| >If you had to describe The Best Show on WFMU in one word, what would it be?
Is 'wheeee' a word?
>How about if you had several words?
For me the show is all about doing what we want. There's nobody shaping the content or telling us how to do what we do. It's three hours of uninterupted freedom and fun.
>How did the "Sharpling & Wurster" collaboration come about?
First of all, it's 'Scharpling'! Get it together, Joe Typo!
>Sorry!
 Jon Wurster (pictured left with David Lee Roth) and I became friends back in the 90's when he joined the band Superchunk as their new drummer. I was already a big fan of the band, and when the two of us started talking about our love of Chris Elliott and other comedy things, we realized that we had way too much in common not to start working together. My show on WFMU was more music-based at the time, but I was talking more and more each week. So Jon and I came up with an idea for a fake call-in guest that would hopefully be funny. We gave it a shot and it came out really great.
I gave up my show for a couple years for personal reasons, and kinda assumed I was done with radio. The idea of doing another music show didn't really appeal to me. But then, after seeing the Upright Citizens Brigade give a performance at their theater in NYC - watching my funny friends do comedy on their own terms - I really wanted to do the same thing on radio. I talked to Jon, and he was completely into it. So I pitched the idea to program director Brian Turner, he gave it a shot, and The Best Show On WFMU made its debut in October 2000.
>What was the first fake call about? What call made you know that this was going to be a regular  feature on the show?
The first call was ROCK ROT AND RULE, which couldn't have come out any better. In a nutshell, ROCK ROT AND RULE was the name of a phoney book that a fictional author named Ronald Thomas Clontle was promoting. Clontle (as played by Jon Wurster) called his book 'The ultimate argument settler', wherein he pompously determined whether musical acts fell into one of three categories 'Rock', 'Rot', or 'Rule'. It was pretty much designed to parody rock critics and know-it-alls.
Since nobody in the audience expected a guest on a music show to be fake, plenty of people ended up falling for it big-time. It was satisfying hearing people who assumed they knew better take the bait, calling up and arguing with Clontle. Thankfully we taped the show - it was pre-internet days - so we were able to document it and spread it around on cassettes to a lot of people. They made the rounds, and we eventually put it out on CD. So our first moment was one of our best, definitely.
>How much of your conversation is written before hand? Often you sound genuinely surprised: Is that because you don't know what's coming, or because of exceptional writing and acting?
I would credit my exceptional acting.
No, in all seriousness, we do write out the bits with a fair amount of detail - Jon and I spend the entire week hammering out stuff every day, talking it through, coming up with new angles and twists. It's as much fun
as I've ever had in my life. But a fair amount of the surprise is Jon throwing things at me - he likes to keep stuff up his sleeve until we're on the air, just to get a reaction out of me.
>During most of the program you are the funny one, but when Wurster calls you are relegated to straight man. Is that ever frustrating?
No, not at all. Conan O'Brien told me that being the straight man is the hardest thing in comedy, and that I was doing a great job at it. So that means a lot to me.
And I know how involved I am with the creating and writing of the material - so ultimately it's really Jon and I taking different sides of the same thing and moving it forward together. All boats rise!
>What is your favorite moment on the air?
My favorite moments are when I start to laugh at something during a bit and try to hold it together. Or when Jon does the same thing. If you ever hear me vamping and restating the premise too much, it might mean that I picked
up on Jon laughing and I'm covering for him.
I also like when I do segments with absolutely nothing planned, like the Build-A-Movie game - where callers give me three actors and a genre, and I build a movie around those elements on the spot - or taking random calls and trying to spin funny stuff on the fly. It keeps my mind sharp.
 >
We're going to feature an excerpt from "Mother 13" that's collected on the New Hope for the Ape-Eared CD. Anything you want to say about that call?
This is one of my all-time favorites. Jon based a lot of this on his experience as a drummer for hire - one time out he played a lot of corporate sponsored festivals. I can remember him calling from the road, telling me, 'I'm getting so much material here!' It really captures where the music industry lost control of itself.
>"Gas Station Dogs"?
Another guy with zero clout. I love people who have dreams more than anyone. But I can't stand people who talk about their dreams without ever putting in any work to make them happen.
>What about "Old Skull"?
I love this one too, because it features our stock in trade - a character who doesn't have the clout or right to do something, but he does it anyway because he feels he's entitled. We're pretty obsessed with characters who don't have a fraction of the clout they think they do. We also do this with nothing but respect and appreciation for the original band.
>You are now working as a television writer/producer on the USA program Monk. How does that compare to doing your radio show? This is your opportunity to tell us about how glorious radio is.
I love working on Monk. It's the best job I've ever had, and it might end up as the best job I ever have. But I am one cog in a giant machine. On the radio there are no studio notes. We are free to do whatever we want. If it makes us laugh, it's on the show. So yes, radio is indeed glorious.
More info about The Best Show on WFMU can be found on Tom's homepage.
More audio clips and info on how to get
"The Best of Scharpling and Wurster" CDs can be found at Stereolaffs.
TBSOWFMU also has a MySpace page!
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Tom Scharpling is the much beloved host of The Best Show on WFMU and is currently a writer and supervising producer on the Emmy Award-winning television show Monk, which airs on the esteemed USA Network. He also works on screenplays and TV ideas and is looking to "get some stuff going. Serious stuff."