The Playhouse (radio show)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Playhouse is a Portland, Oregon-based syndicated morning drive time radio show. It debuted in 2000 and airs weekday mornings on its main flagship radio station KXJM (Jammin 95.5 FM) and at various hours in the morning on its syndicated affiliates.

The Playhouse also has a nightly TV show called Playhouse TV that airs on Comcast in the Portland and Eugene metropolitan areas. The show can also be seen on Comcast's On Demand service in the Portland and Eugene areas.

Its avid listeners are known as The Playhouse Mafia. In January 2006, Rockstar became a sponsor of the show.

Contents 1 Current Cast Members 2 Former Cast Members 3 Current and Former Guests 4 Regular Segments of the Show 5 P.K.'s Failed Ideas 6 Yearly DVD 7 Pay Per View 8 Controversy 9 External links 10 References

[edit] Current Cast Members

• P.K. (Panagiotis "Peter" Kalentzis) created The Playhouse in West Palm Beach, FL, in 1997. In 2000, he moved the show to Sacramento, CA before joining Jammin 95.5 in Portland, Oregon. P.K. is full Greek (hence the name) and immigrated to the United States as a child.
• Scooter (Ryan McCanna) was the original stunt man on the show. His previous antics include streaking at a Portland Beavers game and being strapped to the Jammin 95.5 Hummer while it drove around^{[citation needed]}. He has since backed away from the stunts to become the resident reality television whiz. Scooter has a wife named Amber, whom P.K. has made out with, on-air, twice.
• Sonie gives the daily news for The Playhouse. Sonie was previously a dancer for Portland Wrestling.
• Ivan (Ivan Trujillo) is the show producer and updates the official website.
• Egypt (Neveen Ismail) started on The Playhouse as the phone screener, but got hired on as a full time on-air personality eight months later. In 2003, Egypt also had a stint on the FOX reality show Forever Eden. The show did not last a full season in the United States, but Forever Eden did run its full course overseas in Europe and in Australia. The full season is also being shown as reruns on the Fox Reality Channel.
• DuRyan (DuRyan Smith) is the currently the show's main stunt man. His stunts include shots of Ezra Brooks, and tick infested deer heads^{[citation needed]}. In February 2006, DuRyan was featured on VH1's Web Junk 20 blindfolded slapping his mother's behind who he believed was a stripper.
• Extra Work Tony (Tony Smith) is the main editor and producer for Playhouse TV. He also helps produce and edit the yearly DVD.
• FPC aka Fat Phone Chick (Heather Woodruff) is the wife of the late night Jammin 95.5 DJ known as Bootz and answers phones for The Playhouse.

[edit] Former Cast Members

• Lori, also known as "Neck Down" and "Back Woods Ho" started off as an intern for The Playhouse, but became the official phone screener. She was fired after being late to the show, and was soon replaced by FPC.
• E-bro is one of the original members of the show and a co-host. He parted ways with The Playhouse to accept a position at New York's Hot 97. He is occasionally featured on MTV's Sucker Free Sunday, and appears in early episodes of Playhouse TV.
• Don-E was hired to replace E-bro, however differences with cast members forced him to part ways with the show.
• Seahorse was one of the original phone screeners and participated in various stunts on early versions of Playhouse TV.
• Jailbait was an ex-intern who P.K. was interested in. Unfortunately, she was only 18, and eventually headed off to college.

[edit] Current and Former Guests

• Amber is Scooter's wife. She usually calls into the show to complain about something Scooter said or did, especially relating to his eating habits.
• JV is a mentally challenged fan of the show. He rarely makes appearances since the 'Special Jen' incident.
• GT is a white rapper who has produced songs for The Playhouse. His rap is usually critiqued by P.K. as being 'horrible'. He's also known for speaking at a high speed and randomly going off on tangents. He works or used to work as a gumball machine repairman.
• Mary is one of the front desk secretaries for the station. She is known to be older, and afraid of insects.
• Loretta
• Nancy

[edit] Regular Segments of the Show

• The Playhouse Prank Call was usually aired every hour on the :20s, but is now aired whenever time permits. The Playhouse Prank Call is a pre-recorded prank call that is performed by a member of the show (usually P.K.) or one of the cast members of the show Crank Yankers.
• The Phone Poll is a Question-of-the-Day segment where a question is posed to the listeners and listeners call in and provide feedback. Prizes are offered to listeners with outstanding responses.
• Ask The Playhouse / Group Therapy: Listeners call up with issues and P.K. asks other listeners to offer advice.
• The Mystery Box is a box in which often repulsive objects are placed inside, visible to everyone but the one who has to guess the object by touch. Past objects have included feces and animals, both dead and alive.
• Mystery Movie is an audio clip of a movie and listeners attempt to guess what movie the audio clip is from.
• The Time Tomb is a contest where Egypt would read a list of facts and events and listeners would try to guess what year those facts and events occurred in. Songs from that year are also played in the background as Egypt read the fact and events.
• The Answer is C is touted as 'the Easiest Game in Radio History.' A question is asked and the answer will always be 'C'. Several listeners have lost this game by answering 'A' or 'B'.
• I Am [BLEEP] is a contest where DuRyan reads three facts about a famous person in a distorted voice. Listeners call in to guess who that person is.
• Briefcase or No Briefcase is a segment similar to NBC's Deal or No Deal where P.K. would ask a member of the show (usually DuRyan) to accept the contents of a shiny silver briefcase. The contents could be very beneficial to the player (for example, $500) or very detrimental to the player (for example, having to take 3 shots of Everclear back-to-back-to-back).
• Tone Deaf Karaoke is a segment in which DuRyan sings a song a cappella. Listeners call in and guess the song.
• Sucka MC is similar to Tone Deaf Karaoke. Extra Work Tony raps a line from a rap song and listeners call in and guess the song title and artist.
• I Smell Bacon is when listeners call up and give the location of speed traps in Portland and in any of the syndicated stations cities.
• Reality Bites: Scooter gives listeners up-to-date info on reality shows.
• Around the World in 60 Seconds: Sonie reports world news in about 60 seconds, not accounting for frequent interruptions by P.K.
• "E" Report happens at 50 minutes after every hour. Ivan delivers celebrity and pop culture news.
• Final Tally marks the end of the show. Through out the show, The Playhouse cast insults each other in order to get "points". Listeners are allowed to participate as well. At the end of the show, the points are tallied up, and winners are announced.

[edit] P.K.'s Failed Ideas

One common joke running at The Playhouse is P.K.'s failed ideas. Show Host P.K. is known to always have an 'idea' to make a million dollars. Unfortunately many of them have failed. The following have been mentioned on the show:

• eBay Junk Sales - After callers told him he could buy a storage container full of random junk and sell it piece by piece on eBay, P.K. got left with a garage full of crap he had to take the to dump because it was complete garbage.
• eBay Clothes Sales - Egypt and the intern Jail Bait were instructed to buy sexy/cool clothes on sale at stores like Nordstrom's to be re-sold on eBay at a higher cost.
• Gum ball Machine - P.K. had the great idea to place gum ball machines all over town after local rap artist GT gave him one in exchange for air play of one of his songs.
• Independent film - Extra Work Tony wouldn't condone the project and the indie film never took off.
• JFK Coin Sales - P.K. thought he would make a lot of money or at least get in the news for selling a half-dollar coin that looked like JFK was crying blood. He paid one of the interns money to put it on eBay but unfortunately nothing happened.
• Monopoly Game - McDonald's annual game offers prizes up to a million dollars for matching a set of Monopoly pieces. He thought he could get all the pieces easily by trading prizes to listeners for their pieces. Unfortunately everyone had the same pieces, so the idea sank quite quickly.
• No Dog - P.K. stated that he will never get a dog, and now he has dog.
• Sexercise (FPC) - The sexy voice of FPC was used to record "inspirational" audio for those looking to lose weight. Only one version was produced and hasn't been mentioned since.
• Sexercise (DuRyan) - The same as FPC's Sexercise, except with DuRyan's voice.
• Smoking Garden - An idea created by DuRyan, P.K. stole the prototype idea and offered DuRyan a percentage to get it back if he participated jointly with P.K. to sell the product.
• Stock Market - P.K. claimed that he would be able to read an entire book about how the stock market works and he would be trading stocks making millions. He got access to a friend's online stock market account and dwindled the $2000 away.
• T-Shirt Business - The idea came up from some expensive shirts he saw at Bridgeport village with his girlfriend and he thought it would be easy to make his own line of corny T-shirts.

[edit] Yearly DVD

The Playhouse puts out a yearly DVD with 'best of' clips from the previous year's TV show. The DVDs are sold through The Playhouse website, and local Sam Goody retail stores in the Portland, Oregon area.

The DVDs:

• The Playhouse: The DVD
• The Playhouse: Reloaded
• The Playhouse: Rewound
• The Playhouse: Idiot Box
• The Playhouse: Space Cadets
• The Playhouse: Nickel Pack (5 disk DVD compilation)

[edit] Pay Per View

Playhouse TV has released one pay per view event on their website, called Playhouse TV: Ungagged. The show offered uncensored content which included Egypt discussing her night with music artist Ne-Yo, Scooter wearing a urine covered t-shirt, and DuRyan shopping with pubic hair glued to his face. There has been mention of possible future pay per view episodes, but only one has been released.

[edit] Controversy

The 'Special Jen' Incident On April 17, 2003, The Playhouse held a local event called "Adopt a Hottie," where P.K. would introduce groupies and have the listeners judge them. A frequent caller nicknamed "Special Jen", who appeared to be mentally retarded, was invited on stage. P.K. then asked if it was true that she "had learned how to wipe herself." When someone else then asked "to see her ass," she pulled down her pants, according to an audience member. "All the while, the cast of The Playhouse jumped around, pointing, mugging at each other, slapping their foreheads, stomping their feet, et cetera," said another witness. Mental-health advocates flooded the station with calls and persuaded a major advertiser to yank its ads. In response, Program Manager Tim MacNamara issued orders that "Special Jen" be kept off the air and out of any future Playhouse events.^[1]

The Portland Biking Incident On July 13, 2006, Egypt told a story about a friend who had recently hit a cyclist with her car while driving downtown. She then mentioned that she had another cyclist punch her car hood, and cut her off in traffic. In response, host P.K. encouraged listeners to call in and tell more stories of cyclists who had been smashed by cars because the thought of it "really pumped him up". He went on to say how much he hated cyclists who didn't obey traffic laws and stated, "When I hear on TV that a cyclist has been hit and killed by a car I laugh, I think it's funny. If you are a cyclist you should know I exist, that I don't care about you. That I don't care about your life." ^[2] Community group "Bike Portland" attempted to stage a protest in-front of the KXJM studios, but were soon turned away by the program manager of the station, Tim McNamara. The studio's phone lines were flooded with various threats of harm, media attention, and protest. As a way to settle the controversy, show host P.K. decided to conduct a 'ride along' with a pair of local Portland bike enthusiasts to experience what biking in a busy city is like. He later went on the air and offered an official apology.^{[3] [4]}

The Show's Name and Logo The Name and Logo of the show resemble that of The Doghouse which has aired on 92.3 free FM in New York City since January 2006, and previously in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1995. An anonymous former Doghouse crew member even posted on the Playhouse Mafia website, accusing the show of copying old Doghouse skits and stunts. P.K. Admitted on the air that for the first few years he copied stuff from that show. He has never denied it. The Doghouse has been off the air for a few years now and one of the hosts of the show "Elvis" called P.K. after they were taken off the air to ask for a job. P.K. sat down to talk with him but nothing ever came about him joining the Playhouse.^[5]

[edit] External links

• RadioPlayhouse.com - Official Website
• Jammin' 95.5 - The show's home station
• Playhouse TV clips - Various Playhouse TV clips on YouTube

[edit] References