Adam Carolla
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Image:Adam Carolla.jpg Adam Carolla (b. May 27, 1964) is an American comedic radio personality and television personality, best known for co-hosting the radio show Loveline and The Man Show on TV.
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Early life
Carolla was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to an Italian American father and a Hungarian American mother. He attended North Hollywood High School, where he was voted class clown and was the captain of his football team but never received good grades, graduating with a very low 1.75 grade point average. Carolla began living on his own at the age of 18 and briefly attended Los Angeles Valley College, a junior college, before dropping out to work in a series of jobs, such as a carpet cleaner, carpenter, and boxing instructor.
Early comedy career
In his spare time he worked on his comedy skills, training with The Groundlings and attempting stand-up, but he didn't believe either of these were a good fit for him. In his late twenties he heard an ad on the radio seeking a boxing instructor to train Jimmy Kimmel, who at the time was a radio personality on the KROQ morning show Kevin and Bean as Jimmy the Sports Guy. Carolla met Kimmel at the radio station and the two became best friends. Carolla eventually joined the show's repertoire as Mr. Birchum, the Vietnam veteran shop teacher.
Carolla was offered the job of co-hosting Loveline with physician Dr. Drew Pinsky in 1995, replacing Riki Rachtman. Loveline is a syndicated radio program produced by Westwood One, and was also for several years a television show for MTV. On Loveline, Carolla often gave extended commentary about matters having little to do with the official subject matter of the show. Common topics included his dislike of religion, junior college, traffic/parking enforcement, and political extremists and his preference for pie over cake (along with a great many other topics). Carolla brought to the show his ability to naturally add a humorous slant to the callers' problems.
Recent comedy career
Carolla then went on to do The Man Show with Kimmel on Comedy Central from 1999 to 2003. He left The Man Show at the same time as his good friend Kimmel, even after having been reportedly offered $50,000 per episode to stay on. Carolla has continued his work with Kimmel as a writer and regular guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live. With partner Daniel Kellison, they are the heads of Jackhole Productions and created another television show named Crank Yankers for Comedy Central, which revived the Mr. Birchum character.
Carolla has also done voiceovers for cartoons, including Commander Nebula on the Disney animated series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Death on Family Guy (replacing Norm MacDonald) and Spanky Ham on Drawn Together.
From August 2005 to November 2005, Carolla hosted the talk show Too Late with Adam Carolla on Comedy Central.
The Adam Carolla Show
On August 4, 2005, Carolla announced that he would leave Loveline to pursue a position in morning radio, replacing Howard Stern (much to Stern's approval) in a number of morning markets. Adam's last night on Loveline was November 3, 2005, to allow him to have time to prepare for his morning debut at the beginning of 2006. On October 25, Infinity Broadcasting announced that it would be replacing Stern with Carolla on several radio stations in the western United States. On January 3, 2006, Carolla began his new morning radio show, The Adam Carolla Show, on stations in Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, Las Vegas, Fresno and Sacramento. As of January 6, 2006, east coast and Dallas affiliates were already in discussions with CBS Radio, to drop David Lee Roth and substitute Carolla.
Circa August 15, 2005, Carolla became a member of the advisory board of Marijuana Policy Project after devoting nearly an entire episode of his Comedy Central show to talking with Weeds star Kevin Nealon about the absurdities of the war on marijuana. [1]
Carolla's morning show became the subject of controversy within a few weeks of airing when on January 24, 2006, Carolla played a segment which spoofed the upcoming Asian Excellence Awards, which honor Asian American media accomplishments. The spoof consisted of what sounded like a typical excerpt from an awards show, except that the dialogue of the actors consisted only of the words "ching" and "chong", repeated over and over. (The actual award show was conducted in English.) Branding the segment as demeaning and racist, several Asian American organizations (such as the NAAAP) threatened to ask advertisers to withdraw their support from the show if the station did not issue an apology. [2] [3] On February 22, 2006, Carolla without fanfare read a brief apology for the segment, in which he said that his show had regrettably "crossed the line".
Carolla often says on-air that he is now, "literally a millionaire. Literally". He married his longtime girlfriend Lynette Paradise on September 28, 2002, and they are currently expecting twins in August 2006.
Although raised as a Christian, Carolla is an atheist.
Earnings
Carolla is fond of pressuring guests to reveal their earnings for a magazine layout, TV show, commercial, etc. To be fair he reveals his earnings on-air.
On the Loveline radio program from May 5, 2002 he had Drew read his Social Security Earnings Statement. It is as follows.
1980: $232
1981: $746
1982: $1,093
1983: $2,289
1984: $9,367
1985: $0
1986: $17,672
1987: $2,553
1988: $0
1989: $22,543
1990: $6,312
1991: $0
1992: $3,521
1993: $3,984
1994: $6,442
1995: $36,000
1996: $316,424 (the first full year of being a Loveline cohost)
1997: $354,661
1998: $543,453
1999: $1,237,903
2000: $1,013,726
External links
- {{{2|{{{name|Adam Carolla}}}}}} at The Internet Movie Database
- Official Free FM bio
- Bankrate.com - Interview
- Vyuz.com - Profile
Trivia
- On Comedy Central's Roast of Pamela Anderson, Greg Giraldo called Adam "Pete Sampras with Down's Syndrome."
As of May 1st Adam Carolla will have a sleep oriented radio station on a major national airline.
As a child Adam Carolla got Carbon Monoxide poisoning in the back of his mom's boyfriends microbus.
Adam Carolla had no middle name.
Cleaned carpets for a number of years out of high school.