Benjy Bronk

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Benjamin 'Benjy' Bronk
Born September 4, 1968[1]
South Carolina, U.S.
Occupation Radio producer,Comedian

Benjy Bronk (born Benjamin Ron Bronk) is a comedian, radio producer and head writer for the The Howard Stern Show. Benjy is notoriously treated as an unwanted necessity on the show, though Howard has occasionally acknowledged his talent -- but often turns off Benjy's microphone in the belief that whenever Benjy is afforded the opportunity to speak, he refuses to do so in a serious manner. Benjy tends to fall into what Stern fans have dubbed the "schtick coma," an intense method of performing an act or stunt while never breaking character, regardless of the circumstances.

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[edit] Early life

Bronk grew up in Pumpkintown, South Carolina and Clemson, South Carolina and attended D. W. Daniel High School. When he was a small child, Bronk was a national hula hoop champion. In 1993, he earned a bachelor of arts in general arts and sciences from Penn State University, where he was a member of the Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity

[edit] Joining Howard Stern Show

Benjy began working on the Howard Stern Show as a pre-interviewer for guests appearing on the show. Benjy now performs Jackie Martling's former role in writing jokes and funny lines for Howard live as the show progresses (on rare occasions Bronk also writes jokes for cast member Artie Lange, who was a more official yet figurative replacement for Martling). Benjy sits in the studio between Lange and Fred Norris. Benjy is a past FM-ie winner for a phone call in which he pretended to be Bill Clinton, fooling an elderly black woman into having phone sex.

  • Benjy appeared on The Anna Nicole Show after her appearance on the Stern Show. According to Anna, they "had a drink, and the next thing I knew, my head was in Benjy's lap."
  • On April 17th, 2007 Bronk interrupted a live CNBC newscast urging people to vote for Sanjaya. He was then dragged off camera by two CNBC cameramen, while still yelling.[2]
  • On May 7, 2007 Benjy won the Howard Stern Show's Battle of the Blobs competition, losing 64 lbs over the course of the competition, dropping from 267 lb (121 kg/19.1 st) to 203 lb (92 kg/14.5 st), almost a 24% weight loss.[3] Since then, Howard revealed he gained most of it back.
  • On the September 20, 2007 show, Howard 100 News' Steve Langford reported that when Benjy registered to vote in 1988, he cited his birth date as September 24, 1970. This is contrary to the popular belief that Bronk is only 30 to 35 years old.[4] Proof of age was retrieved from a voter registration card signed by Bronk himself.[4] Bronk had previously been identified as being 30 in a 2001 article in The New York Post.[5]

[edit] The Benjy Bronk Show

On December 19, 2005, WXRK General Manager Tom Chiusano fulfilled an agreement with Stern to let Benjy run the show for part of the day, dubbing it "The Benjy Bronk Show", during which Benjy interviewed several people, including original Beatles drummer Pete Best, Howard Stern Wack Packer Daniel Carver, and a person imitating a 12-year-old black girl. Benjy also interviewed Fran Baskerville, the singing psychic who claims to have predicted the September 11, 2001 attacks. The show could be heard on frequency 92.3 until Chiusano prematurely called an end to the show before its scheduled 10AM finish.

[edit] Political statements

Benjy declared to be a Libertarian on the November 8th, 2006 "Howard Stern Wrap-up Show". In the November 7th, 2006 elections, he claimed to have voted for every Libertarian on the ballot and manually wrote in votes for himself or colleague Doug Goodstein wherever Libertarian candidates were not an option. Benjy received two write-in votes in the 2005 election for New York City Civil Court Judgeship, as well as one vote for the office of Manhattan Borough President.[6][7]

[edit] Paris Hilton's new best friend

Benjy Bronk has submitted himself for the contest of becoming Paris Hilton's new "best friend", in her upcoming reality tv-show. On Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 two days after joining, Bronk, under the username "BenjyBenjy" was ranked in first place with over 18,000 votes, after having the poll mentioned two times on The Howard Stern Show. When voting closed in May of 2008, Benjy was solidly in first place with over 400,000 votes.[8]

[edit] Penn State News Stories

[edit] References

  1. ^ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Guiness_Book_of_World_Records_1991
  2. ^ Kaplan, Jason; Thomas Panasci. "The Rundown", 2007-05-07. Retrieved on 2007-04-18. 
  3. ^ "The Rundown", 2007-04-18, pp. 1. Retrieved on 2007-04-18. 
  4. ^ a b Kaplan, Jason; Michael Dempster (2007-09-20). The Rundown. HowardStern.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-01. “Steve Langford reported that when Benjy registered to vote in 1988, he cited his birth date as 9/24/70.”
  5. ^ Garvey, Marianne. "THE NERVE! CAN YOU BATTLE FOR A CAB WITHOUT BEING A JERK?", New York Post, News Corporation, 2001-12-30, pp. 053. Retrieved on 2007-10-03. "Take Benjy Bronk, a 30-year-old comedian from Manhattan. He says he applies different degrees of competitiveness to each situation. His only firm rule: "The first person who's completely in the cab should get it."" 
  6. ^ Statement and Return Report for Certification. General Election 2006 - Representative in Congress 14th Congressional District.
  7. ^ Statement and Return Report for Certification. General Election 2006 - Judge of the Civil Court District - 9th Municipal Court District - New York.
  8. ^ MTV's ParisBFF.com

[edit] See also

[edit] External links