when youre friends don't like TBS

[Country Lobster]

I found the show through being a fan of Upright Citizens Brigade/Matt Walsh and Jon Benjamin. The first thing I heard was the Matt Walsh "interview" promoting his Hawaii Special on the Daily Show. It immediately became one of my favorite things ever. This led me to listen to the show more and fall in love with it. The Wurster calls and the Stereolaffs CDs won me over immediately. It took a little while before I started listening to the whole show every week - but now I have been religiously for 6 years.

I think it's easier to love the show when you discover it yourself...that said, I also think it takes most people a little while to warm up to the tone/format/length. Some people won't ever have the attention span to listen to a 30-45min Wurster call, much less a 3 hour radio show.

[iAmBaronVonTito]

I think it's easier to love the show when you discover it yourself...that said, I also think it takes most people a little while to warm up to the tone/format/length. Some people won't ever have the attention span to listen to a 30-45min Wurster call, much less a 3 hour radio show.

this is true.  a lot of people have a hard time with the 3 hours, the "dead air", and when i describe how funny it is, ive come to understand that theyre expecting jokes- like stand-up or something.  however, i wouldnt be surprised if they dont get how funny it is because they dont get the geographic, social, cultural, or music/movie/book references. 

[perry]

yeah, the length is definitely the hardest part about getting people to listen.  not only that, but the fact that the show has been on for at least 8 years is also a setback for getting new people to listen.  in the case of my room mate, he likes being able to listen to something from the very beginning.  he feels like he's missing out if he hasn't heard the whole history of something.  now, i know there's the archives, but i got into the show about a year and a half ago, and i still haven't made my way through all of those episodes yet.  i really wish that i had known about tbs from the beginning, but i also keep telling him not to worry about it, and that the more he listens to it, the more he'll WANT to look into the archives and get a sense of the history of the show.

a lot of the humor is very inside, and for people who really get tom.  i think a lot of people today, if they don't get something RIGHT AWAY, they give up.

that said, i HAVE successfully recruited my girlfriend, and about 5 of our friends, and we now have a kansas city best show listening party every week since like last october.  it's easy to get musicians into the show if you give them some good music-based calls or shows to listen to, like barry dworkin, barry levitz, marky ramone, old skull, etc.  or play some of the more absurd calls for people at first, like timmy von trimble or pbr or andy from lake newbridge.

[iAmBaronVonTito]

i dont know anyone who listens to the show. 

listening parties sound like a lot of fun.  and FOT meetups.

[Bryan]

My only successful conversion so far is my wife - and that's because she was more or less forced into prolonged exposure.

[jed]

Same here. She started making fun of me for my occassional use of a Best Show phrase ("holy moly" usually).  It hurt my feelings so I don't point it out now that she says "I don't like it, I love it" more than Tom ever did.  I think she is still not that interested in the calls from Newbridge but she likes the music and Tom, especially when he isn't grouchy. Mostly I think she likes hearing me laugh out loud and spending Tuesday nights sitting in front of our old radio.

[yesno]

My fiancee accused me of stealing Tom's material about a couple things that I have always thought.  All NJ natives have a grudge against NY, for instance.  I always have.

The things I really do steal from Tom, she doesn't notice.

She kind of likes TBS, though.  She just doesn't understand the level of obsession I apply to almost everything in my life.

[wwwes]

I found the show through an interview in The Onion AV Club. I saw the rave reviews from some of the funniest people ever, and in a fit of spontaneity, purchased all three (at that time) of their albums. That was SUCH a great move. I didn't actually start listening to the show until much later, when I just went through the archives a bit at a time.

My fiancee is a fairly big fan of the show, and I've played some of the S&W stuff for friends/family with about a 50% like/dislike rate. My father once really enjoyed an episode I was listening to when I was driving with him in the car. But it's harder to get people to enjoy the show itself. Part of it is length, part of it is that a lot of them think Tom is a bit too angry. I can't say they're wrong, but I do think that you have to hear for a bit before you start to recognize that it's part of the joke.

[andrew in philadelphia]

my wife has brought to my attention that i speak about philly boy roy, and the entire ziegler clan for that matter, as if they're actual people who live around the corner. she put her foot down when i suggested celebrating new year's eve this year by blowing up 16 trash cans with fireworks. 

that said, we have spent quality time over many a car ride cracking up at the stereolaffs discs.

i also know almost no one who listens either. my wife and the friend who introduced me to it - that's it. most people i know have a good sense of humor, but maybe not the patience it takes to let TBS grow on them. their loss.

[mostlymeat]

Philly Boy Roy is very real.

[Jimmy]

I first got into TBS through iTunes and I had listened to a couple of episodes and didn't really like it.  I thought it was weird to have so many pauses and have no structure to the show.  I guess I thought it would be like a regular radio station.  I also thought the episodes I had listened to were very negative (which happened to be right before the episode Tom decided to be positive").  I later went back to it and loved it.  I however didn't at first understand/like the whole PBR thing.  I thought they were too long and I thought it was weird that Tom didn't realize that the same person was calling in with different names.  I later realized through TSOYA interview that they were on purpose and started liking those skits ever since.

[andrew in philadelphia]

Philly Boy Roy is very real.

yeah, well.. try telling my wife that.

i sometimes go out of my way to drive down the roxborough strip in hopes of a PBR siting. 

[herbie]

But last Sunday at church I was standing around the refreshment table in the "fellowship hall" and I introduced myself to a stranger who said, "I think you and I have the same taste in radio entertainment."  My first chance FOT meeting.  She said she is friends with Herbie in Philadelphia and that he feels bad for whatever it was that earned him a six month ban.

It terrifies me to think that Herbie has operatives everywhere trying to get him back on the air. It sounds like Lost. You're just strolling around the park and someone strikes up a conversation with you, then after a short time starts talking about how you have to tell Tom to let Herbie back on the show.

operatives? nope. just good friends!

hi jed! thanks for the kind words!

[jed]

But last Sunday at church I was standing around the refreshment table in the "fellowship hall" and I introduced myself to a stranger who said, "I think you and I have the same taste in radio entertainment."  My first chance FOT meeting.  She said she is friends with Herbie in Philadelphia and that he feels bad for whatever it was that earned him a six month ban.

It terrifies me to think that Herbie has operatives everywhere trying to get him back on the air. It sounds like Lost. You're just strolling around the park and someone strikes up a conversation with you, then after a short time starts talking about how you have to tell Tom to let Herbie back on the show.

operatives? nope. just good friends!

hi jed! thanks for the kind words!

Herbie,
Just to be clear, it was your friend who said you didn't deserve the ban. I'm sataying out of this. But I'm sure you are a nice guy and I will take this opportunity to give you some nice words.  Maybe you should try calling back sometime and redeeming yourself. The worst that could happen is that you would get gomped and make all of us laugh.  Where do you live in Philadelphia (my favorite city)?

[herbie]

south philly/east passyunk!

i'm working on a little project that i think the man might dig. i'm not worried.