Adam Carolla

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Adam Carolla on Too Late with Adam Carolla
Adam Carolla on Too Late with Adam Carolla

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 television programme The Man Show.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Carolla was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to an Italian American father and a Hungarian American mother.

Carolla frequently mocks his family, claiming his parents were absentee while he was growing up and have no interest in his life. For example, his father Jim Carolla lost a first-to-five trivia contest about The Adam Carolla Show, despite being given four points at the start of the game. [1] His family was also incredibly cheap - Carolla would get money for his birthday instead of gifts and he did not go to any funerals growing up. [2]

After his parents divorced, Carolla split time with his mother and father. At one point, Carolla got carbon monoxide poisoning in the back of his mom's boyfriend's Microbus. [3]

Carolla attended North Hollywood High School, where he was voted class clown and was the captain of his football team. Carolla played Pop Warner football for many years, and said being involved in it saved him from a chaotic home life. [4] On The Adam Carolla Show, Carolla said he was offered a football scholarship to Marshall University, but he was not interested in college.

Carolla never received good grades, graduating with a 1.75 grade point average. He majored in ceramics. [5] He never received his high school diploma because he owed the library $19.95 for a copy of We The People (ISBN 0-385-41903-1). [6] Because of this, he also did not participate in his high school graduation ceremony, but he said on Loveline that no one had ever asked him to produce his diploma. [7]

Because of North Hollywood High School’s location, Carolla went to high school with several people who eventually became famous. Pornstar Christy Canyon went to his high school, [8], as did Molly Ringwald’s sister Beth Ringwald, to whom Carolla lost his virginity. [9] [10]

Carolla frequently tells stories of pranks he and his friends did during and after high school. He 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, including a carpet cleaner [11], carpenter, traffic school instructor[12], metal worker and boxing instructor. In his 20s, he dated a British woman who was a stripper. [13] [14] He also taught himself how to ride a unicycle, which he has ridden during an episode of Too Late With Adam Carolla and as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

[edit] 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 (though he did perform sketch comedy with ACME Comedy Theater for a few years). 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 asked Jimmy how he could get into radio, Jimmy replied that he should come up with a character. Carolla eventually joined the show's cast 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 a television show on MTV for four years. 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, red left-turn arrows, political extremists, preference for pie over cake, and weather warning crawls at the bottom of the television screen.

[edit] 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.

He recently finished filming The Hammer, a movie starring himself and Heather Juergensen in Los Angeles. [15]

In 2006, he appeared on the special summer series Gameshow Marathon as a celebrity panelist on the Match Game episode.

[edit] 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 west coast 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. He stated that he would love to continue to do Loveline, which seemed to fly by while doing it, but the show would not be a possibility. On October 25, Infinity Broadcasting officially 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 (where the show is based), Phoenix, San Francisco, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, Las Vegas, Oakland, Reno, Burbank, Fresno and Sacramento.

[edit] Controversy

On November 9, 2003 Loveline was canceled by Hawaii affiliate KPOI after Carolla referred to Hawaiians as "the dumbest people". He also claimed that you could take over the island with a Bic lighter. [16]

Carolla's morning show became the subject of a minor 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 chong, repeated over and over. Branding the segment as demeaning and racist, several Asian American organizations (including the NAAAP) threatened to ask advertisers to withdraw their support from the show if the station did not issue an apology. [17] [18] 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". On April 26, 2006, Carolla invited the head of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, Guy Aoki, and Teddy Zee, co-chair of the Asian Excellence Awards, to further explain that when he aired the bit, he had no idea that "ching chong" was a racial slur. Mention of the bit was removed from the official show blog. [19]

On July 6, 2006 conservative pundit Ann Coulter called the show an hour and a half after she was scheduled. She explained that she had been given the wrong number and was "really tight on time", but Carolla hung up on Ann, telling her, "Alright, well, get lost." [20]. Coulter had not called as scheduled a week earlier, and was clearly in a poor mood when she finally did call the program.

[edit] Incident with Gloria Allred

On November 30, 2006 Adam received a call from American lawyer and radio talk show host Gloria Allred (audio available here[21]), who is preparing a monetary suit against Michael Richards on behalf of Kyle Doss, Frank McBride and two other gentleman who claim to be "victims" of Richards' tirade at the Laugh Factory. Allred reportedly got into an argument with Carolla over the legitimacy of Allred's claims and how "he [Richards] needs to suffer". Adam then asked Ms. Allred 'what if these people were not black, but were fat' and he [Richards] launched into a tirade about how fat they were....would you still have the same case then? "I would argue that it would hurt your cause if you answered my question honestly." Allred refused to answer Adam's hypothetical on the grounds that she wanted to stay focused on the issue of race. Adam then questioned whether monetary compensation is appropriate and whether Richards has already begun to suffer as a result of the tirade.

Here is an excerpt from the show[22]

[edit] Personal

He married his longtime girlfriend Lynette Paradise on September 28, 2002. Lynette gave birth (via cesarean section) to their first children, twins Natalia and Santino "Sonny" Carolla on June 7, 2006. [23]. Originally scheduled for June 6, Adam and Lynette decided to push it back one day as to avoid the symbolic 666 (06-06-06). He is a car enthusiast and drives an E30 M3, E46 M3, Datsun 510, Porsche 911, MINI Cooper, Nissan 350Z, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, and a Ferrari.[citation needed]

[edit] Trivia

  • He is a part-owner of the Los Angeles restaurant Amalfi where he is often spotted dining. [24]
  • Asteroid 4535 Adamcarolla is named in his honor. [25]
  • Circa August 15, 2005, Carolla became a member of the advisory board of Marijuana Policy Project after devoting nearly an entire episode of Too Late With Adam Carolla to talking with Weeds star Kevin Nealon about what they believe to be the absurdities of the war on marijuana. [26] [27]
  • He loves pies so much that while in high school, he once entered a pie eating contest and deliberately lost so that he could enjoy the entire pie afterwards during the lunch break. Also, when his friend Don threw a pie at an ex-girlfriend, he ate the pieces off the ground despite large chunks of concrete. [28]
  • Adam was the host of an Internet show for the band Korn, for their release of their second album, Life Is Peachy.
  • He claims The Phantom Tollbooth is the only book he has ever read.[citation needed]
  • Carolla is an atheist. [29]
  • Adam suffers from Crohn's Disease[1]


Preceded by
Riki Rachtman		 Co-Host of Loveline
1995 – 2005		 Succeeded by
Stryker

[edit] References

  1. ^ [From Loveline Candid Interviews 1999]

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../a/d/a/Adam_Carolla_6b18.html"
In other languages