On an average Saturday night at the Jon Lovitz theater in Hollywood it is not uncommon to hear David Bowie sing a birthday song to a drunk sorority girl, or Al Pacino yelling at some newlyweds about deviant sex. It may sound absurd, but it’s simply a day in the life of Ralph Garman, KROQ radio personality and “man of 1001 voices,” whose popular live comedy podcast “Hollywood Babble-On” will be making its way to the Laugh Factory in Long Beach on Feb. 16.
Garman is perhaps best known to Southern Californians as the host of the popular “showbiz beat” segment on KROQ’s morning show “Kevin and Bean.” However, to the rest of the world he is becoming known as the hilarious impressionist and co-host to filmmaker Kevin Smith on “Hollywood Babble-On,” which was recently awarded the Stitcher award for Best Film and TV Podcast of 2012.
Garman recently spoke to the Daily 49er about his work in radio and TV, and other important topics like the size of Liam Neeson’s “manhood.”
Q: How would you describe your show “Hollywood Babble-On” to the uninitiated?
A: HBO is a look at the entertainment news through a very twisted prism. Myself and Kevin Smith have both been in the entertainment industry in one way or another for a number of years, and we have a very specific take on the industry. The show is basically a cranky drunk, that’s me, and a laid-back stoner [Smith] giving our take on the showbiz news of the day.
Q: And how did you end up with filmmaker Kevin Smith as your cohost?
A: Kevin had been a regular guest on the “Kevin and Bean Show”, and I would always ask him to stick around for my showbiz news segment because we had good chemistry and always had a good time. One day I said to him “We should really do something in a longer form, whether it be another radio show or a podcast or something.” When Kevin started to expand his podcasting empire we said “This is our chance, let’s do it.”
Q: How does the experience of seeing the show live compare to listening to just the audio podcast?
A: The beauty of the live show is that our show is very interactive. We start every episode by giving shoutouts to the people who have come long ways or are celebrating special occasions. I think it’s an added bonus when you’re there live because you get to see the facial expressions and the crazy dance moves that Kevin does, that you don’t get with the audio. There’s something special about being at a live show, live comedy especially. It’s funny listening to the audio but you always feel like wow I wish I could have seen that or been there. There’s an extra added excitement about being in the room when it happens.
Q: One of your show’s raunchiest and most hilarious recurring segments involves making outrageous jokes about the size of actor Liam Neeson’s genitals. How did that start?
A: It came about in one of these off-hand conversations we were having about one of Liam Neeson’s films. Kevin brought up an interview that he had read with Janice Dickenson, one of the early supermodels who had dated Liam Neeson, and she had mentioned his enormous ‘manhood.’ We started cracking up and wondering if it was even true, and that spawned a segment in which our listeners send in fake facts about how big he really is. For some reason this segment really took off with our listeners and it has now spawned all kinds of jokes like “Liam Neeson’s c*ck is so big, the boogeyman checks for it under his bed before he goes to sleep.” It’s just a silly thing that took on a life of its own. We’ll stop doing it when our listeners stop writing such funny jokes about it.
Q: Do you ever worry that someday Liam Neeson might find out that you’re making these jokes about him?
A: Worry about it? We pray for it! For him to find out and either ask us to stop or get the joke and come do a bit with us would be a dream come true.
Q: You’re primarily a radio personality but you’re also an actor who has appeared in last year’s film “Ted,” “Family Guy,” and of course the “Joe Schmo Show.” Do you ever worry about becoming more involved in an industry that you so openly mock on a daily basis?”
A: You can be involved in the entertainment industry and still recognize how ridiculous it can be. I have friends who have been very successful in the entertainment industry, people like Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla and Seth Macfarlane are all successful; but they don’t take themselves as seriously as some people do. Those are the people we make fun of, the people who take themselves much too seriously and also the people who have no business being in entertainment at all because they have no discernible talent. Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, those are the people we like to hold up to public ridicule because they sort-of deserve it.
Q: You are currently the host of the third season of a prank reality show called “The Joe Schmo Show” on Spike. This comes after almost a ten year gap since season 2. What was it like to return to this show after so many years? Did you take such a long hiatus because people were starting to catch on that the show was a hoax?
A: It was a happy coincidence that it took so long to get the third one going after all these years because it gave people a chance to forget about it so nobody would see it coming. We did the first season ten years ago and then we did the second season which didn’t go as well, so I think they were waiting until they had a really special kind of reality show to spoof. The way the show works is that we do a fake reality show where we cast all actors except for one guy who doesn’t know it’s fake. The first one was a “Big Brother” type show where I was basically playing a version of myself. In the second one they had me playing a British reality show host for a “Bachelor”-type dating show. For this new one they were talking about different ideas but nothing really stuck until we came up with a “Dog the Bounty Hunter” type cop show where contestants are competing to become the next bounty hunter. It seemed so outrageous and fun that it clicked and we decided to do it again.
Q: In this season you play an over-the-top bounty hunter character named Jake Montrose who hosts the fake show “The Full Bounty.” Is it more difficult playing an outrageous character and being taken seriously than it was playing a TV host?
A: As a matter of fact it’s actually easier. In the first two seasons I was playing reality TV hosts but this season I get to play a insane character like everybody else on the show does. What I found was that you can get away with a lot more because people are used to seeing a game show host like Jeff Probst on TV but nobody has seen a character like Jake Montrose before, so the Joe Schmos have less experience interacting with somebody like that.
“Hollywood Babble-On” will be at the Long Beach Laugh Factory on Feb. 16. Tickets can be purchased at SeeSmod.com for both the Long Beach date and the regular dates at the Jon Lovitz Theater at Universal City Walk. “The Joe Schmo Show” airs Tuesdays at 10 on Spike.