Penn Radio: Difference between revisions

Penn Radio was well known for its special feature "[[Monkey Tuesday]]", which was discontinued in January 2007 (soon superseded by "Pull of the Weasel Friday").

 

'''Monkey Tuesday:''' Hosts Penn Jillette and Michael Goudeau read emails and took calls from listeners with stories about [[chimpanzees]], [[orangutan]]s and other [[primate]]s, yet because monkey is a "funnier" word, all were referred to as monkeys.

 

'''Pull of the Weasel Friday''': The February 2, 2007 show featured a new Friday segment called "Pull of the Weasel". Listeners called or emailed Penn and Goudeau with stories where they successfully or unsuccessfully fought the "pull of the [[weasel]]". Penn describes the pull of the weasel as "You know something is wrong, but somewhere in your gut a little weasel is telling you to do it." The term came from the January 29, 2007 episode where Penn commented that his wife sometimes succumbs to the "pull of the weasel" and claims high value items in the lost and found that are not technically hers. On the January 29 show, Goudeau mistakenly referred to it as the "call of the weasel" and this seems to have become an alternative term/title, especially among the show's Goudeau-sympathizing faction.

 

Penn and Goudeau turned down offers by CBS to run repeats to cover their vacation days. Typically Penn tried to do a remote broadcast if he was away from Las Vegas on business. Alternatively, Penn and Goudeau prerecorded interviews with comics headlining in Vegas and did extended "Lay Person Penns" for later broadcast.

 

 

*'''John Lennon Seance Contest''': Penn preferred if listeners did not watch the pay-per-view [[John Lennon]] [[séance]] which aired April 2006. However he recognized this event would probably attract many viewers who simply wanted to jeer at the broadcast. To prevent this money from going to unscrupulous séance promoters, Penn had a contest wherein one listener would watch the show for the rest of the Penn Radio audience and then give a report. To be considered as a candidate, one had to be in Las Vegas when the TV show was airing, had to be a fan of [[The Beatles]], had to have a knowledge of [[skepticism]] and [[parapsychology]], and, most importantly, had to have a shapely buttocks that qualified as a "[[honky tonk]] badonkadonk". Many candidates with extensive knowledge of the Fab Four and parapsychology were, by their own admission, flat-assed and thereby disqualified themselves. Eventually Penn picked listener Garrett from [[San Diego]] to watch the John Lennon séance and recount the program on the April 25, 2006 radio show. Garrett's bid avoided any mention of his posterior but played up his ability to make light of the seance in song. For his efforts, Garrett was given a tour of Jillette's home, tickets to both the [[Penn and Teller]] and [[Lance Burton]] Vegas shows, $20 in gambling money, and [[Krispy Kreme]] doughnuts.

== Themes ==

 

* For a time Penn would wish [[Lance Burton]] a good morning and Goudeau would wish [[Teller (magician)|Teller]] a good morning. Both Burton and Teller, late risers, claimed one day they would set their alarm clocks and listen to the radio show.

*Penn usually answered "How are you?" with "Never better, boss." Callers were not encouraged to echo this line back at him.

* Monkey C: On the January 10, 2007 episode, Penn asked for listeners who had worked on the Bush speech about his new plan for Iraq to call or email in and reveal the speech's contents. One listener claimed she had proofread the speech and part of Bush's plan was to send three monkey troops to Iraq. One group called "Monkey C" was the most elite. Its motto was "Monkey C, monkey do!" Penn found this play on words very funny and made several follow-on references to it.

 

At the end of each show, Penn often recited some recurring phrases. These included:

* "It frightens me the awful truth of how sweet life can be." This is a line from the [[Bob Dylan]] song "Up to Me", a previously unreleased outtake from the 1974 album ''[[Blood on the Tracks]]'' which can be found on his 1985 album ''[[Biograph (album)|Biograph]]''.

* "I'd chime in with a 'Haven't you people ever heard of closing the god damn door?!'" presumably from [[Panic! At The Disco]]'s "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" for several shows.

 

* Penn made frequent references to [[Elvis Presley]], often using the phrase "Elvis didn't do no drugs!" Penn believed Elvis did not know a lot but he knew how to eat.

* Bad grammar in song lyrics enraged Penn. "[[Live and Let Die (song)|Live and Let Die]]" and the theme from "[[Shaft (1971 film)|Shaft]]" were examples Penn used a lot, through "[[Frosty the Snowman]]" once provoked a memorable discussion between Penn and Goudeau: "There ''must'' have been some magic / In that old silk hat they found". Also Penn seems disturbed by the lyrics to the Wayne Newton standard "[[Danke Schoen]]". "I recall / [[Central Park]] in fall / how you tore your dress / what a mess / I confess / that's not all" sounds to Penn like a celebration of [[date rape]], mostly due to his mis-remembering part of the line into "how I tore your dress."

* Goudeau sometimes referred to [[circular reasoning]] as a "robot killer", in reference to a couple of episodes of [[Star Trek]] where Kirk talks a [[robot]] or computer into self-destructing by positing it a self-contradicting proposition. Goudeau claims that this idea was originally [[Dean Cameron]]'s.

 

* Penn liked to refer to his view point as "the nut point of view".

* Penn stated interest in starting a "bacon and a kiss" airline. He theorized that you can avoid invasive airport security by requiring eating bacon and kissing someone of the same gender on the genitals, and therefore screening out religious fundamentalists. Apart from those restrictions, you can carry anything you feel like onto the plane without any other security checks. Penn has also added that another way to weed out fundamentalist Muslims was to have them pray to another deity, or to draw a picture and label it ''Mohammad''.

* Penn often made the point that you can break the rules of an organization you do not belong to. Non-[[Freemasonry|freemason]] members are not allowed to wear the Mason ring according to the Masonic rules, but these rules do not apply to non-Masons so they can wear the ring anyway.

 

* Penn did not generally view [[hypocrisy]] as a problem. If a person was saying one thing and doing another, Penn believed he would at least agree with either what the person was saying or with what the person was doing.

* Penn referred to the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]] and [[Republican Party (United States)|Republicans]] as the [[Crips]] and the [[Bloods]].

* Penn had a theory that all laws should have a one-year expiration date and have to be re-passed every year. This will ensure politicians only re-pass the really important laws.

 

* Penn claimed that any role that required him to do more than getting shot in the face was a stretch for his acting talents. Many of his earlier acting jobs in TV seemed to be as an extra who gets shot in the head.

* A [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/fashion/sundaystyles/16NAMES.html?ex=1302840000&en=f0d3939d47399d0b&ei=5090 New York Times article] by Alex Williams accused Penn's child Moxie CrimeFighter of having the worst celebrity baby name. Penn believed names like David and Alex were for losers. A seemingly high proportion of Penn Radio show callers and e-mail writers were named Dave or David.

* When the subject of luck came up, Penn would sometimes refer to a famous quote that frequently gets mis-attributed to him:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=361636|title=Remote code for Element TV? - TiVo Community|publisher=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://siliconchef.com/favorite-quotes/|title=Quotes|date=6 May 2007|publisher=}}</ref> "Luck is probability taken personally". The quote is properly attributed to Chip Denman (manager of the Statistics Laboratory at the University of Maryland).

 

* Penn frequently referenced the Scientology "devil", [[Xenu]], usually as a substitute for the word ''god'' (e.g., "hail Xenu").

* Penn liked to argue that most religious advocacy groups, like the Catholic League for Decency, amounted to one loud guy working out of his house. Penn argued a religion like Catholicism already has an official spokesperson – the Pope.

* Penn dubbed [[Ash Wednesday]] as [[Chiquita]] Banana Wednesday. He encouraged listeners to wear a banana sticker on their forehead instead of a palm ash cross.

 

* Penn and Goudeau usually claimed the only thing they really knew and understood is juggling.

* Penn noted that good magicians and jugglers get to where they are because they literally practice the basic moves of their craft 12 hours a day, every day, in their bedroom.

 

* The show's phone operators were instructed that when Penn said "Thanks for calling", that was their cue to hang up on the caller. More often than not, Penn had a follow-up question for the caller only to find out the caller has been dumped. After the phone lines were placed in his home (no longer redirected from the New York call center), Penn acquired the ability to hang up the phones himself ''and often still used the code phrase while he did it''. The use of this code phrase was mentioned twice by Penn on the June 12, 2006 show, a couple of times by Goudeau on the July 11, 2006 [[Monkey Tuesday]] and a few more times on the August 21, 2006 show, "Does Anybody Watch Award Shows? (featuring [[Kathy Griffin]]'s brother (Twice)".

* During a segment known as "Ask Layperson Penn" where callers can ask for advice or an opinion on anything, callers would address Penn as "Dr. Penn," which Penn would insist it's "actually layperson Penn."

*'''Big Frankie:''' Big Frankie, as Penn dubbed him, was a young man in Portland, Oregon who had weighed over {{convert|500|lb|kg}} (with a 64&nbsp;inch waist) and was taking a year off from work to exercise 8 hours a day. Big Frankie listened to Penn Radio between two 4-hour work outs and called in, giving updates on his weight loss progress. As of April 28, 2007, he reported via the Penn & Teller message board he was down to {{convert|290|lb|kg}} and a 38" waist.

 

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