Laying it on the Loveline, A&E Feature
LAYING IT ON THE LOVELINE, Issue 41, A&E Feature, 09 Aug 1996
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By Michael Cowan
illustrations by Adam Turman
Late on a Sunday night, a woman with a nervous, youthful voice trips over her own words on national radio. "Um ... Hi, Adam, hi, Dr. Drew, you guys are awesome," she says. "Um ... anyway, my question is for Dr. Drew. I heard that smoking pot can help asthma, is that true.?"
"Well," begins Dr. Drew, choosing his words carefully, "Marijuana initially causes a slight increase in bronchial dilation, but it ..." "Broncho Dilation ..." interjects Adam, "wasn't that an Italian porn star from the late '60s?"
So begins another provocative, unique and slightly disturbing evening of Loveline, a nationally syndicated call-in radio show from Los Angeles. Dr. Drew Pinsky and Adam Carolla give callers advice on sex, drugs and relationships, with various celebrity guests helping out from time to time. On past shows, Ice-T detailed his drug dealing days, Tori Amos admonished flatulent men and Adam West described his relationships with different Catwomen. But the calls aren't all fun. A man calls in to ask if he should take back his cheating wife. A 14-year-old with a history of sex and drug abuse wants to know how drugs will affect her unborn baby. An 18-year-old caller contemplates suicide. In response to the calls, which run the gamut from the ludicrous to the disturbing, Pinsky doles out clinical, conscientious advice and Carolla offers his own brand of pop-psychology and one-liners.
Loveline's stated goal is to help people while entertaining, but the question remains: Under the pretense of therapy, does the very popular Loveline exploit the private lives of young listeners for ratings' sake? The answer depends on which host you ask.
"The goal of the show, first and foremost, is education, and secondly, to help people as much as we possibly can." says Pinsky, a board-certified physician and addiction medicine specialist. He has been on Loveline for 14 years, since he was a fourth-year medical student living near the KROQ studios in Los Angeles. Pinsky met and befriended some of the station DJs and they asked him to help out on a radio call-in show. "It was an epiphany," Pinsky says. "I was shocked that people would call a radio station and not their doctor to discuss health issues. I knew I had to keep doing this."
Carolla, Pinsky's radio counterpart, is a former carpenter, boxing instructor and an "unsuccessful stand-up comic." "My job is to entertain," he says.
Carolla called KROQ's morning show to offer his services as a boxing instructor for a morning show stunt. Interested in working in radio, he asked one of the show's DJs how he could get on the air. The DJ liked Carolla's delivery and Carolla developed a phone-in character -- Mr. Birchum, a comical tool instructor. That character took off and within a year, in October of '95, the 32-year-old comedian joined Loveline, just as the show was being syndicated nationally.
Carolla teamed up with Pinsky and Riki Rachtman (formerly of MTV's Headbanger's Ball), who had been host of Loveline for the previous two years. Rachtman's lascivious humor usually degenerated into vulgarity, and though there was no animosity between the three, the triumvirate did not click. "There was too much competition for the mic between Adam and Riki," says John Lassman, Program Director for 93.7 The Edge, which runs Loveline in the metro area. "It was a `too many cooks spoiling the soup' sort of situation." In April of 1996, Rachtman left Loveline.
"I was shocked. He walked in one night and told us 'Tomorrow's my last show.'" Loveline producer Ann Wilkins says. "He felt he wasn't able to express his point of view, he told us, `I've gotta do this for myself.'" With the departure of Rachtman, who now does his own afternoon radio talk show in L.A., Adam and Dr. Drew developed an on-air rapport.
"They have an amazing chemistry together. They like each other a lot and that comes out over the air." Wilkins says. That might sound syrupy, but it's actually sincere. For many of Loveline's fans, the shows appeal lies in the friendly banter between Carolla and Pinsky. Carolla plays up the role of the politically incorrect, opinionated, street-smart slacker to Pinsky's nonjudgemental, authoritative physician.
"I'll go to extremes sometimes just to see the look on Drew's face." admits Carolla. He asks guests about their sexual preferences or experiences, wants to create the town of Boobville and devises gross generalizations about the sexes -- as well as extolling the virtues of naps, pornography and masturbation. Carolla is a toned-down version of Howard Stern minus the huge ego.
"There is such a potential for these kinds of shows to become salacious, dangerous and exploitive," Pinsky says. "If you don't have someone on who knows what they're talking about, or if you romanticize the issues, then you're doing a real disservice to the listening public." Pinsky downplays the more sensational aspects of the show. He believes questions concerning sexual behavior and drug use are extremely relevant to younger listeners and Loveline presents a forum for kids to discuss these issues. Pinsky often cuts Carolla off in mid-sentence, before the discussion gets too base. Usually, however, his silence expresses his displeasure. When celebrity guests, especially bands, start belching and flirting with callers, Pinsky backs off the mic.
"I don't even want my voice associated with those kind of antics," he says. A mistake, though, would be to oversimplify their dynamic -- to call Dr. Drew the `nice guy' and Adam the `smartass' sidekick. Both are fully aware of their own and each other's, contribution to the show.
"I'm the lollipop and Drew's the dentist," Carolla says. Many radio and television talk shows are a vehicle for the monstrous egos of their hosts. Shows like Geraldo or The Maury Povich Show parade shattered lives for laughing or balking audiences. Guest therapists offer quick-fix solutions to lifelong problems. A little knowledge is often a dangerous thing; even a small dose of pop-psychology can be worse than none at all. "One of the things that makes Loveline different, is that people are calling with real specific experiential issues," Pinsky says. He takes the more serious calls -- dealing with severe drug use or terrible physical abuse -- off the air, often referring them to a counseling service.
But most issues are far less disturbing. Young adult males call, wondering if they masturbate too often, or worrying about a bump on their penis. Twentysomethings, unable to break an alcohol or marijuana addiction, also comprise a substantial number of calls. But no matter how serious the call may or may not be, Loveline's treatment doesn't glamorize the topics.
However, some of Carolla's comments go too far and alienate listeners. On one episode, after a series of five or six calls from women who had been sexually abused, he dubbed it "rape night." Carolla's comments could be seen as either an attempt to draw laughs or simply stem from insensitivity. Some would say that it doesn't matter -- that a jab is a jab, regardless of its motive. "I try to keep it fun and keep it fast, but not say anything I would regret or feel badly about," Carolla says.
Carolla might have to tone down the caustic comments this fall, when New World/Genesis Distribution nationally syndicates the Loveline television program. The television version will feature a live studio audience, along with the usual celebrity guests and callers. Whether the radio success will transfer to television remains to be seen. A certain amount of anonymity is lost with the presence of the studio audience. Some intimacy is lost as well; the late-night radio program fosters an intimate, one-on-one relationship between a listener and a voice on the radio. More details are left to the imagination. Fortunately for radio fans, Carolla and Pinsky will continue to do the show's familiar radio version -- with Dr. Drew dispensing conscientious advice and Adam doing what he does best.
"I like psychology," he says. "My dad's a psychologist and I enjoy interjecting that in a more street version, a less clinical version. I try to be entertaining, be myself and be truthful."
