A weekly review of The Best Show On WFMU, Tom Scharpling’s call-in/comedy/music show broadcast every Tuesday night from Jersey City. The three-hour program is available for free download at iTunes.
Our take on the 2/24/09 episode of The Best Show after the jump, but an important announcement pre-empts the peanut gallery babbling: Tonight is your last chance to pledge your support of listener-funded, free-form radio station WFMU during Best Show hours. Call in if you’re listening live or donate online by March 15 to support the program.
Last week’s conjecturing proved true: For a $75 pledge, part of your premium includes a tribute to Paul & Linda McCartney’s Ram, with Death Cab For Cutie, Aimee Mann, Portastatic, Ted Leo, Dump (a.k.a. Yo La Tengo’s James McNew) and others covering the album’s songs. You also get a tote bag and an all-new Scharpling and Wurster CD—all this stuff is exclusive to the pledge drive.
2/24/09: This episode is a tale of two guests:
The show leads off with an interview with Englishman Robert Popper, one of the co-creators of TV comedy series Look Around You. Look around you before listening to the first 20 minutes of this interview. Make sure there are no sharp edges on nearby furniture and maybe arrange some pillows around you in a perimeter. You may drift to sleep. Tim Heidecker (of Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!) even calls to mock-protest the promotional nature of the interview, but the point is made. All that said, we couldn’t be more excited to experience Popper’s handiwork: Look Around You is a spoof of ’70s/’80s educational films and is appearing on Adult Swim; Popper’s book, The Timewaster Letters (written under the name Robin Cooper) is well-endorsed and clearly destined for the bathroom shelf.
Patton Oswalt co-hosts for the remainder of the program. Never a dull moment; there’s something very entertaining about Tom (who writes for TV) and Patton (who did hard time on King Of Queens) going “inside baseball” with analysis of television networks and programming. Oswalt also matches wits with call screener Mike on the topic of Werner Herzog films. Apparently, Mike has acquired animation rights to all of Herzog’s films and plans on turning them into children’s films: Lil’ Fitzcarraldo, Lil’ Grizzly Man, Lil’ Little Dieter Needs To Fly, et al.
Plus, a helpful caller alerts us to the fact that David Crosby has taken out a quarter-page ad in Rolling Stone to sell his yacht. Unbelievable. Asking price: $1 million for Crosby’s “spiritual platform.”
And finally, don’t forget to check out Best Show Gems—a biweekly greatest-hits mini-podcast of The Best Show.
