Rosie O'Donnell Prank Call

LATE SHOW NEWS
by Aaron Barnhart
September 17, 1996

1-800-U-FAT-PIG

If the most awkward talk-show event of 1994 was David Letterman's interview of Madonna, and 1995's was the
"lesbian kiss" appearance of Howard Stern on The Tonight Show with a peeved Jay Leno, then the most awkward
talk-show event of 1996 -- with the possible exception of every broadcast of Caryl & Marilyn: Real Friends -- probably
belongs to The Rosie O'Donnell Show broadcast that aired last Tuesday.

On Monday, Mayor Ed Rendell of Philadelphia was in the audience, part of an hourlong celebration of the show's
upgrade to 11 a.m. on that city's WPVI-TV (where it had formerly been in the middle of the night). The next day, as
O'Donnell opened the show, she was informed that she had a caller: Mayor Rendell phoning in from Philly, apparently
with some subsequent good wishes. What happened next was heard only by affiliates with a live (10 a.m. Eastern) feed
of the program; everyone else heard a hastily-done edited version, wherein the caller's comments were bleeped entirely
and a small box at the bottom covered up the original chyron ("On the Phone: ED RENDELL") with the words "CRANK
CALL." Here's what was said:

ROSIE: Okay, who's on the phone, hello phone person?
CALLER: (Mr. Suave voice) Hellooo. Rosie, this is Mayor Rendell.
ROSIE: Mayor Rendell from Philadelphia?
CALLER: Yes. (drops Suave) Howard Stern says you're a fat pig, you know that?
ROSIE: Who did what?
CALLER: Howard Stern says you're a fat pig.
ROSIE: Oh. (adopts fake-bubbly manner) Really interesting. Thanks for calling!
CALLER: You're welcome, you fat pig!

The prank caller, Tim Cipriano of Jersey City, N.J., is better known to regular listeners of Howard Stern's syndicated
morning radio program as "Captain Janks, the King of Pranks." I'm not sure if Janks is the one who got through during
CNN's live coverage of the 1994 L.A. earthquake, but we do know he's the guy who got onto Larry King's show and
asked him, "Why can't you stay married?" (To which a momentarily stunned King replied, "I don't know.")

To say O'Donnell was wounded by Janks's call is putting it mildly. Audible gasps could be heard from the Rosie
audience from the moment the prank began (possibly because it had not yet registered with some audience members that
the person calling their beloved Rosie a fat pig was not the mayor of Philadelphia). And although O'Donnell gamely
attempted a recovery, her jokes fell flat. The show was still reeling from Janks's punch when it went to a first
commercial, although it did seem to have recovered after the break. An audience member called Stern's radio show the
next morning to report that during the time out, O'Donnell had gone off on executive producer Daniel Kellison, who had
ultimate responsibility for putting the call through. And apparently someone in the O'Donnell organization was upset
enough to get the police to issue a non-traffic citation to Janks, which he read over the air to Stern the following day
("intent to cause public inconvenience" was one of the charges).

Though the incident raised questions inside the Rosie organization about who authorizes content to go over the air, it also
raised questions about Howard Stern's less-than-glorious habit of encouraging his listeners to prank the media and, while
they're at it, invoke his name during the prank.

I'm actually of two minds about this practice. I am no fan of TV's obsession with reporting "breaking news," and find
the prank calls a welcome subversive commentary on the desperation of TV news departments to fill its airtime with
something, anything remotely resembling substance. News competition, especially on the local level, has gotten so
intense that when an event is unfolding, stations not only scramble to be the first on the air with the story, they then
compete to see which will be the last station to resume its regular programming. A game of chicken ensues, as stations try
to pad the minutes when absolutely nothing is happening, in the dim hope of being the first to report a breaking
development -- even if that report is a rumor, a hint of things to come, or an impromptu interview with an authority on the
scene who turns out to have nothing of importance to say.

On the night that TWA Flight 800 went down, all of the New York stations broke in with special reports, and coverage
continued for several minutes before returning to prime-time programs. Later, NBC 4 broke in again, with what it
thought was an exclusive: a telephone interview with a Coast Guard official claiming to have information on the downed
airliner. Of course, it was a Stern listener, and while one could definitely feel Chuck Scarborough's pain as he realized,
on camera, he'd been hoodwinked, it is still a valid question whether we would be better informed by an actual Coast
Guard official on that phone line. You didn't have to be a news director to know that little solid information would be
available from the wreck until much later -- even a passenger list takes time to compile. But all reason seems to go out the
window at NBC 4 and other stations when an "exclusive" is on the line.

As Ted Koppel has noted, "live team coverage" creates an atmosphere that encourages speculation and rumor-mongering.
It can even infect the supposedly more refined reporting process, as when Tom Brokaw foolishly disclosed to Bob
Costas during NBC's Olympic broadcast that the FBI was certainly going to arrest Richard Jewell in connection with the
Centennial Park bombing, and that they were delaying only because they wanted to collect enough evidence to make their
case airtight. Former Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan had to resign his office after corruption charges were brought
against him, charges amplified (but not invented) in the media. Later, when he was acquitted of all charges, Donovan
famously asked where he should go to get his reputation back. Should Richard Jewell ever have a similar need, at least he
knows where to start -- and if he has trouble getting through to Tom, perhaps Captain Janks could give him some
pointers.

But it's another matter entirely when pranking turns personal. Stern keeps a small universe of feuds in orbit, with
celebrities ranging from O'Donnell and Larry King to former pal Jerry Seinfeld. And he's not above allowing Janks to
extend the troublemaking beyond the boundaries of his program, so long as the obligatory Howard Stern mention is
made. But Larry isn't Johnny; he doesn't enjoy discussing his multiple marriages on the air, and it shows. And while
Rosie certainly doesn't hide the fact that she's large, and makes the occasional amusing reference to stores that carry
clothing in her size, the gratuitous insult rained down on her by Janks seemed unusually harsh and a little misogynistic.
All with the approval of Howard, who carries on his worthless vendettas because, after all, he's got four hours a day to
kill. (I notice that E! conspicuously excises nearly all references to Howard's feuds from its half-hour condensed version
of his radio show.)

Unfortunately, I can't think of a cure for gooberheads like Janks that isn't worse than the irritations they cause. (Other
than, of course, better call screening: the Rosie staff did have Janks's phone number, and one wonders why a red flag
didn't go up when he gave it, since the area code was for New Jersey, not downtown Philadelphia.) The best that can be
hoped for, perhaps, is a public outpouring of support and sympathy for Stern's victims, like the kind that enveloped
Rosie immediately after taping on Tuesday's show ended. As she reported the next day on her broadcast, the waiter at the
restaurant where she took her family that night informed her that dinner was on him, and a New York sanitation worker
named Vinny stopped his truck and yelled at her, "Hey, Rosie! Yo' beautiful!" Not to mention the hundreds of calls and
telegrams that flooded in during the day, according to Rosie publicist Marc Liepis. All of which established that, in the
public's eye at least, Rosie O'Donnell is not a fat pig, just as Howard Stern is not fat.

*************

LATE SHOW NEWS
by Aaron Barnhart

October 1, 1996, Number 127 (last week's was 126): Reaction to
Rosie ... "SNL" back for more.

READER MAIL
Lots of letters followed my commentary on the pranking habits of Howard Stern's listeners, which became an issue again after the obnoxious Captain Janks called Rosie O'Donnell a "fat pig" on her own show while impersonating the Mayor of Philadelphia. Several e-mails read something like this one from my old friend John Zipperer: "Yes, insulting Rosie was inexcusable, but was that really worse than interfering with news coverage -- however poorly run -- of tragedies? None of the pranks you listed was cute or useful; if he wanted to show up the media's weakness, he should copy Mike Royko's onetime call for voters to lie to pollsters about the candidate for whom they voted. Now THAT's useful."
Other readers came to Howard's defense. "I personally love seeing the big wig stars made fools of by Stern and his followers," wrote one. "Let me also say that I would have attacked Rosie's lack of talent and stage presence, rather than her weight problem."
A former radio news director and current Howard listener offered more solid reasons behind Stern's shtick: "a) He wants to underscore that celebrities are like everyone else in the sense that they don't all get along, and that there's serious antipathy between some, especially in his case. b) He wants to continually call attention to TV's failure to properly check out sources before presenting them to us as news. He really hit this point when he talked with the 'I see O.J.' caller ... who got right through to Peter Jennings live without any verificaton on ABC's part. If Al Michaels hadn't said something right away, Peter would have continued to give the call credence.

 

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