Tom Scharpling Explained

Tom Scharpling
Birth Date:9 February 1969
Birth Place:New Jersey, U.S.
Medium:Radio, television
Active:2000–present
Genre:Comedy radio, surreal humor
Notable Work:The Best Show on WFMU, Monk, Steven Universe,
Website:friendsoftom.com

Thomas John Giuliano II (born February 9, 1969), known professionally as Tom Scharpling, is an American comedian, television writer, producer, music video director, voice actor, and radio host. He is best known for hosting the weekly Internet radio call-in comedy program The Best Show with Tom Scharpling (formerly The Best Show on WFMU), the voice of Greg Universe in the animated series Steven Universe and its sequel series Steven Universe Future, and for acting as a writer/executive producer for the TV show Monk.

Scharpling was also a writer on Tom Goes to the Mayor. Beginning in 1999, he released six albums with comedy partner Jon Wurster under the moniker Scharpling & Wurster.

As a writer, Scharpling has had work published in GQ, New York Magazine, and Harp. Since 2010, Scharpling has directed music videos for MGMT, The New Pornographers, Ted Leo, Titus Andronicus, Wild Flag, Aimee Mann, Real Estate, Frankie Cosmos, and The Ettes.

In 2017, Rolling Stone named Scharpling one of the "50 Funniest People Right Now,"[1] and in 2019, Vulture named The Best Show one of the "10 Essential Comedy Podcasts That Shaped The Genre."[2]

Early life

Scharpling was born in New Jersey. He grew up in Dunellen, New Jersey.[3] He was a fan of Saturday Night Live and SCTV from a young age. He attended Middlesex High School, Middlesex Community College, and Trenton State College. He graduated with a degree in English. Scharpling worked at a sheet music shop called World of Music in Summit, New Jersey from 1979 through 1999.

He has cited his major comedy influences as Chris Elliott's Get a Life, SCTV, Saturday Night Live, and the 1994 absurdist comedy Clifford starring Martin Short. Scharpling later purchased the suit worn by Short in Clifford via an eBay auction.

In his late teens, Scharpling had a mental breakdown that led him to be checked in to a mental hospital; his condition was cured with electroconvulsive therapy, which led to some memory loss.[4]

Scharpling became an avid cassette tape collector, and began to use the name "Mel Sharples" (the name of a character on the sitcom Alice) for himself when ordering tapes, to distinguish himself from his father, who had the same name (Scharpling was then still known as Tom Giuliano). He found that he enjoyed having a pseudonym, because the new name had no "baggage", including no association to his previous mental illness. He decided to "tweak" the name Mel Sharples and went with "Tom Scharpling"; the surname was based on a combination of the surnames of activist Al Sharpton and comedian Garry Shandling, with a "c" added in for "panache".[5]

Career

Early music-based radio shows and writing

In the early 1990s, Scharpling was the publisher of 18 Wheeler fanzine, and ran an independent record label of the same name. The first 7-inch single by Portastatic was released by Scharpling's label in 1992. He also contributed the liner notes for The Electrifying Conclusion, Guided By Voices's DVD documentary of their "final" live show in Chicago released in 2005.

Scharpling began volunteering at the New Jersey-based freeform station WFMU in the early 1990s.[6] He started hosting a music-oriented program on the station in the mid-1990s. He briefly left the station in the late 1990s because he "had some personal things to take care of with family and stuff." Scharpling has told interviewers that he prefers the medium of radio due to the anxiety he gets from being onstage.

The Best Show with Tom Scharpling

See main article: The Best Show on WFMU.

The Best Show on WFMU

Scharpling hosted the first episode of The Best Show on WFMU on October 10, 2000. The program was a three-hour comedy, music, call-in and talk radio program that aired Tuesday nights; the program featured a roster of genuine callers as well as calls in-character from Jon Wurster (with occasional in-character calls from H. Jon Benjamin, Jon Glaser, Peyton Reed and others). The show began incorporating more celebrity guests, including regular appearances from Patton Oswalt, Ted Leo, Paul F. Tompkins and other names from film, music and comedy.

Scharpling is considered by some as the "Godfather Of Podcasting".[7] Episodes of The Best Show were archived from the shows beginning, as were most of the programs on WFMU, in the RealPlayer format. It began podcasting in early 2006 with the music removed from the latest shows and offered as downloadable files on the internet through the rest of its run on the station, helping it reach an even wider audience than it had already developed.

Scharpling made no money from the station, and regularly encouraged fans to donate to the non-profit station by offering elaborate pledge drive gifts.

Citing his tenure on The Best Show on WFMU as proof, the August 2010 issue of GQ magazine listed Scharpling No. 11 on its list of 37 "Never Not Funny" comedians, dubbing him one of "the funniest men you haven't heard of yet."[8]

On October 29, 2013, Scharpling announced that the final Best Show on WFMU was to air on December 17, 2013. On October 10, 2014, 14 years to the day after The Best Show first aired, Scharpling announced via his Twitter page that The Best Show would return in November 2014.[9]

The Best Show with Tom Scharpling

On December 17, 2014, the first episode of The Best Show in its new format, a web-cast and podcast, aired via thebestshow.net from an independent studio in Jersey City. The live webcast of the show follows a similar format as it did on WFMU, with callers, skits performed by Scharpling & Wurster, and a three-hour run-time.[10]

In 2014, the show spawned an Adult Swim special, titled The Newbridge Tourism Board Presents: We're Newbridge We're Comin' to Get Ya!, featuring Wurster, Julie Klausner and Gilbert Gottfried, as well as many Scharpling & Wurster characters from the show.

The show currently takes place in Los Angeles from the Forever Dog studios in North Hollywood. This new iteration of the show includes a live video stream on Twitch, musical performances and two 24-hour episodes,[11] which have featured the likes of Bill Hader, Conan O'Brien, Jarvis Cocker, Bob Odenkirk, Nathan Fielder, and Sarah Squirm.

Scharpling & Wurster

Nearly every episode of The Best Show features an on-air collaboration with Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster. The pair met at a concert in the early 1990s, and bonded over their mutual love of Chris Elliott's short-lived sitcom Get a Life.

Their partnership began with a call aired on Scharpling's music program titled Rock, Rot & Rule, where Wurster portrayed a snobby rock critic, answering questions from incredulous callers that didn't realize it was an act.[12]

As Scharpling and Wurster, they have released six albums of comedy segments from The Best Show on their Stereolaffs record label. In 2013, they released a live set on Third Man Records.[13]

In 2014, Numero Group released a retrospective box set of their calls from The Best Show on WFMU.[14] In 2015, he duo made an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. The pair voiced characters on an episode of The Simpsons in 2016.[15]

Television

Tom Scharpling was the first writer to be hired for the series Monk.[16] He was hired to the show by Saturday Night Live writer and fellow WFMU DJ Andy Breckman.[17] Scharpling acted as Monk's executive producer during the last four of the show's eight seasons.

He appeared on an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force ("The Shaving") as the voice of "Willie Nelson", an awkward, unassertive onion–spider monster hybrid who lives in the attic of the house. He also appears on the special features portion of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Volume 3 DVD. In addition, Scharpling occasionally wrote for Tom Goes to the Mayor. He voices Greg Universe in the animated series Steven Universe. He also voiced Jermaine in the animated series Adventure Time. Scharpling was a head writer/co-executive producer for season one of HBO's show Divorce.

Music videos

Starting in August 2010, Scharpling has directed a number of music videos, typically for groups that he is friends with, and mostly on an extremely limited budget. The shorts usually contain a number of celebrity cameos, and are often met with positive reviews.[18]

Scharpling's music video for Ted Leo and the Pharmacists's "Bottled in Cork" shows the band agreeing to star in a Broadway musical, in a spoof of Green Day's musical American Idiot.[19] The video features Paul F. Tompkins as a theater promoter, Julie Klausner as a dance instructor and John Hodgman as a theatre critic. The video obtained "Immortal" status on Funny or Die shortly after it was released online.

With the video for The New Pornographers' "Moves", Scharpling was presented with the issue of the band being on tour, rendering them unable to appear in the short.[20] As a solution, Scharpling chose to create a trailer for a fake biographical film about The New Pornographers, with a number of comedy celebrities portraying the various members of the band. The video features Wyatt Cenac, Horatio Sanz, Gary Dell'Abate, Todd Barry, Julie Klausner, John Hodgman, Bill Hader, Paul Rudd, Donald Glover, John Oliver, and Jon Wurster.

In 2012, Scharpling directed the video for Aimee Mann's song "Labrador", which is a shot-by-shot remake of the video for the 1985 'Til Tuesday song "Voices Carry", with Mann in the lead role, Jon Wurster playing the abusive yuppie boyfriend, and Ted Leo as the guitarist in Mann's band. The video begins with a brief "making of" clip featuring Jon Hamm as "Tom Scharpling", discussing the video concept, and Mann stating that she was tricked into doing the video.[21]

Scharpling has also directed music videos for Titus Andronicus, Wild Flag, The Ettes, Real Estate, The Stepkids, and MGMT.

Web

Scharpling directed and co-wrote the web "trailer" for John Hodgman's 2011 book, That Is All.

Scharpling wrote and directed the web "trailer" aired on Funny or Die for The Postal Service band's 10-year anniversary reissue of their album Give Up.

Scharpling guest starred as the bailiff in the episode "A Room With a Feud" of John Hodgman's comedy/court show podcast Judge John Hodgman.[22]

Scharpling has appeared as a guest multiple times on The George Lucas Talk Show, and is a frequent contributor to the live chatroom conversation.

Print

Scharpling is a regular columnist for and co-founder of the sports website The Classical. He has worked as a headline contributor for The Onion, as well as the writer of Harp Magazines "(Not So) Great Moments in Rock" column. He has also contributed basketball-themed writing to GQ[23] and SLAM Magazine. In 2011, Scharpling was commissioned by New York Magazine to write multi-page recaps for every episode of the fourth season of NBC's Celebrity Apprentice.[24]

On July 6, 2021, Abrams Press released Scharpling's memoir, It Never Ends: A Memoir with Nice Memories![25] [26]

Personal life

Until mid-2019 Scharpling lived in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey with his wife, fellow WFMU DJ Terre T.[27] They are currently divorced, and as of October 2019, he lives in Los Angeles with his current girlfriend Julia Vickerman now engaged.[28] He has been a pescatarian since approximately 1994,[29] and almost never consumes alcohol.[30]

Filmography

As actor

YearTitleRoleNote
1998Upright Citizens BrigadeMan in AudienceEpisode: "Saigon Suicide Show"
2003Aqua Teen Hunger ForceWillie Nelson (voice)Episode: "The Shaving"
2013–2019Steven UniverseGreg Universe / Yellowtail (voice)Recurring cast
2014The Newbridge Tourism Board Presents: We're Newbridge, We're Comin' to Get Ya!Name RedactedTV special
2015Ant-ManCashierScene deleted[31]
2015–2018Adventure TimeJermaine (voice)4 episodes
2016The SimpsonsPaul (voice)Episode: "The Marge-ian Chronicles"
2017FortniteAdditional voicesVideo game
2017Greg Universe (voice)
2018Ant-Man and the WaspBurch's SUV Driver
2019Greg Universe (voice)Television film
2019–2020Steven Universe FutureRecurring cast
2020The George Lucas Talk ShowSelfEpisode: "A New Coping Mechanism","The Hey Nong Mandalorian"; multiple marathon fundraiser appearances
2022Greg Universe (voice)Video game
2022Tuca & BertieDr. Mole (voice)Episode: "The Mole"
2023N'brij
2023KiffRob Sadly (voice)Episode: "Lost and Found"
2023I Think You Should Leave with Tim RobinsonCoworkerEpisode 5

As writer

YearTitleNote
2002–2009MonkAlso executive producer and story editor
2006Tom Goes to the Mayor
2016DivorceAlso co-executive producer
2017Difficult PeopleAlso consulting producer
2019What We Do in the ShadowsAlso co-executive producer
2021Kevin Can F*** Himself
2023-2024Krapopolis

Discography

WFMU Marathon Premiums

DVD

External links

Notes and References

  1. Sheffield . Rob . 2017-05-04 . The 50 Funniest People Right Now . 2023-11-09 . Rolling Stone . en-US.
  2. Web site: James . Becca . 2019-10-03 . The 10 Essential Comedy Podcasts That Shaped the Genre . 2023-11-09 . Vulture . en.
  3. LaGorce, Tammy. "In Person; Gotcha! Stay Tuned", The New York Times, January 1, 2006. Accessed February 27, 2020. "'It's great when people you admire like what you're doing,' Mr. Scharpling, who grew up in Dunellen, writes for Monk in Summit and lives with his wife in Woodbridge, said before a recent Best Show. "
  4. Web site: We've Got A File On You: Tom Scharpling . Nate . Patrin . June 29, 2021 . Stereogum.
  5. Book: Scharpling, Tom . It Never Ends: A Memoir with Nice Memories! . Chapter 9: The Birth of Scharpling . July 6, 2021 . Abrams. 9781647000325.
  6. [Gothamist]
  7. Web site: 2015-01-22 . Talking with Tom Scharpling, Godfather of Podcasting, about 'The Best Show' . 2023-11-09 . KQED . en-us.
  8. Web site: Tom Scharpling featured in GQ! – WFMU's Beware of the Blog. blog.wfmu.org.
  9. Web site: The Best Show – STEAMROLLIN' CHUMPS Every Tuesday 9 pm to 12 am EST. thebestshow.net.
  10. Web site: Tom Scharpling on the return of The Best Show. Timeout.com. February 19, 2015 .
  11. Web site: 2022-07-31 . Tom Scharpling Hosted a 24-Hour Best Show With Dozens of Guests. How's He Doing Now? . 2023-11-09 . Pitchfork . en-US.
  12. Web site: Gazin . Nick . 2017-10-21 . Tom Scharpling and Jon Wurster Tell Us What Rocks, Rots, and Rules . 2023-11-09 . Vice . en.
  13. Web site: Scharpling & Wurster: Live at Third Man Records – Third Man Records – Official Store . 2023-11-09 . thirdmanrecords.com.
  14. Web site: The Best of The Best Show . 2023-11-09 . Numero Group . en.
  15. Web site: 2016-03-13 . Scharpling and Wurster Appear on "The Simpsons" . 2023-11-09 . Pitchfork . en-US.
  16. Web site: Venus Zine: The Best Show on WFMU . September 3, 2008 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20081121085818/http://www.venuszine.com/articles/art_and_culture/culture/1107/the_best_show_on_wfmu . November 21, 2008.
  17. USA. video: "Video interview with Scharpling on the official Monk website ."
  18. [Pitchfork Magazine]
  19. WFMU.org article: "Tom Scharpling-directed Ted Leo vid reaches immortal status!."
  20. Web site: Paul Rudd, Bill Hader, Wyatt Cenac & More in Tom Scharpling's New Pornographers Video . www.huffingtonpost.com . 15 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110210140458/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/07/new-pornographers-tom-scharpling_n_819570.html . 10 February 2011 . dead.
  21. Web site: Aimee Mann remakes 'Voices Carry' with help from Ted Leo, Jon Hamm, Tom Scharpling, Joand Jon Wurster. Marah. Eakin. Avclub.ocm. September 18, 2012.
  22. Web site: MaxFun Intern. Judge John Hodgman 108: A Room With a Feud. Maximum Fun. May 1, 2013. May 3, 2013.
  23. Web site: Balls Out Guest Of the Day: Tom Scharpling Demands That You Exalt Kevin Durant. GQ.com. May 9, 2011. 2020-03-25.
  24. New York Magazine article: "Vulture: Celebrity Apprentice Recap – Tom Scharpling’s Epic Take on the Finale."
  25. Web site: It Never Ends: A Book By Tom Scharpling (Official Promotional Website).
  26. Web site: Well well well, look what is going to happen. Very excited about this opportunity. As of today every other author is my competition!pic.twitter.com/VMeClbuop1. scharpling. January 18, 2019. @scharpling. January 19, 2019.
  27. Dewan, Shaila K. "Boldface Names", The New York Times, December 27, 2001. Accessed February 27, 2020. "Terre T and her husband, Tom Scharpling, both hosts of programs on WFMU, listened to comics tell of encounters with Jim Belushi."
  28. Web site: Instagram Post: 'Happy anniversary to the person I can't wait to see every day and talk to for hours and analyze everything into meaninglessness.'. limited. 2022-01-18. 2022-01-20.
  29. Best Show on WFMU archives: "November 5, 2002 episode"; 1 hour, 39 minutes, 50-second mark, Scharpling states: "See, I eat fish, right? But I haven't eaten meat in I guess like eight years now. I'm not a vegan, though."
  30. Web site: Scharpling & Wurster. Avclub.com. May 5, 2004 . 2020-03-25.
  31. MrPeytonReed. 687075013078351872. January 12, 2016. And now, a VERY RARE movie still: @scharpling shares the screen with Paul Rudd in tragically deleted @AntMan scene..
  32. Web site: John Hodgman. John Hodgman. John Hodgman, RAGNAROK SURVIVAL KIT. Tumblr. January 10, 2014.