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Dude i was just listening to the episode with Patrice talking about being poor growing up and opie starts talking out his ass about how hard he had it and some cement bag lunch bag he was forced to use once. Then Ant goes how many black people were at your school opie? Pause.... Ah non but i got real lucky I lived in a good area... Opie is an ass

Sometimes he says "we were doing alright..." then sometimes he claims to have been dirt poor. And then sometimes he blames his mom for being OCD about saving money for a rainy day.

This is a lie because Opie said all of his basketball teammates were black.

Ha, it was the episode w/Patrice and Ant talks about his mom being a cocktail waitress, Opie brags about being poor, only have no frills stuff and getting lucky that he lived by a fancy golf course and got a job otherwise he would have died from starvation.

There was one time Opie said there was only one black kid on his team, and that because he was scared of the ghetto black kids he wasn't "Really black" and was a "phony".

Patrice told him that was retarded, but only someone like Opie, who thinks acting "black" is a persona for black people, could think that kind of horseshit in the first place.

I just listened to an old episode where Opie talks forever about those same stories of how poor they were (the cement bag being the highlight of course). After his endless ranting about his hard childhood, someone asked him how Christmas was for his family growing up, and he says that his parents always went all out on Christmas and that there were so many presents that you could barely walk through the front door without stepping on one. What in the fuck?

Belching into the mic is so fucking annoying. like he's trying to be some alpha dude but can't manage it with his brain.

It's because he's uncouth and proud. He just doesn't give a FFFFFFFUUCKKK.

most of his burps into mic are fake... he vocalizes them "uuuhh-errrt." it's probably the worst thing he does, which is saying a lot.

I've been listening through the Patrice audio again and it's just staggering to me the degree to which Opie's insanity can intensify.

He really, really thought that he and Patrice were at least equals. He thought that he was the exception to all of Patrice's ideas about relationships, he thought he was smarter than Patrice for sure, and he was never fucking honest about anything.

Patrice was so good at riffing he could take any of the shit that Opie spewed and spin it into gold which led to Opie believing he was just as funny as Patrice. I wonder how hard it was for a dude who could sniff out bullshit like a bloodhound to put up with the Opester trying to be a homie.

He thinks he's on the same playing field as Ronnie B. too. WHY...??? HOW?? In what world does this egomaniac live??

They really found a groove once Jimmy came on board. I think that's in 2000 when I first found them.

Yeah, it can sound hacky today, but they had to deal with the FCC and found all sorts of loopholes tighter than a balloon knot, and listening to them do that was half the fun. Remember, this was when the internet barely existed, HBO only showed movies, and people still watched prime-time TV. O&A were shocking and jocking, and at the time, it was rad.

You'll probably dislike Jimmy during his first year of the show because he plays Mr. I'm So Angry a lot, but he eventually gets comfortable and becomes a sniper with his quick lines.

If you have a source for the Ron & Few shows from that era, please message me. I used to stay late at work to find out what would happen next with R&F, and Anthony dropped-in a lot. You'd probably be amazed by Fez from the pre-XM days if you've never heard him at 110 percent.

Agreed on Jimmy. I think people forget how much of the O&A show's identity he's responsible for. He really changed things when he came on board.

Check out the big ass room on paltalk for WJFK era Ron and Fez. 24/7 stream.

Sweet! Thanks!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE

"Taking a crunch."

Oof...

He hasn't evolved in 20 years, he's still trying to come up with phrases to mean defecation like that to this day. Droppin' hammers being the most recent and awful example.

In the later shows, once Jimmy shows up, Opie learns the word hack. But he never feels confident enough to call something hack, so he asks "That's gotta be hack right?" Ugh

Opie sucks. He fake laughs constantly, and has this weird crutch where he pretends to laugh so hard that he starts coughing off-mic.

UGH!

Keep us updated as you progress through the later years. I enjoyed this little summary.

Glad you're going back to dig into the old shows, they have not aged well I'm sure. But you kind of have to put it in context: they were different & fun for NY radio, not hacky morning zoo but like a younger demo Howard show for the afternoons. I used to drive around after work, wasting gas, listening to O&A. Lots of crazy shit that probably doesn't hold up but was fun live: voyeur bus, homeless shopping, Dice appearances, etc.

Let's be clear here too: Ant was the reason the show was funny & great. His Reagen impression even if it was a little hacky just made me laugh and his bit of Brokaw fighting other TV anchors with war movie quotes was twisted & hilarious. The thing about Opie was he was the guy who had to overcompensate by being really vicious, to guests or the other jocks at WNEW. That was his place & it was a little douchey but it worked. When Opie started thinking that he was the 'talent' - that was when he started getting really irritating.

I really haven't heard many shows from back then but one thing that you mentioned that also stuck out to me is opie replying '...you ass' to any flack thrown his way. The tone he would say it with really showed how thin skinned he is and we later find out he really wanted to let loose with a "asshole fuckface dick."

Ugh, holy shit I completely forgot about the you ass thing (also didn't read the whole OP). Wow was that a douche chilling comeback, even if you take the thin-skinnedness out of the equation.

And yeah, he used it A LOT.

I too enjoyed your summary, so I'll fill in some of the blanks for you. I don't want to defend Opie but he has explained many times over the years that the over the top fake laughs back in the day also came with a lot of "Duuude"! That was because they wanted their fans to think they were young party guys and Opie even admitted that he would try to sound like a stoner in order to appeal to their demo at the time.

You will hear occasionally use the word "Patch" nowadays, but he does it kinda making fun of himself, because once Ant was talking about fucking all these girls in high school, and Opie said the closest he ever came to scoring in high school is when him and his group of friends in the High School Virgin Club would go on dates, but after one of them fingered a girl, the other guys called that "Getting Patch" referring to that late 70's early 80's Bush on the girls. So now when he says it, he's just trying to be ironic.

Stephen wasn't just a guest. He was one of their close friends. He was like Bobby & Vos are now. Plus, Stephen Lynch was a huge get back then.

Opie actually had a lot thicker skin back then. He used to co scantly tell embarrassing stories about him self, and he could be fucked about it.

Tuesday Night Hummer Club was s bit sort of like WoW! They tried so hard to over sell them, but it never really took off. It became very obvious that WAY over half of the girls blowing their man on the phone were completely faking it!

I think XM was the greatest times ever' wait Until you get to when they did The WalkOver! Everyday they walked from CBS Radio to XM Radio. Tons of fans Police and Undercover Cops would walk with them. That's when the infamous story went down where some young pussy Howard Fan got pissed at the boys for making fun of him, so he shoved the Producer Ben, which caused Master PO to pick this kid up by the pubes and slammed him to the ground. The kid was completely hogtied to where he couldn't move a muscle, so big bad Opie got brave and screamed in the kids face talking shit, while hiding behind Two Bodyguards & Steve!!inthink that might have been April of 2006, but I'm not Suarez.

WTF happened during that last paragraph

are you ok?

Suarez was supposed to say Sure. I was half asleep in the middle of the night typing really fast on my phone.

Have you ever listened to Stephen Lynch? If you haven't, then find his songs and albums from Early-Mid 2000's because his songs the last few years have really Sucked!

Stern fan attack

The Stern Fan Attack! The good old days. Back when people would talk shit about the show and the boys would say "Keep going. What else don't you like". Now if you try to tell Opie you don't like him or the show, You won't get out the 1st sentence before he talks over you, and then loads the phone bank with Praise Calls!

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I have been listening to the Classic Loveline podcast and they're from the same era, 1996-97, but the humor is far less dated. That "Shock Jock" shit did not age well at all.

Lol how is someone who lies so fucking often so fucking bad at lying?

It's just painfully obvious every time he starts telling a lie - here, when he says "the smell got to me" - the voice and the awkward laugh are blatant give-aways.

Where did you find the older shows?

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheBobWhookidSamShow/videos

They were at their peak during 102.7 wnew and to some extent 92.3 free fm. Check out Ron and Fez's show during then, I was dying nightly

I began my relistening when we lost Ant. I started with WNEW and I'm currently on 1-5-09 having just listened in order, to all shows. Bashing no one, I'd like to point out how psychic one feels while relistening to 4.5 hours a day of current events. I also have a looming dread as I listen to Patrice knowing I only have a little over 2 years left to hear his voice. That part hurts my soul.

The only positive thing I can think of when I realise that is there are hundreds of hours of Patrice's wisdom and brilliance available, which gives you greater access to him and his philosophy than you would get with any other celebrity alive or dead.

It's not much of a consolation, but thank God he found O&A

I don't care what anyone says, the golden age of O&A was 2006-2011. Even the shows from 2011-14 are better than 95% of stuff pre-satellite.

Messing with callers, ramoning, jim's characters, all the comics...these were the best years.

Listening to clips from XM and Sirius era, Opie doesn't bother me at all. He's doing his job and for the majority letting Ant and Jim bring the funny and he even has the occasional good line from time to time. He honestly didn't bother me in general until now that he's on his own. I guess it's to be expected, he went from the perfect role of just steering the ship and knowing when to move on and when to do certain bits(I know everyone makes fun of it, but he was great at it) and doing basically just 25% of the lifting while Jim and Ant carried the other 75%. Now he's basically 65% to 45% for Jim and that's why he's not good. It's like taking a club dj who just plays at a dance club and chooses top 40 songs to play and having him start doing Tiesto type stuff where he creates his own songs.

I don't know why this makes me defensive but it does. I was in my 20's living in New york in the 90's and O&A was a huge part of my afternoon. Stern went off the air at 10 am there was NOTHING interesting on the radio ever. There was no internet radio, no podcasts - there was Stern and go fuck yourself.

Was the show great? Who the fuck knows. It's live radio. it's meant to be listened to at the time and then never again. It's intentionally etherial. I was a "superfan" and have never gone back to listen to any of those shows. why would I? That's not how live radio works.

All I know is it was fun to be part of the fan base, it was fun to have this "thing." I lived on the west side which is where most of the show shit went down and go to listener events at Le Bar Bat or go watch psycho mark do some stupid thing on 8th avenue or whatever.

so piss on it all you want for not being up to some mythical standard. I guarantee you it was 10000 times more fun to be a fan back when the show was just this dumb obnoxious thing that came on when we were getting out of our awful jobs and ready to have a fucking beer or twelve.

Jesus. Find something that's happening NOW that's fun to you and enjoy it in real time instead of picking apart the past of something else.

Wow, you truly were a superfan. Which no one should aspire to be. But cut the guy some slack. He was just making some observations. He wasn't trying to steal your sunshine. Zero reason to be defensive.

I've gone on a 90s Stern listening spree and am shocked how well it holds up. I've listened to the late 90s O&A stuff and it is bad as this guy was saying. But they(well Ant did, Opie always sucked) got better while Howard started the decline in 2001.

Fast forward to the first few years of XM. This was their pinnacle.

This is great, please keep going

Yeah the WNEW stuff wouldn't be good now, they were the epitome of "shock jock" back then, and nothing they did would be shocking by today's standards, just obnoxious and lazy. They didn't really gel until they figured out that they should have comics in there with them constantly. Jimmy was a huge lapdog in the beginning (understandably) and all he would do is agree with O&A and push their opinion to a violent extreme.

I did the same thing but with early xm shows. I have a lot of the same thoughts. Really fucking hacky just in different ways (probably not quite as bad though).

I too have gone back and started listening to every show in order, at first starting with their XM debut, but that was lame so I skipped ahead to 2005, and that wasn't so hot either. Neither was '06 or '07. I'm currently listening to '08. I know for a fact that there's a ton of hilarious stuff in at least '07, but boy were the constant sound effects bits and caller-based bits monotonous.

i did this for awhile and made it to 06 and then skipped around, even though it didnt really make me laugh it was still interesting to hear them so early in their career. it was also crazy to hear the stuff they could get away with back then.

There's actually a show in the late 2000's where they reflect on Jimmy joining the show and how he changed it from hacky stupidity to more self-aware humor. Jimmy brought the idea of bombing (which began the use of the car crash sound clip, and the "oh, good lord"), and self-deprecation, and general shit-talking. He really was the factor that put them over the edge. I'm sure you'll see this happen as you're listening, and it'll be interesting to see what you report.

That why it pisses me off that, all these years later and even with Ant gone, he doesn't get to have his name on the show.

Then again, why would he want to now?

Let us know when it gets good, I'd like to use that as a starting point to listen to their old stuff.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE.

I'm tired of Opie acting like Pepperidge Farm was somehow ever a welfare brand on par with eating government cheese.

O&A by themselves was never very good IMO. Like a lot of people I was introduced to the show because of guys like Jimmy, Louie, Burr, Patrice, Colin, etc. I didn't even know who was who between O&A for a while. Now that they've split and I've heard both shows, I wonder why I ever liked these guys. The best thing you can say about Opie is that he prefers vulgar, chaotic radio rather than the same PC drivel that most shows do. That's really about it. Anthony is a funny and talented guy, I'll listen to him if he ever gets a co-host.

Comedy ages badly, but even so it will take a couple years before they get into the groove. I think they switched over from talking between the songs to full time talk later in 99. It's a bit rough as the stretch out things and replay bits into the ground.

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I listened to that wnew stuff recently. I also listened to it at the time when I was in junior high. It's not fair to point out things like opie saying patch it was like 1998. That was cool then. The internet had not become what it is now with entertainment. As a kid this was literally the only edgy thing u had.

You have to take it in stride.

It's like watching a roger corman movie now. If you don't put it context you won't get it

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When I went back and listened to the old shows around 2007 or 2008 it was complete douchechils pre-WNEW. So I'd imagine by now even much of the WNEW seems dated.

Been a listener since 1998.

The show had to deal with FCC regulations. So, it's difficult to go from SXM O&A to WNEW. It's like going from color to black and white. But, they were very creative in getting around those regulations.

That being said, WNEW was their prime. They had top level guests/comics and were an all out circus in studio. This carried over, somewhat, to early XM.

Homeless Shopping Spree, Charlton Heston impersonations, in-studio challenges, the live (streaming) gigs, the overall debauchery...it was amazing.

Keep listening, the show gets better.

The only thing I think you're wrong on, is that Stephen Lynch not being funny.

Take that back, you mother fuck.

Stephen Lynch is sort of funny, but "funny songs" aren't funny.

INteresting to see this. As others have said, I am sure things we thought were hilarious then do not hold up as well now.

I started listening to the show at the end of 1999 when they still had to have a music break every hour. To me, I have always maintained that the XM version was the funnier period and the NEW show was the "most fun" period. Anthony and Jimmy were better as comedians once they came back to XM. Anthony's impressions were hilarious at the time but are dated now.

The NEW show always felt like guys you would hang out with a drink after work and the studio always felt like it was a party that you dropped in on that was continuing well after the mics were turned off. Especially starting around mid-2000 or so when they started to find their niche and had guys like Jay Mohr, Bruer, Regan come in to hang.

Yeah I didn't enjoy them till maybe 2006-2007. Can't really remember.

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You're an idiot is all you need to know

when jimmy joined full time it went down hill

The show was on fire when they initially had Norton on as a guest, same with Patrice. O&A dipped in quality when Patrice passed.

"Opie sucks."

"Opie also sucks."

Wow, you're really going out on a limb there.

I was being sarcastic.

You listened to an entire year worth of cringey shock jock radio from 98/99 and came to us with the revelation that O&A stunk back then, which is something we're all aware of and has been acknowledged by both O and A.

Congrats.

No, stupid....OPIE sucked back then. Illiterate cock.

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WTF happened during that last paragraph

are you ok?

Stephen Lynch is sort of funny, but "funny songs" aren't funny.

Stern fan attack