Simply the Best

If you've never heard of The Best Show, the beloved New Jersey-based Internet radio program, the first thing you must know is that its phone lines are a sacred space, and host Tom Scharpling guards them like a mother bear protecting her cubs with a baseball bat. Take, for example, the tragic case of Cory.

"We're gonna have a nice conversation, Cory," Scharpling tells the caller on a typical Tuesday evening, attempting to put him at ease. "You'll tell your whole family about it. You talked to Tom."

"I struck out the last few times I called," the caller says, "so I don't wanna strike out again this time."

"What happened the last couple times?"

"Yeah, I got, uh, Bad Company'd last time, because I mispronounced Amish Mafia. I said 'ay-mish.' And I don't want that to happen again this time."

"I know what you mean. So what happened? You called, you were talkin' about the show Amish Mafia?"

In the distance, a familiar strain begins. A rolling cymbal and a piano line: the opening of Bad Company's 1974 classic-rock staple, "Bad Company." The caller can't hear it, the harbinger of his fate, so he continues.

"I said Ay-mish instead of Amish, and it was rather embarrassing, but I think I have something good here."

…always on the run…

"I read an article and I tweeted it at you. It's about a group, I can't say anything other than losers."

…ohh, six-gun in my haaaaaand…

"People literally dressed up like the characters…" The caller's voice fades out. The piano swells. "THAT'S WHY THEY CALL ME…" Drum kick. Scharpling hangs up. Cory is once again "Bad Company'd"—Scharpling's preferred method of disposing of anyone with the temerity to ramble on his phone lines.

The Best Show—which initially aired on New Jersey's free-form station WFMU, and is now available on your podcast manager of choice—is what its title says. The show has the structure and discipline of a great call-in radio program—three hours of nonstop talking, callers, pre-written comedy, a little bit of music and a lot of music-geek humor—and combines it with the free-flowing anarchy of a modern comedy podcast, a spirit Scharpling invented nearly on his own 10 years before it was profitable to anyone.

Even the closest FOTs—that's Friends of Tom, the name of the show's devoted fan base—will admit the show is not accessible. It is a weekly three-hour commitment, a fantastic feast to the initiated but daunting to newcomers. Some routine in-jokes have been going for five years.

Scharpling's approach to hosting takes a while to embrace. If WTF, for instance, is about Marc Maron being forthright about his life—a performance based in honesty and exploring the core of one's self—The Best Show is born from Scharpling's various games of obfuscation. On a given night, he'll tell the audience that he's 63 years old (he's 46), accuse his call screener of selling bootleg DVDs, make fun of his guests with a squirrel puppet named Gary; boil over in apocalyptic rage for no reason, and accuse a random male caller of being a peeper. Think of him as a sort of wandering folk troubadour of radio, the Woody Guthrie of spoken-word audio, spinning yarns of half-truths in service of a broader storytelling vision.

The most prominent of these lies is that Scharpling is a lifelong resident of Newbridge, N.J. Newbridge is extremely fake, The Best Show's Lake Wobegon, for all intents and purposes, populated by a madness-gripped citizenry that calls into the show nearly every week to harass Scharpling. All of these citizens are portrayed by Scharpling's writing partner, indie-rock super-drummer Jon Wurster (Superchunk, Bob Mould, the Mountain Goats), who specializes in portraying a specific sort of mildly idiotic, self-mythologizing sociopath. These bits seem loosely improvised but are actually planned out extensively beforehand. They're often lengthy, anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. They take shape gradually and utilize a bevy of recurring jokes and references to previous Newbridge adventures.

These two-man radio plays form the core of any given episode of The Best Show and are the most accessible entry point to anyone looking for a way in. Blessedly, Numero Group recently released a 16-disc box set chronicling the finest moments of the Scharpling and Wurster partnership in the WFMU years. Here are some good starting points:

POWER POP POP-POP: A local power-pop enthusiast calls in to talk to Scharpling about Poptastrophe 2007, a local power-pop festival. But there is a dark pall over the proceedings. Power Pop Pop-Pop, the patriarch of the national power-pop scene, is on a mission to consolidate power and preserve the purity of power pop: "He calls himself Power Pop Pop-Pop, like a lovable grandfather, but he's more like this power-pop dictator." Features a startlingly virtuosic list of fake power-pop bands.

LAKE NEWBRIDGE: A local fish calls in and gossips about Aquaman while he squats in the superhero's summer home.

PHILLY BOY ROY'S MEMORIAL DAY: Philly Boy Roy is a proud, middle-class Philadelphian, with a wife named Rhoda and a son, Roy Jr., who tricks him into doing various stupid and illegal things. He is The Best Show's most frequently recurring character, a man fueled exclusively by hoagies and a deeply held belief that "Jersey sucks." For a while, he was the absentee mayor of Newbridge.

THE GORCH: One of the most legendary of the legendary calls. Scharpling speaks to Roland "The Gorch" Gorchnick, a childhood friend of Garry Marshall and the model for Happy Days breakout character Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli. The Gorch is not a big fan of his television counterpart, who he believes has been sanitized for a mass television audience. "Asking questions isn't cool! You don't see the Gorch askin' no questions!"

TIMMY VON TRIMBLE: Timmy is a 2-inch-tall man who sleeps in a thimble. He also has some unsettling opinions, which he shares with a scandalized Scharpling.

THIS IS ZACHARY BRIMSTEAD: Newbridge's foremost barbershop-quartet enthusiast phones in to talk about the dissolution of his group, Barbershop Sweat, and regale Scharpling with his one-man barbershop renditions of current and classic rock-'n'-roll hits.

THE SPRINGSTEEN BOOK: Steven Jennings, author of Darkness on the River's Edge in the USA: From Greetings to the Promise: Bruce Springsteen: The Story Behind the Albums, calls into the show to talk to Scharpling about the life and times of the Boss. Jennings details his deeply ingrained working-class fear of failure, his various attempts to join the Army, his yearly attempt to get a job at the local Halloween superstore and his prototype for "a shirt you can drive like a motorcycle." Did you know Micky Dolenz played drums on "Born to Run"?

REGGIE MONROE: Reggie was the greatest Survivor prospect of all time and the pride of Newbridge, until a fatal mistake on the island changed his life forever. A tragedy that unfolds like a never-retracting Slinky going downstairs.

ROCK, ROT AND RULE: In the first Scharpling and Wurster call, from three years before The Best Show started in earnest, Scharpling interviews Ronald Thomas Clontle, a music writer who claims that his new book is “the ultimate argument-settler.” In the book, Clontle definitively decides whether every band in the pop-music canon “rocks,” “rots” or “rules.” He also claims Madness invented ska, and gets in a fight with an angry caller about it. If Scharpling and Wurster hadn’t spent the next decade and a half pursuing and refining their craft, “Rock, Rot and Rule” would stand up as a perfect pass-it-around cult-comedy piece. As is, it’s the seed from which the mighty oak of their craft has emerged. 

SEE IT: Scharpling and Wurster are at Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., on Saturday, Aug. 29. 9 pm. $25. Advance tickets sold out, limited tickets available day of show. 21+. Stream The Best Show live every Tuesday, 6-9 pm, at thebestshow.net.

WWeek 2015