Name: Anthony Cumia Reflects on the Impact of Opie & Anthony
Uploaded: 2021-05-14T18:38:07.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Anthony Cumia Reflects on the Impact of Opie & Anthony' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-05-14. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Anthony Cumia Reflects on the Impact of Opie & Anthony' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-05-14. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan Experience.
We were talking before this podcast started that you, when you left Opie and
Anthony,
you went and decided to do your own thing behind a paywall.
Yeah.
So you're like in this position, you're sort of uncancellable.
You don't have all the trappings that everybody else has in terms of like
sponsors and people
coming after you.
You just have subscribers.
Yeah, this was a conscious decision because I saw it coming a while ago, the
what they
call cancel culture thing.
Well, you guys get hit with it first, out of all the people that I've ever
heard of, because
when you guys had that homeless person on who said he wanted to, what did he
say, he wanted
to rape Condoleezza Rice?
Condoleezza Rice and the Queen of England and the First Lady.
I got to say something about that though.
We had just gotten to satellite radio from FM radio.
And to us, this was like, all right, it opens up a whole new world of what we
can do.
So I thought, what better place to just showcase a homeless person?
Let's see what rantings and ramblings come out of a homeless person's mind.
So bring them up in the studio, put them in front of a mic and let them go off.
It's satellite, no FCC rules and regs.
And the guy starts talking about crazy stuff and raping political figures and
the Queen
of England.
And we think it's hilarious because you're getting that insight.
You're getting into the mind of a crazy homeless guy on the street.
And the shit hits the fan.
Oh my God, Condoleezza Rice that brings the sex thing in and the race thing and
all that.
And they lost their mind.
And we were like, oh shit, we're getting fired again?
Like we're going to get fired for this.
What happened?
You didn't get fired, but you guys got suspended for how long?
We got suspended for, I think it was a month.
I think that was a month suspension from satellite radio.
But we were still at K-Rock in New York doing that show in the morning because
we used to
do both.
Yeah, we used to go across with the microphones.
I did that with you guys.
We did the walkover.
We would do terrestrial and then we would broadcast live as we were walking
down New York City with
mics and comics and we would go to the other studio.
Yeah, we would do things occasionally like Rich Voss would go into a diner or
something
and just start doing stand-up in front of the customers.
It was hilarious.
Cringe stand-up.
Cringe stand-up.
These people don't know what's happening and stupid big Club Soda Kenny would
announce
them.
Ladies and gentlemen, they're looking like they're, you know, it's going to be
like a
mass shooting is going to start.
And it was hilarious.
You guys were the birth of podcasts.
It was a podcast on the radio.
We didn't know it at the time.
We didn't know what a podcast was.
But it was a bunch of guys that you find funny, you like hanging out with,
talking about
anything.
And that seems to be what the formula is.
You guys figured it out first because every other radio show that I did, like
if I did
Stern or anything else you did, it was very formatted.
He had some things you wanted to talk to me about Fear Factor.
He wanted to talk to me about the UFC.
He had questions about this.
It's always like, and then you have a call in and then you have celebrity
guests.
And he had it all very smooth.
You guys would just bring a bunch of people in and then Patrice would start
talking and
Burr would start talking and Ari would start talking.
It was just chaos.
Dude.
And we were all just having fun.
Just having fun.
Yeah.
When you have a room of those guys, Nick DiPaolo and Patrice, God rest his soul.
Norton.
And Bill Burr, Norton.
All these guys, Colin Quinn, they're all in a room.
You can't lose.
Like as people will hear it and say, holy shit, that was one of the funniest
shows.
And it's like, what show?
The Opie and Anthony show.
So people remember the name of the show.
Yeah.
But all these other guys are delivering this amazing, funny comedy.
So it worked that way.
And we embraced that and just started bringing these comics back on in
different combinations.
Because you know better than anyone, some of the funniest stuff you'll ever
hear are
guys shitting on each other.
Yeah.
And when someone was in, we called it being in the barrel, and that could
consist of wearing
a shirt.
You come in wearing a shirt and Patrice goes, what the fuck?
What kind of shirt is that you wear?
Where the fuck you get?
And now everyone's on your shirt.
Now you're sitting there going, you're looking at all the comics going, what
can I use to
get this off me?
So you'd have to shit on Voss's teeth or, you know.
Always.
So it was this constant battle to get the shit off of you.
Yeah.
And it was funny every fucking time.
And you guys were so great at letting the comics just go wild and not put any
restrictions
on anybody and not try to control the conversation.
Just let it have fun.
Just let it breathe.
A lot of shows, a lot of hosts.
And this is something you do that is fantastic and rare in the business.
Let your guests talk.
Let them, and if you have a guest, a room full of guests, let them have fun.
If you hear funny shit going on, a lot of people, their ego gets in the way.
Yeah.
And they feel, hey, it's my show.
My name's on the marquee.
I have to jump in and say something.
If something funny's happening, back off.
Leave it the fuck alone.
It's going to be great.
People are going to love it.
And they're going to go, oh, that was on the Opie and Anthony show.
So it doesn't really matter who's saying it.
Yeah.
You guys had figured it out.
It really is the birth of podcasts.
And I learned a lot from doing that show.
And I also learned that I wanted to do it.
Yeah.
Because when I would do your show, I was like, God, I want to do a show like
this.
I want to do something like this.
Because it was, you know, when I did regular radio, if I did on tour, I would
say, oh,
that may be fun to do a regular radio show.
But then I would be like, they will never hire me.
I will say something stupid.
I'll get fired.
This is not going to work out for me.
But I'd do your show.
And I'd be like, huh.
I'd be like, this is, I think I can do this.
No, this I think I can do.
I think I can do this.
I was paranoid because I never went to school for radio.
I was in construction for until my early to mid 30s, dude.
I got into radio late.
And my impression was always, if I didn't know the alloy of the metal in the
transmitter antenna,
there's no way you're getting into radio.
Like, I thought you had to know all this shit that they taught you in radio
school.
And the fact of the matter was, these jocks were constantly looking for
somebody that was
entertaining.
Yeah.
You never realize, I never realized how desperate a lot of these jocks are for
somebody that could
make people laugh.
Someone with varied interest, too.
Someone who was interesting.
Who could talk about different things.
Talk about a lot of different things.
Sometimes, you know, sometimes you gotta talk out your ass, like, you almost
kind of know
what it's about.
Yeah, for sure.
But this, the other thing about, like, what you guys did was you created a safe
place for
men.
Like, where you could just be a fucking idiot.
One of the last bastions.
That's the thing.
It's like, there's a lot of men out there, but there's not a lot of
entertainment that's
geared towards men.
And one of the things that comes up on my podcast, when the advertising people
get to
talk and they're like, Jesus Christ, he's got like 94% men.
Like, what is going on here?
This is crazy.
I'm like, they're not represented.
They're not, men are not represented.
It's like, I don't know what the number is of regular television, but it's not
geared
towards men.
No, not at all.
It's, there's some, there's like the talk and the view and there's a lot of
these shows
that are geared towards women, but it turns like a man show.
You can't have like a male oriented show on network television.
It would be toxic.
It's a personal affront to feminism and women.
And regardless, it's just men being men.
I don't know where this, I don't know where this idea came from that in the
past, even
a couple of decades, which, you know, relative to a tortoise or a mayfly, you
know, it varies
how long a period of time that is.
But in that period of time, we as humans were supposed to have physically and
mentally evolved
to this point where men don't still want to talk about tits and cars and
lifestyle stuff
and bash each other guns, of course, like we, I think there are people that
actually think
we, we have evolved out of that.
You know why?
Because there's a lot of men.
Brainwashed.
A lot of men that are hen packed and they work in some terrible job where human
resources
is breathing down their neck and they have neutered themselves and they put
themselves in this
position of like this sort of like non man.
Yes.
Non man.
Yeah, and then because of that, they, they chastise other free men, like, look
at this.
This is toxic masculinity and it's finest form.
And they say all these crazy things like, you can't be, you're not free.
It doesn't, and it's also equated somehow or another with cruelty, with being a
bad person,
with being a shitty person, just by joking around or doing the things that we
like to
talk, talking about the things that we like to talk about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I hear punching down a lot is a bad thing.
That was your whole show.
Yeah.
That was the entire show.
The entire 20 year history of the Opie and Anthony show.
There was never a punch that got past the 180 degree mark.
You guys don't get enough credit.
I really, I really say, I say it every time I can that you were the inspiration
for podcasts
without a doubt.
It really is for what, I think for what Howard did for the shock jock genre in
radio, we kind
of, we're right at that precipice of, of radio and podcast when, when that
happened.
And I think what we were doing was better suited to a podcast than it was a
radio show.
Yeah, I think so too.
But it was a great radio show too though.
Yeah, but it was a great radio show.
Absolutely.
The problem is the suits.
Yeah.
The problem was not the content.
The problem was the suits.
The problem is people go, Hey, Hey, Hey, you can't, this is not like, meanwhile,
did you
just see what happened?
Everyone was crying, laughing.
That's entertainment.
Yeah.
That's what they want.
That's it.
It got to a point where early on, even when I got in, which was again, late in
the game,
but early on in the eighties and nineties, all they gave a shit about were
ratings.
If you had ratings and you did something stupid, you'd get this, uh, slap on
the wrist in public
and behind the door with the GM and the PD and all the other management people,
they'd be
like, Oh my God, that was great.
Great job.
Oh, look, take off a week paid.
We'll say you're suspended.
And that's it.
They really did this.
And we, we went through a few of those and, and it turned into, they really did
get mad
and they really started suspending you without pay and firing you.
And these were these suits, like you say, that just didn't understand the
talent into the
business anymore.
And when radio stations were owned by, uh, mom and pop operations, we, we were
at WAAF
up in, uh, Massachusetts and it was owned by Zappas communications.
I met Zappas.
I met the guy, uh, when we went to infinity broadcasting, there was no Mr.
Infinity.
There was Mel Karmazan and there was all the suits from CBS and CBS has affiliates
and they
also deal in laundry detergent with this subsidiary.
And like you say something and baby diapers don't sell.
Like that's when it got really fucked up and personalities weren't able to do
what they
do anymore because now you're fucking up their sales in the burger industry.
And, you know, Zappas owned a fucking radio station and he loved when his radio
station
got ratings.
That was all there was to it.
Now it's all a conglomerate of bullshit.
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Anthony Cumia Reflects on the Impact of Opie & Anthony

The Joe Rogan Experience.
We were talking before this podcast started that you, when you left Opie and
Anthony,
you went and decided to do your own thing behind a paywall.
Yeah.
So you're like in this position, you're sort of uncancellable.
You don't have all the trappings that everybody else has in terms of like
sponsors and people
coming after you.
You just have subscribers.
Yeah, this was a conscious decision because I saw it coming a while ago, the
what they
call cancel culture thing.
Well, you guys get hit with it first, out of all the people that I've ever
heard of, because
when you guys had that homeless person on who said he wanted to, what did he
say, he wanted
to rape Condoleezza Rice?
Condoleezza Rice and the Queen of England and the First Lady.
I got to say something about that though.
We had just gotten to satellite radio from FM radio.
And to us, this was like, all right, it opens up a whole new world of what we
can do.
So I thought, what better place to just showcase a homeless person?
Let's see what rantings and ramblings come out of a homeless person's mind.
So bring them up in the studio, put them in front of a mic and let them go off.
It's satellite, no FCC rules and regs.
And the guy starts talking about crazy stuff and raping political figures and
the Queen
of England.
And we think it's hilarious because you're getting that insight.
You're getting into the mind of a crazy homeless guy on the street.
And the shit hits the fan.
Oh my God, Condoleezza Rice that brings the sex thing in and the race thing and
all that.
And they lost their mind.
And we were like, oh shit, we're getting fired again?
Like we're going to get fired for this.
What happened?
You didn't get fired, but you guys got suspended for how long?
We got suspended for, I think it was a month.
I think that was a month suspension from satellite radio.
But we were still at K-Rock in New York doing that show in the morning because
we used to
do both.
Yeah, we used to go across with the microphones.
I did that with you guys.
We did the walkover.
We would do terrestrial and then we would broadcast live as we were walking
down New York City with
mics and comics and we would go to the other studio.
Yeah, we would do things occasionally like Rich Voss would go into a diner or
something
and just start doing stand-up in front of the customers.
It was hilarious.
Cringe stand-up.
Cringe stand-up.
These people don't know what's happening and stupid big Club Soda Kenny would
announce
them.
Ladies and gentlemen, they're looking like they're, you know, it's going to be
like a
mass shooting is going to start.
And it was hilarious.
You guys were the birth of podcasts.
It was a podcast on the radio.
We didn't know it at the time.
We didn't know what a podcast was.
But it was a bunch of guys that you find funny, you like hanging out with,
talking about
anything.
And that seems to be what the formula is.
You guys figured it out first because every other radio show that I did, like
if I did
Stern or anything else you did, it was very formatted.
He had some things you wanted to talk to me about Fear Factor.
He wanted to talk to me about the UFC.
He had questions about this.
It's always like, and then you have a call in and then you have celebrity
guests.
And he had it all very smooth.
You guys would just bring a bunch of people in and then Patrice would start
talking and
Burr would start talking and Ari would start talking.
It was just chaos.
Dude.
And we were all just having fun.
Just having fun.
Yeah.
When you have a room of those guys, Nick DiPaolo and Patrice, God rest his soul.
Norton.
And Bill Burr, Norton.
All these guys, Colin Quinn, they're all in a room.
You can't lose.
Like as people will hear it and say, holy shit, that was one of the funniest
shows.
And it's like, what show?
The Opie and Anthony show.
So people remember the name of the show.
Yeah.
But all these other guys are delivering this amazing, funny comedy.
So it worked that way.
And we embraced that and just started bringing these comics back on in
different combinations.
Because you know better than anyone, some of the funniest stuff you'll ever
hear are
guys shitting on each other.
Yeah.
And when someone was in, we called it being in the barrel, and that could
consist of wearing
a shirt.
You come in wearing a shirt and Patrice goes, what the fuck?
What kind of shirt is that you wear?
Where the fuck you get?
And now everyone's on your shirt.
Now you're sitting there going, you're looking at all the comics going, what
can I use to
get this off me?
So you'd have to shit on Voss's teeth or, you know.
Always.
So it was this constant battle to get the shit off of you.
Yeah.
And it was funny every fucking time.
And you guys were so great at letting the comics just go wild and not put any
restrictions
on anybody and not try to control the conversation.
Just let it have fun.
Just let it breathe.
A lot of shows, a lot of hosts.
And this is something you do that is fantastic and rare in the business.
Let your guests talk.
Let them, and if you have a guest, a room full of guests, let them have fun.
If you hear funny shit going on, a lot of people, their ego gets in the way.
Yeah.
And they feel, hey, it's my show.
My name's on the marquee.
I have to jump in and say something.
If something funny's happening, back off.
Leave it the fuck alone.
It's going to be great.
People are going to love it.
And they're going to go, oh, that was on the Opie and Anthony show.
So it doesn't really matter who's saying it.
Yeah.
You guys had figured it out.
It really is the birth of podcasts.
And I learned a lot from doing that show.
And I also learned that I wanted to do it.
Yeah.
Because when I would do your show, I was like, God, I want to do a show like
this.
I want to do something like this.
Because it was, you know, when I did regular radio, if I did on tour, I would
say, oh,
that may be fun to do a regular radio show.
But then I would be like, they will never hire me.
I will say something stupid.
I'll get fired.
This is not going to work out for me.
But I'd do your show.
And I'd be like, huh.
I'd be like, this is, I think I can do this.
No, this I think I can do.
I think I can do this.
I was paranoid because I never went to school for radio.
I was in construction for until my early to mid 30s, dude.
I got into radio late.
And my impression was always, if I didn't know the alloy of the metal in the
transmitter antenna,
there's no way you're getting into radio.
Like, I thought you had to know all this shit that they taught you in radio
school.
And the fact of the matter was, these jocks were constantly looking for
somebody that was
entertaining.
Yeah.
You never realize, I never realized how desperate a lot of these jocks are for
somebody that could
make people laugh.
Someone with varied interest, too.
Someone who was interesting.
Who could talk about different things.
Talk about a lot of different things.
Sometimes, you know, sometimes you gotta talk out your ass, like, you almost
kind of know
what it's about.
Yeah, for sure.
But this, the other thing about, like, what you guys did was you created a safe
place for
men.
Like, where you could just be a fucking idiot.
One of the last bastions.
That's the thing.
It's like, there's a lot of men out there, but there's not a lot of
entertainment that's
geared towards men.
And one of the things that comes up on my podcast, when the advertising people
get to
talk and they're like, Jesus Christ, he's got like 94% men.
Like, what is going on here?
This is crazy.
I'm like, they're not represented.
They're not, men are not represented.
It's like, I don't know what the number is of regular television, but it's not
geared
towards men.
No, not at all.
It's, there's some, there's like the talk and the view and there's a lot of
these shows
that are geared towards women, but it turns like a man show.
You can't have like a male oriented show on network television.
It would be toxic.
It's a personal affront to feminism and women.
And regardless, it's just men being men.
I don't know where this, I don't know where this idea came from that in the
past, even
a couple of decades, which, you know, relative to a tortoise or a mayfly, you
know, it varies
how long a period of time that is.
But in that period of time, we as humans were supposed to have physically and
mentally evolved
to this point where men don't still want to talk about tits and cars and
lifestyle stuff
and bash each other guns, of course, like we, I think there are people that
actually think
we, we have evolved out of that.
You know why?
Because there's a lot of men.
Brainwashed.
A lot of men that are hen packed and they work in some terrible job where human
resources
is breathing down their neck and they have neutered themselves and they put
themselves in this
position of like this sort of like non man.
Yes.
Non man.
Yeah, and then because of that, they, they chastise other free men, like, look
at this.
This is toxic masculinity and it's finest form.
And they say all these crazy things like, you can't be, you're not free.
It doesn't, and it's also equated somehow or another with cruelty, with being a
bad person,
with being a shitty person, just by joking around or doing the things that we
like to
talk, talking about the things that we like to talk about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I hear punching down a lot is a bad thing.
That was your whole show.
Yeah.
That was the entire show.
The entire 20 year history of the Opie and Anthony show.
There was never a punch that got past the 180 degree mark.
You guys don't get enough credit.
I really, I really say, I say it every time I can that you were the inspiration
for podcasts
without a doubt.
It really is for what, I think for what Howard did for the shock jock genre in
radio, we kind
of, we're right at that precipice of, of radio and podcast when, when that
happened.
And I think what we were doing was better suited to a podcast than it was a
radio show.
Yeah, I think so too.
But it was a great radio show too though.
Yeah, but it was a great radio show.
Absolutely.
The problem is the suits.
Yeah.
The problem was not the content.
The problem was the suits.
The problem is people go, Hey, Hey, Hey, you can't, this is not like, meanwhile,
did you
just see what happened?
Everyone was crying, laughing.
That's entertainment.
Yeah.
That's what they want.
That's it.
It got to a point where early on, even when I got in, which was again, late in
the game,
but early on in the eighties and nineties, all they gave a shit about were
ratings.
If you had ratings and you did something stupid, you'd get this, uh, slap on
the wrist in public
and behind the door with the GM and the PD and all the other management people,
they'd be
like, Oh my God, that was great.
Great job.
Oh, look, take off a week paid.
We'll say you're suspended.
And that's it.
They really did this.
And we, we went through a few of those and, and it turned into, they really did
get mad
and they really started suspending you without pay and firing you.
And these were these suits, like you say, that just didn't understand the
talent into the
business anymore.
And when radio stations were owned by, uh, mom and pop operations, we, we were
at WAAF
up in, uh, Massachusetts and it was owned by Zappas communications.
I met Zappas.
I met the guy, uh, when we went to infinity broadcasting, there was no Mr.
Infinity.
There was Mel Karmazan and there was all the suits from CBS and CBS has affiliates
and they
also deal in laundry detergent with this subsidiary.
And like you say something and baby diapers don't sell.
Like that's when it got really fucked up and personalities weren't able to do
what they
do anymore because now you're fucking up their sales in the burger industry.
And, you know, Zappas owned a fucking radio station and he loved when his radio
station
got ratings.
That was all there was to it.
Now it's all a conglomerate of bullshit.
Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience for free, only on S