Scharpling & Wurster / The Best Show On WFMU

[Paaaaul]

You need to donate to WMFU - https://www.wfmu.org/marathon/pledge.php

Minimum of 75 American bucks to get the DVD.

[Custard]

Ah, I see!

Cheers Paaaaul

[Paul Twist]

I think you had to donate for the 2010 pledge drive to get the DVD, unfortunately. I'm a newcomer to the show (thanks to this thread, plus being a fan of Superchunk and Mountain Goats) and I haven't been able to find a way to bit it. Hope they make it available to all at some point.

[Paaaaul]

I think you had to donate for the 2010 pledge drive to get the DVD, unfortunately. I'm a newcomer to the show (thanks to this thread, plus being a fan of Superchunk and Mountain Goats) and I haven't been able to find a way to bit it. Hope they make it available to all at some point.

From the email Tom S sent out pre-marathon last year:-

The first item in the Fun Pack is the first ever BEST SHOW ON WFMU DVD! It's a full-length DVD called FANTASIA IN BEST SHOW MINOR, and it's going to be amazing. It features stuff you're never going to believe. Here are some of the people who are going to be involved in the DVD:

PATTON OSWALT  ♥  TED LEO  ♥  PAUL F. TOMPKINS  ♥  ZACH GALIFIANAKIS  ♥  FUCKED UP  ♥  TIM AND ERIC  ♥  JOHN HODGMAN  ♥  AIMEE MANN  ♥  SCHARPLING AND WURSTER  ♥  YO LA TENGO  ♥  KURT VILE  ♥  MATT FRACTION  ♥  TODD BARRY  ♥  JASON WOLINER

And SO MANY MORE. There's going to be puppets. Animation. Scharpling and Wurster stuff like you've never seen before. Travelogues from callers like Fredericks from New Port Richie, Julie from Cincinnati, AP Mike and more! Seriously - there are so many people working so hard on this thing. It's gonna be legendary. And when the marathon is over, this thing is COMPLETELY UNVAILABLE.

And I don't think any of the previous S&W CDs have been available subsequently at the WFMU shop, so you could be out of luck.
The CDs have all been subsequently shared on the Friends Of Tom downloads section, but only after a few years have passed, so you may be able to get a download of it further down the line.

[Paaaaul]

A slightly odd exchange on Twitter yesterday:-

jonwurster : Does anyone know how the shutting down of the UK's "News of the World" newspaper will affect my copy of the Queen album of the same name?

NewsOfTheWorld : @jonwurster We can confirm that your Queen album will continue unaffected. Thanks for the tweet!

[Custard]

You probably know this, but that was a spoof NOTW account. Did make me chuckle too, though!

Right, time to whack on this week's Best Show podcast. Works brilliantly on a late night, I do find

[wheatgod]

Right, time to whack on this week's Best Show podcast. Works brilliantly on a late night, I do find

Ya should listen live!

[Paaaaul]

You probably know this, but that was a spoof NOTW account. Did make me chuckle too, though!

Right, time to whack on this week's Best Show podcast. Works brilliantly on a late night, I do find

I didn't know that was a spoof account - just presumed it was a bit of gallows humour from the staff!

[Custard]

Ya should listen live!

Dunno if I could sit through most of the music he plays!

What night and time is it on air? Do you listen through the website?

[Little Hoover]

The music is for 15 - 20 minutes at the top and it starts at 2am our time on tuesday/wednesday depending on how you look at it. I tend to listen to listen to the first hour.

[Little Hoover]

Oh my god the" Mr Furst" John Wurster call from the latest show was fantastic, utterly fantastic.

[McQ]

Oh my god the" Mr Furst" John Wurster call from the latest show was fantastic, utterly fantastic.

Gah! I wanted to be the first person to say this!

[The Boston Crab]

Yup!

That was an absolute belter. As repetitive as he is, I think Jon Wurster has my favourite comic 'voice'. The inflections and syntax kill me.

[Jim Jarmusch]

Spike wished me happy birthday on my Facebook page yesterday. How cool is that.

:-)

[Billy Brown]

Oh my, I've just heard the Brock Peukh call via Best Show Gems and it's the funniest thing I've heard in a long, long time. So much so that I'm determined to go back and listen through to the lot from the start. The podcasts obviously only go back so far; can anyone point me in the direction of a more comprehensive collection of the shows or should I resign myself to streaming them from the WFMU site?

Thanks so much for creating and continually bumping this thread; I fear I wouldn't have stumbled across the show otherwise.

[Paaaaul]

Oh my, I've just heard the Brock Peukh call via Best Show Gems and it's the funniest thing I've heard in a long, long time. So much so that I'm determined to go back and listen through to the lot from the start. The podcasts obviously only go back so far; can anyone point me in the direction of a more comprehensive collection of the shows or should I resign myself to streaming them from the WFMU site?

Thanks so much for creating and continually bumping this thread; I fear I wouldn't have stumbled across the show otherwise.

Go back one page...

[Custard]

Bloody 'ell, Wurster's 'Ron First' call from a couple weeks back was brilliant.

Spoiler alert

The breakdown at the end

[close]

- marvellous

[Custard]

The Spike call this week had me in fits. I really wish someone would make a 3-hour compilation of just his calls

Really starting to look forward to hearing from a lot of the regular callers, now I'm getting used to them. Coco from The Ettes is lovely, ain't she? Sigh.

Not a bad band, either. Had a listen to one of their records last week

[wheatgod]

Really starting to look forward to hearing from a lot of the regular callers, now I'm getting used to them.

I prefer the new callers! They bring something new to the table, and bring something new out of Tom. Regular callers are nice and all, have some good stories and know how to structure a call, but the regular caller thing peaked with SCUMM Force.

[Custard]

Urgggh, hate it when Tom has a week off. Therese and Mike bore my arse off. 20 minutes into this week's podcast, and I dunno if I can stick this out

[wheatgod]

Mike and Therese's shows are very different! They're not going to be delivering the same type of show as Tom, I hope you weren't expecting that. I enjoy both and would say you should stick with it!

[Jim Jarmusch]

I've been getting increasingly bored with Tom shilling for people and promoting his friends bands. The majority of which I can't stand. F'd Up take the biscuit in their awfulness. 

I'll tell you who I've started to like the most. The Dusty Show with Clay Pigeon. His usual show features recorded interviews on the streets with often homeless people. Most weeks it can be really heart warming stuff. When he filled in for another host, Fabio's Strength Through Failure he had four hours on air chatting to people. Some of it with station manager Ken present. I laughed far more than most Best Shows. He made callers really open up and have no inhibitions. He's a fantastic character who I think deserves more recognition at the station.

Night People is suppose to be a old school favourite for veteran WFMUs thats recently been resurrected. It's far too short, only an hour and they take awhile to get going. If they had more time I'd call myself a bigger fan. 

Seven Second Delay lost it's way when they started doing shows on tour with a live studio audience.

[Paaaaul]

I've been getting increasingly bored with Tom shilling for people and promoting his friends bands. The majority of which I can't stand. F'd Up take the biscuit in their awfulness.

I'll tell you who I've started to like the most. The Dusty Show with Clay Pigeon. His usual show features recorded interviews on the streets with often homeless people. Most weeks it can be really heart warming stuff. When he filled in for another host, Fabio's Strength Through Failure he had four hours on air chatting to people. Some of it with station manager Ken present. I laughed far more than most Best Shows. He made callers really open up and have no inhibitions. He's a fantastic character who I think deserves more recognition at the station.

Night People is suppose to be a old school favourite for veteran WFMUs thats recently been resurrected. It's far too short, only an hour and they take awhile to get going. If they had more time I'd call myself a bigger fan.

Seven Second Delay lost it's way when they started doing shows on tour with a live studio audience.

I agree to a large extent about Seven Second Delay. I much prefer their studio-bound shows these days, but the shows at the UCB Theatre are sporadically brilliant. As they go on, Andy gets better at interviewing, but they are also attracting bigger guests with whom Andy loses his bite and becomes a bit sycophantic.

Night People has taken a big step backwards with their shortened show. It used to be much better when Dave was over-tired at 3am and talking about nonsense with no time constraints. It's not exactly an old show though - it sprang out of a Seven Second Delay episode about 3 years ago where Ken & Andy were looking for interesting new shows to add to the schedule.

[Famous Mortimer]

Night People did a brilliant (rambling) interview with Frank Conniff of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" a while ago, and I ought to start listening again.

[wheatgod]

My oh my. Listened to the show from a couple of weeks back today, very comforting on a long train journey. What a treat.

I'm liking the ban on regular callers, and Tom's attitude towards it. He raised his game with that wonderful anecdote about getting bullied. And Philly Boy Roy's call was nothing short of perfect!

[Crabwalk]

The self-referential spiral that PBR went into during that call was wonderful, wasn't it? From the Mountain Goats reference onwards, Wurster just kept pushing into bizarro-Best Show-world further and further and further...

[Custard]

Yup, I'd actually say that would make my top five or so of his calls. Brilliant

"All his voices sound the same"

Missing the usual full dollop of Spike, mind :-(

[Paaaaul]

Am listening to this week's Wurster call as I type.  Some severe corpsing going on here.

Also, it's the first heavily pre-written call for absolutely ages which is promising - as much as I always enjoy Wurster calling and making up shit on the fly, I don't think any of the other calls over the last 12 months or so are going to end up on Best Show Gems because they don't really add much to the Newbridge mythos.

[clingfilm portent]

I got a warning saying that I shouldn't post in a thread older than 90 days but I'm going for it anyway. The recent Zachary Brimstead call on the Best Show is the funniest that character has ever been. Sublime.

[Custard]

The current Best Show Gems podcast, featuring Sleepy Jeff, had me in fits too