I always look at 2005-2010 as being the prime O and A years. Opie actually cared to produce the show (Say what you will about the guy but he knows how to produce a radio show by all accounts), Ant's conservative rants were spaced out nicely, and the assortment of comics and guests were second to none.

Patrice, Louie, Geraldo, Colin, Vos, Rogan, Kelly, Bobby Lee, Burr, Regan, and the rest of those guys just crushed it every time they were on (Which seemed to be pretty frequent). O and A were the right show at the right time. To have all those huge comedians coming up at that time (2000-2005) and to have the WNEW show as the launch of a lot of comics and the XM (And later FM) show to keep their exposure up worked out well for both parties.

Fark was their show prep long before Twitter existed.

Wack bag was always talked about back then as well

Not to mention the advent of Paltalk and the non-paltalkers complaining about it.

Yeah, people complain about twitter and 90 Day Fiance and shit, but they were doing the same thing in 05/06 with Myspace and American Idol. The Idol talk in particular was baffling to me, they didn't even really rip into or anything, it was just coverage of an ongoing reality show.

Still, early 2005 until the move back to FM was the best "hang" feel the show has ever had. They didn't instantly go to shit back on FM, but the walkover, trying not to swear, explaining stuff for the new audience stuff severely disrupted the hang feel.

Listening to mid 2006 at the moment, they seemed to get all the recaps and daily news out of the way on the FM and used XM for prepared bits and letting the comedians go off and vibe with each other

Around July 06 YouTube kicks in and Opie is immediately pretty vocal about it

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Haha, really? I mean, that is an idiotic suggestion, but its just surreal to imagine O&A arguing with a consultant in defense of more Idol talk. Its like the roles are reversed, but it still makes sense somehow.