Using only a snorkel to breathe, Robert, the "Lucky Butt," lies buried in the sand. Only his butt sticks straight out. Then, to see how much width can fit, Mark and Brian put bike tires in the crack of his butt, starting with the thin tread of a 10 speed and ending with the knobby rubber of a mountain bike. The funny part comes when Robert laughs and his butt shakes.
During a "What would you do for Superbowl tickets" contest, one man eats a foot-long submarine sandwich, throws up, and lets his friend eat the remains-he loses, while Mark and Brian cheer him on.
Are these the antics of two children or two shock jocks? Perhaps neither, or maybe both and then some. Listeners in the Bay Area now have a chance to make up their own minds on the humor of Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps, because their syndicated show has cracked the crowded Bay Area market on KRQR (97.3).
The show runs the comedy gamut any weekday from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Trying to pin down exactly what brand of humor Mark and Brian have is tough business. It's one of the main differences between their show and other morning programs that clutter the airwaves today. And it's their ability to mix comedy and seriousness that have made their program one of the most popular.
For example, on any given show, a caller will request to find a date on the air. Mark and Brian will compile listeners who are interested and hold a dating game where the seeker will ask silly questions like, "If we were cruising up the coast, how would you keep me entertained?" But recently a twist occurred. Instead of the usual man-seeking-woman, it was a man-seeking-man dating game. When the caller was finished, he nervously said, "Thank you so much for taking my call. I wasn't sure if you would do it or not. But you both made it fun and easy."
Some of the bits have become legendary and traditional, sparking dialogue for years to come. Instead of people talking about what was one late night talk shows, they discuss what happened on Mark and Brian.
"Every year I look forward to the birthday show," says six-year listener Dan Bucko. "They both try and outdo each other every birthday."
Aside from the birthday show, the annual St. Patrick's Day drunk show is another bit that has become traditional. On that show, in order to prevent drinking and driving, Mark and Brian and a special guest star, like Thomas Hayden Church from the TV show "Wings," drink shots of liquor all morning. Periodically, they'll get breath- tested by a police officer to show how little it takes to get arrested. Then there's the annual "Day Before Thanksgiving Day Parade."
"We found that L.A. doesn't have one of those Thanksgiving/Christmas Day parades like New York does, so we were going to have a little parade around the front parking lot," says Brian. "We started planning it on Monday; by Friday we were in front of the coliseum and there were 4,000 people there, with floats too. It was amazing. When the listeners can discover the bit with you, they'll follow it through, and support it."
Considering their core listeners fall into the 18 to 54-year-old range, with the majority of the audience being 18 to 34-year-old males, Mark and Brian's idea of fun sometimes borders on the juvenile.
On one show a contest ensued to find the loudest sounding vibrator. The loudest came from what sounded like a lawn mower. Or consider some of the giveaway items that callers have gotten: bullwhip, pit pal (soap), and a pillowcase with glow-in-the-dark "stunt drool." They have been married to each other twice, both times while doing a live broadcast from a chapel in Las Vegas.
When asked about who's been their favorite visiting star, dialogue like this happens.
Mark: Tom Cruise was very impressive as a human being.
Brian: Down to earth.
Mark: Focused.
Brian: Sharp.
Mark: Nice guy.
Brian: Good looking man.
Mark: We took him. We had him, right there in the studioÑboffed him.
Brian: We actually like to do a little tag-team train on all our best guests.
Mark: Anthony Hopkins-he tried to wrestle us, but we took him.
Brian: Well he was older. Like he could fight us off.
"[Our show is] like a parallel of life. It's not like there's one show that's always negative or one show that's always fluffy and entertaining. It's just everything," says Brian. "It's a very audience- participatory show. Some days it sucks, sucks out loud. We just can't get it going. Other days it's fun."
Regardless of what their show is labeled, it's a cornucopia of comedic and serious bits mixed together. It's what Brian calls "listener directed radio."
"It's not like we're the entertainment and you're the audience," says 36-year-old Brian. "You're totally invited to join in on the party, or join in on the fun, or join in the seriousness."
It's Monday morning and Mark and Brian are in a funk. Things just aren't going right and they're taking it personally.
First, Mark, who is 40, married with three kids and lives "where the world used to end," is an hour late to work because the 405 Freeway is completely shut down. And second, neither of them can shake the common plague of the Monday morning blues.
They dance around their office to Aretha Franklin's "Respect," and then to the Jackson 5's "ABC," trying to break the funk. Mark leans back in his chair, then stands up and swings a baseball bat to the rhythm, while Brian twirls drumsticks. Callers and the staff suggest other tunes like U2's "In God's Country," or Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run," as possible funk breakers. It doesn't work.
If Mark and Brian were any normal office stiffs, their plague would be lumped in with the thousands who experience the same thing. But if they're funked on Monday or any other day, they feel they've disappointed their listeners.
"If we don't give a good show, if we are down for whatever reason," says Brian, the taller and self-confessed, pinker-skinned of the two, "you drive home feeling terrible, like you've let them down. Because they, the listeners, support you, defend you, sell you to their friends."
Mark and Brian, who will be celebrating 10 years together this month, were introduced by a mutual friend in Alabama. After working there for two years, they were invited to try their brand of humor in Los Angeles.
"Our pairing was kind of like great sex," says Mark. "You can't sit down with your mate and say, 'Tonight, we're gonna have great sex.' It just has to happen."
The great sex seems to have paid off. Mark and Brian have twice won Billboard magazine's "Air Personalities of the Year," the National Association Broadcasters' Marconi Award for Air Personalities of the Year, and an Emmy Award for hosting a 1991 Andy Griffith Special.
The salute to Andy Griffith wasn't their only foray into the world of television. A short lived, prime-time series called "The Adventures of Mark and Brian," came and went. Although still in negotiations, their next stint will be a television special of an Evel Knieval type launching of the Elvis-Bob, a Bob's Big Boy statue dressed up like Elvis Presley.
In addition, a compilation of their funniest bits will appear on a charity CD, which hits the stores sometime this May. It will benefit the Mark and Brian Scholarship Fund, which has already sent five people to college, and the Mark and Brian Food Banks. Other fundraisers Mark and Brian donate their name and time to are Pet Adoption Day and the Mark and Brian Blood Drive.
Stunts like the launching of the Elvis-Bob put them in another league, far away from the Howard Sterns and Alex Bennetts of the world. And unlike those two, Mark and Brian will never talk about other radio DJ's or ratings on their show.
"That's the thing now, everybody cutting everyone else's morning shows," says Brian. "It's that 'they suck, I'm better,' kind of radio. We're not going to play [the game]."
"Howard's the first to blow his own horn with ratings and we have never talked about ratings on our program," says Mark. "And for the fact that we've come back and beaten him twice, we never talked about that. Of course he doesn't either. You're not going to hear that from him."
And, like Stern, the Mark and Brian syndication arm is reaching across the world to places as far away as Japan and Hawaii, with other places in the works.
"We want our syndication to grow," says Mark. "We're sampling a couple a stations in the Midwest and the South on a day-delay basis. If that worksÑwhich we feel like it isÑthen that will open it up to New York, Washington D.C., Miami, Atlanta."
But with syndication, a few problems arise for the listeners that are used to hearing music in the morning instead of comic banter.
"We were getting packages that ticked when we first started here [in L.A.] because this was an album rock station," says Brian. "It's not a linear show at all. It takes people awhile to get it."
"These stations need to understand that they're going to have to weather the storm for the first six months," says Mark. "Portland, Ore. is a prime example. They lost $50,000 worth of business. They had constant negative phone calls with people saying, 'What the fuck are you doing?' But now we're the number one morning show in Portland because they weathered it."
At KRQR, program director John McCrae says his station hasn't had to weather the same storm as the Portland station. "We took a lot of time before we called Mark and Brian," he says. "We did our homework first to see if there was a demand for their brand of humor. It's been six to seven weeks and complaints are a distant memory."
After 10 a.m., Mark and Brian are almost finished with their day. They now sit bleary-eyed at a table out in the back parking lot, smoking a few cigarettes and discussing tomorrow's show. It may have been a Monday, but it doesn't show. Like Elvis, the funk has left the building.
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