The Stern Gang

Herewith, a peek into the private lives of the court of the King of All Media.

Articles by Larry "Ratso" Sloman
Photographs by Mark Mann
Published in the September 1999 issue of Penthouse

Picture of SJ, Fred and Jackie Unless for the past few years you've been holed up in a remote cabin in Montana, sharing a can of beans with the next Unabomber, you know that Howard Stern is the "King of All Media." Every weekday morning, for five hilarious hours, Howard and his fetching sidekick, Robin Quivers, put millions of Americans in a good enough frame of mind to drag their millions of sorry asses to their mind-numbing jobs. And besides waking up with Howard, most Americans now have the option of going to sleep with him as well - edited for television, his show is broadcast six nights a week on the E! cable network, and on Saturday nights it is syndicated by CBS.

Both Howard's and Robin's lives have been amply documented in their best-selling books. But what of the support team that has helped propel Howard to creative and commercial heights hitherto unattained in the generally lame arena of radio? What makes celebrity interviewer John Melendez stutter? Is cowriter and sound man extraordinaire Fred Norris really as weird as Howard makes him out to be? Just how (and why) did head writer Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling learn all those dirty jokes?

To answer those questions, I threw myself into high research mode. A Stuttering John CD signing in midtown Manhattan. A frenzied King Norris band concert at Wetlands in TriBeCa. Jackie The Joke Man's triumphant homecoming appearance before a howling audience at Westbury Music Fair on Long Island. Not to mention the interviews. Hours and hours of delicately probing and parrying, peeling away the on-air personas to reveal their essential core. Here then is a side of Stuttering John you'll never see when he's judging a best-butt contest at your local titty-bar. Here is Fred the wizardly sound man, who is not from Mars. Here is the human face beneath the jesterish Joke Man. Here, my friends, is a peek into the off-air lives of the court of the King of All Media.

The Stuttering John story.

The Fred Norris story.

The Jackie Martling story.

Updated: 2-August-1999

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