Adam Carolla - Rotten Tomatoes Celebrity Profile

Biography

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Adam Lakers Carolla (b. May 27, 1964) is an American comedic radio personality and television personality, best known for co-hosting the radio show Loveline, and the television show The Man Show.

Early life

Carolla was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to an Italian American father and a Hungarian American mother. During his morning show on August 1, 2006, Adam spoke of his Hungarian Jewish grandfather (by marriage; not a blood relative) actor László Görög [1]. He attended North Hollywood High School, where he was voted class clown and was the captain of his football team but never received good grades, graduating with a 1.75 grade point average (though due to an unreturned library book, he never actually received a diploma). Carolla began living on his own at the age of 18 and briefly attended Los Angeles Valley College, a junior college, before dropping out to work in a series of jobs, including a carpet cleaner, carpenter, traffic school instructor, metal worker and boxing instructor.

Early comedy career

In his spare time he worked on his comedy skills, training with The Groundlings and attempting stand-up, but he didn't believe either of these were a good fit for him (though he did perform sketch comedy with ACME Comedy Theater for a few years). In his late twenties he heard an ad on the radio seeking a boxing instructor to train Jimmy Kimmel, who at the time was a radio personality on the KROQ morning show Kevin and Bean as Jimmy the Sports Guy. Carolla met Kimmel at the radio station and the two became best friends. Carolla eventually joined the show's repertoire as Mr. Birchum, the Vietnam veteran shop teacher.

Carolla was offered the job of co-hosting Loveline with physician Dr. Drew Pinsky in 1995, replacing Riki Rachtman. Loveline is a syndicated radio program produced by Westwood One, and was also for several years a television show for MTV. On Loveline, Carolla often gave extended commentary about matters having little to do with the official subject matter of the show. Common topics included his dislike of religion, junior college, traffic/parking enforcement, red left-turn arrows, political extremists, and his preference for pie over cake.

Recent comedy career

Carolla then went on to do The Man Show with Kimmel on Comedy Central from 1999 to 2003. He left The Man Show at the same time as his good friend Kimmel, even after having been reportedly offered $50,000 per episode to stay on. Carolla has continued his work with Kimmel as a writer and regular guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live. With partner Daniel Kellison, they are the heads of Jackhole Productions and created another television show named Crank Yankers for Comedy Central, which revived the Mr. Birchum character.

Carolla has also done voiceovers for cartoons, including Commander Nebula on the Disney animated series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Death on Family Guy (replacing Norm MacDonald) and Spanky Ham on Drawn Together.

From August 2005 to November 2005, Carolla hosted the talk show Too Late with Adam Carolla on Comedy Central.

He recently finished filming The Hammer, a movie starring himself and Heather Juergensen in Los Angeles. [2]

In 2006, he appeared on the special summer series Gameshow Marathon as a celebrity panelist on the Match Game episode.

The Adam Carolla Show

On August 4, 2005, Carolla announced that he would leave Loveline to pursue a position in morning radio, replacing Howard Stern (much to Stern's approval) in a number of west coast markets. Adam's last night on Loveline was November 3, 2005, to allow him to have time to prepare for his morning debut at the beginning of 2006. He stated that he would love to continue to do Loveline, which seemed to fly by while doing it, but the show would not be a possibility. On October 25, Infinity Broadcasting officially announced that it would be replacing Stern with Carolla on several radio stations in the western United States. On January 3, 2006, Carolla began his new morning radio show, The Adam Carolla Show, on stations in Los Angeles (where the show is based), Phoenix, San Francisco, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, Las Vegas, Oakland, Burbank, Fresno and Sacramento.

Controversy

Carolla's morning show became the subject of a minor controversy within a few weeks of airing when on January 24, 2006, Carolla played a segment which spoofed the upcoming Asian Excellence Awards, which honor Asian American media accomplishments. The spoof consisted of what sounded like a typical excerpt from an awards show, except that the dialogue of the actors consisted only of the words ching chong, repeated over and over. (The actual award show was conducted in English.) Branding the segment as demeaning and racist, several Asian American organizations (including the NAAAP) threatened to ask advertisers to withdraw their support from the show if the station did not issue an apology. [3] [4] On February 22, 2006, Carolla without fanfare read a brief apology for the segment, in which he said that his show had regrettably "crossed the line". On April 26, 2006, Carolla invited the head of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, Guy Aoki, and Teddy Zee, co-chair of the Asian Excellence Awards, to further explain that when he aired the bit, he had no idea that "ching chong" was a racial slur. He further attributed the bit to Dave Dameshek, the show's sports correspondent, for conceiving it.[5] Mention of the bit was removed from the official show blog. [6]

On July 6, 2006 conservative pundit Ann Coulter called the show an hour and a half after she was scheduled. She explained that she had been given the wrong number and was "really tight on time", but Carolla hung up on Ann, telling her, "Alright, well, get lost." [7]. Coulter had not called as scheduled a week earlier, and was clearly in a poor mood when she finally did call the program.

On November 9th, 2003 Loveline was canceled by Hawaii affiliate KPOI after Carolla referred to Hawaiians as "the dumbest people". [8]

Personal

He married his longtime girlfriend Lynette Paradise on September 28, 2002. Lynette gave birth to both her and Adam's first children, twins Natalia and Santino "Sonny" Carolla on June 7, 2006. [9]. He is a car enthusiast and drives an E30 M3, E46 M3, Datsun 510, Porsche 911, Mini Cooper, Nissan 350 Z, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, and a Ferrari.

Trivia

As a child, Carolla got carbon monoxide poisoning in the back of his mom's boyfriend's microbus. [10]
Carolla lost his virginity to Beth Ringwald, the sister of Molly Ringwald. This was confirmed May 26, 2006, on the Adam Carolla Show. [11] This was first discussed September 30th, 2002 on Loveline. [12]
He majored in ceramics at North Hollywood High School. [13]
Carolla was not allowed to participate in his high school graduation ceremony, nor did he receive his actual diploma (despite having graduated). He has mentioned this frequently on the radio, and states that the reason is because he owed money for a textbook he did not return. While he has talked about finally resolving this matter, he begins every mention of the situation by stating that he does not have his actual high school diploma and no job he has had has ever asked him to produce it. [14]
Carolla never received his high school diploma because he owed the library $19.95 for a copy of We The People (ISBN 0385419031). [15]
Attended high school with friend (and future pornstar) Christy Canyon. [16]
He cleaned carpets for a number of years after high school. [17]
When he was in his 20s, he had an English girlfriend who was a stripper. [18] [19]
He was a traffic school instructor in Los Angeles. [20]
He is a part-owner of the Los Angeles restaurant Amalfi where he is often spotted dining. [21]
Asteroid 4535 Adamcarolla is named in his honor. [22]
As of May 1st Adam Carolla will have a sleep-oriented radio station on US Airways flights [23].
Circa August 15, 2005, Carolla became a member of the advisory board of Marijuana Policy Project after devoting nearly an entire episode of Too Late With Adam Carolla to talking with Weeds star Kevin Nealon about what they believe to be the absurdities of the war on marijuana. [24] [25]
He loves pies so much that while in high school, he once entered a pie eating contest and deliberately lost the contest so he could enjoy the entire pie afterwards during the lunch break. Also, when his friend Don threw a pie at an ex-girlfriend, he ate the pieces off the ground despite large chunks of concrete. [26]
Carolla is a proud atheist. [27]
Adam ends every show by saying "Mahalo", a tradition first started on Loveline. The word is Hawaiian for "thank you" or "goodbye."

External links

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