Scharpling & Wurster / The Best Show On WFMU

[Custard]

Ah, nice. Will deffo be contributing something

[Crabwalk]

As you may have heard, The Best Show is going ad free from January and will instead be listener-sponsored. I think that's a great move and much more in-keeping with the spirit of the show.

The Patreon page is now live for those that wish to offer a monthly donation:

https://www.patreon.com/TheBestShow

Do the right thing (if you can afford it)!

Just fixing the autocorrect blooper in my previous post.

[Custard]

Went for the $5 a month one, for now. Will stick it up once I'm out of the fog of post-Christmas no-monies

[Paaaaul]

849 backers after less than a day.
If everyone is paying $1, that'll easily surpass what he was getting from advertising, but they won't be.
I reckon the mean will be around the $5 mark which would earn him c. $50k next year, and that will no doubt rise considerably in the next couple of weeks after he announces it officially on the show.
Good stuff.

[Crabwalk]

That's heartening but I'm not surprised judging by the amount people were prepared to donate to wfmu via the show.

I reckon the mean will be around the $5 mark which would earn him c. $50k next year, and that will no doubt rise considerably in the next couple of weeks after he announces it officially on the show.

Without wanting to be pedantic, it won't be a case of Scharpling earning c.$50k next year (at that rate), but the show. I'm sure some will be swallowed by running costs and plenty distributed to the many people that work on the show. They'll also be able to invest in fresh merch and potentially some marketing for the show if they're so minded. But, yes, I hope Tom finally makes some well-earned cash out of this.

Why he didn't do this in the first place I've no idea. The ads were always an awkward fit and, as he says, the Show has extremely devoted fans.

[Custard]

I am gonna miss "build your website, brah", mind

[Crabwalk]

I used to always try and fast forward The as to the point just before those sign offs. They always made me laugh and I'm not entirely sure why.

'Shave your face brah'.

Maybe whenever he makes a pitch for subscriptions he can end it with:

'Best Show. Pay the bills brah' or suchlike.

[Penfold]

24/7 stream is live!

I've only been listening for 18 months and had started listening to the archive linked previously in this thread but then my hard drive died so will listen to this until I download them again.

[Paaaaul]

That's heartening but I'm not surprised judging by the amount people were prepared to donate to wfmu via the show.

Without wanting to be pedantic, it won't be a case of Scharpling earning c.$50k next year (at that rate), but the show.

Yeah, obvs.
The amount of of patrons has nearly doubled since my last post. There should be money to buy more Mike headshots.

[Paaaaul]

Frumps

edit: The Patreon page is now showing the donations total. It's nearly double what I estimated earlier, per person. Pretty amazing money for 4 or 5 shows a month.

[Custard]

So there's a

Spoiler alert

Spike

[close]

call this week. Hurrah! Properly made me laugh, that

[Custard]

That new Best Show 24/7 thing is aces

http://thebestshow.net/247/

All times Newbridge EST

[Paaaaul]

That new Best Show 24/7 thing is aces

http://thebestshow.net/247/

It's great, but I wish they would show what the live Newbridge EST is on the page.
I'm also having issues playing it on either of my android devices when the screen is turned off.

[Crabwalk]

Gail Bennington seems like a nice person but has she ever said anything, y'know, funny or interesting during an appearance?

Not knowing who Avalanche Bob is indicates that she doesn't even listen to the show.

[Custard]

Nearly an hour of Tom Bad Company'ing dull callers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcJ0EdH8To8

Will always be funny

[Crabwalk]

Sounds very much like Tom won't be working on season 2 of Divorce then, reading between the lines of the last couple of Best Shows. I really enjoyed season 1 and the Christmas episode, which Tom was the writer of, was the highlight.

I wonder what went down, and if Sharon Horgan will go the way of PFT? Sounds like someone he's friends with 'stabbed him in the back'.

Poor Mike, having to witness Tom throw his phone across the room.

Edit: ah, a new showrunner's just been announced. That's probably behind it all, I'd guess http://deadline.com/2017/02/jenny-bicks-divorce-showrunner-hbo-overall-deal-1201903018/

[Paaaaul]

Sounds very much like Tom won't be working on season 2 of Divorce then, reading between the lines of the last couple of Best Shows. I really enjoyed season 1 and the Christmas episode, which Tom was the writer of, was the highlight.

I wonder what went down, and if Sharon Horgan will go the way of PFT? Sounds like someone he's friends with 'stabbed him in the back'.

Poor Mike, having to witness Tom throw his phone across the room.

Edit: ah, a new showrunner's just been announced. That's probably behind it all, I'd guess http://deadline.com/2017/02/jenny-bicks-divorce-showrunner-hbo-overall-deal-1201903018/

Aha. I guess I got the wrong end of the stick when he reacted to the word "divorce", and again referenced his personal problems.

[hewantstolurkatad]

I wonder about Divorce in general, it's a show that would've been INFINITELY funnier with Sharon Horgan in the lead role, SJP didn't really work with the humour or Thomas Haden Church at all.

Sounds like SJP is taking over the show with Simms leaving so it'll be interested to see how it changes in S2.

[Crabwalk]

I wonder about Divorce in general, it's a show that would've been INFINITELY funnier with Sharon Horgan in the lead role, SJP didn't really work with the humour or Thomas Haden Church at all.

I'm not sure whether to blame SJP or her character, as written, though. I'm not sure how many laughs there were to be wrung from the 'straight' role she had compared to, say, THC and Molly Shannon. They both absolutely shone comedically next to her though, for sure.

So many of Tom's friends work on the show, from Adam Resnick to Hayes Davenport - I hope the fallout from whatever's happened doesn't hit him too hard. Someones obviously pissed him off very badly.

[hewantstolurkatad]

I'm not sure whether to blame SJP or her character, as written, though. I'm not sure how many laughs there were to be wrung from the 'straight' role she had compared to, say, THC and Molly Shannon. They both absolutely shone comedically next to her though, for sure.

So many of Tom's friends work on the show, from Adam Resnick to Hayes Davenport - I hope the fallout from whatever's happened doesn't hit him too hard. Someones obviously pissed him off very badly.

Haven't listened yet, buy are all of them assured to be coming back? Jenny Bicks is a very different showrunner to Simms, can imagine a pretty big writing team purge. Scharpling getting the boot at the same time and likely for the same reasons as Paul Simms certainly doesn't sound that harmful as far as networking goes either.

SJP is a bad fit for Horgan's style of comedy, she's not able to play it big enough. I suspect SJP got sold on something totally different than what she got with a pitch of it being from an acclaimed female comedy writer and allusions of spiritual connections to Sex and the City.

[hewantstolurkatad]

Does anyone know the link for that site that hosted the best show's archive in mp3 form? Been getting good amounts of work done listening to recent episodes so it'd be good to have the whole archive at the ready.
If there are multiple ones, ideally one with the songs edited out.

[Paaaaul]

http://awfulsome.com/tbsowfmu/.getoffmyphone/

[Crabwalk]

Tom getting the news about Tommy Stinson

Spoiler alert

flaking out

[close]

during the call with the frog chorus will surely go down as one of the most amazing moments in Best Show history. Poor Tom, but it was just so funny.

The subsequent call with Jon where they just let off and pissed about with the GnR setlist was absolutely wonderful too.

Feel for Tom though, losing the Divorce gig. He'd waited so long to get another good TV job after Monk ended. Thought it was a great show and his Christmas episode was a highlight of the season.

[colacentral]

Sharon Horgan was on Sunday Brunch 30 minutes ago and was asked about Divorce. I may be looking too much into it but the first thing she said was that she was much less involved on season 2. If I had to guess I'd say it's probably Sarah Jessica Parker and higher ups at HBO behind the change of staff. Maybe Paul Simms was being replaced and Tom got fired defending him? Simms is obviously one of Tom's idols, so to see him being replaced by someone from Sex & the City would seem insane.

As mentioned up the page though, I'm sure wherever Paul Simms goes next he'll have Tom in mind.

[McQ]

SJP has spoken very highly of Tom Scharpling on both WTF and Howard Stern, mind you. Difficult to tell what has gone on. I wonder if we'll get the full story at any point or if we'll be left guessing, like with PFT? I was worried Tom might have fallen out with Hayes Davenport over this, but I saw him tweeting about him in a favourable light, so it seems not.

(Will breev 4 food.)

[emmett85]

tom's on gilbert gottfried's podcast today in case anyone doesn't fit in the middle of that venn diagram.

[Crabwalk]

^ Very entertaining. Nice to hear Tom having a laugh about being fired from Divorce seemingly THAT DAY!

Latest show is an absolute marathon at 3 hours 45 minutes. The good news is a chunk of that is taken up by a fantastic Wurster call that I won't spoil if you're yet to hear it. A proper all-timer.

The bad news is that a big chunk is taken up by

Spoiler alert

Andy Kindler and Gary the Squirrel doing their usual 'thing'

[close]

. You can pretty safely stop listening when that kicks off.

[Paaaaul]

I love Kindler. I thought the whole show was great, but it definitely wasn't the longest ever. He did at least one 6 hour show on WFMU.
Also, the first Patreon bonus thing is up now, and on there Tom says that he chose to quit Divorce.

[Crabwalk]

I'm going to listen to the Patreon bonus thing later today. Interesting to hear that he 'quit'.

I just don't get the appeal of Kindler on the show at all. Is it funnier if you know his stand-up? I hear him trying to be funny but nothing ever seems to land. Is that part of the joke?

[Paaaaul]

The only performed stuff I've heard by Kindler are his State Of The Industry speeches from Just For Laughs. I think they're available on Soundcloud, and I do recommend them.

Edit to add: -
2016 State Of The Industry - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVsMFHeAk4Y
2015 State Of The Industry - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE6d9GBw_Tk
2014 State Of The Industry - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqg-JgEF2qQ
2013 State Of The Industry - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BlgI2u3Oyo

I just don't get the appeal of Kindler on the show at all. Is it funnier if you know his stand-up? I hear him trying to be funny but nothing ever seems to land. Is that part of the joke?

That's part of the joke. His act is very meta. His performance is informed by his place in the comedy industry and those who are watching him.