Adam Carolla

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Adam Carolla
Born	May 27, 1964 (1964-05-27) (age 44) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Occupation	Comedian, comedy writer, radio personality, television personality, actor
Employers	CBS Radio
Salary	(see below)
Known for	The Adam Carolla Show, Loveline, The Man Show
Religious beliefs	Atheist[1]
Spouse	Lynette Paradise
Children	Twins Natalia and Santino "Sonny" Carolla, born June 7, 2006.
Website www.adamcarolla.com

Adam Carolla (born May 27, 1964 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American comedian, comedy writer, radio personality, television personality and actor. Carolla achieved fame for several broadcast stints: Co-host of the radio show Loveline, from 1995 to 2005 (and its television incarnation on MTV from 1996 to 2000); co-creator and co-star of the television program The Man Show (1999-2004); co-creator and performer on the television program Crank Yankers (2002-present).

Carolla currently hosts The Adam Carolla Show (see section below), a weekday morning radio program broadcast from Los Angeles and syndicated in eleven west-coast markets.^[2]

In 2006, Carolla completed work on The Hammer, an independent film that he co-wrote and co-produced. He plays the lead role in the film, opposite Heather Juergensen. The film premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, and was released on March 21, 2008.^[3][4][5]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Early comedy career 3 Radio 3.1 Loveline 3.2 The Adam Carolla Show 4 Television 4.1 Dancing with the Stars Performances 5 Film 6 Controversy 6.1 The Hawaiian community 6.2 Ann Coulter 7 Personal life 7.1 Earnings 8 Honors 9 References 10 External links

[edit] Early life

Carolla was born in Pennsylvania to an Italian-American father, Giacomo "Jim" Carolla, and a Hungarian-American mother.^{[citation needed]} Adam's parents failed to give him a middle name^[6]. As a joke, he wrote "Adam Lakers Carolla" on his drivers license application^[7]. His drivers license still gives his full name as "Adam Lakers Carolla."^[8]

Adam grew up in North Hollywood, California, located in the San Fernando Valley. His family is often a topic on his radio show claiming his parents were disinterested and still have no interest in his life. He describes his family as good people, fair and honest, but often says they were opposed to anything that involved getting off the couch and doing something. He also says his family was incredibly cheap; Carolla would get small amounts of money, usually coins, for his birthday instead of gifts and he did not go to any funerals growing up. After his parents divorced, Carolla split time with his mother and father.^{[citation needed]}

Carolla attended Colfax Elementary School, Walter Reed Junior High, and North Hollywood High School. Carolla never received good grades, graduating with a 1.75 grade point average. He majored in ceramics.^[9] 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)^[10]. 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.^{[citation needed]}

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^[11]. On The Adam Carolla Show, Carolla said he was recruited to play football at Marshall University and the University of California, Davis, but he was not interested in college.^{[citation needed]}

Carolla frequently tells stories of pranks he and his friends pulled during and after high school. He began living on his own at the age of 18 in an apartment that eventually included uncaged rabbits. He briefly attended Los Angeles Valley College, a junior college, where he was placed on academic probation before dropping out to work in a series of jobs, including a carpet cleaner^[12], carpenter, boxing instructor,^[13] traffic school instructor^[14], and metal worker. In his 20s, he dated a British woman, Lindsey, who was a stripper. [10] He also taught himself how to ride a unicycle, which he has ridden during an episode of Too Late With Adam Carolla, as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and three episodes of Dancing with the Stars.

After Carolla had established himself as a comedic pundit on Loveline, he frequently joked that his role on radio was "philosopher-warrior", and his title was M.B.V. (Mayor of Boobville).^{[citation needed]} Promotional posters and billboards introducing his self-titled radio show in early 2006 carried the caption "Adam Carolla: American Genius".^[15]

This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (February 2008)

Carolla frequently jokes about his own laziness and apathy, despite consistently meeting expectations in a professional manner. Carolla frequently offers salient advice to callers regarding good professional practices, while ironically referring to his own self-perceived apathy. For example, he has almost never been late for his live appearances on the radio; however, he claims he consistently arrives within sixty seconds of going on-air.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Early comedy career

Carolla claims that his goal from youth was to write comedy. He did not envision working on-air on the radio, or on-camera in movies and television. 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). During his early twenties, while working in various jobs, he grew fond of listening to talk radio. 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. ^[13] 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 ornery and misanthropic Vietnam-veteran shop teacher.

[edit] Radio

[edit] Loveline

Main article: Loveline

This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (February 2008)

Carolla was offered the job of co-hosting Loveline with physician Dr. Drew Pinsky in 1995, replacing Riki Rachtman. Pinsky selected Carolla personally, after hearing Carolla's earlier radio work. 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: Carolla's dislike of the negative effects of religious zealotry, criticism of celebrities, and complaints about politically-originated policies that make little sense, such as junior colleges, traffic/parking enforcement as pure revenue-generation, superfluous red left-turn arrows, and other "wastes" such as the abundance of police officers available to serve traffic citations while none seem to be available for important issues like counter-terrorism, and incessant radio weather and traffic reports. ("How many traffic reports have you listened to? Thousands. How many times have you actually changed your route based on a traffic report? That's right! Never!") His impassioned criticisms and observational humor became a central characteristic of the show.

During his time on Loveline, Carolla gradually drew an increasing fanbase to the program. Carolla, on Loveline after earlier attempts at traditional stand-up comedy, eschewed traditional stand-up methods, such as scripted comedic "bits". Carolla has claimed that he has no "act", referring to himself as a "comedy factory, as opposed to a comedy warehouse", distinguishing himself from comics who prepare material. Carolla preferred to use his time on the airwaves—and the subject matter of Loveline as an inspirational springboard—to launch into rants in a similar fashion to Dennis Miller. Carolla's presentation of his views frequently fits the description of black comedy. While Carolla distinguishes himself as being self-educated, he frequently refers to his formal education in abysmal, self-deprecating terms. He attributes his layman's perspective to his unconventional upbringing, often claiming it has left him as an—albeit successful—adult with "NO self-esteem, as opposed to LOW self-esteem"^{[citation needed]}. Carolla claims to have genuinely forgotten several of his own past jokes, insights and innovations that have caught on with fans, attributing his forgetfulness to his "no self-esteem". Carolla has commented on radio that on several occasions, fans have recited back to him his own ideas from past broadcasts, and he genuinely does not recognize them as being his own.^{[citation needed]}

Loveline expanded into its largest number of radio markets while Carolla was co-host.^{[citation needed]} During his final shows, the fanbase that he had cultivated was, in his own words, larger than he expected. Carolla often claimed that he had no idea of the effect he had had on his audience, saying frequently that, among the small staff in the Loveline broadcast studio, "no one cares"; he repeatedly drew attention to the apathy of his co-workers—with extended, comedic complaints about the staff, including Pinsky (they both stated they had become very close during their work together). Once it was announced that he was leaving Loveline after its 10 most successful years, Carolla became the subject of large online petitions to keep him on Loveline.^{[citation needed]} He wrote in response, on fan website The Loveline Companion, that he was deeply moved by the large number of fans and the depth of their dedication.^{[citation needed]} He repeated these sentiments on-air during his last few Loveline broadcasts, consciously breaking from his black-humor comedic tone to thank his fans in earnest, explaining that the opportunity for his own morning radio show similar to Howard Stern's was an opportunity he could not pass up. He expressed that in retrospect, he didn't view Loveline as a job^{[citation needed]}, and that he would have continued on Loveline if his schedule would allow it; however, he made it clear that it would not.

[edit] The Adam Carolla Show

Main article: The Adam Carolla Show

On November 1, 2005, Carolla announced that he would leave Loveline to pursue a position in morning radio, replacing Howard Stern — with 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 in January, 2006. He stated that he would love to continue to do Loveline by recording it immediately after his morning show, but Westwood One insisted that the show must be broadcast live. On October 25, Infinity Broadcasting officially announced that it would be replacing Stern with Carolla on several radio stations in the western United States. ^[16]

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), San Francisco, Palm Springs, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, Las Vegas, Oakland, Reno, Burbank, Fresno and Sacramento. ^[16]

The show staff was modified slightly during its first year. At the start of 2007, it saw its largest staff change; the three primary on-air personalities would be Carolla himself, Teresa Strasser, and the newly added Danny Bonaduce.

As of June, 2007, the show has seen an overall increase in ratings in its primary market of Los Angeles. ^[17]

On January 2, 2008 the show went through another lineup change, most notably, Danny Bonaduce is no longer be part of the on-air trio, being moved to the afternoon slot on KLSX with his own show. ^[17]

[edit] Television

Carolla began his first original television series with The Man Show, along with partner and close friend Jimmy Kimmel, on Comedy Central from 1999 to 2003. He left The Man Show at the same time as Kimmel, 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 who only did one episode) 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.

Also in 2005, Carolla was featured in a home remodeling program called The Adam Carolla Project where he and a crew of old friends renovated his childhood home. The 12 episodes aired on the cable channel TLC (The Learning Channel) from October through December 2005. ^[18][19]

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

In August of 2007, Carolla guest hosted Jim Rome Is Burning.

Recently, he has appeared as a guest on several episodes of Comics Unleashed.

On the February 18, 2008 broadcast of his radio show, Adam announced that he would be one of the contestants on the next season of Dancing with the Stars. Later in the broadcast, it was revealed to Adam that his partner would be Julianne Hough. ^[20] He was voted off on the April 8, 2008 episode after his performance of the Paso Doble.

On February 28, 2008, Adam Carolla revealed that he will involved with/hosting the American adaptation of the BBC's high-end car television show, Top Gear, to be titled Gear.

[edit] Dancing with the Stars Performances

Week #	Dance/Song	Judges' score			Result
		Inaba	Goodman	Tonioli
1	Foxtrot/ "Mellow Yellow"	5	5	5	N/A
2	Mambo/ "House of Bamboo"	6	7	6	Safe
3	Tango/ "I Can't Tell A Waltz From A Tango"	7	7	7	Safe
4	Paso Doble/ "Plaza Of Execution"	6	7	6	Eliminated

[edit] Film

In 2006^{[citation needed]}, Carolla finished work on The Hammer, a semi-autobiographical independent film in which he stars opposite Heather Juergensen. The film is based on his real life and is filmed at a gym he helped build with his co-star, Ozzie, which is played by Oswaldo Castillo, his friend in real life whom he met while building the gym when they both worked in construction. ^[21]

The film made its world premiere at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City and shortly thereafter received a positive review in Variety. ^[21]

In 2003 Carolla had a cameo appearance in the film Abby Singer.

[edit] Controversy

[edit] The Hawaiian community

On November 9, 2003 Loveline was cancelled 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. Undeterred, Carolla has also called Hawaiians "the lowliest of all God's creatures." ^[22] Carolla later issued a public apology.

[edit] Ann Coulter

On July 6, 2006 conservative pundit Ann Coulter called The Adam Carolla Show an hour and a half after she was scheduled as a featured guest. This was the second time she had been late or absent on the show. On the July 6 show, Carolla amicably greeted Coulter, saying "You're late, baby doll" before she complained that she had been given the wrong number. Carolla then joked to Coulter, "How did you get the right number? Just dialed randomly — eventually got to our show?" At this point, Coulter seemed to take on a more antagonistic tone and insisted that she was "really tight on time." Carolla then hung up on Coulter, telling her, "All right, well, get lost" and proceeded to say:

Listen, you bitch, don't call in an hour and a half late and tell me you're tight on time. Of course you're tight on time, you're an hour and a half goddamn late calling in to a radio show. Just take your crappy book and go pitch it to your stupid cable outlet.[11]

Carolla claimed he did so due to her lack of professionalism, stating that it had nothing to do with her political views, which he stated he was quite open to hearing. Carolla frequently and publicly chides media personalities whom he considers "blowhards."

During the week of June 25, 2007 on The Adam Carolla Show, Carolla mused — during a news segment discussing Coulter's recent controversial statements regarding John Edwards — that he himself had, to his surprise, become a "cult hero" for hanging up on her on his radio program one year earlier. Carolla joked that his "cult hero" status was probably more due to the public's dislike of Coulter than it was owed to public approval of himself.

[edit] Personal life

On September 28, 2002, Carolla married Lynette Paradise. Lynette gave birth (via cesarean section) to their first children, twins Natalia and Santino "Sonny" Carolla on June 7, 2006. ^[23] On The Adam Carolla Show, Adam repeatedly mentioned the birth was originally scheduled for June 6, but that he and Lynette decided to push it back one day as to avoid the symbolic 666 (06-06-06).

An avid car enthusiast, he has owned a BMW M3 E30-generation model, an E46-generation M3, Datsun 510, an Audi S4, Jaguar sports coupe, MINI Cooper S, Nissan 350Z, Aston Martin, Lamborghini 350GT, and a Ferrari.

[edit] Earnings

Since 2000, Carolla has, on-air, referred to himself as "literally a millionaire" (with hyperbolic emphasis on the word "literally"). He has used his income history to illustrate to listeners the benefits of being self-motivated and making improved life choices.^{[citation needed]}. His 2002 report (including annual reported earnings through 2001) was read on the air during the April 01, 2003 episode of Loveline. His 2006 report (including annual reported earnings through 2005) was read on the air during the April 10, 2007 episode of The Adam Carolla Show and is as follows.

Adam Carolla's Social Security Earnings History (2006) As Reported by Carolla ^[24][25]

Year	Reported Income	Comments by Carolla
1980	$232	McDonalds
1981	$746	Flask Liquor
1982	$1,093	Living in garage, Carpet cleaner
1983	$2,289	Moved out
1984	$9,367	@ Laurel Canyon, Construction laborer
1985	$0	Spent the year building a kitchen for his grandmother
1986	$17,672	@ North Hollywood
1987	$2,553
1988	$0
1989	$22,543	Worked with City of Los Angeles doing earthquake rehab, driving 1978 Datsun pickup
1990	$6,312
1991	$0
1992	$3,521
1993	$3,984
1994	$6,442	@ La Crecenta
1995	$36,221	Began work in radio, began co-hosting Loveline mid-year, driving a Toyota Supra
1996	$316,424	First full year as co-host on Loveline, also co-hosted the MTV TV show of the same title (1996-2000)
1997	$354,661
1998	$554,453
1999	$1,237,903	first year of The Man Show
2000	$1,013,726	(amount specified on Loveline 05-05-2002 5 min. into show)
2001	over $1,000,000	(exact amount not specified)
2002	$2,085,764
2003	over $2,000,000	(exact amount not specified)
2004	$1,353,000
2005	$1,661,924

[edit] Honors

Asteroid 4535 Adamcarolla is named in his honor.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Carolla, Adam at the Internet Movie Database
• thehammermovie.com The Hammer official website
• Official Free FM bio
• Official LoveLine website from Westwood One

Preceded by Riki Rachtman

Co-Host of Loveline 1995 – 2005

Succeeded by Stryker