comedy partner John Wurster, the drummer from Superchunk. I've been listening to this show for a little more than a year, and am firmly addicted. The show format is roughly: 30 minutes of music And then 2:30 hours of Tom ranting, listeners calling in on topics, and calls from John Wurster as some strange character. The phone call portion of the show is great, and often features such comedy luminaries as Patton Oswalt and Paul F Tompkins or indie rockstars like Ted Leo or James from Yo La Tengo. The most important part of the show are when Wurster calls in. The Wurster/Scharpling calls are often fantastic. Because of the format of the show (three hours on community radio), the calls often have a strange, leisurely pace. Their subject matter tends to be absurd or dreamlike. There's the genetically engineered two-inch high boy, Timmy Von Trimble... who happens to be a white supremacist, carried away by a bird when he goes to a white supremacist rally. Or Philly Boy Roy, the insane, Philly-fanatic that is always committing bizarre, improbable crimes. Or The Gorch, the seventy year old 1950s tough that claims to be the basis for Fonzie from happy-days. The only problem with the show is that it takes a few episodes to start figuring out all the characters and their relations. This last week featured the the Mayubanatorial Debates between around 12 characters, and is a plot line that has been building for a year. If one is ever lost, there are a few dedicated fan sites to clarify things, as well as the hilarious <a href="http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/BS">archives</a>. Because of the hosts, there is often a importance placed on 80s hardcore and punk. In <a href="http://www.wfmu.org/listen.ram?show=17919&archive=25433">this classic episode</a>, "Marky Ramone" calls in to talk about his various business dealings. You can skip to the 1:35 point if that's all you want to hear -- the whole episode is pretty good. Oh yeah, there is a podcast too. Search iTunes for (get this) "best show on wfmu."[/quote]