Le Show

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Le Show is a weekly syndicated public radio show hosted by satirist Harry Shearer and carried on many National Public Radio and other public radio stations throughout the US. It is also available internationally on NPR Worldwide and shortwave radio, as well as on XM Public Radio and Sirius Laugh Break [1] on satellite radio in the US and Canada. The show is also available as streaming audio from Harry Shearer's website and as free downloadable files from Audible.com [2]. The show has also been made available as a podcast on iTunes, along with other KCRW programs. The podcasts differ from the broadcast and streaming versions, in that they generally include only a few seconds of the music Shearer spins for the show. Exceptions are musical parodies performed by Shearer, and songs by Judith Owen (Shearer's wife, and a well-known recording artist in her own right).

The show began in 1983 and ran under various titles for several months before Le Show was selected from the results of a listener contest.

The program is a bit of a hodgepodge -- satirical news commentary, music, and sketch comedy. Shearer, an impressionist who is probably best known for his voice work on The Simpsons, writes the sketches and performs all the voices.

Harry Shearer recording Le Show at KCRW (taken from the studio webcam).

Recurring features (referred to by Shearer as a "copyrighted feature of this broadcast") include:

Apologies of the Week
Bad Day at Black Rock (behind-the-scenes parody of CBS news)
Extra Access Tonight (lampoon of various entertainment news shows)
Los Angeles Dog Trainer Corrections (Harry reads out the extensive and often unusual LA Times errata. This apparently is no longer a weekly feature.)
News From Outside the Bubble (News stories from international sources, usually the UK.)
Strictly from Blackwell (Mr. Blackwell presents a show from Beverly Hills)
Tales of Airport Security (sent in by listeners)
The Trades (Harry reads trade magazines)
News of the Warm (Harry reads news on Global warming)
Burying the Lead (News stories with alarming tidbits buried down in the story)
News from the Digital Wonderland (News items, usual negative, concerning the switch-over from analog to digital television transmission)

Among the presidential and political parodies are:

41 calls 43 (George H. W. Bush calls George W. Bush)
Clintonsomething (a thirtysomething parody)
Dick Cheney: Confidential (parody of hard-boiled detective stories)
Nixon in Heaven
The Gore Room (Al Gore and Al Franken host a liberal talk radio show)

Le Show usually originates live on Sunday mornings from "The Le Show Dome" at KCRW in Santa Monica ("The city known around the world," Shearer says in his sign off, "as the home… of the homeless."), but is occasionally recorded at or broadcast from other NPR and public stations when Shearer is on the road. Several shows a year are based in New Orleans, where Shearer has a residence, and usually feature local musicians.

On July 2, 2006, Wisconsin Public Radio canceled Le Show as part of a revamp of the network's programming. On the July 16 edition of the program, Shearer claimed WPR was dissatisfied with the program's political content. [3] WPR Director of Radio Phil Corriveau told the Wisconsin State Journal that the program's political content was a minor factor and the decision had to do with Le Show's consistency: "Sometimes he's brilliant; sometimes he tends to ramble on and it gets kind of boring." [4]